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Doing this better

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Everyone knows that you need an appointment to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

One way to reduce the time and exasperation people spend trying to make that appointment: a single state sign on.

That was the testimony before my committee today of Dr. Gabe Kelen, Director of the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response.

The state’s website, however,  is a central hub, employing the locator and referral approach, responded acting Secretary of Health Dennis Schrader

I emailed Dr. Kelen, “Is ‘single state sign on’ a model that Maryland should implement to address the current pandemic?  Is it feasible to do so?  Is this a model that Maryland should be prepared to implement for future pandemics?”

This is how he concluded his response:  “Very complicated otherwise most states would have gotten it right by now.”

Soon after the hearing, I heard from a friend and constituent.

My wife had a 3:55 pm appointment at Baltimore City Community College today to get her first Covid vaccination. She received an email confirming the appointment yesterday. When we arrived in plenty of time at the site, we were turned away, told that they were only doing second shots

We did everything we were supposed to do and we were tossed aside.

Now, we have to apply all over again.

This just isn’t right.’

It drove home the urgency of doing this better.

The rules of the drama are the same wherever it’s staged.

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The legislative drama regarding President Biden’s stimulus bill has been played out before – in Washington, Annapolis, and every legislative body.

Frustrated and believing Democrats were being strung along, Mr. Obama in September 2009 summoned Mr. Grassley to the White House along with Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana [to discuss the Affordable Care Act]…

Mr. Obama recounted the scene in his new memoir, writing that he had pressed Mr. Grassley on whether, “if Max took every one of your latest suggestions, could you support the bill?” Mr. Grassley was hesitant. “Are there any changes — any at all — that would get us your vote?” Mr. Obama asked, drawing what he described as an awkward silence from the Republican senator.

“I guess not, Mr. President,” Mr. Grassley eventually responded.

As they plunge forward this year, Democrats say they do not want to find themselves in a similar position, working with Republicans only to come up short with an insufficient response that does not draw bipartisan support.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/politics/democrats-agenda-coronavirus-economy.html

Former Delegate Paul Weisengoff put it to me this way: “If your amendments get on the bill, you have to vote for the bill as well.”

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When you introduce legislation, you have to answer this question: “Why do we need this bill?”

Last week, I sent a colleague a newspaper article about an issue that directly related to a bill before his committee.

Today, he responded: “Would this be prevented under existing law?”

I’m working on a response – with the people who testified for my bill.

A First Time on a First Amendment Case

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I was prepared for today’s hearing, or so I thought.

The Consent of the Governed Act would severely limit the Governor’s power to act in an emergency.

I prepared a question for the bill’s sponsor, Delegate Cox, that compared his legislation to a recent Supreme Court case.

The court held that a New York regulation limiting the number of people who could attend a religious service violated the 1st Amendment protection of the free exercise of religion.

There are “less restrictive rules that could be adopted to minimize the risk to those attending religious services,”  the court held.

“As I read your bill,” I asked Delegate Cox, “it would not allow for the limitations on attendance at services that the court would permit.”

The delegate said I was misreading his bill.

That was mild, compared to what happened next.

Delegate Saab requested that someone’s written testimony be removed from the official record because it did not speak to the issues raised by the bill.

In my 30+ years as a legislator, I don’t recall anyone else making such a request.

As fate, and my chairman’s discretion, would have it, I was chairing today’s hearing.

I had to respond to this unique request.

“This testimony is exercising an individual’s First Amendment right to petition the government,” I replied  “I suggest that you ask the Attorney General’s Office if your request is permissible.”

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

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If the Godfather was a legislator, he might have put it this way: It helps to know what your opponents are thinking.

My first meeting today was about a bill of mine that will have its public hearing next week.

I will share the concerns raised this morning with someone who can respond with specific numbers.

My bill heard today would expand telehealth to school-based clinics.

In written testimony, Maryland Right to Life objected that abortions could be provided to school children.

However, that would not be permitted under the Medicaid program, the funding source for these clinics.

I decided to make this point when I testified, instead of responding if it had been raised by a legislator or lobbyist.

Doing it this way, I got to frame the issue.

 

Necessity is the mother of invention.  Invention can be the mother of resolution.

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My two bill hearings today made me aware of that.

House Bill 57 would make permanent certain emergency regulations from last year’s election.

Canvassing of mail-in or absentee ballots would begin after a certain number are received.

If a ballot is unsigned, a local board would be required to attempt to contact a voter to obtain his or her signature.

In addition, the State Board of Elections would be given the authority to require that an additional polling center be established in a county or Baltimore City if the absence of the center is discriminatory on the basis of race, color, religion, or disability.

Under current law, a landlord must meet certain lead safety standards before renting a property.

However, if the landlord seeks to evict a tenant, whether the property owner has a state-issued certificate of lead safety compliance is not “an issue of fact” in Housing Court.

For six years, I’ve introduced bills to change that.

A database system tracking compliance is scheduled to be in operation by October.

