Session resources

The 2027 Green Bag: how the Governor’s appointments reach the Maryland Senate

Updated October 13, 2026 · Dates are from the Department of Legislative Services’ Dates of Interest sheets for 2023 – 2027; the confirmation process is from the Senate’s Executive Nominations brochure and the Department’s summary of current law. Weekdays were checked against the calendar. This is a plain-language orientation, not legal advice.

Every session, the Governor sends the Senate a long list of nominations for state boards, commissions and offices that need the Senate’s “advice and consent.” By tradition it arrives in a green bag, and Annapolis calls the whole slate “the Green Bag.” For associations, companies and anyone with a stake in a regulatory board, it is the day you learn who will sit on that board for the next few years. For nominees, it can mean a trip to Annapolis to appear before a Senate committee before the session ends.

What the Green Bag is

The Senate’s own brochure on executive nominations says “the majority of nominations requiring Senate confirmation are sent as a group,” and that “it has become a tradition in Maryland for this list to be presented in a green leather bag or envelope.” The Governor’s office describes the tradition as dating from when officials used green cloth bags to carry important state documents. In 2026 the Governor’s Secretary of Appointments delivered the bag to the Senate, and the Governor’s appointments office published the full list the same day: a table by board, appointee and county, with a short final section of appointments that need House of Delegates confirmation instead.

The Green Bag is not every nomination of the year. The brochure describes two other kinds: recess appointments, made between sessions, and general appointments, sent during the session but outside the Green Bag.

When the 2027 Green Bag is due

The Maryland Constitution requires the Governor to send nominations that need Senate confirmation within 40 days from the start of each regular session. The 2027 session convenes at noon on Wednesday, January 13, 2027, which makes the 40th day Sunday, February 21, 2027. The Department of Legislative Services’ 2027 calendar lists the Green Bag on that day, with delivery noted for Friday, February 19.

The pattern holds from year to year: the 40th day falls on a Sunday, and the bag is scheduled for the Friday before.

Session	Convened	40th day	Delivery on the DLS sheet
2023	Wed, Jan 11	Sun, Feb 19	Fri, Feb 17
2025	Wed, Jan 8	Sun, Feb 16	Fri, Feb 14
2026	Wed, Jan 14	Sun, Feb 22	Fri, Feb 20
2027	Wed, Jan 13	Sun, Feb 21	Fri, Feb 19

The delivery date on the sheet is a scheduling note, and the public announcement can come on a different day. In 2026 the Governor’s press release was dated February 20, matching the sheet; in 2025 the sheet listed Friday, February 14, and the Governor’s release announcing the Green Bag was dated Tuesday, February 18.

How the Senate reviews nominees

Nominations go to the Senate’s Executive Nominations Committee, which reviews them under Senate Rule 22A and recommends whether each should be confirmed. According to the Senate’s brochure, the committee usually meets only during the session, usually weekly, and has to get through more than 300 nominations in that time. The Department of Legislative Services contacts nominees, schedules them and prepares the paperwork.

• Statewide appointees and reappointees are asked to appear. Senators ask about qualifications, the duties of the office, other employment and possible conflicts of interest. The senator from the nominee’s district may attend.
• Judicial nominees to the District Court and the appellate courts must appear and testify under oath.
• Nominees to local boards and commissions generally do not have to appear unless a senator asks, though the local senators usually review them first.
• Proceedings are recorded and kept permanently by the Department of Legislative Services.

A favorable report needs a majority of the committee’s full membership. The Senate then adopts the committee’s report by a majority of its total membership, 24 of 47 senators, and the appointments in it are confirmed with no further action. Nominees are notified by mail after the Senate votes. All nominations have to be acted on before the session ends, which in 2027 is sine die on Monday, April 12: 52 days after the scheduled Green Bag delivery.

Recess appointments and rejected nominees

The Department of Legislative Services summarizes the constitutional rules this way (in its 2024 fiscal note on Senate Bill 1007, “Current Law”):

• When a vacancy occurs while the Senate is in recess, the Governor appoints someone to the office. A recess appointment remains in effect until the end of the next session, and the Governor must submit the recess appointee’s nomination to the Senate on the first day of that session.
• A person the Senate rejects may not be nominated for the same office at the same session, and may not be reappointed during the following recess.

The Senate brochure adds that recess appointees may begin serving on appointment, but if the Senate does not confirm them, the appointment ends at the final adjournment of the General Assembly.

Related guides

For every 2027 deadline in one table, see our 2027 session dates. For how legislation moves alongside the nominations, see how a bill becomes law in Maryland; for appearing at a hearing, see our guide to testifying at the Maryland General Assembly; and for the compliance side, see Maryland lobbying rules for the 2027 session.