US Senator Ben Cardin began his legislative career as a member of the House of Delegates.
He was our guest during Friday’s floor session.
I was honored to speak to my colleagues about his career in Annapolis.
I felt as if I was also speaking directly to Ben.
My first speaker is with us today, Ben Cardin.
What we take for granted in terms of the way this house runs and how it operates were reforms when Ben Cardin instituted courtesy deadlines, legislative ethics, open meetings, recorded committee votes.
That was the exception, I believe, prior to Ben becoming speaker and the work he did with his predecessor.
Ben was elected in the historic redistricting class of 1966, the first class after the lines were redrawn after one person, one vote. The man he would succeed in the United States Senate, Paul Sarbanes, was also a member of that class.
Ben was the first speaker to appoint a woman, Helen Koss, and a Black, Larry Young, as chair of one of one of the standing committees.
He established the Spending Affordability Committee as a compromise. He was instrumental in the creation of the all-payer system, and I know that right now he’s standing up there and saying he’s going to correct any mistake that I make in what I say, because that’s the nature of our relationship.
One of Ben’s leaders, when I asked for his or her, two people, asked, for their thoughts, said: “Ben governed by consensus when that was possible, and when that was not possible without ranker.”
I would only add to that by saying that we were in the same district, then the 42nd district, Ben, Jim Campbell, and myself. And when we appeared at a community meeting Jim and I never worried that there would be no one among us who would know the answer to any question that constituent might raise, because Ben would always know the answer, and what he has done for this house, lives on through every subsequent Speaker.
Ben, thank you.
The video of my remarks and Ben’s is at https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/FloorActions/Media/house-13-?year=2024RS.
