Two of my guiding principles for the legislative process: Co-sponsorship is the biggest waste of time in Annapolis. 2. You always want an advocate in the room when decisions are being made about your bill. The number of cosponsors on a bill has little impact on a committee’s decision making. But if your only co-sponsor …more >
I don’t take anything for granted. My reporter’s shield bill is on the agenda for the Criminal Law Subcommittee meeting tomorrow. Today I was counting votes. I asked a colleague if he would vote for the bill. “Yes,” he replied. “I voted for it last year when it failed.” “I knew that,” I responded, since …more >
I knew my bill was doomed. House Bill 148 would reduce the interest rate on unpaid taxes from 13% to 3 points above the prime rate. The problem: its cost. As introduced, $41 million in the next fiscal year; under the amendment that I offered to phase in the change, $9 million. Given the state’s …more >
You don’t want to leave this session without a supportive document in your hand, I advised the advocate. (If the analogy to “The Godfather” is unclear, please Google.) It can be a bill, language in the budget, or a letter from a committee chairman. What it does is put the legislature’s position on the record. …more >
The number of co-sponsors you have on the charter school bill will mean nothing compared to the amount of money the Governor ultimately commits to public education in his budget. I said that to advocates for his charter bill. I could have told the same thing to supporters of the tax credit for donations to …more >
At some point, the campaign will end and the governing will begin. Not today, however. Governor Hogan’s State of the State speech began with his greatest hits from the election. “40 consecutive tax hikes have taken an additional $10 billion out of the pockets of struggling Maryland families and small businesses. We’ve lost more …more >
I was at the witness table for more than two hours. My first two bill hearings of the session. I was joined by two journalists, a lawyer, and a lobbyist for the bill that would extend Maryland’s reporter’s shield law to subpoenas issued by another state. Many questions – the most important by the vice …more >
When I first ran for the House of Delegates in 1982, there was no Facebook or Twitter. Not even Kinko’s. There was and still is, however, the union bug. Kogan Printing, a union shop, had one. Kogan also had Mary Barban. Mary’s official title was sales manager. More importantly, she was the source of great …more >
A headline today reads: Fewer gimmicks in Hogan’s $40B budget; solves deficits for 3 years by capping spending hikes But at what cost? Does a $157 million cut to K-12 classes and community colleges put our education system at risk? Would that diminish our attractiveness to businesses that need an educated work force? Affect their …more >
A former Fox News reporter will be testifying for my bill. An example of the new bipartisan Annapolis? Not quite. Jana Winter reported on the mass shooting at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. A trial court judge ordered her to reveal the source for her story about a notebook that the gunman sent to his …more >
