How did we ever do this without laptops?

I spent the afternoon floor session multi-tasking - updating myself on Senate action on my legislation, as well as our committee bills; checking my e-mail; and "watching" the Orioles home opener.

This evening, the second of my two bills still alive in the Senate passed at 9:03 pm., in plenty of time for the House to concur in the Senate amendments by midnight.

I was far less optimistic when 11:00 rolled around and the House had yet to vote on either bill. I became particlarly antsy when one delegate, who had not spoken on the floor all session, rose to ask several questions about a Senate bill.

But at 11:33, we enacted the Walter Sondheim Jr. Public Service Summer Internship Scholarship Program, and did the same for my bill to divert the mentally ill from jail at 11:43.

In prior years, I've had bills that passed - and failed, in the midnight hour, but I don't recall two going down to the wire in the same session.

In the final moments, the Speaker thanked all of the committee chairs and vice chairs. He called me the "conscience of the House of Delegates."

"I can live up to that compliment," I wrote a close friend earlier this morning, "because I've had such great teachers over my lifetime."

I hope you've enjoyed reading my diary these past 90 days. I've certainly enjoyed our dialogue.

There will be 14 hours til midnight when legislators are next gaveled into session on Monday, the last day of the session.

Four of my bills need favorable committee action in the other body. I will depend upon the kindness of senators.

Two bills - lead poisoning prevention and pensions for employees of small businesses, were voted out of the Senate Rules Committee today.

Whether my chance meeting with the Rules Committee chair yesterday evening made any difference, I'll never know. There will be hearings on both of the bills in their subject matter committees Monday at 1 pm.

My public service summer internship scholarship bill had its hearing last week, and I've been assured it will get voted to the Senate floor.

"I've been doing this for 25 years," I emailed a friend who's lobbying this legislation, "but I won't be able to relax until the vote is taken."

Lastly, the bill diverting the mentally ill from prison stays will be heard in the committee chaired by the sponsor of the companion Senate bill. The fate of this one I'm not worrying about.

If these bills get a favorable committee report without amendments, there will be plenty of time for them to be enacted, unless there's a filibuster on some other issue.

Any amendments would require concurrence by the House and result in my frequently checking with members and staff of the relevant committees to see if they've received the paperwork and voice voted their approval.

One of my bills died today for want of a vehicle. There was no Senate bill dealing with election law that my Voter's Rights Protection Act of 2007 could be amended onto and transport this legislation into a conference committee.

A summer study is promised; I looked to see who is on the relevant subcommittee.

It's 4:44 pm, and we have two long floor sessions ahead of us.

The reason: the Senate will not be in session on Saturday.

As a result, we're trying to pass all of the bills that have received favorable committee reports so that the Senate can act on them before the weekend.

The eminent domain legislation is one of those bills. The House committee hearing was earlier this afternoon, and the bill is expected to be on the House floor before our day ends.

Since I need to be ready for that debate, I'm blogging off now.

"Anybody can pass a good bill."

Why am I reminded of former Delegate Paul Weisengoff's wisdom about the superior skill necessary to pass a bad bill?

I've written frequently in this diary about the importance of meeting the crossover deadline of March 26 - to avoid my bills being delayed in the Rules Committee.

But now I'm working on eight bills that did not pass one house before that magic date.

Three I introduced: pensions for small business employees, diverting the mentally ill from prison, and preventing teen pregnancy;

One I'm a co-sponsor of: lead poisoning prevention;

Two are Senate crossfiles of my bills: eminent domain and an incentive for affordable housing; and

Two have become vehicles, via the amendment process, for public policy I hope to enact: voting rights and night racing at Pimlico.

There's a challenge to passing a bill when the 90 days of the session are telescoped into two weeks.

I've been meeting with delegates, senators, lobbyists and staffers. The focus of these discussions is getting the key members of the committees in both houses that are hearing these bills to sign off on the language in the legislation.

Agreement now means no conference committee later to resolve differences.

"Anybody can pass a bill that meets the crossover deadline."

No doubt Paul Weisengoff would agree.

On all other days, we do not discuss two of my bills in the Democratic Caucus.

The first was my eminent domain legislation - or more precisely, the Senate bill.

Del. McIntosh summarized the four years of legislative history, beginning with my sponsorship of a bill that created a task force to study the issue.

Then came Kelo, she told my colleagues, the Supreme Court's controversial decision that government can condemn someone's private property and then sell it to a private business to redevelop.

Last year, the chairwoman continued, an eminent domain bill got to the Senate floor. However, the Republicans introduced a constitutional amendment that would have put the issue on the November ballot - the same ballot that we would be on.

The bill was recommitted to committee.

Now that a bill has passed the Senate, the committee she chairs will be bringing this controversial issue to the House floor. Many Republican amendments are expected, Del. McIntosh concluded.

Then I was recognized.

The bill passed the Senate, 46-0, I began, hoping to reassure everyone that the Republican Senators had voted for the bill, minimizing the political risk for Democratic delegates voting the same way.

My second bill was price gouging.

Del. Dereck Davis, the committee chair for that legislation, said that negotiations among the interested parties had not produced a compromise.

