Category: Sandy’s 2018 Legislative Diary

One thing you can’t negotiate

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

If you’re going to negotiate, make sure the other side is in the room where it happens.

If you reach a compromise with a neutral third party without your opponents at the table, they are certain to demand that your bill be weakened further.

I gave that advice to a liberal group I‘m working with.

Then I walked 30 feet to a group of conservative friends I’m working with on another issue and gave them the same advice.

But you can’t negotiate about the facts.

In his State of the State speech today, Governor Hogan declared, “The day after I was sworn in, we submitted the first balanced budget in a decade, which eliminated nearly all of the $5.1 billion dollar structural deficit which we inherited.”

The State Constitution requires that the budget be balanced. So does Wall Street.

The budget must be balanced when it is introduced by the Governor, when it is amended by either house of the General Assembly, and when it is finally adopted.

In the 36 years that I have served in Annapolis, the budget has always been balanced.

A Bill Hearing and a Constituent

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

We are here to pass bills.

My work starts long before the 90-day session begins.

A constituent comes to me with a problem.

I read about how another state is dealing with an issue.

I meet with an advocacy group to learn what they want to accomplish.

I make a bill drafting request.

Then I begin to strategize.

Who will support the bill? How do you mobilize them?

Who will oppose the bill? How do you address their concerns without compromising away your policy goals?

Yesterday was my first bill hearing of the session.

House Bill 246 would extend our hate crimes law to include a threat to commit a hate crime.

That was the case with the bomb threats to the two Jewish Community Centers in Baltimore last year.

There was a phone call that prompted the evacuation and closure of buildings, but not what our criminal law considers an attempt to commit a crime.

The hearing went well.

The bottom line: we need to answer the question that every bill sponsor must answer.

Why do we need this bill?

—

The bill hearing ended at 7:00.

I was late to my committee’s dinner, which was sponsored by a health care provider.

No one’s views on legislation are swayed by the lobbying that takes place at these events.

In reality, it’s an opportunity to get to know your fellow committee members better and to lobby them on your bills.

Since I was late, the open seat was not among my colleagues but our hosts.

One is a young professional. During the course of our conversation, he told me that his parents emigrated from the former Soviet Union.

His mother was pregnant and gave birth to him in Rome.

He grew up in Baltimore County. His 95-year old grandmother lives alone in the Glen neighborhood.

She’s a constituent.

Perhaps we do have common ground

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Poverty has the greatest influence on a child’s poor performance in school.

Senator Bill Ferguson said that at the Greater Baltimore Committee’s forum on the 2018 General Assembly session this morning.

I’m aware that poor children enter kindergarten with a much smaller vocabulary than middle class kids.

A Republican colleague at today’s forum put the blame elsewhere.

“Teenagers should delay parenthood until they are older,” she told the audience.

Yes, the children of such single parent families are far less likely to succeed in the classroom and elsewhere.

But how should we address the problem of teen parenthood?

One way, but not the only way, is family planning.

Over the years, I’ve supported greater access to contraceptives, as well as efforts to make it more likely that an absent father will play a positive role in his child’s life.

I’m going to ask my Republican colleague how she would address teenage parenthood.

I doubt that she supports family planning.

Nonetheless, perhaps we do have common ground.

Racing on the legislative track

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“The horses are on the track.”

That’s what the announcer says when the #1 horse steps on the track to begin the post parade.

Until this week, I thought there would be no bills this session regarding the future of the Preakness.

Phase Two of the study of Pimlico as a suitable location for the race and other development opportunities should be the focus of everyone’s attention.

Today, the Racing Commission authorized its share of the cost of the study, which now goes before the Stadium Authority.

But a bill has just been introduced to create a commission to undertake yet another study – about moving the race to Baltimore County.

I’ve made the argument that keeping the Preakness at Pimlico benefits not just the City of Baltimore but the Baltimore region as well.

This bill gives Baltimore City legislators an opportunity to join forces with our colleagues from Baltimore County in opposition to a bill that would move the race there.

I’ve also learned from a reliable source that there may be another bill this session regarding the Preakness.

This is what I told a Baltimore Sun reporter:

“I am pleased to see Phase Two finally move forward on a schedule that will still enable the 2019 General Assembly to address the issue and keep the Preakness where it belongs – at Pimlico.”

There are now horses on the track in Annapolis.

A newcomer to this process

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I’m a newcomer legislatively when it comes to health insurance.

My focus has been on the public health side – lead poisoning, family planning, and mental health.

However, with the changes to Obamacare in the federal tax bill and regulatory actions by the Trump administration, 240,000 Maryland families will likely become uninsured.

“Implications of Federal Health Insurance Policy for Maryland” was the topic of a briefing for my committee today.

What did this newcomer learn?

All parties must be involved in seeking a solution.

By parties, I mean all of the players in the health care system, most notably insurers.

I also mean Democratic and Republican parties.

A solution will require a revenue source.

A request that concentrates the mind

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Nothing concentrates the mind like a bill hearing.

I’ve shared that insight with you before.

