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Trust but verify.  And be prepared.

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Trust the process.

That’s the advice a member is often given at this stage of the session.

A commitment has been made that your bill will be acted upon favorably in the other house.

The commitment will be honored is the message.

But as Ronald Reagan advised, “Trust but verify.”

Less artfully said, don’t take anything for granted.

Listen to the Senate hearing on your bill.  You might pick up something.

Get an update from the advocates you’re working with

Remind a Senator of the commitment if you have a chance encounter

Yet again, go through the list of your bills that are still alive.  You might think of something that will help get a bill enacted.

And be prepared to take action if that promise is not kept.

A High Tech Name Change

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Over 600 students have interned at nearly 150 organizations with support from the Maryland Technology Internship Program (MTIP) since 2018.

After reading UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski’s op-ed about a similar program in Massachusetts, I introduced the bill creating the program.

Governor Hogan has funded it.

The people at UMBC who administer MTIP suggested that we change the minimum GPA average from 3.0 to 2.5.

Qualified students are unable to participate, they’ve told me.  I respect their judgment.

But I couldn’t resist calling our legislation to bring about that change the “Belushi bill.”:

At the Senate hearing today, Christine Routzahn from UMBC testified about Ben Cichy, a Mission Systems Engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, who had mediocre college grades.

House Bill 307 is now the Cichy bill.

A part of life now

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My nephew, Elliot Rosenberg, graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder.

We had this correspondence today.

SR: I assume you’re familiar with the shopping center where the shooting took place. 

ER: I’m very familiar with it. It’s crazy, but these shootings are a part of life now.

 I’m reminded of Ted Kennedy’s eulogy of his brother Robert: “He saw wrong and tried to right it.”

That’s what we do as legislators. We try to solve problems.

A solution can be found.  A compromise can be reached.  The votes must be there.

Twenty first graders died at Sandy Hook.

The Congress failed to act.

Eight people died in Atlanta last week.  Ten people died in Boulder yesterday.

These shootings should not be a part of life now.

Not a reasoned debate

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Election fraud is a real problem in Maryland.

The claims regarding climate warming have been disproved.

Maryland law imposes no limits on when abortions can be performed.

My Republican colleagues made those false assertions during floor debate this past weekend.

There was no evidence of fraud in Maryland’s election last year.

When fraud has occurred, I have responded.

Several elections ago, a flyer urged people to vote on the wrong day and implied that you couldn’t vote if you hadn’t paid your rent or the BGE bill.

I passed a law making it a crime to willfully and knowingly attempt to influence fraudulently a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls.

That law was invoked against those responsible for the Election Day recording several years ago urging people to stay home because their votes weren’t needed.

During floor debate this weekend on climate change, I referred to the impact of Hurricane Sandy on New York City and added that several coastal cities are planning for future calamities caused by the rise in sea level.

A colleague and I shared with each other the text of Maryland’s abortion law,  which severely limits a woman’s choice to have an abortion after the fetus is viable.

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=ghg&section=20-209&enactments=false

“Stress is not something that the average person would think is a true restriction,” my colleague replied.

Stress does not meet the law’s requirement that an abortion is “necessary to protect the life or health of the woman,” the standard in the law.

It is difficult to have a reasoned debate when for one side, far too often, the facts are an accident.

Additional authority and Bad odds

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While the state prosecutor’s office was unable to determine the source of the funds, the case caught the eye of the FBI.

That sentence caught my attention in today’s Baltimore Sun story about the investigation of former Mayor Catherine Pugh.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-pr-md-ci-cr-healthy-holly-investigation-backstory-20210318-rwd5w3xsuzczrhnkj27uw4lce4-story.html

I emailed someone who might know why that’s the case.

Perhaps the State Prosecutor needs additional authority.

—

 

During today’s floor debate on House Bill 18, creating aright to counsel for tenants in certain eviction cases, I said this:

“There’s been reference to the fact that there are a slew of bills this year, there are a lot of bills this year, there are a lot of laws on the books regarding landlord-tenant.

