featured – Page 10 – Sandy Rosenberg

Low-cost alternatives

Even if your bill does not pass, you can claim victory.

A letter from a committee chair can ask a Cabinet Secretary to do what your bill would have required the agency to do.

Such requests usually receive a positive response. The Secretary has an ongoing relationship with the chair.

I suggested that two such letters be sent this week.

But no details in this blog until the chairs sign the letters.

Every significant capital project starts with money for design. The funding for the bricks and mortar follows the next year. I learned that a long time ago.

A new program where regulations must be written before money is awarded to applicants can start with a small appropriation. The real money will come the next fiscal year.

I learned that today, when a colleague proposed that low-cost alternative.

The deed is done

After two hours of debate and the rejection of 18 amendments on the House floor last night, the votes are there.

“This bill and this amendment, as well as those that will follow, pose a very straight forward question: Should we end the death penalty in Maryland?” I declared when speaking against the first amendment.

It would have retained the death penalty for someone who committed murder in the first degree while already serving a death sentence or life imprisonment.

It failed, 61-77.

In response to the next three or four amendments, I said, “We cannot single out one type of murder and say it is so horrible that committing this act merits execution. The flaws in this system do not go away.”

The results were the same.

I did not need to speak in opposition to the remaining amendments. My point had been made.

Before Friday’s final vote, there will be rhetoric, mine included. After that, the bill could be petitioned to referendum.

For now, the deed is done.

Spring training of a different sort

March 12, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I had my rhetorical spring training today.

As the floor leader on death penalty repeal, I will be speaking quite a bit tomorrow and Friday.

Today, I had a little practice.

Our Republican friends were blustering against my legislation to authorize the Attorney General to seek a court injunction if there are reasonable grounds to believe that a violation of our laws against voter suppression is about to occur.

For instance, if word had leaked about the robo calls that urged voters to relax and not go to the polls, a court could have intervened before the dirty trick was perpetrated.

It took me less than a minute to make four points about my bill:

It sanctions conduct, not protected 1^st Amendment speech;

There is a similar provision in the federal Voting Rights Act;

An impartial judge must decide that unlawful action is about to take place; and

The House of Delegates has passed this bill before (only to see it die in the Senate).

The bill passed, 91-45.

The secret word is amendment

March 11, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“I still insist we take up the tax,” urged a Cabinet member.

“He’s right. You’ve got to take up the tacks before you take up the carpet,” responded the President, in this instance, Rufus T. Firefly, played by Groucho Marx in “Duck Soup.”

We will take up the gas tax. The public hearing on the Governor’s bill is Friday.

But for my Monday ritual of outlining tasks and priorities for my long list of bills, the emphasis was no longer on bill hearings, even though I have four this week.

My focus was on amendments.

First and foremost, on death penalty repeal, we will oppose all amendments.

The Senate gun bill includes an amendment that would affect all people who are voluntarily committed to a hospital.

The mental health community feels this would deter countless people from seeking help. How should the Senate language be modified? Who can make the most effective case to the work group?

For two of my bills, the amendments reflect a compromise. Del. Neil Parrott created the software that was instrumental in petitioning marriage equality and the Dream Act to referendum last November. Our amendment makes it illegal for either side to use fraud, duress, or force during the process of gathering signatures for a petition.

Last year, the Maryland Chamber of Commerce opposed my legislation requiring businesses of a certain size to make their websites useable by the blind. After discussions this past fall with the Chamber, I are now proposing a tax credit for businesses that make this upgrade. I will be supporting the Chamber’s amendments at tomorrow’s bill hearing.

In another movie, Groucho crooned, “Whatever it is, I’m against it.”

I’m a big fan of his but not in this instance.

Partial repeal

March 9, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

The death penalty repeal bill was the only legislation on the Judiciary Committee voting list.

The first amendment that was offered would have maintained capital punishment for contract murder.

What I said in response applied equally to the nine that followed.

