They saved the best (and most important) comment for last.

 “Homeless kids must find food and shelter on their own, but it’s difficult for them to obtain health care,” I began my testimony.  “They need their parents’ consent, but they’re living on the street without them.”

 House Bill 32 would allow someone from 12-18 years old to consent to medical care if certified as homeless, abandoned, or a runaway by the director of a homeless services provider, a health care provider, or a licensed social worker.

 We hadn’t anticipated some of the questions from committee members:

 “What if the child is living in a homeless shelter with one or both of his parents?”

 “Why did you make 12 years old the cutoff?”

 The dysfunctional nature of many of these families and the unwillingness of these kids to deal with a government system that has failed them were concepts that our witnesses knew well but several committee members did not. 

 The hearing was drawing to a close. 

 My chief of staff whispered to me, “We should meet with our folks afterwards to discuss how to respond to the issues raised by the committee members.”

 As I started to respond, I heard the chairman say, “We’ll be working on this bill in the Public Health Subcommittee.”

 That’s a very positive sign. A chairman doesn’t ask a subcommittee to work on a bill unless he thinks it’s worthy. 

February 9

It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.

Harry Truman, John Wooden, and Earl Weaver said that.  (I knew Weaver had; Google told me about the others.)

Today I experienced that expression.

We were talking about the floor amendment that did serious damage to one of my bills a few years ago. 

Legislator X was “genuinely confused” about the amendment, commented one of my allies. 

I had never heard that expression before, but I understood it. 

 A legislator who committed to vote for your bill can support an amendment that does major damage and act as if he didn’t know the implications.  In that case, you’re being genuinely used. 

On the other hand, in the heat of debate, a member can truly be unaware of the effect of an amendment, especially if you don’t have a whip system – where designated members remind those sitting near them how to vote.

 Organization can trump genuine confusion.

February 7

An Absolute Majority

       Asking colleagues to co-sponsor the death penalty repeal bill during today’s floor session reminded me that co-sponsorship is the biggest waste of time in Annapolis – except when it isn’t. 

        In this instance, we can demonstrate that we have absolute majorities in both houses who are willing to sign on to the legislation and, more importantly, to vote for it – if given the chance. 

       We did not have 24 votes for repeal in the Senate two years ago when a weakening floor amendment was adopted.  We do now, after the election last November.  Then and now, we’ve had majority support in the House.

       Not everybody said yes.  One delegate was “not just yet” ready to sign on.  Nonetheless, that was progress from our last conversation on the issue.    

       What do you think I did when several delegates asked me to sponsor their bill right after agreeing to do just that for my legislation?  I said yes too. 

        Under normal circumstances, I might have declined.  However, if someone supports repeal, it’s unlikely that any bill they’re sponsoring is unpalatable to me.

        My focus was a lot narrower on another bill – the chair of the subcommittee that will consider my proposal.  The chair did cosponsor but said, “This doesn’t guarantee I’ll vote for it.”

        But it’s a leg up.

February 4

        For nearly 40 innings this past week, I needed to count to one, instead of 71 –  the votes needed to pass a bill in the House of Delegates.

        I’m a catcher.  If I put down one finger and the pitcher agrees, he will throw a fastball.  If he doesn’t like my pitch selection, I will put down two fingers for a curve ball and three for a slider.

         In the Fantasy Camp championship game yesterday, I caught eight innings.  Neither of my pitchers shook me off because he disagreed with my pitch selection. 

          We won, 8-7. 

          I didn’t reach base, nor did I tag a runner out at the plate in a crucial situation, as I had earlier in the week. 

            But it’s a team game, and my bobble head trophy is now displayed in my Annapolis office.         

            Speaking of sport, horse racing was the subject of the committee briefing today.

            Penn National has an ownership interest in two thoroughbred tracks, Pimlico and Laurel, and a harness track, Rosecroft, that it just bought in bankruptcy court. 

            Its principal business, however, is slots.

            So I asked this question of a witness:

               Can Penn National’s slots license be made contingent upon its performing certain acts as the holder of a racing license, such as running a minimum number of racing dates at Laurel and Pimlico?

            I also emailed the same question to the Attorney General’s Office.

 February 3

        We got to the heart of the matter today – taxes.

