Tag: Justice Ginsburg

Justice Ginsburg: An astute weather forecaster

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Voter suppression takes many forms.

Reducing the number of polling places is one of them.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 required approval  by the U.S. Justice Department before polling places could be closed in states with a history of voter suppression.

However, the Supreme Court struck down the pre-clearance provision in 2013.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

Justice Ginsburg was an astute weather forecaster.

More than a thousand polling places have been closed in states freed from this review.

There are concerns that this could happen here.

To prevent that, the House of Delegates adopted an amendment to House Bill 35 today, requiring that this year’s elections be “conducted at a total number of precinct polling places that were open for in-person voting on election day in the 2018 statewide general election.”

Throwing away your umbrella, Criminal behavior, and Police Accountability

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Protecting our right to vote has been one of my priorities for many years.  The fraudulent robo calls urging people to stay at home on Election Day in 2010 were prosecuted under a law that I wrote. Last year, I was at Northwestern Senior High for early voting and Election Day  The turnout was impressive, especially the number of new voters.

There were flaws in last year’s election as well.  I proposed that we adopt standards for the location of early voting centers.  Legislation was enacted.  Two of my ideas were included in House Bill 1047, which passed the House but not the Senate.

Voters would be advised that an absentee ballot mailed after the last pick-up on Election Day may not be postmarked in time for it to be counted.  If an absentee ballot needs to be corrected, a voter must be notified. For example, you would be given an opportunity to add your signature if you failed to sign the oath.

When the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg warned, in her dissent, that gutting a provision of that law “when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.”

We don’t know the fate of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Will the Supreme Court weaken another enforcement provision of this landmark law?  Will a Republican filibuster kill H.R. 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act?

If we have the wrong outcome in Washington, I will introduce legislation next year to provide those protections in Maryland, setting an example for other states by doing so.

 “That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it was behavior that we, the F.B.I., view as domestic terrorism. It’s got no place in our democracy.” That was the testimony of Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI, before a Congressional committee.

We must keep our democratic institutions and our religious institutions safe from these destructive acts.  Senator Shelly Hettleman and I introduced legislation to establish a Task Force on Preventing and Countering Domestic Terrorism.  The task force’s goal: to recommend policies and procedures to prevent and counter domestic terrorism in Maryland.

We cannot let actions remotely like what occurred in the assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 happen here.  The Maryland Emergency Management Agency was awarded a federal Homeland Security Grant.  With an amendment to the budget bill, Senator Hettleman and I required MEMA to convene a task force  “to determine how to effectively oppose domestic terrorism in Maryland including, but not limited to, countering online extremism while mindful of First Amendment rights.”

I served on the Speaker’s Workgroup on Police Accountability & Reform. Legislation was enacted requiring that all police officers in the State be equipped with and use body-worn cameras.  An officer may only use force that is necessary and proportional to prevent an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. A committee of civilians will review any complaint and investigation of misconduct against an officer.

I was actively involved in several of  the work group’s recommendations that are now law.  An officer must intervene if another officer is engaging in illegal or otherwise inappropriate conduct during an arrest.  Officers on the force and officer candidates will be screened for potential bias. An  officer who holds prejudicial views runs a grave risk of improper conduct.  The Maryland Police Officers Scholarship Program will  provide tuition assistance for students who want to be police officers or are current police officers attending a degree program.

I welcome your thoughts on what we accomplished at the 2021 legislative session and what we still need to do.

 

 

A Student of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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As a student at Columbia Law School, I took Professor Ginsburg’s class on Sex Discrimination and the Law.  She had already argued and won two cases before the Supreme Court.  Nonetheless, she was open to her students’ ideas and suggestions.

My concern for civil rights, fostered in me by my parents and my faith and nurtured at City College, prompted me to take her class. 

I told my mother that this weekend.

As a member of the House of Delegates, I successfully introduced the Lilly Ledbetter law, protecting a worker’s right to equal pay.  The bill  wrote into our law a dissent by Justice Ginsburg.  

