2012 Maryland Question 4

Question 4 is a referendum that appeared on the general election ballot for the U.S. state of Maryland to allow voters to approve or reject the Maryland Dream Act, a state law that allowed undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates at Maryland colleges and universities. The referendum was approved by 58.9% of the voters on November 6, 2012.

The Maryland Dream Act, along with the Civil Marriage Protection Act, were the first bills to be petitioned to a statewide referendum since 1992. In passing the bill, Maryland became the first state to approve legislation expanding in-state tuition to undocumented immigrant students via popular vote.

Ballot measure

The ballot measure read as follows:

The choices read as follows:

Maryland Dream Act

Upon his election to the Maryland Senate in 2010, Victor R. Ramirez drafted legislation that would extend in-state tuition to undocumented students who attend a Maryland high school for at least three years and whose parents have paid state taxes. An amendment requiring students to also attend two years of community college was added to the bill during a committee hearing in the Maryland Senate. Another amendment that waived the tax requirement if the student's parents can prove they were unable to work during their child's high school years was added to the bill in the House of Delegates, but removed by the conference committee. The bill was introduced amid a rise in anti-illegal immigrant sentiment in the United States, during which legislatures in a number of states passed legislation barring undocumented students from receiving in-state tuition.

The Maryland Senate voted 27–20 to pass the Dream Act on March 14, 2011, and the Maryland House of Delegates voted 74–66 to pass the bill on April 4, 2011. Along with all Republican state legislators, eight Democratic state senators and 24 Democratic state delegates voted against the bill. Governor Martin O'Malley signed the Maryland Dream Act into law on May 10, 2011.

Campaign

Within days of the Dream Act passing the Maryland General Assembly, state delegates Neil Parrott and Pat McDonough organized efforts to repeal the law through referendum. Parrott utilized his website, MDPetitions.com, to organize citizen activists to gather signatures for the ballot initiative. The group submitted 108,923 signatures to the Maryland State Board of Elections, which were certified by the elections board in July. In August 2011, CASA de Maryland filed a lawsuit challenging the validity of the signatures collected by MDPetitions.com, which was rejected by Anne Arundel County circuit court judge Ronald A. Silkworth in February 2012. CASA appealed Silkworth's ruling to the Maryland Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court ruling.

Opponents of the Maryland Dream Act focused their criticism on the bill's costs—which the nonpartisan Maryland Department of Legislative Services estimated to be around $3.5 million a year when fully implemented—claiming that the bill would encourage illegal immigration to Maryland and increase enrollments at state universities. The bill's supporters argued that the bill would increase graduation rates among high school dropouts and students who would not otherwise be able to attend universities, and that the state's colleges would only see around a thousand new students as a result of the bill. In October 2012, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County published a report suggesting that the Maryland Dream Act would reduce the state's college graduate incarceration rate and provide undocumented students with access to higher-paying jobs, saving the state $5 million per graduating class. Dream Act opponents pointed out that this report also claimed that state universities would lose $1.8 million (about a 0.1 percent drop) from accepting undocumented students, which would require legislators to increase taxes to make up for the lost revenue, and argued that employers would be hesitant to hire undocumented immigrants to higher-paying positions.

Question 4 was supported by Educating Maryland Kids, a coalition made up of immigrant rights groups, the Maryland Catholic Conference, and teacher unions; by October 2012, supporters raised $1.5 million to support campaigning efforts. Opponents of the Maryland Dream Act did not do any fundraising, as Parrott said it was not his group's plan to do so. The bill's opponents barely campaigned against the measure, coordinating their efforts through Facebook and e-mail to distribute yard signs and bumper stickers.

Endorsements

Opinion polls

Results

Question 4 passed handily in many of Maryland's suburban and urban counties, but saw its weakest support in non-Hispanic white neighborhoods in more rural areas of the state.

By county

References

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2011 in American law
Maryland
Question 4
2012 in Maryland
2012
Illegal immigration to the United States
Education in Maryland
Immigration legislation