        Education, elections, gambling, and transportation are in our jurisdiction on the Ways and Means Committee.  But taxes are the most important and politically difficult decisions we make. 

         Briefings like today’s are informative; bill hearings are decisive. 

         Nonetheless, we began the discussion about revenues, with the participation of Speaker Busch. 

         For some advocates, it’s a question of how much money their proposal will raise.  As policymakers, our question is how much revenue do we need to educate our children, enhance our economy, and, in the words of Hubert Humphrey, care for those in the twilight of life, the elderly, and in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.

      —- 

           My diary next week will be from Florida.  I’m off to visit my mother and steal some strikes behind the plate at a baseball fantasy camp. 

           An audio slideshow from my trip to Israel is now at delsandy.com, thanks to my niece, Rachel.   (Go to Featured Video)

January 27

              I can’t recall the last time an action by the government of Italy affected one of my bills.

              The regulations for state executions, now under review by the legislature, require that sodium thiopental be used.  The lone American manufacturer of this drug has stopped manufacturing it, according to Saturday’s New York Times. 

            The company has an Italian plant, but the authorities there will not permit shipment of the drug if it is to be used to carry out a death penalty.

             After reading about this, I did what I often do.  I asked the Attorney General’s Office to do some research:  “Does the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services have this drug on hand and, if so, what is the expiration date for the drug?” 

             I wasn’t the only person making such an inquiry.  Late this afternoon, John Wagner of the Washington Post wrote that “any supply still on hand in Maryland — which last executed a prisoner in 2005 — has since expired, according to a corrections department spokesperson.”

            However this issue is resolved, I said to myself when I finished the Times story, it demonstrates yet again that the days of the death penalty are numbered.

               It’s good to be the person who spreads good news. 

               At a budget briefing, I sat next to a staffer who made very few such calls this week.  He did share some good news with me before the Governor told the rest of the group.  There’s $12.4 million in the budget for stem cell research, a $2 million increase.

                I later told the advocates who were our likely supporters on the budget subcommittees that will vote on this funding.   

               Now that I’m on the Ways and Means Committee, my focus won’t be the budget but the Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act, fondly known as the BRFA.

               It contains the changes in funding formulas for state aid to Baltimore City and the 23 counties, as well as subsidies  for the horseracing industry. 

 January 21, 2011

            Today’s Peace Corps is Teach For America.

            I’m prompted to write about the Peace Corps because of the passing of Sargent Shriver.  Under his leadership, idealistic Americans went to foreign countries to teach in classrooms and everywhere else in the communities where they lived.

            For the last 20 years, idealistic recent college grads have taught in the classrooms of underperforming schools in both urban and rural America.  There are currently 320 in Baltimore City. 

            One TFA alumnus took my Legislation class at the University of Maryland Law School two years ago.  This past summer, Bill Ferguson was elected to the State Senate from South Baltimore. 

            Bill and I decided that his policy knowledge and my political skills could produce some important education reforms.  We asked a group of advocates to offer their ideas.   Despite their years of advocacy, it was the first time they sat around the same table to strategize. 

            We’ve begun to show our bill drafts to the key players on K-12 education in Annapolis.  Better to address their concerns and gain their support now than to offer a host of amendments after our legislation is introduced. 

            I’m sure that Sargent Shriver saw Teach For America as a worthy offspring of the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty, which he also headed. 

            I’d like to think that he’d also find favor with what we’re trying to do on education.

 January 19

            If you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, don’t. 

            I brought the draft legislation to our power breakfast.  It would encourage the hiring of low-income individuals for certain construction projects.

            Every word in the bill was new because it would add a section to the law.

            And then the light went on.  (Perhaps it was the cholesterol intake.)

            I remembered that I had passed a law encouraging people doing business with the state to hire current and former welfare recipients.  With a little help from a friend, I found the language. 

            Now I’ll compare the existing law and how it’s been implemented to what we’re trying to accomplish

            I may be one of the most liberal members of the General Assembly, but when it comes to bill drafting, I’m very conservative. 

            If I can say that my proposal modifies existing law and builds on what is already state policy, that’s a big plus.

            One could also see this episode as evidence that after 28 years, I’m recycling the same ideas.  But let’s not go there.

January 17