Sandy’s 2014 Legislative Diary – Page 7

Timely requests

Many of you spent today getting milk and other essentials before tomorrow’s snowstorm.

I spent today making bill drafting requests before tomorrow’s deadline.

If you’re late, your bill will get a late hearing date, which will not help its chances of getting passed.

On the other hand, a drafting request doesn’t require you to introduce the bill.

In response to a neighborhood concern about parking, I emailed both the relevant drafter and a Department of Transportation official to see if the problem could be resolved without a bill being introduced.

I’m not sure whether the state has the authority to do what would be required of it by one of my requests. I’ve asked for a legal opinion.

Another bill would require interest group A to do what interest group B wants. I’ll share the draft with A and B. That could prod them to work things out.

Lessons Learned

I was at the press conference on pre-kindergarten legislation today because of a teacher and a student.

Nancy Grasmick, the State Superintendent of Schools, was a guest lecturer the first year I co-taught the Legislation class at the University of Maryland Law School.

For the next 18 years, she spoke to the students about bills from the most recent General Assembly session.

And she spoke to me about getting more involved in education issues, taking political risks for the betterment of our children.

Bill Ferguson was a student in the Legislation class in 2008. Before law school, he taught in a Baltimore City school as a Teach For America member.

He was elected to the State Senate in 2010.

At a gathering of education advocates before Bill’s first session (my 29^th), I said to him, “The two of us should work together on education issues.”

Last year, we introduced legislation that would have funded a competitive grant program to stimulate innovation and expand access to high-quality early childhood education.

Today’s press conference was about a similar bill. It will be introduced by the O’Malley-Brown administration.

Asking the right person to ask the question

January 15, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | 1 Comment

You always want someone in the room when the decisions are made.

That’s the role a good co-sponsor of your bill can play.

Today, I wanted someone in the room when the questions are asked.

So I asked a committee member who understood my issue to raise the subject.

By chance, I ran into one of the witnesses before the hearing.

So I asked him the question myself.

“What’s the status of the new stables planned for Pimlico Race Track?”

He said he would get back to me after discussing the matter with someone who knew more than he did.

Early and informed decisions

January 14, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

When I applied to college, my mother, Smith College ’45, was my guidance counselor.

Today, many students get advice from college admission counselors – if their parents can afford the hefty fees.

But those who are doing well in school but don’t have parents with a college education or the resources to supplement their school guidance counselor are too often unaware of the colleges that meet their skills and needs, as well as the financial assistance that can make that education affordable.

The College Board and the State of Delaware have sent customized college information and application fee waivers to low-income high-achieving students.

The bill I’m drafting would require Maryland to do the same.

It should bring about a healthy discussion of the best way to make our high school seniors aware of their college opportunities.

Parties on

January 13, 2014January 13, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I’m a partisan guy – except when it can help pass my bills.

House Bill 125 would treat people trying to petition a law to referendum the same way as the people opposing that effort. It would criminalize the same conduct – fraud, duress or force – by either side.

The sponsor line reads, “Rosenberg, Parrott, Barve, Cardin, Ivey, and Summers.”

Delegate Parrott designed the software that was instrumental in getting marriage equality and the Dream Act on the ballot in 2012.

After he agreed that my bill would treat both sides identically, I asked him to sign on as a sponsor.

He brings added credibility to my fairness argument.

Individual privacy is not a liberal or conservative issue.

The government can access your emails and cell phone records. Drones and license plate readers are among the devices that capture this data.

Legislation addressing each of these issues will be introduced in both houses.

The two lead sponsors in the Senator are a Democrat and a Republican.

I suggested that we do the same in the House.

Delegate Smiegel, a Republican, readily agreed to join us.

Similar agendas, Crossing the Governor and the bridge

January 9, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“Mr. Obama plans to campaign in 2014 for universal preschool, an increase in the minimum wage and an administration effort to make college less expensive for the middle class,” reports the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/us/politics/obama.html

So do I.

Last year, Senator Ferguson and I introduced legislation creating a competitive grant program to stimulate innovation and expand access to high-quality early childhood education. This year, the O’Malley-Brown administration will sponsor similar legislation.