I read this quote of Justice Ginsburg’s last night: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” 

I’ve tried to follow that advice. 

As a citizen, I mourn her passing and recommit myself to the principles of fairness and equity where Justice Ginsburg set an historic example. 

Fairness in the Workplace

| by delsandy | Sandy's Campaign Diary 2018 | No Comments

Should Maryland enact a pay equity law?

North Dakota, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Oregon are among the states that have done so.

I began the process of working on this issue after reading a newspaper article this weekend, headlined “How Boston Is Taking On the Gender Pay Gap.”

My first question: Do we need this bill in Maryland?

I emailed the General Assembly’s professional staff on Monday: “To what extent does the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act provide greater protections for employees than existing federal or Maryland law?”

If the reply indicates the additional protections are warranted, I’ll share it with advocacy groups to learn their interest in working on such legislation.

This would not be the first time I worked on fairness in the workplace.

I successfully introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2009, which expands workers’ opportunity to file a claim for unequal pay.

It was prompted by reading a court decision, a dissent writing by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

June 28 – From delivery to the neighborhoods

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2016 Legislative Diary | No Comments

My mother’s obstetrician was Dr, Alan Guttmacher. He would later become the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation.

When I first ran for the House of Delegates in 1983, I supported Medicaid funding of abortion.   One of the incumbents I defeated did not.

I was the House floor leader in 1991 when we passed the legislation making the principles of Roe v. Wade the law of Maryland.  The voters agreed, approving Senate Bill 162 on referendum, 62-38%.

Yesterday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote: “It is beyond rational belief that H. B. 2 [the Texas law at issue before the Supreme Court] could genuinely protect the health of women, and certain that the law ‘would simply make it more difficult for them to obtain abortions.’”

I celebrated with Planned Parenthood at the Golden West Café’s Happy Hour in Hampden.

Then I went to the Edgewood and Hilltop 4100 neighborhood meetings.

That’s an important part of a legislator’s job as well.

Concurring with Justice Ginsburg

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2015 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was interviewed on MSNBC last night.

MSNBC: You’ve been a champion of reproductive freedom. How does it feel when you look across the country and you see states passing restrictions that make it inaccessible, if not technically illegal?

Ginsburg: Inaccessible to poor women. It’s not true that it’s inaccessible to women of means and that’s the crying shame. We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion in this country. There are states – take the worst case, suppose Roe v. Wade is overruled – there will still be a number of states that will not go back to old ways.

             Maryland is one of those states.

If you’re older than 40, you’ll remember that in 1991 we passed a law adopting the holding of Roe v. Wade.  The next year, the voters approved it on referendum, 62-38%.

Consequently, if Roe is overruled, nothing will change in Maryland because that law will be on the books.

That other states did not follow our lead demonstrates how poorly organized liberals are.  Contrast that with the voter ID laws in more than a dozen red states.

I shared the Ginsburg quote with my colleagues who were the pro-choice floor leaders in 1991, as I was, (Senators Barbara Hoffman and Paula Hollinger and Delegate Larry LaMotte) and with the leading lobbyist for the bill.

“Saw the interview & it sounded like she was on the floor with us when we fought the good fight!” responded former Senator Hollinger.

“I glow with pride at what we were able to do together to secure and strengthen reproductive rights for all women in Maryland,” wrote Steven Rivelis, the lobbyist for Planned Parenthood.

For me, it’s the bill that will touch more lives than any other legislation I’ve worked on.

And I’m sending this blog to my niece, Rachel, because it’s her generation and the ones that follow that will benefit from knowing that we fought and won this good fight.

Protecting, not suppressing, our most sacred constitutional right

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

I agree with former Governor Robert Ehrlich that voting is “our most sacred constitutional right.”  (“Middle class value claims are a joke” http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-ehrlich-1019-20141018-column.html)

“The removal of ineligible names (mostly the deceased) disenfranchises nobody,” Mr, Ehrlich wrote.  No dispute there.

