This is the photo for the feature race on Jim McKay Maryland Million Day. I’m in it.
I may still be playing baseball, but I’m not riding thoroughbreds on the weekends. It was my idea to name this day in memory of the renowned sportscaster, who founded the event in 1986.
I’m standing next to the woman in a red sweater, Mary Guba, who is Jim McKay’s daughter.
Embryonic stem cell research has extraordinary potential for treating several diseases.
When Governor Ehrlich first funded this research, Senator Hollinger and I introduced a bill to maximize the scientific benefits we would receive.
In an interview with the Jewish Times, the former governor’s recollection of his role in this process strayed from the truth.
Here’s our letter to the editor in response.
Dear Editors:
The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission is balanced because our legislation requires it.
There are patient advocates, bioethicists, individuals with experience in biotechnology and biomedical ethics, and scientists from the University System of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University.
Former Governor Robert Ehrlich opposed our bill until it had passed both houses of the General Assembly.
Thus, he distorts the record when he claims that he appointed a balanced commission because “I didn’t want politics or religion to control it. I wanted science to control the agenda.”
Both the former governor and Governor Martin O’Malley are to be commended for funding this vitally important research.
However, in science and in politics, we must follow the evidence.
Paula Hollinger and Sandy Rosenberg
Former Senator Hollinger and Delegate Rosenberg were the lead sponsors of the Maryland Stem Cell Research Act of 2006.
I’m already working on several issues for the 2011 legislative session.
The topics include criminal justice, public education, voting rights, and workplace discrimination.
But as you may recall from reading my diary, since we’re still in the drafting stage, it’s premature to discuss the details.
But there’s one thing I can tell you for sure. It will make a big difference who’s the next Governor.
Martin O’Malley would continue to be an effective ally. Robert Ehrlich would again veto some of the bills I’m working on.
So it’s very important that Martin be reelected.
I’m going to be knocking on doors on his behalf in the weeks ahead.
I hope you will too.
Volunteers are needed to:
1. Phone bank everyday from Monday – Friday (1 – 8:30 pm) and Saturday & Sunday (11am – 4:30pm) at 126 West 25th Street;
2. Canvass and lit drop in the 41st District on Saturday, October 16 and Sunday, October 17;
3. Contact voters on Super Saturday (October 23) in the district to the early voting centers (Edmondson Village and Public Safety Center); and
4. Work Election Day.
If you can volunteer, please email me at delsandy@aol.com or jason.washington77@gmail.com.
A lease signing in Mt. Washington and a groundbreaking at Uplands.
Two ceremonial events on today’s schedule.
Expanding the Mt. Washington Elementary School to include a middle
school has been the community’s goal for more than a decade. The
Shrine of the Sacred Heart School, just two blocks away, was closed by
the Archdiocese of Baltimore this spring.
Today, Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Archbishop O’Brien signed a lease
for those vacant classrooms. Next fall, children from pre-kindergarten
through second grade will use them, allowing Mount Washington School to
begin adding grades 6 through 8 in the building it has been using since
1961.
The vacant and rundown units of the Uplands complex were a 100-acre
blot on West Baltimore for many years. Today, ground was broken for
the first of more than 1,100 new residences – both homeownership and
rental in a mixed-income community.
A project of this size will have an extraordinary impact on the
neighboring communities, businesses, and schools. Plus, the Red Line
would run right by it.
I was a spectator today, but my 41st District colleagues
and I had supported both of these projects. We were not the prime
movers in either case, but in this instance, all politics is
incremental.
We will now sweat the details, when needed, to help make sure that
both of these projects achieve the goals trumpeted at today’s
ceremonies.
“Election integrity monitoring” is one element of the Maryland Republican Party’s ambitious early voting plan, wrote a former press secretary and speech writer to Robert Ehrlich, Jr. in a Baltimore Sun op-ed this week.
There’s another way to describe election integrity monitoring. It’s voter suppression and intimidation.
