I’ve never been on such an emotional roller coaster.

Last night, I thought the death penalty repeal bill was dead.

Senators whom we had always counted as solid votes for the bill were not going to vote for the motion that would bring the legislation to the floor for debate.

I ran into one of them in the State House. The problem: we shouldn’t give special treatment to repeal of the death penalty when issues of great concern to this Senator were languishing in committee.

I let the Governor’s office know of the Senator’s concern.

The evening ended on a better note. The Senator at our table got a cell phone call from the Governor at 9:30. No vote was being taken for granted.

This morning, I resolved not to follow the Senate debate on the web. The bad news would travel fast enough.

So I was very pleasantly surprised when someone told me that we had narrowly prevailed on the procedural motion.

The bill would be considered by the full Senate!!

But the debate this afternoon soon turned sour.

Two amendments were adopted that would allow executions if certain evidentiary conditions were met.

One was “a video-taped voluntary interrogation and confession of the defendant to the murder.” But what took place before the video was turned on?

I am certain that death penalty sentences that meet this standard have been overturned on legal grounds or because serious doubts were later raised about the guilt of the defendant as he sat on death row.

You can get a lot done when it snows…

If you drive to Annapolis before the snow starts and spend the afternoon in your office pecking away at your laptop, with no phone calls or other distractions, provided you don’t read the Sunday NY Times until 5 pm.

If the snow stops in time on Monday for people to make it to your meetings to discuss…

* Your bill requiring the state to inform people that they are eligible to vote after serving their prison sentence and successfully meeting the conditions of their parole and probation. We agreed on how this could be done, without having to enact my legislation; and

* Your bill clarifying when and if a notice must be published if human remains or cremations are moved within a cemetery or outside its boundaries. With bureaucrats, the cemetery industry, and religious groups at the table or participating by conference call, we reached agreement. This time, we need to pass my bill and amend the existing law.

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My first state senator was Rosalie Silber Abrams. She died this past Friday. I spoke about her on the House floor tonight.

In her second year in the House, Rosalie introduced and passed House Bill 273, which authorized the Governor to develop a mechanism for Comprehensive Health Planning.

“That legislation is the foundation for Maryland’s all-payer hospital system,” I stated. That system means that all patients pay the same rate, whether they have private insurance, are Medicaid eligible, or are uninsured.

So I was feeling pretty good about myself.

I had just finished my testimony early Thursday evening on the religious accommodation bill.

No notes, no stumbles, and I had made all the points I wanted to make.

Or so I thought.

The first question from a member of the committee was: “Last year, when you testified on this legislation, it was all about installing an elevator in an apartment building. What happened?”

“You’re right,” I replied. “This bill would assist individuals who need an elevator that would stop on every floor so that residents don’t have to violate the prohibition on working on the Sabbath by pushing a button on the elevator.

“More generally, it would require dwelling owners to make reasonable accommodations for residents of all faiths who are seeking to follow their religious beliefs.”

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I got angry when I read this op-ed in The Washington Examiner the next morning.

Del. Samuel “Sandy” Rosenberg is like one of those people who walk around with iPod earphones and can’t hear what’s going on in the real world. How else can he be so deaf to the economy tanking around him?

Last year, The Baltimore Examiner ran an equally nasty editorial criticizing me for sponsoring similar legislation to make paint manufacturers liable for poisoning young children.

Del. Rosenberg must drop HB1241. Only his trial lawyer benefactors, his campaign coffers and those of his fellow Judiciary Committee members will gain from it.

Thousands of children have been poisoned by lead paint, and its manufacturers knew that it was harmful. Instead of compensating their victims, they blame the messenger.

Last year, the lead lobbyist for the paint industry promised me that there would be no more personal attacks directed at me. I guess that commitment applied only to The Baltimore Examiner, which ceased publication a few weeks ago.

I am drafting my reply to this latest piece of garbage, which I will share with you. The full text of the op-ed is at http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/columns/marta-mossburg/Trial-lawyers-lining-up-at-the-state-trough-40386217.html.

It’s the same advice I got 26 years ago.

Pick your spots.

Don’t stick your nose and your voice into lots of issues. Become knowledgeable and respected on a few issues instead.

I had just been elected to the House of Delegates when a former committee chairman gave me this advice.

Today, a freshman delegate was about to participate in an informal gathering of members to discuss the legislation pending before us.

“If there’s one bill you feel comfortable talking about, do it,” I advised, “For most of the bills, just listen and learn.”

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Many hurdles still to clear before reaching the Governor’s desk, but important steps along that way today on two issues.

Lilly Ledbetter got a favorable vote in subcommittee. Next stop the full committee, where positive action also likely.

The death penalty repeal bill won’t die in a Senate committee. It will be considered by the full body, according to news reports.

Governor O’Malley acknowledged yesterday that we’re two votes shy of the 24 votes needed. He will now use his persuasiveness, moral authority, and powers of the office as he meets with undecided senators.

In our strategy for repeal over the last 2+ years, the Governor’s efforts have always been crucial.

So we’re entering the 7th inning, and as Earl Weaver would say when he maneuvered the other manager into bringing in a right-handed reliever so that he could pinch hit Terry Crowley: “The gun is loaded.”

What are the facts of this case?

Every law student lives in dread of being asked that question – by your professor, in front of your classmates.

A satisfactory answer doesn’t get you off the hook. You will then be asked what the court decided and most importantly, why it reached that outcome.

In preparation for the hearing tomorrow on my religious accommodation bill, I decided to read the leading Supreme Court decision on this issue, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison. If someone asks me what the facts are in that case, I’ll know.

If I’m on my game, I won’t wait for someone to ask me that question. I’ll discuss it in my testimony instead.

