I go to lots of functions and community meetings.

But none with the anticipation and sense of history that I brought to the dedication of the Ohr Hamizrach synagogue.

For 2700 years, there was a Jewish community in Persia/Iran. The Iranian revolution of 1979 prompted an exodus.

The late Rabbi Herman Neuberger was instrumental in bringing (sometimes smuggling) people to freedom. Thus, Baltimore has one of a handful of Iranian Jewish communities in this country.

Today, their synagogue on Park Heights Avenue was dedicated.

“We always have a beautiful shul in Iran,” a rabbi told the congregation.

The exterior is striking – pinkish stone with Oriental/Iranian design work and six-pointed Jewish stars..

By contrast, the first synagogue built in Baltimore, on Lloyd Street in East Baltimore in 1845, has no outward indication of its use.

Perhaps my ancestors attended similar ceremonies when the German and Russian Jewish communities reached a similar critical mass.

As a rabbi said today: “This is a public proclamation that a tribe of the Jewish people has not become extinct.”

I must have been channeling Yogi.

The Sun reporter asked me if the Judiciary Committee would act favorably on both my death penalty repeal bill and the Senate’s amended version.

It was a question I had never been asked before.

Her article today ended with my response:

Rosenberg, however, predicted only the Senate plan would survive. “You don’t send out two conflicting bills,” he said, “even if you can.”

Now it’s time to channel LBJ.

As Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson would carry the roll call listing of the Senators in his breast pocket. When he had a member’s commitment to vote for a bill, he would mark it down.

I’ll do that now with the Judiciary Committee, to confirm who will vote for the Senate bill and oppose all amendments. Assuming we have the 12 votes necessary, I’ll do the same with the full House of Delegates.

Until I’ve counted to 71.

I issued the following statement on the death penalty this afternoon.

I continue to believe that Maryland should end capital punishment. The Civiletti Commission, on which I served, identified significant problems in how the death penalty is applied in our state. The Commission concluded that these problems can not be fixed.

The possibility of the State of Maryland’s executing an innocent person is one of those flaws. Over the last 35 years, there have been 1,125 executions and 130 exonerations of innocent persons nationwide from death row

I have concluded that the likelihood of executing an innocent person will be significantly reduced by the enactment of the amended version of Senate Bill 279. This legislation would place important new restrictions on the types of cases in which prosecutors can seek the death penalty.

I applaud Governor O’Malley and Senator Gladden for their courageous leadership on this issue. If we are not to end the death penalty, Senators Zirkin and Brochin are to be commended for the amendments that they offered.

Several years ago, I concluded that we should repeal the death penalty. The reason underlying my decision: the time and money spent litigating and legislating on this issue should be put to far better use.

Keeping people safe where they live, work, and play is one of the primary obligations of government. The resources diverted to the death penalty diminish our capacity to fulfill that requirement.

The money spent on death penalty cases could be used instead to target career offenders, protect at-risk children, and identify youthful offenders who are on the road to becoming murderers. plan a route .

In the years ahead, I am confident that the General Assembly will revisit the other issues raised in the Civiletti Commission report, such as racial and jurisdictional disparities in how the death penalty is applied and the detrimental impact it has on the lives of victims’ families.

For now, I urge my colleagues in the House to join me in supporting the Senate bill and opposing any amendments.

Today, I negotiated an armistice on Lilly Ledbetter.

An armistice is a cessation of hostilities. It is not a peace treaty.

As I’ve written before, my bill would make Maryland’s civil rights law on equal pay identical to the federal legislation that President Obama signed into law.

The Senate version of this measure was debated in that body this week. Senator Jamie Raskin, the bill’s sponsor, told me about his discussions with the Republican leader.

I made two suggestions.

First, don’t accept any changes that affect the most important part of the bill. Workers in Maryland must be treated the same as they are under the federal law. That goal was accomplished.

Second, if you reach agreement with the Senate Republicans, they should ask their House colleagues to accept these amendments as well and seek no other changes to the bill.

They don’t have to vote for the bill. We’re just asking that they don’t delay or prevent its passage by proposing any further amendments.

I decided to take matters into my own hands. I spoke to one House Republican leader, then another. My version of shuttle diplomacy.

I am pleased to report that an armistice is at hand.

I get great professional and personal satisfaction from working on bills that deal with major public policy issues.

In this session alone, I’ve got death penalty, voting rights, and religious accommodation.

But I also get pleasure from helping a constituent resolve a problem with the bureaucracy or the law. Even more so when that person is someone I’ve known since elementary school.

Herman Berlin is an auto parts wholesaler. He runs a family business. Over the last 60 years, Baltimore Auto Parts has done significant business with state agencies.

Then a contract with Autozone put the brakes on the requests for quotes from Herman and other small businesses in Maryland.

Last summer, he came to me for help. I asked the legislature’s reference library for assistance.

The state had signed an intergovernmental cooperative purchasing agreement (ICPA) with Autozone. However, once the state decides to enter into an ICPA, it does not allow any other businesses to submit a bid.

House Bill 1203 would change that. Potential competitors would be given 21 days to submit their bid.

“It’s a question of fairness,” I told the Health and Government Operations Committee today.

The chairman of the subcommittee that will consider my bill said, “These bids need to be competitive.”

The request from the chairman of the full committee to the witness from the state agency that handles these contracts was simple and direct: “Attend the next meeting of that subcommittee.”

It was very clear that the committee wants to change the law.

Afterwards, I said to Herman Berlin: “That was a good hearing!”

Lots of questions from committee members at my green jobs bill hearing.

I took that as a sign of interest, until my GOP friends started asking why we were singling out former and current recipients of cash assistance for job training.

“The heart of welfare reform is providing incentives for people to join the work force,” I stated. “This bill builds on the legislation we passed a decade ago.”