“For every dollar invested today [in pre-K], savings range from $2.50 to as much as $17 in the years ahead,” concluded an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The minimum wage sets a fair standard for working Marylanders. An increase will move people over the poverty line and stimulate the economy.

I met with labor lobbyists today to strategize and count votes.

Academic debt for college and graduate school tuition limits career choices and the budgets of young families. I am working on legislation to eliminate tuition at a campus or graduate school of the University of Maryland system.

Graduates would be obligated to pay a pre-determined portion of their income for a certain number of years, basing their cost of college on their ability to pay.

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If you’re following the scandal over the decision to limit access to the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee, NJ because its mayor did not endorse Governor Christie’s re-election, you know that the mayor said that the Christie-appointed executive who did the deed “deserves an a—kicking.”

Christie’s crony is lucky. Tony Soprano would have whacked him.

January 8 – Winning the war on poverty

January 8, 2014January 8, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Today is Day 1 of my 32^nd Year in the House of Delegates.

More importantly, it is the 50^th anniversary of the war on poverty.

At an event outside the State House, I quoted from President Johnson’s State of the Union speech when he announced the war on poverty.

“Our task is to help replace their despair with opportunity,” the President declared, “not only to relieve the symptom of poverty but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.”

Given the misinformation from the right about the failure of the war on poverty and its emphasis on cash payments, even I was surprised at LBJ’s reference to curing and preventing poverty.

Ron Haskins was the principal Republican staffer in the House of Representatives when the two parties reached a compromise on welfare reform in 1996.

Haskins recently wrote, “The nation should face up to two facts: poverty rates are too high, especially among children, and spending money on government means-tested programs is at best a partial solution. On the other hand, providing government support to increase the incentives and payoff for low-income jobs and redesigning the nation’s welfare programs to encourage marriage hold great promise for at last achieving the poverty reduction envisioned by President Johnson.”

Since I have worked with Ron in the past, I emailed him this week, asking what we could do in Maryland to further those objectives.

Much has been accomplished but more remains to be done, I said at today’s rally. Welfare reform in Maryland has incentivized work and benefitted families. Expansion of pre-kindergarten, building upon Head Start, will prepare the next generation for the 21st Century economy.

January 7 – Rules to legislate by

January 7, 2014 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Rule One: Nothing stays a secret in Annapolis (or any legislature).

Rule Two: Nonetheless, you don’t have to broadcast your strategy.

I met with a group today from the Baltimore metropolitan area.

We decided I will work on the bill draft. The group will work on expanding its membership to the Washington suburbs.

By the bill hearing, this will be a state-wide program.

That won’t guarantee its passage, but the odds will be better than those for a Baltimore-only proposal.

At another meeting, the concern was that one amendment could lead to many others.

However, if we make this change in the budget bill, it will get less attention.

There’s a mystery about the budget process. Consequently, fewer members and lobbyists stay on top of the process.

Rule Three (the most important rule): However you get there, the final product should be sound public policy.

January 6 – The longer and shorter of it

January 6, 2014 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

My bill list keeps getting longer and shorter.

I kept quite a few bill drafters busy this summer and made an additional request today, my first day in Annapolis of my 32nd year as a member of the House of Delegates.

Clint Bamberger argued the 1963 case where the Supreme Court required that the prosecution give defense counsel evidence that could materially affect the verdict or sentence.

Yesterday, Clint emailed me about a Texas law requiring the government to turn over all of its evidence. Today, I made the bill request.

Two advocates stopped by to tell me that my committee chairman had suggested that I introduce a bill that their group supported. I’m interested but need to check with my chairman first.

I had written a national group about my interest in replicating in Maryland what the group had initiated in another state.

Today I heard back. “We are excited by your interest…and look forward to partnering with you.” Not certain yet whether a bill will be needed.

A local group has not been so responsive. Perhaps a bill requiring them to do what they said they would do but haven’t will get their attention.

My Key Issues:

Category: Sandy’s 2014 Legislative Diary