Category: featured

Lilly and You

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

 

            A lawsuit brought by a Goodyear worker in Alabama will benefit some of my constituents and countless others across the country. 

            That was the theme of my remarks below, after receiving the Community Leadership Award last night from Shalom USA, a weekly radio program produced by two Baltimoreans, Jay Bernstein  and Larry Cohen. 

—-

       Several weeks ago, Jay emailed me, “Could you give a few lines on some of the things you’ve worked on recently of particular interest to the Jewish community?”

       I sent him summaries of the legislation that he included in his very kind introduction, but I forgot to mention Lilly Ledbetter. 

       Who is she? 

        Lilly Ledbetter was a supervisor at Goodyear Tire and Rubber’s plant in Gadsden, Alabama, from 1979 until her retirement in 1998.  She went to court because she was being paid $3,727 per month while her lowest paid male counterpart was receiving $4,286 and the highest, $5,236.

        The trial court ruled that she had been discriminated against.  The Supreme Court, however, found that she had waited too long.  Because she had not filed a claim within 180 days of the first illegal act, she lost her case and could not recover any damages.  

       Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg took the unusual step of reading from her dissent in open court.  She concluded, “Once again, the ball is in Congress’ court. As in 1991, the Legislature may act to correct this Court’s parsimonious reading of Title VII.”

       In Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an “unlawful employment practice” means discrimination “against any individual with respect to his compensation … because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 

       The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amended Title VII to give a day in court for employees like her, who become aware that they have been denied fair pay months or years after the initial discriminatory pay check. 

       It was the first bill passed by the Congress and signed into law by President Obama.   To guarantee that a Maryland court could not interpret our civil rights law to deny someone a day in court, I successfully sponsored our Ledbetter bill.

       A Jew who has been denied fair pay will benefit from these laws.  So will a member of another minority faith, as well as an individual in one of the law’s other protected categories.

       Fortunately, we live in a country that recognizes the ongoing need to protect those who have been historically discriminated against – in the workplace, in the housing market, and in the voting booth.

       We don’t always prevail – in the legislature or in the courts.  Lilly Ledbetter was not compensated but others will because of her – people in our community and others like us.

 —-

             Jay Bernstein and I were thinking along similar lines.  In introducing me, he did not limit himself to my legislation of particular interest to the Jewish community. 

             He concluded by discussing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the law that Lilly Ledbetter changed and Lyndon Johnson was advised he shouldn’t waste his political capital on because he couldn’t pass it. 

             “What the hell is the presidency for?” Johnson replied.

Going to Bat

| 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.

Two Presidents on the Fourth

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My Fourth of July was bookended by two Presidents. 

 Once again, I had the honor of reading from the Declaration of Independence at the start of the Roland Park Parade.  Thomas Jefferson was its author.    

 I read the first two paragraphs and the last paragraph, adhering to Jefferson’s literary advice: “I would have written a shorter letter but I didn’t have the time.”

 —-  

 Since the Orioles played in the afternoon, my channel surfing took me to CSpan last night.     

 Robert Caro, the Lyndon Johnson biographer, spoke of LBJ’s “transferring passion to government action.”

 “Remind me of that when necessary,” I wrote two people I work with in Annapolis.

Identifying Voter Suppression

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 “A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth – some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say,” according to journalist Michael Kinsley.

 A recent example from Mike Turzai, the Republican majority leader in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives:

 “Voter ID…[will] allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”

 Preventing voter fraud has been the stated reason for requiring voters to display a government-issued ID if they want to cast a ballot on Election Day.

 The fraud is on you, if you’re one of the millions of Americans who don’t have IDs – predominantly the elderly, college students, and the poor.   

 Voter ID laws are a cousin to voter suppression efforts. 

 In Maryland, we have a long history of such attempts to deny the franchise:

 Voting machines didn’t work in African-American precincts in the 60’s and 70’s.

 More recently, flyers urged people to vote on the wrong date and implied that you couldn’t vote if you owed rent or child support. 

 That’s why the General Assembly adopted legislation introduced by Senator Lisa Gladden and me to make it a crime to “influence or attempt to influence a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls to cast a vote through the use of force, fraud, threat, menace, intimidation, bribery, reward, or offer of reward.” 

 This is the law that both Paul Schurick and Julius Henson violated with their Election Day 2010 robocalls that urged voters to “relax,” implying that Governor O’Malley had been successful and there was no need to vote.

 Some have said that this statute violates the First Amendment. 

 However, there are precedents for such a limit on political speech.  Statements known by the speaker to be false are afforded a lower level of First Amendment protection and securing the right to vote freely and effectively is a compelling governmental interest.

 Maryland has taken appropriate and constitutional steps to prevent the diminution of our powerful and fundamental right of American citizenship – the right to vote.

Next Time in Jerusalem (June 16)

| by delsandy | featured, Sandy's Israel Diary - June 2012 | No Comments
I have a new place to go on my next trip here. 
 
We met with a group of students who are doing public service for a year.
 
The Americans before they go to college, the Israelis before they go to the army.
 
One told us about going to his brother’s Bar Mitzvah at the Wall.
 