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I received the legal memo on whether a court is likely to require accommodation of those hypothetical religious practices in a multi-family dwelling.

Not to use a legal term, it’s common sense. You don’t make exceptions for a religious practice that violates a law, such as those dealing with treatment of animals or fire hazards.

The subcommittee is supposed to consider the bill tomorrow. My staff hand delivered the memo to members’ offices. I added a handwritten note – not to sway anyone’s vote but to get their attention.

—

Lilly Ledbetter is moving in both houses – favorable subcommittee action on the House bill and floor debate on the Senate version. Both have been amended but in different ways.

I’ve offered advice on how to allay Republicans’ concerns and then reach agreement between the two houses on identical language.

Mine is not the only green jobs legislation introduced this session.

I learned last week that the other bill died because its projected cost was “just under $600 million.”

To avoid the same fate, I wrote our fiscal staff:

“It is my intention that HB 268 be funded with either existing resources or federal stimulus money. If the fiscal note writer believes that this is not the case, please let me know so that I can draft an amendment to that effect.”

I won’t have to contact the Amendment Office. I was told that the fiscal note for my bill is zero.

My email didn’t make it so, but it’s better to ask than to be surprised.

—-

I ended Monday at dinner with Sister Helen Prejean.

I haven’t read her autobiography or seen the movie, Dead Man Walking.

So I listened to try to learn what motivated her opposition to the death penalty.

There are two factors: the class bias of the justice system, especially in her home state of Louisiana, and an execution’s degrading effect on humanity – for both the prisoner and those who carry out his death.

We didn’t need Plan B.

For the second week in a row, we lacked enough members for a quorum of the Baltimore City delegation on Friday morning.

My bill making paint manufacturers liable for knowingly marketing their poisonous product was on the voting list.

I was certain that several of my colleagues were taking a walk: the opponents of my legislation had asked them not to come to the meeting so that we couldn’t take a vote on the bill.
My Plan B: If we didn’t get a quorum, the chairman of the delegation could convene a meeting immediately after Monday’s floor session. The first item on the agenda would be my bill.

If anyone took a walk, they would be spotted.

However, nearly an hour after the scheduled start of Friday’s meeting, we had a quorum. The vote for m y bill was unanimous.

—-

Later in the day, a delegate from another part of the state paid me a visit.

He wanted to talk to me about a bill of his that was in the Judiciary Committee. As we spoke, in the front of my mind was the fact that one of my bills was in his subcommittee.

I gave him advice but didn’t make a commitment.

On Saturday, the New York Times had an article about another issue of interest to my colleague. I asked a friend in the bureaucracy for an update on how Maryland was handling this matter.

I’ll share it with the delegate.

Law students and legislators dread hypotheticals.

In the classroom, a professor will change the facts of the case and ask you if the court should reach the same result.

In Annapolis, committee members will think of not so likely situations that could sink your bill.

At the bill hearings on my religious accommodation legislation and at subsequent subcommittee work sessions, legislators have asked how various hypothetical requests for religious accommodation would be resolved if the bill were to become law.

Walking to my office this morning, I ran into Delegate Steve Lafferty, one of the co-sponsors of the bill. He told me about some of the hypotheticals his colleagues were discussing.

What if a resident belongs to a satanic cult and, as part of the devil worship, wanted to have a confined fire?

What if it is a practice of withcraft (and whatever goes along with that practice)?

I decided we needed a legal analysis of how the courts would handle these situations.

A recurring theme for my week.

I’m a firm believer in incremental progress, but not this time.

If the House passes the Senate’s death penalty bill, without adopting any further amendments, it will go to the Governor for his signature.

These minor changes would have a major political effect.

Legislation ending the death penalty in Maryland would not get to the floor of the Senate or the House for another decade.

The thinking would be: let’s see what effect these changes have upon the system before we again debate whether to eliminate it.

This afternoon, I spoke to several of the House co-sponsors of the repeal bill. All of them agreed that we should still pass it – unamended.

I’ve also asked for research on court decisions that demonstrate the inadequacy of the evidentiary changes in the Senate bill.

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I promised that I’d share with you my response to the personal attack on me in the Washington Examiner. Here it is:

Dear Editors:

Deception was the hallmark of the lead paint industry throughout most of the 20th century – when it marketed and sold its poisonous product to families, knowing full well of the dangers of lead pigment to children. Legislation in Annapolis that would finally hold the lead industry responsible for its conduct prompted an equally misleading column by Marta Mossburg.

House Bill 1156 seeks to end both the cycle of poisoning of Baltimore’s children and taxpayer subsidies of treatment for the preventable disease caused by the lead-paint industry’s pollution. It would allow for market share liability, based on evidence in a court of law as to each manufacturer’s share of the lead paint market. This is a recognized legal concept to apportion responsibility for wrongdoing.

The facts are clear: lead paint continues to poison thousands of innocent children every year, causing life-long, irreversible brain and nervous system damage. Medical and hospital costs associated with lead poisoning can reach more than $700,000 over a lifetime of a child.

Baltimore City has the highest lead poisoning and=2 0exposure rate in the state. The bill simply provides poisoned Baltimore City children the opportunity to hold the lead industry responsible for the damage it has knowingly caused.

Perhaps your columnist was deceived by the team of high-priced, lead paint lobbyists and publicists who have lined up to defeat my bill and protect the profits the lead paint industry made through its campaign to poison generations of children.

Ms. Mossburg compares innocent, lead paint poisoned children to gamblers and overeaters. A child doesn’t ask to be lead poisoned.

Good business policy does not encourage poisoning of children, nor does it encourage gambling, alcohol or any other addictions. As it has for more than a century, the lead paint industry has yet again shown the lengths to which it will go to avoid being held financially responsible for its wrongdoings.