My legislation today, House Bill 49, was not opposed by the landlords.

It should pass.

If they can build it there (in Midtown Manhattan), we can build it at Park Heights and Belvedere

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They whistled at it, paraded in it, posed against it, and, for a few moments, forgot themselves. They came to instill civic pride in their kids and remind themselves of all that New York could be. And they left with the satisfaction that comes when your city does something monumental, and does it right.

With its soaring expanses of glass and light, the new Moynihan Train Hall, which rises behind the colonnades of the Beaux-Arts James A. Farley Building across from Penn Station, has achieved the near impossible: It has left New Yorkers, 10 months into a harrowing pandemic, feeling transported and inspired.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/arts/design/moynihan-train-hall.html

 

My next train trip to New York City won’t be until this summer, hopefully, to see the Orioles play the Yankees.

But my immediate reaction while reading this on Saturday was some day Baltimoreans will say this about Pimlico.

As fate would have it, I had two conversations today about this redevelopment.

On his last day in office, Mayor Jack Young signed the Community Compact to provide for input from the track’s neighbors on many of the decisions that will be made.

I discussed the logistics for the first meeting of this group with a neighborhood leader..

My 41st District colleague, Dalya Attar, and I discussed the non-racing uses on 40-50 acres of the site,, which will be developed by the Baltimore Development Corporation.  We learned of the prep work BDC needs to do

As the track announcer says, “The horses are at the starting gate.”

Next Steps

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“Call at your convenience to discuss next steps.”

That’s what I just texted Delegate Jared Solomon.

We had a hearing yesterday on our bill to require high school seniors to fill out the federal application for financial aid for post-secondary education.

Our goal: more students will become aware of the aid available to them.  Far too many are not.

The hearing went well.  Now we need to discuss next steps to get a favorable committee vote.

This morning, I attended a briefing on recommended improvements to a busy intersection in my district – Falls Road and Northern Parkway.

It’s near where I live, but I avoid this intersection when possible.

Next steps here are getting the improvements funded.

I don’t have much experience on transportation issues.

I’ll be consulting with legislators and budget staff who do.

“Enough of us have come together.”

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“Democracy has prevailed,” declared President Biden in his Inaugural Address.

He spoke of this “winter of peril and significant possibilities…We face an attack on democracy and truth.”

“In each of these moments” of peril during our history, the President continued, “enough of us have come together.”

There is great symbolism in the Inauguration taking place at the Capitol, instead of the White House.

This is where the President will return to ask that the Congress pass laws, provided “enough of us have come together.”

A majority on Capitol Hill for the Biden administration’s legislation will be fostered if there is a majority of the public as well.

Unlike the executive orders signed this afternoon, laws passed by the Congress cannot be undone by the signature of a new President.

—

The midnight judges appointed by President John Adams were the subject of the Supreme Court decision establishing judicial review of the constitutionality of actions taken by the executive and legislative branches.

Now there are the midnight pardons of President Trump.

 

 

The First Milestone

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Today was the first milestone of the session: the Bill Request Guarantee Date.

If I request that a bill be drafted today, I will be able to introduce it by the next deadline, which guarantees that my legislation will get a public hearing.

You can pass a bill that’s introduced later in the session, but you don’t want to create an unnecessary hurdle to clear.

All bill requests, however, are not created equal.

Mine today ranged from a complete draft of the bill, written by a lawyer who practices in the relevant area of law, to a mention of a tax credit in another state, with details to follow, courtesy of a reference librarian.

You may decide that a bill isn’t needed to achieve your objective.  Language added to the budget bill can get the job done.

I made one less request for that reason.

 

Decisions and Consequences

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“With Black ministers leading the way, Kennedy won an estimated 68 percent of the Black vote on Election Day, 7 percent higher than Adlai Stevenson’s showing in 1956.”

What did then Senator Kennedy do to earn those votes?

After a sit in at a department store in Atlanta, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was sentenced to serve his sentence in a prison in rural Georgia,

Coretta King feared for her husband’s life.

Both the Kennedy and Nixon campaigns were asked to intervene on Dr. King’s behalf.

Senator Kenned did.  Vice President Nixon did not.

That act was crucial to the Kennedy margin of victory in the Black community, as described in a review of a new book about the nine days between King’s sentence and Election Day.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/books/review/nine-days-martin-luther-king-jr-stephen-kendrick-paul-kendrick.html

Black support for Stevenson in 1956 was less than it was in 1952.

I know this because that’s how Robert Caro begins his account of Lyndon Johnson’s role in the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

If the Southern Democrats again filibustered to death a civil rights bill, the Black vote for the Republican nominee was expected to grow again.

But Majority Leader Johnson used his legislative skills to pass a bill, the first civil rights legislation enacted since Reconstruction.

It set the stage for Kennedy’s intervention on behalf of Dr. King.

In both instances, elected officials made decisions.

Their decisions had consequences.

  • My Key Issues:

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