Consequently, he was bringing the bill to a vote, hoping that the prospect of a favorable report would lead to consensus.

Even if a bill passes the House, it would be too late for the Senate to act, because no members of that body have been involved in the negotiations.

But it will give us a head start on the passing the bill next year.

(Just before I posted this entry on my blog, delsandy.com, I learned that the bill got an unfavorable report from the committee. So much for our head start next year.)

I discussed four of my bills with three different committee chairs today. The outcomes I will write about later this week.

I want to share with you instead the prayer I offered at the start of today's floor session, which began at 2 pm, instead of 8 pm, to accommodate those of us who will be joining our families for the Passover seder this evening.


Tonight we celebrate freedom.

Jews throughout the world will gather for the Seder – the retelling of our ancestors’ exodus from the bondage of Pharaoh.

In every generation, we are reminded, all should regard themselves as if they personally had gone out of Egypt.

Mah nishtanah hallalah hazeh

Why is this night different from all other nights? So asks the youngest child at tonight’s Seder table.

But it is not only tonight that we celebrate

It is not only our delivery from slavery that we recall.

The lessons of the Seder are universal.

We were strangers in the land of Egypt. We must set free those in bondage today.

And we conclude tonight’s seder as we did during the nearly two millennia of the Diaspora, even in the darkest hours of the Holocaust:

L’shanah Habahah Yerushalayim!

Next year in Jerusalem!

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Shakespeare was writing of love in "Romeo and Juliet," but his insight applies as well to the Republicans' floor amendments to the eminent domain bill in the Senate.

Senate Bill 3 is the companion bill to the legislation I introduced. It increases the compensation for private businesses and homeowners when state and local governments acquire their property by condemnation - against the owner's will.

The Republicans offered a floor amendment that would prohibit the use of eminent domain for urban renewal or business development.

The amendment failed, 17-30.

The Republicans then offered a second proposal. It replaced the bill's original title, "The Property Protection Act of 2007," with "Real Property - Condemnation - Procedures and Compensation."

It was adopted on a voice vote.

Next were four bills giving towns in Dorchester County condemnation authority for urban renewal.

Of the 17 Senators who had just supported the amendment denying that power to all jurisdictions, only seven voted no on these bills.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Ralph Waldo Emerson, not Shakespeare, wrote that.

Modest progress to report on several of my bills:

Public Service Summer Intern Scholarships: I met with a leading member of the committee that will hear the bill the next week.

The Senator was very supportive of the bill's objective - enabling students to enter public service. However, even the $225,000 fiscal note may have to be lowered.

Lead Poisoning Prevention: Amendments are being drafted, consistent with yesterday's discussion with the committee chair.

Price Gouging: Emails still flying back and forth. However, white smoke may not rise until a voting session of the Economic Matters Committee.

My bill to make it easier for small businesses to provide pensions for their employees by having the State pool participants' contributions: a favorable vote in subcommittee amending the bill by mandating a study.

Tonight is the Legislative Follies, and that's not a redundancy.

It's our annual chance to laugh at ourselves before the final week of hostage taking. (I delay your bill until you act favorably on my bill.)

No Top Ten list from me this year. I'll be a mere spear carrier in some of the skits.

So not much time to relate today's legislative progress before I go break a leg.

Eminent domain legislation, given up for dead last week, got a unanimous favorable vote in a Senate committee.

What made the difference: we dropped compensation for a business' income loss after being forced to move by the government.

Lead poisoning prevention bill will be considered by the House committee, with the changes that the advocates and the landlords have agreed upon and one provision that carries a very big stick that the property owners do not support.

And we're close to having white smoke on the price gouging bill.

All politics is local, but sometimes it's also national.

"Battle Over U.S. Attorneys Has Roots in '04 Election" reads the headline in politico.com.

The story describes a national effort by the Republicans to identify and challenge people they considered questionable voters.

Locally, Governor Ehrlich referred to Maryland's "rich history of voter fraud" and opposed or vetoed my bills and other legislation that would enhance access to the polls.

The article's theme: The failure of U.S. Attorneys to prosecute voter fraud as vigorously as the White House desired instigated the firings that have left Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a dead man walking.

The article is at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3287.html

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Locally, the day after crossover meant I began lobbying Senators on my legislation that's passed the House, helped arrange a meeting where the interested parties were told that tomorrow was the deadline for them to reach agreement on one of my bills, and learned of a subcommittee meeting for Thursday - the last opportunity for another bill to make its way to the House floor.

Fiscal notes - the projected cost of implementing legislation, were the focus of my efforts on two other bills.

You need an OK from higher ups in the House to move a bill to the floor with a fiscal note above $250,000.(The fiscal note ceiling in the Senate may be even lower, I was told.)

I learned that the affected agency now believes that it may be able to implement my legislation with existing resources. If so, no more fiscal note problem.

I should explain my bills to the Minority Leader more often.

The Voter's Rights Protection Act of 2007 passed the House, 133-1.

However, several hours after that vote, an Associated Press reporter told me that the Senate committee had stripped provisions dealing with false campaign literature from another bill before sending it to the Senate floor.