“We try to strike a balance between the rights of the tenant and the rights of the landlord. But as the sponsor [of] the bill pointed out, as the floor leader pointed out, when the landlord is represented 96% of the time, and the tenant is represented only 1% of the time, those are bad odds.

“We don’t need to authorize sports wagering to know that 96 to 1, that’s bad odds. If we want the laws that we have written, that we have approved as the policy of this state to be carried out by the courts of this state, this bill, this right to counsel, for a lawyer who speaks for their client is essential.

“I urge a green vote.”

House Bill 18 passed the House of Delegates, 95-42.

Moving forward

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I was  reassured that an issue addressed by one of my bills will be amended on to another bill.

That legislation will be voted out of committee today.

It doesn’t matter if a policy change I proposed moves forward in someone else’s legislation, instead of mine.

A change to another bill of mine may weaken its effect.

Since the amendment has been adopted by the full House of Delegates, the Senate is the place where a correction can be made.

I asked the Attorney General’s Office whether the amendment has the effect that the advocates and I believe it does.

That response should be persuasive in the Senate. .

“We can talk about your bill,” a committee chairman told me.

It’s not faring well in subcommittee.

Our conversation could revive it.

Gideon’s Trumpet

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A bill creating a statutory right to counsel made it to the House floor today.

I was a high school freshman when I read Gideon’s Trumpet, the book about Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court decision establishing a right to counsel in criminal cases where jail was a possibility.

I served on the Task Force to Study Implementing a Civil Right to Counsel in Maryland, which was created by Senate Bill 262 in 2013.

I introduced legislation to implement the recommendations of the task force in 2015.

Over the years, I have also introduced bills to protect tenants who face eviction, whose children are being poisoned by lead paint.

After decisions are made in Annapolis, after the bills are enacted, the landlords are represented in court by someone who knows the law.

The tenant is not.

We are about to address that imbalance.

Changes will be made to House Bill 18 – in the Senate and in subsequent years, if necessary.

But today is a very big step forward.

Not everybody has direct deposit  

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If you have direct deposit, $1400 will be added to your bank account without any effort on your part.

But not everybody has direct deposit.

And everyone doesn’t know if they’re eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit or the new child credit.

Legislation passed by the Congress and the Maryland General Assembly provides these benefits.

Now we need to make sure that everyone knows what they’re entitled to and receives it.

“What is the monetary impact of the American Rescue Plan, the RELIEF Act, and the legislation extending benefits to people without a Social Security number upon a typical lower-income and middle-income family of four in Baltimore City?”

I asked our budget staff that question so that I can spread that word myself.

I’ll have the answer shortly.

Tax clinics to assist people in obtaining the money they’re entitled to will be funded under House Bill 421, which I introduced.

There will be clinics at the University of Baltimore Law School, the University of Maryland Law School, and the Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service.

Our job doesn’t end when the bill is passed.

Avoid a conference committee. 

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If a House bill is amended by the Senate, the House must agree to those changes or try to resolve the differences in a conference committee with three members from each house.

Same for Senate bills improved by the House.

But a conference committees is an opportunity for mischief.

It’s the last chance for your opponents to slip in a word or phrase that guts your bill.

What can you do to avoid this fate?

Reach agreement on amendments before your bill is heard in the other body.

Absent that compromise, minimize the differences between the two versions so that there’s less chance damage can be done.

The oil rig didn’t bark. 

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Sherlock Holmes solved a case because the victim’s dog didn’t bark.

That meant the perpetrator was someone known to the victim and his dog.

My committee heard House Bill 1078, which would give Maryland’s Attorney General the authority to seek damages from those businesses “whose tortious or otherwise unlawful conduct has contributed to climate change.”

Representatives of the farmers and the builders testified that the language should be clarified so that a lawsuit could not be filed against them.

The fossil fuel industry, however, did not testify today.

The oil rig didn’t bark.

(If this bill is enacted, I made a note to draft a bill for next session requiring that any financial recovery from these legal actions be used to address the harms resulting from climate change.)

  • My Key Issues:

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