Category: Uncategorized

A Change For the Better

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Very few bills pass without being amended.

At the same time, the fewer amendments your bill needs the better.

The committee may think you didn’t put enough thought into drafting the bill before you introduced it.

Two examples today:

A state law can preempt an area of law.  The statute prevents local governments from legislating on that specific topic.

To make sure that my bill is worded correctly to achieve my objective, I asked the Attorney General’s Office to review my draft.

Funding in low-income communities would be the highest priority for state programs that address clean energy and energy efficiency under a bill from last session that I’m reintroducing.

This would address the environmental neglect in these areas over decades.

The Biden-Harris Administration will be increasing such spending.  I’ve requested language to broaden this priority to include federal money that comes to Maryland.

We can do this if the federal law does not preempt a state from doing so.

 

 

Opening Day

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It’s the first day of the legislative session.

We hope it will be a 90-day session, pandemic and vaccines willing.

My day consisted of the routine and hopefully the profound.

My first virtual bill hearing is Friday.  Under the new rules, I had to submit my testimony by 3:00 today.  I met the deadline.

My 41st District colleague, Dalya Attar, was named today to the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Pimlico redevelopment plan.

We decided to meet tomorrow so that I could bring her up to date on the relevant issues.

And as has become the custom, I offered the prayer at the start of the session on Opening Day.

 

We are again welcomed to this historic State House by Thurgood Marshall and the students he represented in Brown v. Board of Education and Murray v. Pearson, which integrated the University of Maryland School of Law.

Since we last met, some words have new meanings.  Zoom, House Annex, Virtual Hearing.

Some phrases have not changed.  Propose, Persuade, Count to 71.  The Rule of Law.

Some issues have come to the forefront.  Our commitment to racial and economic justice.

As we work together to address these and other challenges in the days ahead, may we remain committed to the people who sent us here to make policy on their behalf.

Political and moral obligation

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Impeaching the president “will only divide our country more,” Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has declared.

President Trump “incited violence against the government of the United States,”  reads House Joint Resolution 755, when he spoke to the crowd of his supporters, when he cast unjustified doubt about the validity of the election for months beforehand, and when he tried to interfere with the counting of votes.

He should be impeached.

Whether Congressman McCarthy’s desire for unity is real or rhetorical will be tested during the first 100 Days of the Biden-Harris Administration.

Legislation to address the health and economic crisis facing the nation will be introduced and debated.

I hope that all the members of Congress will act in the best interests of the people they represent.

That is the political and moral obligation of all legislators.

The Occasion Demanded Respect

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How to respond to President Trump’s phone call with the Secretary of State of Georgia?

The voters of Georgia will speak on Tuesday.  The Republican members of Congress will speak the next day.

I am cautiously optimistic about the former, given the turnout numbers.  I have scant hope for the dozen Senators and 140+ House members, given their complicity over the last four years.

This thought also occurs to me: If President Trump is counting to 270, the number of votes needed in the Electoral College, did he make similar calls to officials in other states?

Is there anything I can do as a state legislator?

I’ve asked for legal advice: If an individual had such a conversation with an election official in Maryland, would it violate existing law?  If it would not, how could the law be strengthened, consistent with the First Amendment?

I have already introduced the Voters’ Rights Protection Act of 2021.

This bill would require public notice about a decision to open or close a polling location; if a signature is missing from an absentee ballot or an application for an absentee ballot, give a voter an opportunity to sign the document no later than the last day of canvass; and  provide that a ballot shall be considered to be returned timely, if it is postmarked the day after the election.

http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2021RS/bills/hb/hb0057F.pdf

Yesterday, before news broke about President Trump’s telephone call, I read about how two Alabamans exercised their right to vote in the first election after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

As a 6-year-old in Mobile, Ala., in 1976, [Georgia grassroots organizer Latosha] Brown went with her grandmother to vote at a library. Her grandmother, born in 1910 and prevented from voting much of her life, dressed in her Sunday best and carried her “good pocketbook,” because the occasion demanded respect. “It was the way she would hold my hand,” Brown said. “I knew it was special, but I was too young to know why. When she walked in that booth and closed the curtain, it was like it was her moment. She had complete agency.” Brown’s grandfather carried an old poll-tax receipt in his wallet — a reminder that such agency had not come easily and was not guaranteed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/29/magazine/georgia-senate-runoff-election.html

Hopefully, the new Congress will enact the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.  We can do our part in Maryland by enacting the Voters’ Rights Protection Act of 2021.

Gideon’s Trumpet in Housing Court

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I first became aware of the importance of being represented by a lawyer when I was 14 years old.

That’s when I read Gideon’s Trumpet, the book about Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court case that held a criminal defendant facing a jail sentence is entitled to a lawyer.

As a legislator, I’ve worked to extend this right to civil cases.  One of the people I’ve worked with is Steve Sachs, a former Attorney General of Maryland.  He argued for a civil Gideon before the Court of Appeals, but the court ruled otherwise, 4-3.

The Covid-19 pandemic has made the public aware of the harmful consequences of eviction.  Consequently, two fellow legislators and I will introduce a bill creating a right to counsel in housing court.

Our letter to the editor was published in today’s Baltimore Sun. 

 

“Lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries,” wrote Justice Hugo Black in Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to counsel in criminal cases.

We believe that the same can be said for housing court, where the landlord is almost always represented, but the tenant is not.

Eviction has a crippling effect on families in any time but especially in the midst of a public health emergency. Attorney General Brian Frosh has dramatically outlined the “recurring nightmare” of an eviction notice (”Attorney General: Maryland eviction process ‘unfair to tenants,’” Dec. 11).

