There is life after the death penalty – for several of my bills.

Today, the following took place:

The Lilly Ledbetter fair pay bill got a favorable report from the Health and Government Operations Committee.

The Voter’s Rights Protection Act got a favorable vote from the Election Law Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee.

My legislation to prevent a judge from considering a person’s disability in a custody proceeding, unless there is a specific finding that the disability causes a condition which is detrimental to the best interest of the child, got a favorable report from the Judiciary Committee.

The bill to prevent the police from infiltrating organizations that are exercising their First Amendment rights when protesting government policy passed the House unanimously. I was the floor leader for this legislation.

Finally, my proposal to allow an inmate to present to a judge newly discovered evidence of innocence got preliminary approval from the full House.

Much still to be done to get these bills enacted, but as my campaign slogan once said:

Hard work, real results.

I knew we had the votes.

Today’s death penalty debate began with an amendment that would permit a death sentence for murdering a prison guard or officer, without having to meet the new standards for evidence in the Senate bill. It failed, 61-75, a closer margin than the vote on any of yesterday’s amendments.

Our margins grew on the five amendments that followed.

Then the Speaker called for the vote. As delegates rose to explain their vote, I did my eyeball count of the green/yes votes on the electronic tally board.

85 green.

I initially decided not to speak. We had the votes.

More members rose to speak, in greater numbers than on any other bill that I can recall over the years.

I changed my mind and was one of the last people recognized by the Speaker.

“The death penalty is fatally flawed – for many reasons. The bill before us is also flawed. However, it would significantly reduce the risk of the State of Maryland executing an innocent person. I urge a green vote.”

The final tally was 87-52.

We’re only one step away.

This morning, the Republicans offered seven amendments to the death penalty reform bill. Each one failed. The closest vote was 59-79.

Additional amendments will be offered when the bill is before us on third reader and final passage tomorrow morning.

There is no sure thing in Annapolis – or any legislature, until they take the roll call.

So late this afternoon, we’re making sure we have some delegates prepared to speak for the bill tomorrow. Even if we have the votes in the chamber, we’re speaking to the world outside.

But if we had a minimum of 79 votes today, we’ll have the necessary 71 tomorrow.

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The death penalty is not my only bill still alive.

I didn’t learn until today that a certain person has concerns about my green jobs bill. I sent this individual an email:

As the sponsor of HB 268, I would appreciate hearing from you directly about your concerns regarding this bill. I will be in my office tomorrow from 8-9 am.

A crossfile can help you crossover week.

If a Senator agrees to introduce an identical version of my bill, it’s called a crossfile.

If my legislation passes the House of Delegates and crosses over to the Senate by the close of business next Monday, it is guaranteed a public hearing there during the last two weeks of the session.

So this is crossover week. Hundreds of bills, included some of the most important ones this session, will be debated and voted on by next Monday evening. “It’s the biggest week of the year,” one veteran legislator said today.

My green jobs bill had a very good hearing in the Appropriations Committee two weeks ago. Unfortunately, Delegate Mary-Dulany James, my co-sponsor and chair of the subcommittee that will consider my bill, was absent for the hearing and several days following because her mother passed away.

However, Senator Delores Kelley had agreed to introduce a crossfile. Her bill got a favorable hearing in the Finance Committee, where she serves.

It will be voted on by that committee this week.

I’ll wait for the Senate crossfile to crossover – hopefully, before I ask Del. James to act on my bill.

It was our second meeting of the afternoon on the death penalty bill, which will be debated by the full House tomorrow.

We were reviewing our vote count. Who would vote for the bill and who would oppose all amendments?

We decided to ask six members to speak to the first three amendments, to build momentum for the rejection of all.

For our whip system during the debate, we divided the House floor into groups of four to six members, who sat near each other and had pledged to oppose all amendments.

“Where members sit on the floor seems to be random,” said one of the people around the table.

“Nothing in Annapolis is random,” I replied.

“The orders came down from above.”

We were voting on the death penalty legislation in committee. One of my Republican colleagues was implying yet again that Democrats were meekly following the Governor’s orders to oppose all amendments.

He said it once too often.

Another member of the committee objected; then I did.

“The advocates and I independently decided that the Senate bill was the best that we could achieve,” I calmly but pointedly stated. “The Governor did not lobby any of us.”

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Earlier Friday, I had another insight into the Republicans’ philosophy.

I sponsored House Bill 482, which would clarify who must be notified if someone’s remains are moved – within a cemetery or to another location.