More precisely, at the southwestern corner of the foundation walls for the Temple Mount, near Robinson’s Arch.
 
Men and women can pray together there. 
 
“It was like discovering it for the first time,” he said.  “It was really personal.”
 
Next time, I will be there.

Family Ties (June15)

| by delsandy | featured, Sandy's Israel Diary - June 2012 | No Comments

So I walk into this Roman port city on the Mediterranean, Caesarea.

 And I see a teenager wearing a t-shirt that says “Baltimore Lacrosse.”

“Anyone here from Baltimore?” I ask.

Someone recognizes me.

We had worked the polls together at Fallstaff Middle School several elections ago.

Her son just had his Bar Mitzvah.

She is the sister of Katie Curran O’Malley.

Only in the Land of Israel.

Just before I leave, I ask a member of our group to take a picture of me.

I stand next to a statue without its head. My mother had done so more than 50 years ago.

I’m wearing the Coca Cola (in Hebrew) t-shirt that my twin niece and nephew, Rachel and Elliot, gave me when we came here to celebrate their Bar and Bat Mitzvah.

—

As we approach, the Rabin memorial in downtown Tel Aviv, our guide says, “When he was killed, five million Israelis felt like orphans.”

Side by side (June 14)

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Religions can exist side by side here, except when they don’t.

The remains of a synagogue and the home where Jesus lived when in the Galilee were discovered beside each other at Capernaum.

A 20th Century church was built above the church first built on the site of the latter.

In Nazareth, we visited the Catholic church marking the annunciation.  An Orthodox church is nearby.

At the Baha’i world center in Haifa, we learned that Baha’ullah, the man who declared himself God’s new prophet, was imprisoned by the British in Acre.

Decades later, so were eight members of the Irgun, Begin’s faction in pre-independence Israel.

We went to Baha’ullah’s tomb.  Members of the faith do not turn their backs on his remains.

Similarly, observant Jews do not turn their backs on the Western Wall.

We received a different message about religion from a pair of twenty-something Arab Christians at As Sennara newspaper.

“The solution to the mistreatment of Israel’s Arab citizens [those who live within Israel’s borders before the Six Day War in 1967] is a secular democratic society.”

Our professor said afterwards, “Even Ben Gurion, a secular Jew, was a passionate Jewish nationalist.”

No Israeli Prime Minisister will bargain away the country’s unique status as a homeland for the Jewish people – for those who move here by choice or to escape oppression.

But the necessity of striking the right balance between security and individual freedom remains.

Water and History

| by delsandy | featured, Sandy's Israel Diary - June 2012 | No Comments

Water is a precious commodity in this part of the world.

Access to the Sea of Galilee was the sticking point in Israel’s negotiations with Syria several years ago.

Yet, the exterior of the building housing the Dead Sea Scrolls is constantly showered with water, to lower the temperature and preserve the documents inside.

The scrolls, portions of the Bible written on sheepskin, are the “deed to the land,” an Israel Museum official told us.

Today, as we were touring the ruins of a Roman city at Beit Shean, we came across someone hosing down the remains of an arch.

“We try to give a longer life to these stones,” he told us.

 But this a also a region where every piece of land is “strategicized,” said one member of our gtroup.

History, archaeology, and religion abound.

Facts on the ground

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

I don’t think Prime Minister Netanyahu is reading this blog.

Nonetheless, yesterday he invoked former Prime Minister Begin’s “Simple and clear principle – there will not be a civil war.”

His statement to that effect, you may recall, greeted me at the Begin Center a few days ago.

The current Prime Minister was referring to a pending controversy over settlers at the Ulpana outpost.

The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that they are living there illegally.

Netanyahu hopes that invoking Begin will reduce the chances of a violent confrontation between Israeli police and residents of Ulpana.

Late this afternoon, we visited Ofra, a settlement that is not likely to be within the redrawn boundaries of Israel if there is a two-state solution.

I asked one resident what he would do if a court ruled that he must give up his home.

“There is ownership by the Jewish people that came before any deed to an Arab individual,” he responded.

The more facts there are on the ground – the more Israelis living in disputed areas in the West Bank, the more difficult a diplomatic solution will be.

We have heard that from several speakers, but none more directly than this.

Identifying Names and Lives

| by delsandy | featured, Sandy's Israel Diary - June 2012 | No Comments

“We’ve identified many of the people in this film,” stated our tour guide.

The people were about to be executed by a Nazi firing squad before falling into a shallow mass grave.

Approaching Yad Vashem, I wondered how my visit would be affected by the imminent disclosure of the records submitted by the French national railroad company regarding its transportation of Jews and other to the German border and their death.

I sponsored the bill requiring the company to digitize those records if it wanted to bid for the MARC commuter rail line.

Of these thousands of Jews, I learned today, most had sought refuge in France from German-occupied territories.

Hitler had the French surrender to Germany in the same railroad car where Kaiser Wilhelm’s generals had signed the armistice ending World War I, the war to end all wars.

“Our goal is to give all 6 million a name,” declared our guide at the conclusion of our tour.

“Thus far, we have done that for 4.1 million.”

My next time at Yad Vashem, more will be known about the names and lives of those who left for their death on trains from Paris and the Drancy internment camp.

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