Chris pushed for and won vital funding for economic relief to help Maryland families, workers, and small businesses during the pandemic, including direct support payments for families, rental and food assistance, delivery of essential resources to seniors, and critical funding to ramp up efforts to beat the virus and improve accessibility and equity of vaccine distribution.
Chris has been at the center of our national and global effort to defeat the coronavirus including the passage of the many federal relief measures to develop and deploy vaccines in a safe and effective manner — and to ensure Maryland’s front line workers, hospitals, emergency providers and others received the support they needed from federal emergency relief agencies. He also worked to address and fix the deficiencies and inequities in the way Maryland dispersed the vaccines and personal protective equipment.
Chris also played a key role in the deployment of emergency safety net programs to help those economically hit by the fallout from COVID-19, including the expansion of unemployment compensation to those who lost their jobs, the emergency payments to individuals, the Paycheck Protection Programs for small businesses and non-profits, the Restaurant Revitalization Program, the Emergency Rental Assistance program, the urgent funds to provide affordable access to badly needed high-speed internet services, and emergency funds for child care providers, schools, community colleges, universities, transit systems and state and local governments.
The American Rescue Plan, signed into law on March 11, 2021, just 50 days after Joe Biden became President, proved especially important at stabilizing our economy and helping Marylanders get back on their feet. That bill, which included numerous provisions championed by Senator Van Hollen, was unfortunately opposed by every single Republican senator.