While protests engulfed Baltimore after a young Black man suffered fatal injuries in police custody in April, a Maryland lawmaker suggested that the state should ban public assistance to those participating in the uprising, which he dubbed “thug nation.”

While protests engulfed Baltimore after a young Black man suffered fatal injuries in police custody in April, a Maryland lawmaker suggested that the state should ban public assistance to those participating in the uprising, which he dubbed “thug nation.”

The Pat McDonough Report/ Youtube

While protests engulfed Baltimore after a young Black man suffered fatal injuries in police custody in April, a Maryland state lawmaker suggested that the state should ban public assistance to those participating in the uprising, which he dubbed “thug nation.”

That same lawmaker, a Republican in the majority-Democratic Maryland house, had introduced legislation in 2012 that would ban low-income residents from receiving any public assistance if they were convicted of any violation of “riot” laws.

Del. Patrick McDonough (R-Baltimore County) guest-hosted Wednesday for WCBM’s Tom Marr Show, a right-wing talk radio program, discussing the uprising that followed the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray after being arrested by Baltimore police.

First Look Media’s The Intercept captured the audio of the broadcast.

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When asked by a caller why the state couldn’t take away welfare benefits from the parents of the city’s youth participating in the protests, the GOP lawmaker perked up.

“That’s an idea and that could be legislation,” McDonough said. “I think if you could make the case that there is a failure to do proper parenting and allowing this stuff to happen, is there an opportunity for a month to take away your food stamps?”

The Republican lawmaker acknowledged that such legislation would be unlikely to pass the state legislature, with both chambers controlled by Democrats. “It’ll never get past the legislature because it seems a little bit harsh,” McDonough said. “But I think the principle that you’re talking about … there has got to be some way to connect to the lack of parenting.”

McDonough was apparently not speaking hypothetically about the legislative proposal. The Republican delegate sponsored a similar ban three years ago.

HB 818 would have made any person convicted of “common law riot under the laws of Maryland or a crime under the laws of another state or the United States that would be common law riot if committed in Maryland” ineligible to receive a host of federal or state public benefits.

Those benefits would include any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, or unemployment benefits.

The bill’s sponsor, former Del. Nancy Stocksdale (R-Carroll County), during an appropriations committee hearing in February 2012, cited Occupy Wall Street protests both around the country and in Maryland for justification of the legislation. In December of 2011, two months before the hearing, the Occupy Baltimore encampment was evicted by Baltimore police outfitted in riot gear.

Stocksdale said that many of the protesters were likely unemployed and receiving government assistance. “Many of the people who are out there protesting are on state assistance or unemployed and they should be looking for a job,” Stocksdale said. “Our tax dollars should be used for necessities, not to permit them time to go protest.”

The legislation was unanimously voted down in committee.

McDonough sponsored another bill in 2012 designed to restrict low-income Marylanders’ ability to receive public assistance. HB 560 would have required those applying for or receiving welfare benefits to submit to random drug testing. Similar laws have been passed by 12 states. These laws have been overwhelmingly ineffective after being passed in GOP-majority legislatures in states such as Florida, Tennessee, and Kansas.

McDonough, in the radio broadcast aired during the Baltimore unrest, called for a study of law enforcement’s relationship with the Black community, because “brilliant, honest, objective people” have never studied “this community, this culture, this thug nation.”

“These young people, they’re violent, they’re brutal, their mindset is dysfunctional to a point of being dangerous,” he said. “We have got to study, investigate, and really look at what this is all about.”

McDonough has a history of making racially problematic comments.

When Maryland joined several other states in 2007 by passing a resolution to apologize for the state’s role in sanctioning and promoting slavery, McDonough criticized the resolution, saying an apology was “mindset cleansing” for liberals and a potential preamble for reparations, CNN reported.

He suggested in a 2012 newsletter that the Maryland State Police should be sent to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor to control “roving mobs of black youths,” reported the Baltimore Sun. He called on the governor of Maryland to declare the area a “no-travel zone” because of the presence of young Black people.

McDonough would later double down on his comments, saying that he didn’t regret his statements and that they were accurate.

“The problems we are addressing—street crime and mob activity—are among Black people. They’re Black kids, and that’s it,” McDonough said, reported WBAL.