99% of the time, it’s the little guy who wants to change the law.

The consumer who needs protection, the employee who’s been discriminated against in the workplace, or the tenant who’s living in unsafe housing.

The business community tries to kill the legislation or to weaken it with amendments.

Those roles will be reversed in response to Monday’s court decision that held unconstitutional the immunity provision in the Lead Risk Reduction in Housing Law.

Landlords must still abide by the provisions of the law requiring them to clean up the lead hazards in rental properties built before 1950. However, they will no longer be immune from lawsuits on behalf of children suffering from lead poisoning if they do comply with the statute.

I was the principal legislative sponsor of House Bill 760 in 1994. My objective – then and now, is to reduce the number of children poisoned by lead while maintaining decent, safe, and affordable rental housing for lower-income families in Baltimore City and elsewhere in Maryland. This law and other public health measures have resulted in an extraordinary reduction in the number of poisoned children in Maryland.

Landlords will be seeking a legislative remedy to the court’s decision.

We will be offering amendments that strengthen the preventive measures taken on behalf of vulnerable children.

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Lots of Orioles Fantasy Campers choose number 5 for their uniforms because that was Brooks Robinson’s number.

I’m a fan of Brooks, but my number is 18. We were both born on May 18.

You could walk up to Brooks and tell him that you idolized him growing up, and he would respond as if you were the very first person to say that to him.

I don’t know if that was the case for the person whose picture I took after the unveiling of the Brooks Robinson statue this past Saturday.

But it’s pretty likely.