Legislation: batch B — IL IN KS KY LA MA MD ME MI MN

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

legislation/us/states/md/2017/sb-717.md

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+---
+type: "Bill"
+title: "Connecting Rural Maryland Act of 2017"
+description: "Connecting Rural Maryland Act of 2017"
+jurisdiction: "us/states/md"
+legislature: "Maryland General Assembly"
+session: "2017"
+identifier: "SB 717"
+citation: "Maryland SB 717 (2017)"
+classification: ["bill"]
+subjects: ["State Government - Agencies", "Offices", "and Officials", "Utility Regulation", "Committees and Commissions", "Communications", "Counties", "Electronic Communication", "Federal Government", "Reports", "Telecommunications and Information Technology"]
+status: "enacted"
+primary_sponsors: ["Eckardt"]
+version_count: 1
+action_count: 14
+vote_count: 2
+first_action: "2017-02-03"
+last_action: "2017-05-25"
+source: "openstates"
+source_identifier: "ocd-bill/93135a41-73f2-4a49-91aa-4245c11304eb"
+source_url: "http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/webmga/frmMain.aspx?id=SB717&stab=01&pid=billpage&tab=subject3&ys=2017rs"
+source_hash: "a856ef8bfa457a6bb4f7aa7387845e044eeab1c72e87497a80f3fe931a3399e6"
+vintage: "2026-07-01"
+source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
+retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
+confidence: "reported"
+tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-md"]
+---
+
+# Maryland SB 717 (2017) — Connecting Rural Maryland Act of 2017
+
+## Version chain
+
+The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.
+
+1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2017RS/bills/sb/sb0717f.pdf)
+
+## Votes
+
+- Third Reading — **138–0** (pass) · legislature
+- Third Reading — **46–0** (pass) · legislature
+
+## Sponsors
+
+- Eckardt — primary (person)
+- Astle — cosponsor (person)
+- Benson — cosponsor (person)
+- Feldman — cosponsor (person)
+- Hershey — cosponsor (person)
+- Jennings — cosponsor (person)
+- Klausmeier — cosponsor (person)
+- Mathias — cosponsor (person)
+- Middleton — cosponsor (person)
+- Oaks — cosponsor (person)
+- Reilly — cosponsor (person)
+- Rosapepe — cosponsor (person)
+
+## Timeline
+
+The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.
+
+- **2017-02-03** First Reading Finance `referral-committee`
+- **2017-02-07** Hearing 3/07 at 1:00 p.m.
+- **2017-03-24** Favorable with Amendments Report by Finance `committee-passage-favorable`
+- **2017-03-24** Favorable with Amendments {997576/1 Report Adopted `committee-passage-favorable`
+- **2017-03-24** Second Reading Passed with Amendments
+- **2017-03-27** Third Reading Passed (46-0) `passage`
+- **2017-03-27** First Reading House Rules and Executive Nominations `referral-committee`
+- **2017-04-04** Rereferred to Economic Matters
+- **2017-04-06** Favorable Report by Economic Matters `committee-passage-favorable`
+- **2017-04-06** Favorable Report Adopted `committee-passage-favorable`
+- **2017-04-06** Second Reading Passed
+- **2017-04-08** Third Reading Passed (138-0) `passage`
+- **2017-04-10** Returned Passed
+- **2017-05-25** Approved by the Governor - Chapter 621 `executive-signature`
+
+## Source
+
+OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/93135a41-73f2-4a49-91aa-4245c11304eb`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Maryland legislature records).
+