Category: Sandy’s 2014 Legislative Diary

Will your idea become a law?

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You work for months, sometimes years.

And this is the week when you find out if your idea will become a law.

Only good news so far.

My bipartisan bill to criminalize the same conduct by both sides during a referendum petition-signing process has passed the House several times over the years but always died in a Senate committee.

Not this time.  It’s on the Senate floor – the vote for final passage scheduled for tomorrow.

I’ll wait until later to try to learn how and why it got there.

The slots revenue allocated for certain neighborhoods near Pimlico Race Track over the last two fiscal years remains unspent because of the City government’s abysmal handling of these funds.

My legislation to require the City to establish a specified schedule for the distribution and expenditure of these grants is now on the House floor.  Assuming it passes, it will be a challenge to get Senate approval before the session ends at midnight next Monday.

I was assured by two Senators that their committee will add technical amendments to my bill creating tech internships, matching students and start-ups.  “That’s good news,” I responded.

Things are going so well for the O’Malley-Brown Administration’s pre-kindergarten expansion bill it wasn’t even discussed in the Sun’s preview of the last week in Annapolis.

When I read Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s op-ed on the subject today, his four points read very much like my bill of last year and the Administration’s this year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rahm-emanuel-on-early-education-both-parties-need-to-grow-up/2014/03/31/c7d9e1f0-b6a4-11e3-8cc3-d4bf596577eb_story.html

 

Put me in coach, I’m ready to pray

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I traditionally give the opening prayer when the House of Delegates goes into session on Opening Day of the baseball season.

A traffic jam in Annapolis made me late for the 7 pm session.  So I gave my prayer the morning after.

He went 2-for-4 in his September debut against the Washington Senators and thought he’d arrived. He went hitless (0-for-18, with 10 strikeouts) the rest of the year.

“Lesson learned,” Brooks Robinson said.

What does Brooks consider the highlight of his career? 

It’s not the 1971 World Series, when he was named MVP.  It’s the 1966 Series, the first championship for the team and for Brooks. 

“We knew how to play before 1966, but Frank Robinson taught us how to win,” Brooks told us at Fantasy Camp.

For twenty consecutive Opening Days, 1957-1976, Number 5 was the Orioles starting third baseman. 

On Opening Day in 1966, Brooks batted cleanup and went 3 for 6 with a two-run homer and 3 RBIs

The Orioles beat the Red Sox, 5-4, in 13 innings. 

Yesterday’s hero was making his first and perhaps only Opening Day appearance as an Oriole.  

Nelson Cruz made a big play in left field, his alert base running led to a run, and he hit the game-winning home run. 

As Ernie Banks might say, “Let’s play 162.”

It doesn’t matter which county you live in

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“I was not here at the time.  I was a high school student when the General Assembly considered legislation prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations.”

That’s how I began my floor speech on the bill that would add gender identity to our civil rights law.

During the floor debate, some of my colleagues said that their counties had traditional values and should be exempted.

“Former Senator Jack Lapides told me that the law initially applied only to certain counties,” I continued, “but our predecessors made a fundamental policy judgment.   When we conclude that discrimination will not be permitted when directed at a certain group of Marylanders, it doesn’t matter which county you live in.”

The bill passed, 82-57.

A principle and the principal’s office

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“The Speaker wants to see you in his office.”

A state trooper conveyed that message to me.

I was on the House floor, waiting for today’s floor session to begin.

Was I being summoned to the principal’s office?

Thankfully, not.

I had company –the leadership of the Appropriations Committee.

The State operating budget would be debated today.  Amendments had been drafted to reduce Medicaid-funded abortions.  I was asked to speak against them.

One amendment would eliminate abortions for mental health reasons; the other would prohibit third-trimester abortions.

The current language is nearly 40 years old.

When I was first here, we tried to expand the conditions when Medicaid would fund an abortion.

That effort failed.  Then we enacted the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade. The voters approved the bill on referendum in 1992.

When I spoke on the floor, I read from that law, which I had asked committee counsel to provide me after the Speaker’s office meeting.

The amendments failed, 48-84 (mental health), and 54-79 (3rd trimester).

A friend and pro-choice lobbyist wrote, “Thanks as always for standing up for the right to choose this morning!”

“The right to choose means a lot to both of us,” I replied.

Someone else wrote, “What does it feel like to stand up to oppose the Medicaid abortion floor amendment for what feels like 20 straight years?”

When it means a great deal to you and you win, it still feels very good.

Learning about products that can kill

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I hope to learn something new each session.

Weeks before the public hearing, I knew the outcome for my legislation that would ban the sale of gateway products for young smokers – unpackaged, or single-wrapped, cigarillos and other flavored  tobacco products.

