STY: Remove unnecessary assignment before return (#3184)

---------

Co-authored-by: Stefan <[email protected]>

Author: j-t-1

make_release.py

@@ -169,8 +169,7 @@ def get_changelog(changelog_path: str) -> str:
 
     """
     with open(changelog_path, encoding="utf-8") as fh:
-        changelog = fh.read()
-    return changelog
+        return fh.read()
 
 
 def write_changelog(new_changelog: str, changelog_path: str) -> None:
@@ -273,12 +272,9 @@ def get_most_recent_git_tag() -> str:
         Most recently created git tag.
 
     """
-    git_tag = str(
-        subprocess.check_output(
-            ["git", "describe", "--tag", "--abbrev=0"], stderr=subprocess.STDOUT
-        )
-    ).strip("'b\\n")
-    return git_tag
+    return subprocess.check_output(
+        ["git", "describe", "--tag", "--abbrev=0"], stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, text=True
+    ).strip()
 
 
 def get_author_mapping(line_count: int) -> Dict[str, str]: