BALTIMORE — Republicans criticized the legislative process during a marathon floor session Tuesday as the Maryland House of Delegates sifted through nearly 300 amendments to the state’s major budget bills.

“We’re shut out,” House Minority Whip Jesse Pippy, a Frederick County Republican, said during a debate on the proposed state budget. “That’s the truth of it. We’re shut out.”

During a nearly seven-hour debate in which Republicans offered 21 amendments, the Democratic supermajority was slammed by the House minority party for not giving them more say in budget negotiations.

Tensions ran high when Democrats made motions to limit debate.

“We consistently try to make our voices heard in a state that marginalizes us and ignores us constantly, in a chamber that has been gerrymandered madly to continue to marginalize us,” Del. Lauren Arikan, a Harford County Republican, said on the floor.

House Majority Whip Jazz Lewis, a Prince George’s County Democrat who sits on the House committee that handles the budget, said their outrage is “feigned political theater” and that Republicans knew Maryland was in dire fiscal straits well before the session even began.

“We are putting the budget on the floor, candidly, much later in the session than we normally would, so there’s been ample time for members who aren’t on Appropriations to engage, offer ideas on how we can address the challenges,” Lewis said. “So now we’re here today, and they are offering dozens and dozens of amendments like they are entitled to do, but we have 90 days as given by our constitution to get the work done, and we’re trying to do so respectfully, but also expeditiously.”

“Frankly, the pontificating — just the pontificating — we don’t have time for that,” he said.

In regard to their allegation that the Republican Party is excluded from budget negotiations, House Appropriations Committee Chair Ben Barnes, a Democrat representing Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties, noted that Republicans sit on his committee and are assigned to each subcommittee that makes decisions on specific policy areas.

“138 budget hearings. Went through every line — line by line. Went through and identified cuts that we could take. 138 hearings, hundreds of hours. And guess who’s on every subcommittee — multiple Republicans on every subcommittee,” said Barnes. “They were a part of the process, so I think it’s not fair to say we haven’t done our due diligence.”

There are 188 legislators in the Maryland General Assembly. With only 39 Republicans in the House and 13 in the Senate, the impact of the GOP in Annapolis is small.

The Appropriations Committee is responsible for balancing the budget in the House. Of 25 members, seven are Republicans.

The size of their coalition was felt during Tuesday’s occasionally contentious debate as they fought to overhaul the budget with cuts and do away with proposed new and increased taxes.

During a news conference last Thursday, Gov. Wes Moore, House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, and Senate President Bill Ferguson, all Democrats, announced they were nearing a budget deal that would close the state’s $3.3 billion-and-growing budget deficit. Their proposal, which has yet to fully materialize, included hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts and a plan to collect over $1.3 billion in revenue.

In January, Moore submitted a $67 billion budget proposal to the General Assembly that included $2 billion in cuts, leaving legislators with the responsibility to close the remaining gap.

After the chamber approved 199 committee amendments to further cut down the budget — some of which Republicans protested — House Minority Leader Jason Buckel, an Allegany County Republican, offered an amendment he said would provide “roughly” $1.6 billion in cuts to eliminate the need to raise taxes via cuts to Medicaid, freezes in the implementation of portions of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future and the elimination of the 1% cost of living adjustment that unionized government employees negotiated with the state.

“For two-and-a-half months, we’ve heard, ‘What’s your solution if you don’t want to raise 1.6-something-billion dollars … in new taxes and fees?’” Buckel said. “Well, here’s the answer. It’s not easy. I don’t like it. I don’t enjoy it.”

“Well, I guess I could say ‘thank you’ for finally bringing some kind of solution,” Barnes said, noting that the legislature is three-quarters of the way through its 90-day session. He also thanked the state Republican Party for being “honest.”

“We see federal Republicans say they don’t want to cut Medicaid — no, no, no — but then they have secret plans to cut Medicaid, and ‘Oh, no, no, Project 2025, don’t look at that,’ and then they get into office and they obliterate the Department of Education,” Barnes said. “At least Maryland Republicans are being honest that they want to cut Medicaid. At least Maryland Republicans are being honest that they want to obliterate public education in this state.”

Buckel’s amendment, as well as the other seven that Republicans offered to the budget bill, was rejected.

Tensions reached a fever pitch in the chamber as it debated the budget’s companion bill, which would establish a 3% tax on IT services, among other revenue streams.

Del. Robin Grammer, a Baltimore County Republican, offered an amendment to the bill that would have required the Maryland Authority to provide annual reports regarding vulnerability assessments for bridges across the state.

Last week, the National Transportation Safety Board said that the state agency did not conduct a risk assessment that may have allowed Maryland to protect the Francis Scott Key Bridge from collapsing last March.

Del. Courtney Watson, a Howard County Democrat who sits on the Appropriations Committee, asked the chamber to resist Grammer’s amendment on the basis that the House was already in negotiations with the Senate to add more comprehensive language to the bill to achieve the same goal.

Lewis made a motion to limit debate on the amendment, sending some Republicans into a tailspin.

“You don’t have to listen to us speak right now. You can continue to cut us off,” Arikan said. “But you will hear us in the election, just like you did in November.”

Grammer’s amendment, along with 13 other Republican amendments, was rejected.

“For our part, we’re trying to move us forward” Lewis said of Democrats in the House. “They are part of the process. They could have offered both revenues and cuts at any time before today. They knew that this was coming.”

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