NAACP – Sandy Rosenberg

The Whole Loaf

February 18, 2021 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

When the Congress passed the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction, Roy Wilkins, the executive director of the NAACP, called the watered down legislation “a small crumb.”

This afternoon, Speaker Adrienne Jones and the House of Delegates leadership announced their support for ten measures addressing critical housing issues.

That’s the whole loaf.

The two issues in the housing package that are most important to me are:

A special fund to for rental assistance and legal aid programs; and
A means-tested right to counsel in specific landlord-tenant cases

The right that I became aware of as a high school student. that I testified in favor of last night, is now very likely to be enacted into law.

Taking a life

February 14, 2013February 14, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I also tell my students not to read their testimony but to speak from their head and heart instead.

Today, my committee heard the bill to repeal the death penalty.

Below is my written testimony.

I did not read it but did relate most of it.

This is a conscience vote.

When, if ever, should the state take the life of one of its citizens?

Each of us is being asked make a judgment.

This afternoon, and in the weeks to come, we will consider morality, theology, deterrence, race, DNA, victims, and general funds.

For myself, this is also a pragmatic vote.

We spend an inordinate amount of time and effort legislating and litigating the death penalty. The public would be better served if we expended the same effort on issues that have a greater impact on public safety – where people live, work, and play.

With capital punishment expunged from our Code, we can turn our attention to more pressing criminal justice issues.

Life without the possibility of parole is the appropriate sanction for those who commit heinous murders.

The time has come to end state-sanctioned executions in Maryland.

I urge a favorable report.

Before I spoke, Governor O’Malley testified as to the countries where the majority of executions take place today – Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, the People’s Republic of China, Yemen, and the United States.

I turned to Ben Jealous, President of the NAACP, “Apartheid South Africa used to be on the list.”

When I testified, I related that story.

January 10 – None of us is safe

January 10, 2012January 11, 2012 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

“None of us is safe as long as there is a death penalty,” declared Ben Jealous, President of the NAACP, at our death penalty repeal press conference.

(Kirk Bloodsworth had made that very clear to me at breakfast. An honorably discharged Marine with no criminal record, Kirk was sitting on Maryland’s death row for a murder he did not commit until DNA evidence freed him. )

“We have a very simple request,” I said to the reporters and advocates. “Give us a vote on repeal in both houses of the legislature. A majority of senators and delegates want to end the death penalty.”

I ran into an NAACP official later in the day. Ben Jealous will be returning to Annapolis to lobby for repeal.

That’s more important than an eloquent statement at a press conference.

Read the Baltimore Sun’s account of the press conference.