On February 11, 2020 Delegate Dan Cox in the Maryland legislature introduced HB 1523 (https://legiscan.com/MD/bill/HB1523/2020), “Human Relations - Public Accommodations - Captioning in Movie Theaters (Open Captioning Equality Act of 2020).” There will be a hearing on March 10, 2020, at 1:00 p.m EST.

What does this bill do? Official summary:

Requiring a certain place of public accommodation that owns, leases, operates, or controls a movie theater to provide access to certain closed-captioning technology for the general public for certain motion pictures under certain circumstances; requiring a certain place of public accommodation that owns, leases, operates, or controls a movie theater in two or more locations in the State to provide open captioning during at least two showings per week of certain motion pictures under certain circumstances; and defining certain terms.

How can you help? If you live in Maryland, contact these people in the House Economic Matters Committee who are listed here, and ask them to support this bill!

https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/com/03eco.html

Clicking on each committee member’s name brings up their profile page and contact information.  The contact information appears next to each member’s photo.

The Committee’s chair is Dereck E. Davis. https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/06hse/html/msa12208.html

If you don’t live in Maryland but know someone who does live in Maryland, tell them about this bill and this petition!

Maryland’s open caption community needs all the support it can get!