welfare reform – Sandy Rosenberg

March 16 – We should meet next week

March 16, 2016 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2016 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“This is one of the policies that could help men,” Ron Haskins wrote me this past May.

–help finding jobs (perhaps as part of the child support program; many states are now running such programs)

When welfare reform passed the Congress, Ron was the majority (Republican) staff director of the House Ways and Means Committee.

I worked with him on Maryland’s law. I contacted him again last May.

We met with the leadership of the Maryland Department of Human Resources. After much work on DHR’s behalf, we had a bill.

House Bill 1502 would establish the Noncustodial Parent Employment Assistance Pilot Program to provide noncustodial parents with the resources necessary to make child support payments.

This pilot program would provide unemployed or underemployed noncustodial parents in Baltimore City with assistance in obtaining employment that enables them to meet their child support obligations.

This afternoon, the bill got a favorable report, unamended, from Judiciary.

I wrote DHR’s lobbyist, “We should meet next week to discuss our Senate strategy.”

Opening the right doors

March 24, 2015 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2015 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Every year, my goal is to introduce a bill addressing poverty or income inequality.

After reading about this idea in a speech by Congressman Paul Ryan last July, I emailed the Secretary of Human Resources, “To what extent do we now inform eligible individuals at intake or subsequent contacts with DHR of the various programs that could benefit them?”

I shared his response with Regan Vaughan, a lobbyist for Catholic Charities. She and other advocates for the poor suggested that we pursue a No Wrong Door pilot program. Individuals with a range of needs that cross departmental lines would be assisted by one case worker.

That idea became House Bill 66.

We had a good public hearing before the Appropriations Committee on February 3.

The chair of that committee and the chair of the relevant subcommittee sit near me on the House floor. The day after the hearing, I told both of them that either favorable action on my bill or language in the budget would be acceptable.

There is a provision in the budget bill requesting that the Department of Human Resources provide the General Assembly with an analysis of additional steps that could be taken to ensure that when Marylanders attempt to access the social safety net, they are able to access a full range of services from multiple entry points.

That report is due December 1.

I will work on this with DHR and the advocates between now and then.

All the bills fit to print

January 12, 2015 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2015 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I have been accused of introducing bills after reading an article in the New York Times.

“Don’t Look to States for New Ideas” is the headline for an op-ed in today’s paper.

Justice Brandeis called the states the laboratories of democracy. The minimum wage and welfare reform are prominent examples.

Ideas grown in the petri dish of a state legislature will no longer survive in the partisan hot house of Capitol Hill, contends the op-ed’s author, an economist with the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2010 to 2011.

I must confess, however. I’m already working on a bill prompted by a Times op-ed.

When welfare reform was enacted by the Congress in 1996, Ron Haskins was the Republican staff expert in the House Ways and Means Committee.

I met him then, when I served on a task force on welfare reform. He’s now at the Brookings Institution.

I read his Times op-ed, “Social Programs That Work,” two weeks ago. It discusses how several evidence-based policy initiatives were created and implemented by the Obama administration.

I’m working with Ron on legislation that would do the same for a pilot program in Maryland.

We will seek bipartisan support.

Welfare Reform 2.0

July 25, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“Expanding Opportunity in America” was the title of Congressman Paul Ryan’s speech yesterday.

Cong. Ryan is the chair of the House Budget Committee and was Mitt Romney’s running mate.

He would merge up to 11 anti-poverty programs into a single grant program.

I agree with some of his proposal but not all of it. http://paulryan.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=389081

It prompted me to ask the following:

To what extent does Maryland’s Department of Human Resources now inform eligible individuals at intake or subsequent contacts of the various programs that could benefit them? Under existing law, to what extent could that be done to a greater degree than it is now? Similarly, could incentives be provided for certain accomplishments under existing law?

We may need a change in federal law to accomplish these changes. Or we may have the authority to do so already.

I’ll let you know.

Going to Bat

July 11, 2012 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

It’s the time of year when I’m working on my legislative agenda for next winter and my Legislation Class syllabus for this fall.

My interest in welfare was piqued by a discussion in the American Prospect. Peter Edelman, who has been working on poverty issues since he was on Robert Kennedy’s Senate staff, spoke of America’s inability to have an objective, non-pejorative discussion of the intersection between the structural issues bearing on poverty and the question of individual responsibility.

I agree, but how do you translate those ideas into policy? So I emailed Professor Edelman: “Do you have any suggestions on what policies a state government could consider that address both aspects of this problem?”