Why? In Hardison, the Court held that an employee, whose Christian faith compelled him not to work on Saturday, his Sabbath, could be fired because his job “was essential, and on weekends he was the only available person on his shift to perform it.”

It will help make the point that passage of my legislation would not mean that the religious belief must be accommodated in every circumstance.

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Nobody asked me the following questions. I posed them to myself at today’s Judiciary Committee hearing.

Can we comply with the federal law requiring that someone demonstrate a lawful status in the United States before obtaining a driver’s license and also provide a driver’s license to people who don’t have the required documentation – to avoid marginalizing immigrants and increasing the risks on our roads by having these individuals drive without a license or insurance?

Can we afford the extra cost of such a two-tier system?

How does the legislature communicate with the judiciary?

That’s not a theoretical question.

I’m working on two bills where it’s very important to express legislative intent.

What does “reasonable accommodation” mean? That’s the key phrase in my bill that would require an apartment owner or condominium association to make a “reasonable accommodation” for the religious practices of tenants or unit owners.

I didn’t make up this term. For 40 years, the courts have used it in deciding whether an employer has made a reasonable accommodation for the religious practices of its employees.

I want my bill to express the legislature’s intent that the courts are to apply the legal analysis that decided “reasonable accommodation” cases in the workplace to a residential setting.

A group of women wrestlers alleged that they had been treated differently than their male counterparts. Their lawsuit was thrown out because, like Lilly Ledbetter, they had not brought their suit within 180 days of the initial discriminatory act.

I’ve drafted language that expresses the legislature’s intent that we don’t want the same thing to happen in cases brought under Maryland’s civil rights laws.

As we were discussing this language today, one lawyer wrote me, “State judges, like federal judges, don’t like to be told what to do.”

“Legislators are initial audience for this language” I responded. “So we need to provide some reassurances to them (We can’t provide guarantees), that if they pass the bill, this is how we want it to be implemented.”

If you know you’re breaking the law, you’ve committed a crime.

Without that knowledge, it’s only a civil violation.

For certain provisions of our election law, I was reminded today, you can be found guilty of a criminal or civil violation, depending upon your state of mind.

My tutorial arose in an email exchange about the Voter’s Rights Protection Act.

My bill would add a new provision to the law, making it a crime to use a foreclosure list to challenge people’s right to vote because there has been a foreclosure at the address on their registration card.

That’s already illegal, I was informed the day before my bill hearing, because the only grounds on which to challenge a potential voter on Election Day is that person’s identity, not his or her address.

That makes using the foreclosure list a violation of the prohibition on influencing or attempting to influence “a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls to cast a vote” through the use of fraud. (My voting rights legislation in 2005 made that a crime – if done “willfully and knowingly,” but only a civil violation otherwise.)

While reviewing these provisions, I came across the language making it a felony to “vote or attempt to vote during the time that the person is rendered ineligible to vote” while on parole or probation after being convicted of a felony.

Informing people when they can register after they’ve been released from jail is the purpose of my House Bill 483.

“Why shouldn’t there be a civil alternative for those who are unaware of this prohibition?” I emailed.

“Do we treat dirty tricksters more leniently than we do ex-cons?” I later said to myself.

Jobs will be saved. Cuts won’t be made.

That was the Governor’s very good news message at a press conference yesterday to herald the impact of federal recovery/stimulus money on the state budget.

I believe that the stimulus package will accomplish two things.

* Repair the safety net for those of us who have lost their jobs because of the recession, while maintaining the incentives and requirements for seeking work in our welfare system; and

* Invest in our infrastructure and future – from repaving roads so people can get to work and to shop more efficiently to enhancing our ability to obtain energy from sources other than the oil kingdoms of the Middle East.

However, I have also heard from constituents who think that this spending will not stimulate our economy but will leave us further in debt instead.

It is essential, therefore, that we, as taxpayers, are able to find out how this money is spent and how many jobs it creates.

After the Obama administration pledged to put this information on a website, I urged state officials to provide this accountability and transparency as well.

They have agreed to do so.

I thought this would happen.

My committee had just taken preliminary action on House Bill 45, Crimes – Tattooing, Branding, and Body Piercing – Parental Consent.

Someone could offer a floor amendment requiring parental consent before a minor could obtain an abortion, I commented to some of my colleagues last Friday.

My next step was to ask the Attorney General’s Office for advice.

Such an amendment would not violate the requirement in the Maryland constitution that a bill deal with a single subject, began the response.

However, when the abortion issue was raised in an amendment to a bill requiring parental consent before a minor could use a tanning bed, the Senate President ruled last year that it violated the Senate rules because it changed the purpose of the bill.

I shared that legal advice with appropriate delegates and staff.

Today, a floor amendment was offered to HB 45 that would require parental consent for “any invasive medical or surgical procedure.”

The Speaker ruled the amendment out of order because it changed the purpose of the bill.

In response to some of the comments made by supporters of the amendment, I rose to explain my vote.

“No one will be silenced and prevented from having a full hearing on this issue if this amendment is ruled out of order,” I declared. “Put in a bill and it will be considered by the appropriate committee, like any other piece of legislation.”

The Speaker’s ruling was upheld, 103-35.

Someone who violates a criminal law can lose their life, their liberty, or their license.

While our Senate counterparts listened to Governor O’Malley testify for repeal of the death penalty, the House Judiciary Committee held hearings on eight drunk driving bills.

The argument for tougher penalties: the state’s ability to protect the safety of the traveling public is limited by existing laws that permit the most frequent violators, repeat offenders and young drivers, to remain on the road.

The opposing view: people who lose their license may be unable to get to work or to transport other family members to important activities and events.

When we’re not depriving the accused of life or freedom, I err on the side of preventing harm to others.

Nonetheless, the devil is in the legislative details.

We may begin voting on these bills later this week.