In a symbolic show of unity, Gov. Wes Moore descended the marble steps from the governor’s suite with House and Senate leaders weeks ahead of the session’s end to announce they’d balanced the budget — together.

They had prioritized cuts and also raised taxes to close a yawning $3.3 billion budget gap.

“This is what good governance looks like,” Moore said. “This agreement is common sense.”

The governor had smooth sailing his first two years in Annapolis. This year has been different.

In the $2 billion in cuts Moore proposed, he’d asked Dems to sacrifice long held priorities. In many cases, they refused or tailored bills to their liking. On education, housing or expanding beer and wine sales to grocery stores, Moore couldn’t always convince them to follow his lead.

Lawmakers and advocates said Moore rolled out big changes before building the key coalitions he’d need to shepherd his ideas through the legislature.

Democratic lawmakers described a tense legislative session for more reasons than the economic havoc wrought by Washington. Used to eight years of lawmaking independent of a Republican governor, the Democratic-led legislature now served as a check on one of their own.

The General Assembly restored funding to programs the governor wanted to cut and scaled back his tax proposals — though Moore thanked them for “refining” his plan and delivering middle class tax relief.

Some of Moore’s proposed cuts touched Democratic Party “sacred cows,” like programs for Marylanders in need of government services, said Roger Hartley, political science professor and dean of the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs. These decisions can upset even the closest allies

“If you’re a liberal, and you and most of your party is solidly liberal, and you take on something or ignore something that is deeply held in their values, that’ll make people in this environment question whether you’re on their team,” he said.

Moore had to put most of his political capital behind unpopular proposals to raise taxes and reducing the costs of the state’s signature public schools improvement program.

Lawmakers found compromise on some of his ideas, but many didn’t make it through. Moore slammed lawmakers in a statement just after they wrapped their work on Sine Die — the last day of the annual legislative session of the General Assembly — saying the legislature “missed the opportunity” to help Marylanders by passing his legislation.

Moore took on ambitious policy changes despite facing a tough budget year and economic assaults barreling down on Maryland from D.C.

“You can try easy things and get everything you want or you can try hard things — really move the needle — and not get everything you want,“ said Eric Luedtke Moore’s senior policy adviser and a former lawmaker, ”and Gov. Moore does hard things.”

The most prominent example was Moore’s proposal to pull back on funding for the state’s expensive education reforms, known as the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. The proposal caught immediate blowback from lawmakers who spent years shaping the law with educators before Moore took office.

All of the state’s school superintendents signed an opposition letter and about half of them showed up in person to testify against it. Lawmakers pared back Moore’s pause on extra planning time for teachers, and ensured that funding would remain intact for the neediest students.

Moore sent staff to defend the bill to lawmakers instead of appearing himself.

“It was not a good hearing for the administration,” said Del. Vanessa Atterbeary.

The Howard County Democrat said lawmakers “would not back down” when it came to funding for low-income children, special education, English-learning students and community schools.

Atterbeary serves as the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee that oversees budget and education bills.

“At the end of the day, the important thing is we were able to come together as Democrats,” she said. Hard decisions had to be made, she said, “and I believe we made the right decisions.”

Moore said Monday he believed “deeply” in partnership and was willing to work with lawmakers from both parties to accomplish his three goals: strengthening the economy, investing in people, and reforming the tax code while giving middle class families a tax cut.

“I don’t think there’s anyone who could argue,” Moore said on the session’s last day, “that this is an administration that doesn’t just believe in coalition building, but the way that we coalition build, in comparison to what has happened before in the state of Maryland, that has been a night and day shift.”

Moore staffers described a session filled with meetings between the governor and top lawmakers. Thirty-minute sit-downs or drinks at Government House talking budgets and bills were a regular occurrence for months into session.

As chair of the Senate’s Budget and Taxation Committee, Sen. Guy Guzzone, is more plugged in than most. He said frustrations hovering over budget talks in Annapolis were nothing new — “The tension,” he said, “has to do with the circumstances.”

But there was something different about these negotiations for the Howard County Democrat.

“This year more than any other year — in well, ever in the past — the governor and I spoke more on the phone, we spoke more in person,” Guzzone said.

Guzzone has a measured way of explaining complicated financial concepts in a low, gravelly , radio announcer voice. And he’s one of a small, trusted cohort many turn to for budgetary answers.

He said he and the governor talked about cuts and taxes during their phone calls and what the consequences of each would mean for Marylanders.

The budget — and its mix of cuts and new taxes — faced broad opposition. The final crafted budget only ended up hitting 6% of Marylanders with higher income taxes. Moore touted the end result as “deeply responsible," even as the endpoint had substantial differences from the governor’s starting point.

The story of this budget year for Guzzone was that lawmakers took on challenges that “kept popping up one after the other” and still managed to balance the budget and knock billions of dollars from future projected shortfalls.

One of Moore’s largest budget cuts chopped funding for services for disabled adults. The fierce and well-organized disabilities community lobbied Annapolis, organizing a rally of hundreds on Lawyers Mall. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts were put back into the final budget.

Ande Kolp, director of The Arc of Maryland, said members of the disabilities community have really seen Moore as a ”champion for people with disabilities.”

So when the budget rolled out with hundreds of millions in cuts to their programs, “We were surprised,” she said. “We were so shocked to see the depth of the cuts proposed, and angry.”

Kolp said there was no advance warning about the cuts, but Moore’s team did reach out to better understand the needs and, together with lawmakers, restored funding.

“That was really important and unprecedented,” Kolp said.

The rapid federal changes, firings of thousands of civil servants and indiscriminate agency closures “for better or for worse” forced lawmakers to govern and stand together, said Del. Jazz Lewis.

The Prince George’s County Democrat and House majority whip said that since President Trump’s inauguration, “We’ve realized critically how important it is for us to be on the same page, protecting Marylanders from whatever is happening to cuts to programs.”

One day after the session’s end, it’s tradition for the governor to hold a ceremonial bill signing. Lobbyists, lawmakers and advocates line up for a picture with Moore and chamber leaders behind a grand table and maybe even walk out with a ceremonial pen.

And it’s also expected that Moore and chamber leaders, House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson, reflect on the past 90-days of work.

Tuesday, before handing the microphone to his lawmaking partners, Moore said, “Over the course of the next few bill signings, you will hear from us about what we’ve accomplished — together.”