However, the so-called voter reforms that he and the Republican Party support are intended to make it more difficult for many citizens to exercise that sacred right.

These voter-ID laws require that an individual show a government-issued ID in order to cast a vote.  If you don’t own a car, you likely don’t have such an ID.  If you don’t own a car, you likely are poor or young and vote Democratic.

In Texas, for example, a concealed handgun will allow you to vote but not a student ID.

In Maryland, a voter can prove identity with a photo-ID from an employer, or a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter.

Justice Ginsburg, dissenting from the Supreme Court’s order allowing the Texas law to be enforced, declared, “The greatest threat to public confidence in elections in this case is the prospect of enforcing a purposefully discriminatory law, one that likely imposes an unconstitutional poll tax and risks denying the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of eligible voters.”

Voting is a sacred constitutional right.  It needs to be protected against partisan efforts to suppress its exercise.

My thanks and returning to my agenda

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

First, my thanks.

First and foremost, to the voters who cast their ballots for me.

In addition, to those of you who volunteered or contributed to my campaign, as well as those of you who have provided suggestions and advice on legislation over the years.

Now it’s time to return to my agenda for next year.

My three highest priorities are:

 

  1. Pre-kindergarten expansion We should provide full-day pre-k to all children whose parents want this valuable benefit. This is the logical next step after the competitive grant program we passed this year to stimulate innovation and expand access to high-quality early childhood education.

 

  1. Providing incentives for our best teachers to work with our low-income students The Nancy Grasmick Teacher Award repays a portion of the academic debt for these classroom leaders. We should consider expanding this program.

 

  1. Workplace fairness We need to hold supervisors and their employers responsible for their actions in the workplace. A supervisor is someone who has the authority to hire or fire employees, the Supreme Court found. Justice Ginsburg dissented, as she did in the Lilly Ledbetter case. A supervisor is also someone who can affect the employment of others and direct their work, she wrote.

 

I look forward to hearing from you about these and other issues.

In the home stretch

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Developments on three of my bills worthy of discussion…

My referendum petition bill was slowed when a senator offered a floor amendment.  It will be debated tomorrow.

I’ve been advised not to intervene.  The Senate committee that acted on my bill will handle it.

I thought my slots bill would be heard in the Senate Finance Committee.  I called a staffer there for advice.  It will go to the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee instead, he counseled.

I ran into the B&T chair at lunch and spoke to him about the bill.

“We’ve never done this before” asserted a lobbyist testifying before the subcommittee considering my legislation to adopt Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion regarding the definition of supervisor.

“Our Lilly Ledbetter law three years ago adopted another dissent by Justice Ginsburg,” I replied.

Afterwards, I remembered that we had reversed a Supreme Court case regarding pregnancy discrimination.  Our Attorney General’s Office confirmed my memory.

In 1977, we passed a law that the exclusion of pregnancy from a health plan was gender discrimination.

I’ve written a memo for the subcommittee members.

No tough pitches to hit

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A baseball scouting report can evaluate a hot high school prospect or an entire team.

My bill defining “supervisor” to reflect the realities of the workplace for sexual harassment cases had its public hearing today.  

It would adopt Justice Ginsburg’s reasoning when she dissented in a case this past June.  
Identical legislation will be heard in the Senate tomorrow.   
 I often take notes on the arguments made by the opponents of my bills. 
 This time, I emailed them to the Senate sponsor, Jamie Raskin:  
 Since Judicial Proceedings will hear your crossfile tomorrow, a scouting report on opponents'
arguments:
 Raised doubt about whether we have the authority to act "contrary" to Supreme Court decision;
 Will result in flood of litigation; and
 Creates liability for actions of wayward employees.
 Senator Raskin should not have much trouble hitting these arguments out of the park.

  • My Key Issues:

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