Families in our community who are renters are extremely vulnerable. The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the inequities in our landlord-tenant system. Establishing a right to counsel would be a substantial gain for working families.

According to a recent study, tenants who are represented by legal counsel can avoid eviction in 92% of cases. In addition, counsel is estimated to save the state millions of dollars by preventing a displaced family’s reliance on a wide variety of public services.

The essential next step is to provide legal counsel for tenants threatened with eviction. That’s why we are introducing legislation in Annapolis next month to establish that basic protection.

Both parties, Justice Black declared, should stand “equal before the law.” Our legislation would enable them to do just that.

Shelly Hettleman, Wanika Fisher and Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg

The writers, all Democrats, represent, respectively, District 11 (Baltimore County) in the Maryland Senate and Districts 47B (Prince George’s County) and 41 (Baltimore) in the Maryland House of Delegates. Senator Hettleman and Delegate Fisher will be sponsoring legislation creating a right to counsel in eviction cases. Delegate Rosenberg will co-sponsor the House bill.

 

A Pimlico Community Compact

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More than a year ago, I began meeting with the neighborhoods on all sides of Pimlico Race Track.  The goal was to create an advisory group for redevelopment decisions that affected these diverse communities.

Our discussions went very well.  We called our written agreement a Community Compact.

In one of his last acts as Mayor, Jack Young announced the signing of the compact yesterday.

The Pimlico Community Advisory Board will consist of the neighborhood leaders that helped create the compact,  additional community leaders,  and an  employee of LifeBridge Health.

Mayor Young and officials of the Baltimore Development Corporation, Park Heights Renaissance, and the Maryland Stadium Authority signed the document.

The board will provide input on the Pimlico redevelopment to ensure that it aligns with community interests, such as job opportunities, safety, and housing.

When the Board meets, I won’t have a vote, but I’ll be in the room where it happens.

 

Paul Sarbanes

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For several years, Paul Sarbanes was a guest at the Legislation class that I co-teach at the University of Baltimore Law School.

He engaged the students in his methodical approach to legislation – from the Watergate impeachment inquiry to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting reform.

When the class ended, he would work the room – introducing himself to each student.

I also co-teach the Legislation class at the University of Maryland Law School.

Congressman John Sarbanes has spoken to the class every year since he was elected to the Congress and offered the same approach to legislating – from incentives for public service to health care reform.

 

SLAPP Happy

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It was if I had written the script.

A builder filed a $25 million lawsuit against the residents of the Clipper Mill community who objected to his proposed development.

This is a SLAPP suit.

A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation is designed to intimidate citizens from participating in a public process.  To keep them from exercising their First Amendment rights before a public body, in this instance the Baltimore City Planning Commission.

I introduced the bill that enables a judge to dismiss a SLAPP suit.  Instead of spending time and money in burdensome pre-trial hearings, a person or a community can ask a judge to find that they have been SLAPP’ed.  If the judge agrees, the suit is dismissed – much earlier than is normally the case.

The sticking point in this instance was the law’s requirement to prove that the SLAPP suit was brought in “bad faith.”

The judge found that it was.

As fate would have it, I am introducing a bill that would remove the “bad faith” requirement from the law.

This legislation passed the House of Delegates in March but was not acted upon by the Senate since we adjourned early.

I will ask one of the Clipper Mill residents who was SLAPPed to testify for the bill.

It’s always better to personalize the case for your bill.

Developer Larry Jennings loses his $25 million suit against Clipper Mill residents | Baltimore Brew

Something in Common with the Thurgood Marshall statues

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The statue of Thurgood Marshall will soon return to Lawyers Mall.

The mall is the gathering place for demonstrations in front of the State House in Annapolis.

For the last two years, it’s been torn up to replace the utility pipes underneath.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-lawyers-mall-20201127-nloktrxrhbhmfcwgce4wmcce6u-story.html)

The statue of Thurgood Marshall in Lawyers Mall was Delegate Pete Rawlings’ idea.

As chairman of the Appropriations Committee, he did not need to introduce a bond bill.

He persuaded Governor Schaefer to create a commission to study the idea.

Marshall argued cases in the Court of Appeals building when it was adjacent to the site.

Several of his clients were appealing death sentences.

Another client, Donald Gaines Murray, won the case that integrated the University of Maryland Law School.

There is a statue of Murray on Lawyers Mall, as there is of the school children in Brown v. Board of Education, which Marshall had argued.

I met Murray when I worked at WJZ-TV and produced a show on the 25th anniversary of the Brown decision.

Murray and I had something in common.

We both graduated from Amherst College.

I am reminded of that every time I pass his statue, on my way to and from the State House.

Still Learning

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I completed my 26th semester last night.

I’ve co-taught the Legislation class at the University of Maryland School of Law since 1995.

One of the guest speakers yesterday had taken the class when he was a student.

Senate President Bill Ferguson.

He discussed what he learned as a Teach for America civics teacher at Southwestern High School, located in what is now the district he represents in the General Assembly; his first meeting with Senate President Mike Miller, two days after his primary win over a seven-term incumbent; the lessons he learned from his committee chair, Senator Joan Carter Conway, his first term in Annapolis; and how he led the Senate this past year with his own style.

He also talked about the importance of personal relationships and of being honest with everyone you come in contact with.

Especially, I would add, after the last four years.

In my closing remarks to the class, I spoke of my love of the legislative process – of moving policy in the right direction or getting something done for a neighborhood in my district.

I concluded with this quote from a recent op-ed:

It’s a frustrating and destructive fight because both sides are partly right.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/16/opinion/leftists-moderates-democratic-party.html

How to find that middle ground, to make some progress towards the ultimate objective, is what I’m still learning.

  • My Key Issues:

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