Special Session Round-Up for Tuesday

Starting off, a link to The Post's guide to Maryland elections. As an article from Rosalind Helderman notes, voters in six Maryland cities in the Washington area were to go to the polls today to elect council members and mayors.

Now onto the usual special session coverage. Here is a selection of news and links from around the web that supplement The Post's coverage of the Maryland special session as of Tuesday, Nov. 6.

An article on the American Agriculturalist web site details some of the ways the governor's proposed budget cuts might impact agriculture in the state... O'Malley "will support a tuition freeze at public universities if his proposed solution to the state's budget deficit passes the General Assembly this month," according to a report in The Diamondback... "I am very confident that the Maryland General Assembly will do the right thing and support the Governor's plan to fund higher education," UMBC student Brian Frazee told The Retriever Weekly... "Supplying our tax base with monies from gambling at the slots and horses instead of motivating folks to consider carefully their expenditures is a poor choice," reads a letter to the editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Another letter, from a Frostburg reader, says: "I for one have had it with Maryland taxes. They must never increase again. This state needs to understand how to live, as we all do, and stop picking our pockets... Horse racing has problems of its own, according to Maryland Racing Commission Executive Director Mike Hopkins tells The Examiner. "You're always competing for the entertainment dollar. At one point years ago, horse racing was the only game in town. The introduction of the lottery, the sports networks ... it's consumed it, is what it's done."

From The Post, the Maryland Senate is angling to pass a budget package that includes fewer tax increases and more spending reductions than Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has proposed to close a potential shortfall of at least $1.5 billion, reads an article by John Wagner and Philip Rucker... An independent-minded Democratic senator became the first from his party to announce that he will join Republicans in attempting to kill Gov. Martin O'Malley's tax plans through the use of a filibuster, writes John Wagner... The Maryland Senate is poised Thursday to vote for the first time to override a veto by O'Malley... And the House Appropriations Committee labored through a slew of proposed spending cuts today to trim about $500 million from the state's budget for the next fiscal year.

If you've seen something you'd like to add, post a summary and link below.

-- Compiled by David P. Marino-Nachison