After we reached agreement on amendments among all of the affected parties – cemetery owners, religious groups, and state regulators, the bill sailed through my committee.

It passed the House, 128-7, but then quite a few Republicans rose to change their vote from green (yes) to red (no).

“Is it a sponsor problem?” I emailed someone.

Dumbfounded, I asked a Republican delegate what was happening.

The bill would establish the priority among family members for arranging a reinternment. At the top of the list: a surviving spouse or domestic partner.

Earlier in the week, the Republicans had offered a floor amendment to move a domestic partner to the bottom of the list. It failed, 33-98.

Twenty one members rose to change their vote to “no” .

For me, these are core values.

My life’s work is in a legislative body, where the majority rules. If you can count to 71 in the House and 24 in the Senate, you win.

But the First Amendment provides that the majority does not prevail when fundamental rights are violated.

The constitutional protection of freedom of the press does not prohibit a court from requiring a reporter to reveal a source, the Supreme Court has ruled. Nonetheless, the legislature can provide such protections by statute.

Similarly, the Court has held that the government can burden an individual’s exercise of his or her religious beliefs if there is a rational basis for a law of general applicability. Here as well, the legislature can enact additional protections, and the Congress has.

What prompts this discussion of constitutional law?

After the hearing concluded on my reporter’s shield bill yesterday, I learned that my religious accommodation bill had failed, 8-2.

Fundamentally, we were unable to persuade a majority of the members of the subcommittee that the exercise of religious belief – whether it’s a Shabbat elevator or a Hindu wall covering, is worthy of special consideration.

For a handful of my older colleagues, a laptop is a foreign object.

Of course, many younger delegates are far more adept at using the Internet than I am.

So I brought my laptop to the witness table to make this point: A growing number of people get their news from this machine, not from a newspaper delivered to their door or the tv set in their living room.

Maryland was the first state to enact a shield law, which protects a reporter, in certain circumstances, from being compelled by a court to disclose the source for a story.

My legislation would amend that law to include bloggers, using a definition from a bill pending in Congress.

Most of the questions dealt with how “blogger” should be defined, not whether or not someone who communicates over the Internet should receive this protection.

That’s a definite improvement over the reception I got five years ago.

Nonetheless, this is a bill that won’t pass until next year, at best. After the hearing, my witnesses and I agreed to meet this summer to discuss a revised definition.

We’ll invite one of the delegates who raised questions today about that language.

“Do you think that spending 2,000 hours on one death penalty case is a worthwhile use of Professor Millemann’s time?”

I posed that question to Scott Shellenberger, the Baltimore County State’s Attorney and a leading supporter of the death penalty.

In my testimony, I had again made the point that the extraordinary amount of time spent litigating and legislating death penalty cases could be put to far better use on other criminal justice issues that prevent crime and make people safer where they live, where they work, and where they play.

Following me to the witness table, Prof. Millemann noted the time he had spent handling the appeals after his client’s court trial. Hence my question.

Mr. Shellenberger paused for at least 10 seconds before responding.

“No one in my office has ever spent that much time prosecuting a capital case,” he responded, in part.

He did not answer my question. I don’t think he could.

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My LBJ-style vote count of the Judiciary Committee on the death penalty has gone very well.

But after today’s hearing, I put a new roll call list in my breast pocket.

I’m going to take the count again. Just to be sure.

I may not be good at science, but I do know the chemistry of the legislature.

Governor O’Malley budgeted $18.4 million for stem cell research. Our staff has recommended a drastic reduction – to only $5 million.

I thought this would send the wrong signal to the scientific community about Maryland’s commitment to this research specifically and the biotechnology sector generally.

So I asked that the Stem Cell Research Commission send me a one-pager on the benefits of the state’s funding this research.

When I give this memo to members of the relevant Appropriations subcommittee, here’s how I boil down their argument.

* This is stimulus money for the biotech sector in the short term
* Significant federal $$ are not coming soon
* A cut of this size would jeopardize MD’s leadership in this area of research in the long term

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I began testifying on my resolution for the Jim McKay Maryland Million, the annual day of racing for horses sired by stallions standing in the state, by saying:

“If you’re as old as I am, you remember watching Wide World of Sports on a black-and-white tv.

“But I’m sure that everyone on this committee heard Jim McKay say, ‘They’re all gone,’ when he informed the world of the fate of the Israeli hostages at the Munich Olympics.”

Afterwards, one of the committee members came up to me and said, “I wasn’t born until 1973, the year after Munich.”

I may not have known his age, but I hope I have his vote.