Annotated Code of Maryland
The Annotated Code of Maryland, published by The Michie Company, is the official codification of the statutory laws of Maryland. It is organized into 36 named articles. The previous code, organized into numbered articles, has been repealed. Amendment of the Code. The Annotated Code of Maryland is amended through the legislative process involving both bodies of the Maryland General Assembly, the House of Delegates and the Senate. A bill is a proposal to change, repeal, or add to existing state law. A House Bill (HB) is one introduced in the House of Delegates (for example: HB  6); a Senate Bill (SB), in the Senate. Bills are designated by number, in the order of introduction in each house. For example, HB 16 refers to the sixteenth bill introduced in the House of Delegates. The numbering starts afresh each legislative session. The names of the legislator who introduced the bill and of any sponsors becomes part of the bill title. Bills listed as "The Speaker (By Request of Administration)", "The President (By Request of Administration)", "Minority Leader (By Request of Administration)", or "Committee Chair (By Request of Department)" are bills proposed by the Governor and state agencies and  are not proposals of the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, the Minority Leader, or the respective Committee Chair. They are listed with the official title of a legislator rather than the Governor due to requirements in the Maryland Constitution. The legislative procedure, is divided into distinct stages: Recodification of articles. The Maryland General Assembly gradually recodified the state laws by repealing the versions organized into numbered articles in the black volumes and re-enacting new versions, which were organized into named articles and published in the red volumes. For example, Chapter 26 of the 2002 Laws  of Maryland recodified most of Article 27 into the Criminal Law Article. According to the Maryland State Department of Legislative Services, the state legislature committed to the recodification process in 1970. The revised articles were enacted in stages between 1973 and 2016; the 36th and last revised article to be enacted was the Alcoholic Beverages Article in 2016. The purpose of this process was to reorganize the laws, rather than to change their content or meaning. Until the process was completed, the laws of the state of Maryland comprised both sets of volumes. List of articles of the Code. Named  articles. The following is a list of the 36 named articles of the code, with the year of enactment of each. Multiple entries mean that an article was enacted in stages. Numbered articles. The last numbered article was 2B Alcoholic Beverages, which was replaced with the corresponding named article in 2016. The following is a list of some of the numbered articles, which were parts of the code before being reenacted and recodified into the named articles: