It’s good to have the subcommittee chair as your co-sponsor.

Twice this morning, I asked the relevant subcommittee chair to sign on to one of my bills. Both times, they did – with enthusiasm.

One would allow a homeless youth to obtain mental health treatment without parental consent. The other would require the Public Service Commission to implement a consumer education program informing residential and and small commercial customers about the rates and services offered by different electricity suppliers.

Their support does not guarantee that either bill will pass. But the person one step below the committee chair now has a stake in my legislation..

We had our first committee voting session of the Virtual Sunshine era.

The Speaker has decided that committee votes will now be available online. So my colleagues were skittish.

If we have a dozen bills on a controversial subject, only one will receive a favorable report, a delegate correctly noted, and people will now know that we voted against all of the others.

I whispered a simple solution in my neighbor’s ear: Don’t vote on the other bills. Keep them in the chairman’s drawer.

There was no debate before we killed the bill that would prevent the Attorney General from finding that the state can recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state.

However, the bill’s supporters did not need to speak now or forever hold their peace. They may try a parliamentary maneuver to bring the bill to the House floor.

“You can’t just say ‘no’ all the time,” I heatedly responded.

After the Governor’s State of the State speech, a radio reporter told me that the Republican response was “All the Governor talked about was government, government, government – despite the message sent by the voters in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts.”

“Government has a role to play in stimulating the economy, and we need to seek compromise, as President Obama made so clear last Friday,” I also told the reporter.

At the Governor’s post-speech reception, I related this story to a high ranking member of the O’Malley administration.

His response: “The speech was all about jobs, jobs, jobs.”

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The legislative process may be theatre (at times), but you don’t usually have a preview of coming attractions. Except today.

We had a hearing on a bill requiring the police to get a search warrant approved by a judge before using a tracking device to determine the location or movement of an individual or object.

I will be introducing a bill requiring a warrant before the police obtain a record of where you were when you used your cell phone.

The arguments for and against today will be repeated when my legislation is heard.

One thing for sure. Unlike the bill sponsor today, I won’t go to the witness table alone. I’m no 4th Amendment scholar. If I’m going to be asked questions about the relevant Supreme Court holdings, I want someone who knows the law at my side.

I won’t be able to Google.

Personalize your testimony.

I followed my own advice yesterday when I was asked about the bill I’m introducing to require shareholder approval before a corporation can make independent campaign expenditures supporting or targeting a candidate.

“When I ran for reelection in 1986, the landlords tried to defeat me because I had introduced legislation requiring them to lower the risk of lead poisoning in their properties,” I told the listeners on Shalom USA radio. “Under the recent Supreme Court ruling, there is no limit on the amount of money they can spend to oppose a person like me.”

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We had finalized the changes to the bill draft.

“Should I try to get co-sponsors?” one of the advocates asked.

“For just one day,” I replied. “It’s more important to get the bill introduced and an early hearing date than to get more signatures.”

“Should we tell the people who’ve already signed on about the changes?” said another supporter.

“Don’t worry. They didn’t read the bill the first time,” I answered.

President Obama is not the only big name appearing in Baltimore today before the Republican caucus of the House of Representatives.

Lou Holtz, former football coach at Notre Dame, is the dinner speaker.

I wonder if he’ll say, “In football and in governing, you want to keep your opponent from scoring, but you also have to try to put the ball across the goal line yourself.”

Holtz is a longtime Republican activist, according to the Sun. So I doubt if he’ll criticize his hosts.

But President Obama did in his State of the Union speech, declaring, “Just saying no to everything may be good short term politics, but it’s not leadership.”

It’s about time he took the offensive on the GOP’s obstructionist strategy.

“This bill is worse than I thought,” said the advocate. “Now that I’ve read it, it would do more damage than the bill summary led me to believe.”

“A bad bill is better for us,” I replied. “It will be easier to defeat than one that makes only minor changes to the existing law.”

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For me, gay marriage is a civil rights issue.

The comparison between civil rights for African Americans and gays was debated at today’s bill hearing.

I googled this quote from Julian Bond, chair of the NAACP, when he testified for a bill to legalize gay marriage in New Jersey and read it to my committee.

“When I’m asked if gay rights are civil rights, my answer is always: ‘Of course they are.’

I close where I began by asking you to cast an affirmative vote when this legislation comes before you. You’ll be standing for right, and on the right side of history.”

I don’t think Justice Stevens will mind.

I’ve been working on legislation to restrict corporations’ expenditures in political campaigns since last Friday, the day after the Supreme Court ruling opening the floodgates for businesses to dominate the political process.

Maryland’s limits on the amount of money a company or individual can give directly to candidates are not affected by the decision. However, there are no longer any restrictions on independent expenditures by individual or corporations.

This means a company can spend any amount on an ad campaign targeting a candidate. My bill would require businesses to get their shareholders’ approval before doing so, just as they must do so now before merging with another company.

Companies doing business with the state government could not wage such campaigns, and no corporation could claim these costs as a business expense for state tax purposes, under other bills being drafted.

Before today’s press conference, I decided I should read the case – or at least Justice Stevens’ dissent. He wrote about the damage that would result to public faith in the integrity of the democratic process from the undue influence of corporations brought on by the majority’s decision.

Standing before the microphones, I didn’t say that I was quoting Justice Stevens, but I will in my written testimony.

And then there’s the bill I won’t be introducing because my objective was achieved by letting people know about my proposed legislation.

Three years ago, I passed a bill requiring each law enforcement agency in the state to adopt written policies relating to eyewitness identification by a victim or a witness to a crime.

Done the wrong way, a line-up or a review of mug shots can result in an innocent person being accused and then convicted. Under my bill, witness ID must comply with standards issued by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Many police departments responded to this requirement inadequately or not at all. So I had a bill drafted that would reduce state grants to these agencies if they did not comply with the law.

I shared the draft with law enforcement officials last fall. By the time we met today, most of the police agencies had come into compliance.

In Annapolis, nothing concentrates the mind like a bill hearing – or the prospect of one.

Last year was the best session I ever had, if I may be so immodest.

Significant reform of the death penalty, protection of workers’ rights to equal pay, and promotion of green jobs led the list of bills I passed.

What would I be working on in 2010 that could compare? I wondered this summer.

But no more.

As the deadline for making bill requests looms tomorrow, I’ve got plenty of important bills that I’ll be introducing this session.

Once again, the Supreme Court has issued decisions that we can correct with legislative action. I’m working to limit corporate contributions consistent with the court’s controversial action last week. Another opinion made it difficult for someone to win an age discrimination complaint, and I’m trying to fix that.

I hope to enable more lawyers to work for non-profits or the government by increasing funding for a program that helps these individuals repay their academic debt. Student journalists would be given the same protections for their confidential sources as paid reporters already have under the change I’m proposing to Maryland’s shield law.

Some other bills I can’t discuss until they’re finalized and in the hopper. That deadline is February 11.

Pimlico is not the only track in my district.

There’s a running track on the grounds of Northwestern Senior High. It will soon be restored, thanks to the slots revenue that will be coming to the neighborhoods surrounding Pimlico.

When my 41st District colleagues and I spoke to neighborhood groups about the slots referendum in the spring of 2008, they did not believe us when we told them that they would receive a projected $45 million over a 15-year period.

This funding was put in the legislation to address the negative impact of the race track upon these communities over the years. It stayed in because of our hard work during the special session when slots were authorized.

And we wanted to receive political credit for doing so.

The slots money won’t start until next year, but we wanted to put shovels in the ground before that.

So we asked neighborhood leaders for their ideas. They chose the Northwestern track because it’s used by both students and the community. When 2,000 people came to the school grounds for a charity event this fall, it made very clear to me the potential for this site.

Federal stimulus dollars for schools and a state program for parkland will make it happen – with much more to come from slots revenue, starting next year.