He replied: We need to convince the conservatives that their calls for individual responsibility are appropriate but woefully inadequate if not accompanied by public policy and vice versa – liberals need to add individual responsibility to their agenda. Push the structural agenda – minimum wage, earned income tax credit, school reform, and affordable housing, but also push initiatives that will help build personal responsibility – home visiting by health care and social workers and programs that work with young people to help get them to go in the right direction.

My next step will be discussions with liberal coalitions – the Maryland Alliance for the Poor, Welfare Advocates, and the Maryland Interfaith Legislative Coalition.

I will keep you updated.

—

Some of my bills I don’t expect to pass. I introduce them to draw attention to an issue – to bring about progress on a neighborhood concern, in most instances, without my legislation becoming the law.

But none has had an impact as profound as the one I learned about from Barry Steelman’s lecture on “The Jewish Influence on Major League Baseball” at the Jewish Museum of Maryland this past Sunday.

The Red Sox needed the unanimous approval of the Boston City Council to play on Sundays in the 1940’s. Councilman Isadore Muchnick said he would oppose this exception to the Blue Laws unless the team had a tryout for Negro players.

One of the three prospects at Fenway Park on April 16, 1945 was Jackie Robinson. The Red Sox did not sign him, but Branch Rickey learned about the tryout and did.

I’ve added a book excerpt about the tryout to my Legislation Class syllabus at UB and UMd Law Schools, along with a bill of mine that did not pass but achieved its purpose.

November 16 – Sometimes you don’t need a bill but most times you do

November 21, 2011 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2011 Legislative Diary, Sandy's Legislative Diary | No Comments

“I didn’t need to talk about putting in a bill.”

I had just completed a meeting with top Department of Human Resources officials. The topic was a pilot program to involve the non-custodial or absent father in the pregnant mother’s application for public benefits.

I’m still interested in welfare reform, even though it’s been nine years since I chaired the Appropriations subcommittee that dealt with the issue.

Last month, I heard Joe Jones speak on the topic at Johns Hopkins. Joe is a national leader in helping low-income men fulfill their roles as fathers, emotionally and financially.

My goal at today’s meeting: the state government would agree to a pilot program where both the mother and the father would meet with a case worker to discuss how they can best raise their child. That includes child support payments, a healthy personal relationship, and seeking work.

Just before the meeting began, I said to Joe, “If things don’t go well, I’ll remind everyone that I can introduce legislation on this matter in January.”

The meeting went very well. Afterwards, I told Joe that I didn’t need to speak to a bill drafter.

—-

I was reminded earlier today that most times you do need a bill to achieve your objective.

I went to a hearing on Capitol Hill for the Holocaust Rail Justice Act. This legislation would allow Leo Bretholz and the other survivors who were transported to the Nazi death camps by the French national railroad (SNCF) to sue the company.

Leo had movingly testified for my bill requiring disclosure of SNCF’s records for these transports. He was just as eloquent today when speaking of the elderly woman who urged him to escape from the cattle car heading for Germany.

“I can still see her face and hear her voice today. She emboldened me.”

“This was not coercion by the Nazis,” he continued. “This was business for SNCF.”

Next Monday is the deadline for companies to submit their bids for running the MARC commuter rail line in Maryland. For SNCF’s American subsidiary to be eligible, it must digitize its records consistent with the law we passed.

October 12 – It should have been among the news fit to print

October 12, 2011 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2011 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I get ideas for bills from lots of places – community meetings, advocacy groups, newspapers and magazines.

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story that failed to mention a bill that I’ve already passed.

“States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare” read the front-page headline.

Legislation requiring applicants for welfare to take a test for drugs before they can receive assistance was introduced in 36 states this year.

We’ve been doing that in Maryland since 2002 – with one very big difference. If someone tests positive, they are offered drug treatment.

A Republican State Senator and my co-chair of the Joint Committee on Welfare Reform, Marty Madden, suggested that we do this. After the initial outcry, we worked with the public health community to devise procedures that make it more likely that an individual will acknowledge an addiction and successfully participate in treatment.

In a typical year, 39,020 people were screened; 1,782 were already in treatment; 1,760 were referred for treatment; and 222 were denied assistance because they didn’t comply.

I could write the Times about it, but it’s not likely to get published.

I’ll settle for spreading the word here and the satisfaction that in Maryland, we’re doing it the right way.

—-

My thanks to those of you who responded so positively to the idea of scholarships for high school students who commit to teaching in our public schools for four years.

We will be incorporating some of your ideas in the bill draft.

My Key Issues:

Tag: welfare reform