As I expected, House Bill 1158 got an unfavorable report from the House Economic Matters Committee.

To overcome the influence of the tobacco industry, the Governor needs to sponsor the bill or it must be the highest priority of a very broad coalition.

That’s also the case with gun control.

You’d think that wouldn’t be the case with two products that can kill people, but it is.

I read this today:

Smoking, the leading cause of preventable death in the country, is now increasingly a habit of the poor and the working class.

How should we target our smoking prevention efforts so that we can reverse that trend in Maryland?

As I work on that for next year’s session, I hope I’ve learned something from this year’s experience.

Early intervention – legislative and medical

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You may have read this:

Last year, Maryland enacted one of the nation’s strictest gun laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Conn., but also opted to focus on mental health issues by creating the center for early intervention.

It was in a Baltimore Sun story about the Center for Excellence on Early Intervention for Serious Mental Illness.  Its aim is to intervene on behalf of a mentally ill person who might otherwise fall through the cracks, like the Columbia Mall shooter.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-md-mental-health-shootings-20140321,0,6918153.story

We didn’t address mental health issues last session by accident.

Shortly after the tragedy in Newtown, I met with two mental health advocates.

“This incident is an opportunity to increase spending for mental health prevention,” I advised.  “Draft a bill that lays out the unmet needs.”

The fiscal note for the Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Safety Net Act of 2013 was $40 million in State funds.  The budget for the Center for Excellence is $1.2 million.

After reading the Sun article this weekend, I wrote the advocates.

Court-ordered treatment is in the forefront now was the response.  We’ll resume working on the need to get preventive services in place.

Counting and contacting early

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For 90 days in Annapolis, I have to count to 71 votes in the House of Delegates and 24 in the Senate.

On June 24, Election Day, I have to count to one more vote than the candidate who finishes in 4th place.

I started campaigning for reelection the day after my last election four years ago – working on policy issues and addressing community concerns.

My 41st District colleagues, Senator Lisa Gladden and Delegates  Jill Carter and Nathaniel Oaks, and I have worked together for 12 years and are campaigning together this year.

Early voting begins June 12, twelve days before Election Day.  I learned today that absentee ballots can be requested in early May.

There will be three distinct electorates: those who vote absentee, those who vote early at a polling place, and those who vote on June 24.

You need to contact the voters in each of those groups before they cast their ballots.

Each of their votes counts the same.

Make it better next year

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“Don’t try to make the bill better.”

That was my advice/plea to a member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee shortly before it heard my reporter’s shield legislation.

The law should be revised, I soon testified, to protect the 21st Century journalist who does not work fulltime in a newsroom but has a contractual relationship with the news media.

The bill, as I introduced it, would have gone further.  It would have included “a self-employed journalist” but that didn’t make it past the pre-public meeting gathering of the Judiciary Committee leadership, despite my best effort.

For the Senate to broaden the bill now would delay its enactment.  The House would reject any change.

The self-employed journalist (the pamphleteer when the First Amendment was adopted, the blogger in his pajamas today) will have to wait until next year.

Counting among twenty, the right way

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             “The Department shall adopt regulations to implement the provisions of this section by January 1, 2015.”

As introduced, the legislation did not require that the regulations be adopted by a certain date.

Several specific prohibitions on law enforcement officials would be deleted from the bill.

Why did the lobbyist show me these changes?

I serve on the Judiciary Committee, which will decide if the amended bill gets reported to the House floor.

I am the House chair of the AELR committee, which will review the proposed regulations this fall.

Why are these changes being proposed?

The more specific the bill is, the more likely there would be a floor vote on a controversial provision.

All 188 members of the General Assembly would be on record.

By contrast, there are 20 members of the committee I chair.

Plus, any votes would take place after Election Day.

Nonetheless, what we approve – legislation or regulation, must be sound public policy.

 

Pre-K pre-funding

| by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

It’s not too early to look ahead.

The Administration’s pre-kindergarten bill passed the House of Delegates today.  It has also passed the Senate.

Minor differences in the two versions should be easy to resolve.

This legislation will create a $4.3 million competitive grant program to stimulate innovation and expand access to high-quality early childhood education.

To provide ½-day pre-K for all children in the state whose parents choose to enroll them would cost an additional $120 – 140 million.

“Candidates make many promises — but how to pay for them?” read a headline in last week’s Baltimore Sun.

Expansion of pre-kindergarten is one of the promises that’s not yet funded.

After reading the article, I wrote two colleagues, “After June 24 [Primary Election Day], we should strategize on funding pre-K.”

  • My Key Issues:

  • Pimlico and The Preakness
  • Our Neighborhoods
  • Pre-Kindergarten
  • Lead Paint Poisoning