Everyone who could be affected by your legislation has to come to the table.

The bill could pass, however unlikely that may appear to be.

Today was the deadline to request that a bill be drafted by our non-partisan professional staff and be guaranteed that your bill would get a public hearing.

A bill drafting request can serve the same purpose as the bill hearing itself.

I hope that one of the of the bills I requested today won’t need to be introduced.

If the executive branch already has the authority to do what my bill would make explicit, then there’s no need for my bill.

But knowing that a bill will be introduced may prompt the executive branch to see its way to doing voluntarily what my bill would require.

A study would be mandated by another bill I requested.

However, I will speak with the affected organizations to see if they can do the study voluntarily.

My final request of the day has to do with electronic cigarettes.

It would impose certain requirements on e-cigarettes that are already the law for tobacco products.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel; we can broaden the existing law.

When it comes to bill drafting, I can be very conservative.

Remembering Judge Dana Levitz

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I knew Judge Dana Levitz.

He testified in Annapolis.

He taught a class at the University of Baltimore Law School right after mine. We said hello to each other every week.

I learned from his obituary that Levitz had prosecuted Anthony Grandison for a brutal double murder in 1983.

Grandison was one of the five inmates on death row when Maryland repealed the death penalty in 2013.

“If there is anything cruel and unusual about the death penalty, it is the never-ending litigation with its constant ups and downs” that makes life emotionally difficult for victims, defendants, and their families, Levitz wrote in 1989.

Unless the appeal process is shortened, he stated, “I don’t believe it is in the public’s interest to continue to pretend that Maryland has a death penalty.”

That’s one of the several reasons we gave for ending capital punishment, offered most profoundly by the parents of a daughter who was murdered.

A legal batting average and a legal mandate

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Maryland’s Attorney General did not have the authority to sue the federal government without the Governor’s approval until we passed the Maryland Defense Act last year.

Since then, Brian Frosh has entered into twenty law suits – on federal actions affecting the environment, health care coverage, immigration, and other issues.

Every Republican member of my committee asked Frosh questions at today’s briefing.

None was favorable.

“What is your batting average for your lawsuits?”

“Aren’t these suits taking away from the other obligations of your office?”

I waited until the end to ask my questions.

Batting last, if you will, which was my position in the batting order most of the time.

“How do you decide whether to participate in a lawsuit?” I asked AG Frosh.

He then listed: Has a law been violated? What is our likelihood of success? Are there extremely important rights at stake? Will there be a big economic impact? How much time can we devote?

The law we passed last year mandated that the Governor include $1 million in the budget to fund five additional attorneys and staff for these legal actions.

Governor Hogan used $1 million of special funds from consumer protection recoveries that support the Attorney General’s Office to fund the mandate.

I will ask the Attorney General’s Office for written advice on the Governor’s action.

Mandating pre-K-12 spending and improving performance

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Two visions of education will be considered by the General Assembly this session and next year as well.

Last week, Governor Hogan declared that we needed the Office of the State Education Investigator General to investigate “complaints of unethical, unprofessional, or illegal conduct relating” in our public schools.

At his budget press conference yesterday, the governor stated, “The budget leaves nearly $1 billion in reserves and continues – for the fourth straight year – to fund K-12 education at an all-time record level.”

Our public schools were also the subject of a legislative hearing yesterday.

Brit Kirwan, the former Chancellor of the University System of Maryland, is now chairing the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education.

Before yesterday, if you had asked me what the Commission is studying, I would have told you, “the formula that determines how much money the state provides our 24 local school systems every year.”

It’s that formula, written into law, that mandated Governor Hogan’s record funding for the fourth straight year.

But that’s not all the Kirwan Commission is doing.

Our students are not performing well on assessments of what they’ve learned, Kirwan said.

We must better prepare teachers for the classroom and expand the number of high quality teachers and principals. Schools serving poorer students are underfunded.

Accountability will be crucial to persuading the public to bear these costs, he added.

In the public debate that we will have, will our focus be on improving our students’ performance or penalizing those administrators who have failed?

I’m hoping and betting on the former.

Focusing on Vaping

| by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Responding to constituent emails on your laptop can be a distraction during committee hearings.

But certain issues do catch your attention.

As when a Department of Health official testifies, “We are battling with vaping these days.”

Vaping is smoking electronic cigarettes.

There is a great deal of evidence that this is now the entry point of choice for many youth.

Preventing teenagers (and younger kids) from picking up the deadly habit of smoking cigarettes is one of the priorities of the state’s Cigarette Restitution Fund.

The Fund allocates the money Maryland receives from its share of the settlement from the lawsuit 48 states brought against the tobacco industry. Delegate Pete Rawlings and I were the lead sponsors of the bill that created the Fund.

Last year, the General Assembly passed HB 523, Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems and Vaping Liquid – Licensing. It became law without the Governor’s signature.

I’m now concentrating on what we should do next.

  • My Key Issues:

  • Pimlico and The Preakness
  • Our Neighborhoods
  • Pre-Kindergarten
  • Lead Paint Poisoning