“The question before us is whether we should end the death penalty. You can’t have a partial repeal.

The flaws in this process – innocence, race, time, and money – don’t go away if you allow for executions in this one circumstance or any other.”

All of the amendments were defeated. The favorable report passed, 14-8.

Crucial support

March 7, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“I think the governor has worked this bill [to repeal the death penalty] very hard prior to session and early in session and secured the votes he needs to make sure it’s passed,” Senator Joseph Getty said after the legislation passed the Senate.

There are such bills, where numerous trades must be made to secure passage. The gas tax will be one.

Death penalty repeal is not.

The Governor’s support has been crucial to getting us where we are today.

So has that of Ben Jealous of the NAACP, numerous religious leaders, and grass roots organizers and advocates.

Most importantly, my colleagues have concluded that our death penalty system cannot be fixed.

Our constituents agree.

I have participated in countless voting sessions over my career.

Tomorrow, when we give a favorable report to the death penalty repeal bill, we will make history.

Listen carefully

March 6, 2013March 6, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Why do we need this bill?

Every bill sponsor must answer that question satisfactorily.

Twice today, I had conversations about possible compromises on bills that were opposed last year by a government agency in one instance and an industry group in the other.

In both instances, they now prefer to help write the law, instead of responding to an unfavorable court decision.

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After the death penalty repeal bill passed the Senate this morning, someone asked me how I would prep for the floor debate in the House.

“I’ve been prepping for the death penalty debate for the last 30 years.”

Know the case for your bill and listen carefully to the other side’s arguments so that you can effectively respond.

Sailing into the headwinds

March 5, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

In the mornings, I often run into a Naval Academy grad (Class of 1957) taking his daily walk.

“Have you raised my taxes yet?” he frequently asks.

I know the answer he doesn’t want to hear.

Yesterday, the Governor announced his proposal to increase the gas tax to raise money to improve the state’s transportation infrastructure.

When I ran into my neighbor today, I decided to sail into the headwinds.

I told him what the Governor had done.

“Why do we need to do that?” he asked.

“To compete with Virginia, which has increased its tax to improve its system,” I responded.

“Why does that matter?” he replied.

I thought about saying that we could compete with Mississippi instead but thought better of it.

A list of the 14

March 4, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“I don’t want to jinx myself,” I told the reporter.

He had asked me to comment off the record about our chances to pass death penalty repeal in the House.

We expect the bill will pass the Senate this week, but it hasn’t yet.

Hence my reluctance.

But if/when the bill gets to the House, the vote in the Judiciary Committee could come swiftly.

I now have a list of the 14 “Yes” votes in the committee – the members who have committed to vote for repeal.

I will ask each of them to reaffirm their position and to vote against any amendments that might be offered.

They would kill the bill.

Guns and the law

March 2, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Around 10:30 last night, I read the bill.

The hearing on the Governor’s Firearm Safety Act began at 1:00.

Initially, I was turned off by the opponents’ bogus claims that any regulation of gun possession, including an ownership fee, violated the 2^nd Amendment.

These people surely aren’t absolutists about other protections in the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court isn’t.

For example, a tax on newspapers does not violate the freedom of the press, unless it targets them for different treatment than other businesses.

(I read those cases around midnight. The bill hearing would last until 3:00.)

As the hearing wore on, there were fewer constitutional claims and more personal stories.

Some declared that they would leave Maryland if the bill became law. Many others said it would make them criminals.

Massive civil disobedience? I hadn’t read about that happening in New York after a law was enacted there in January.

So I read the Governor’s bill.

Assault weapons would be banned on October 1. If you already owned such weapons, they would not be taken away from you, but you would have to register them.

Gun owners would become criminals only if they chose not to obey the law. That’s not the same as saying that the bill would make you a criminal.

Annapolis etiquette says that you don’t question the accuracy of testimony by a member of the public.

However, I told a Republican colleague that if he made that false claim during the debate on the bill in committee or the House floor, I would not be silent.

My Key Issues:

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