Unwarranted challenges to people’s right to vote, literature that gives the wrong date for the election or misleadingly implies that you can’t vote if you haven’t paid your rent or your parking tickets, or outright intimidation by posting off-duty law enforcement officials in uniform at polls in targeted areas.
These tactics are used in districts with high Democratic turnout and a high percentage or African-American or Hispanic voters.
Four years ago, the guide that urged Republican poll watchers in Maryland to challenge voters was leaked to the Washington Post the week before the election.
Whether or not such challenges uncover any fraud, they “just try to cause chaos and long lines,” stated the director of the National Campaign for Fair Elections in 2006.
“Election integrity monitoring” for this fall’s election by Maryland Republicans is now hiding in plain sight.
Channeling Ronald Reagan, “There they go again.”
Mr. Ehrlich should personally repudiate such tactics.
In Maryland, it is illegal to influence a voter’s decision to go to the polls or vote through the use of force, menace, intimidation, bribe, reward, or offer of reward.
That became our law after the General Assembly overrode Governor Ehrlich’s veto of Senate Bill 287 in 2005.
The Voter’s Rights Protection Act of 2010, sponsored by myself and Senator Lisa Gladden, authorized a judge to issue an injunction to prevent voter intimidation if there are reasonable grounds to believe such actions are about to happen.
However, this bill did not become law because Senator Andrew Harris objected to its consideration during the final hour of the 90-day session.
He was not alone. Nine Republican senators and 34 Republican delegates voted against this legislation.
In light of the controversy over the actions of members of the new Black Panther Party at a polling place in Philadelphia, I welcome bipartisan support when we reintroduce this legislation next year.
For the first time in 28 years, I do not have a contested Democratic primary!
July 6th was the filing deadline, and the only candidates for the three seats in the House of Delegates for the 41st District are my two colleagues, Delegates Jill Carter and Nathaniel Oaks, and myself.
We will have a Republican opponent in November, but the Democratic nomination virtually assures us of election. Lisa Gladden, my State Senator, has no opponents in the primary or general election.
We have come a long way from eight years ago. I won then by only 245 votes when the boundary lines of the district were redrawn by the courts after the census.
As I told a reporter, “I am credible when I talk about religious freedom in the Orthodox Jewish community and civil rights issues in the African-American community.”
In addition, our delegation has delivered for the diverse communities of the 41st District – from capital improvements for firehouses and outdoor running tracks, to making the wheels of government function properly for our constituents.
I won’t be taking the summer off. I’ll be working on my legislative agenda for next year. Plus, there are several friends in the House of Delegates whom I’ll be campaigning for in the coming weeks, as well as Governor O’Malley and the rest of the Democratic ticket in the fall.
Wayland Village Senior Apartments in Forest Park will feature 89
affordable rental apartments for low- and moderate-income seniors and
disabled adults. My 41st District colleagues and I helped to secure
state financing for this worthy project.
The Red Line will run through the Edmondson Avenue corridor. No one’s
home will be condemned to build this mass transit line because of
legislation introduced by Senator Lisa Gladden, Delegates Jill P.
Carter, Nathaniel T. Oaks, and myself.
Several weeks ago, I asked the Clerk’s Office if I could give the opening prayer for the House on Passover and Opening Day of the baseball season. Turns out they already had me listed.
I had written the baseball prayer in my mind’s eye before my father passed away.
Some personal moments that I hope are universal:
Baseball is…
Waiting for your father to come home from work, so you can play catch in the back yard;
Meeting Casey Stengel in the dugout at Memorial Stadium and impressing him that a 10-year old knows that you score a short to second to first double play: 6-4-3;
Being cut from the junior varsity baseball team in high school after batting practice because you ducked on every curve ball;
Asking Earl Weaver to autograph a photo for the Speaker and he writes, “Mike, Pass Sandy’s bills, Earl.”;
Having your father in the stands this past July when your team won the league championship; and
Hoping that the House – and the Judiciary Committee, adjourn in time today for you to hear the umpire say, “Play ball!”
