the same legislative session, lawmakers sought to end a practice — known as "beg-a-thon" — where school system leaders appear before the Board of Public Works to request additional school construction funding. Later that year in May, the Board of Public Works voted 2–1 to withhold state funding for school construction in Baltimore and Baltimore County unless local officials installed air conditioning in all classrooms by the start of the next school year. In response, Kamenentz released a plan that accelerated the county's installation timeline by one year. In January 2017, the Board of Public Works voted to restore funding to the jurisdictions. In September 2016, Franchot and the president of the Maryland State NAACP chapter, Gerald Stansbury, wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the lack of air-conditioning in public schools in Baltimore City and Baltimore County. They wrote that the sweltering conditions in these schools, predominantly in financially depressed communities, amounted to a "blatant neglect of students' civil rights". During the 2017 legislative session, the Maryland General Assembly adopted a budget that removed Governor Hogan from the process of approving the state's school construction plans and allocate $5 million in funding for air-conditioning projects in city schools. During the 2018 legislative session, top Democratic leaders voted to strip the Board of Public Works of its oversight and management of the state's public school construction program. Despite a veto from Hogan, the legislature overrode the governor along party lines. Delegate Maggie McIntosh, chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee and floor leader for the legislation, directly cited Franchot's outspokenness about the air-conditioning issue as a reason contributing to this decision. The legislation established a task force whose membership is appointed by the governor and the legislative presiding officers to oversee and disburse taxpayer dollars for school construction investments. Opposition to slots and expanded gambling in Maryland Franchot campaigned against bringing slot machine gambling to Maryland. As a member of the House of Delegates, he led a successful coalition of lawmakers to oppose the Constitutional amendment to legalize slots. In 2008, Franchot, along with hundreds of others, launched Marylanders United to Stop Slots to encourage a 'no' vote on the referendum. Franchot argued that the high social costs of increased crime, broken families and bankruptcies would outweigh any revenue gains. Franchot's opposition to the slots referendum put him at odds with fellow members of his own party,