You have no doubt heard of the public health crisis in Flint, Michigan.

After the city government changed its water source, 12 people lost their lives from an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, and as many as 12,000 children have been exposed to dangerous levels of lead. The city’s fetal death rate rose by an astounding 58 percent.

Why is this important to Maryland?

My years of work to reduce lead poisoning among our children sparked my initial interest in this matter, but it was the prosecution of high ranking officials in the Michigan government that prompted me to introduce House Bill 276.

They are alleged to have instructed state employees to ignore reports showing a spike in blood lead levels among children and deleted emails about the data.

Would similar misconduct be a crime in Maryland?

I asked State Prosecutor Emmet Davitt that question. “It is a crime,” he told me, “but we need to clarify which state officials are covered by the law.”

For example, any state official who takes an oath of office is already covered. That includes a police officer and a legislator.

HB 276 would add to the list those state employees whose jobs are in the executive or management service level of state government. These are people whose job “requires the exercise of discretion and independent judgment” or who serve at the level of deputy or assistant secretary.

Our bill hearing was today.

No one testified against HB 276, but we still need to convince the Judiciary Committee that we need this bill to protect the people of Maryland from misconduct by state officials.

I’m working on an amendment and a chart that would explain which state employees would be affected.