I told her that the language in my bill addressing this problem was different and constitutional, according to the Attorney General's Office.

I don't often call a reporter to try to get myself quoted in a story. It's better if the journalist wants to get your view than to seek publicity.

But in this instance, I wanted to let the Senate committee know that my bill was different than the one it had just amended.

And tomorrow's article is my first opportunity to do so.

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Two of my bills that have yet to be acted on were the subject of negotiations today. The committee chair was involved in the one where significant progress was made.

Lots of emails but little movement on the other. The committee chair agreed to my request to get involved tomorrow.

Delay today could be deadly. Your bill has to pass 2nd reader to be printed for 3rd reader on Monday - the crossover deadline.

In the Ehrlich years, Republican legislators had vigorously opposed election reform measures, and the Governor had wielded his veto pen. I did not want my Voters' Rights Protection Act of 2007 to be special ordered to later in the day - or far worse, until Monday.

The committee chair rose to explain the bill and its 12 amendments. It seemed interminable.

No way this bill was going to slip past the floor unnoticed - however desirous everyone was of going home on a Saturday afternoon.

The Minority Leader rose. "This bill would allow a polling place to stay open past the normal closing time. Who decides if this going to happen?"

"The local election board," I said to myself, as the subcommittee chair - on the phone with staff, tried to find the answer but failed. The Minority Leader asked for a Special Order until later in the day.

I went over to him and explained the extended hours provision. I also showed him the language making it illegal to distribute campaign literature knowing that its explicit endorsement of a candidate by a person or organization was false.

"This applies to both parties," said/questioned the Minority Leader. "Absolutely," I replied to his satisfaction.

Late in the afternoon, when my bill was again before the House, the Minority leader rose and said, "Mr. Speaker, my questions have been answered."

No opposition in the House on Monday's third reader vote will make it easier to pass the bill in the Senate.

"The key for today is the print shop," I said to our committee's lawyers early this morning.

When the House is in session, we can't consider a bill unless a hard copy is on the Speaker's rostrum. Same for any amendments.

In the house of origin, a bill is open to amendment only on 2nd reader. A bill must then pass 3rd reader in both houses in identical form by roll call vote, supported by a constitutional majority (1/2 of the members of the body, not of those present).

Most members use their laptops to read the bills when we're on the floor. Nonetheless, until the print shop does its work, we can't do ours.

So when the Speaker says, "The bill is in the possession of the House," he really means it.

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The Senate versions of my fair employment and Muslim burial bills passed 3rd reader in that body today. My public service scholarship and voting rights bills will be considered on 2nd reader in the House tomorrow.

So I turned my attention to some of my other bills, which deal with lead paint poisoning, price gouging, teen pregnancy prevention, and pensions for employees of small businesses.

"If they're not dead," I told another delegate at the end of the day, "they're still alive."

I never participated in another committee's work session on one of my bills - until today.

My Voter's Rights Protection Act of 2007 was on the voting list of the Education Subcommittee of the Ways and Means Committee. The chair, Delegate Jon Cardin, asked me to explain the legislation.

Since I submitted 12 amendments to the bill at the public hearing last month, I asked a staffer to print out a revised version of the bill, incorporating the changes made by those amendments.

It's much easier to explain one document than to ask my colleagues to read two - the bill, as introduced, and the amendements, simultaneously.

(Just before I sent this message, a subcommittee member informed me that they had given my bill, with all 12 amendments, a favorable report.)

An impasse on one issue is preventing another bill of mine from moving forward.

My suggestion: Why don't we make the disputed provision a carrot - an incentive, instead of a stick - a prohibition? We'll see if that breaks the deadlock.

There is a paupers' cemetery at what was once called the Hospital for the Negro Insane. Three years ago, I sponsored the bill that preserves that site when the hospital - renamed Crownsville after it was desegregated, closes.

I heard today from Janice Hayes-Williams, whose efforts to learn the names of the patients buried in those graves prompted my legislation.

The bureaucracy is giving the run around to a student seeking access to the cemetery to film a documentary on "The Negro Insane." I emailed the Secretary of Health right away.

My fair employment bill got a unanimous vote in the House committee. The business community opposed the bill at the public hearing but is no longer working against it. Or so it seems.

We'll know for sure tomorrow when the identical Senate bill is on third reader in that body.

The pro-life forces thought they would fare better in the Senate on an amendment eliminating Medicaid funding for abortion than they would have in the more liberal House.

They thought wrong. The amendment failed, 19-27.

That may create momentum for my bill to increase funding for programs that rdeuce the pregnancy rate among at-risk teenagers.

A committee chair doesn't have to worry that such a bill could be amended on the floor by pro-lifers. The votes aren't there.

I could not attend a Monday meeting to seek a compromise on my bill sanctioning price gouging after a natural disaster or other emergency.

The discussions are now continuing by email. No white smoke yet, however - virtual or otherwise.

We're drafting two sets of amendments to my bill that would enable small businesses to provide pensions for their employees through a menu of investment options offered by private-sector financial institutions.

One would address our lawyers' concerns about the State's liability. The other anticipates senators' concerns about enacting a complex piece of financial legislation after an abbreviated hearing in the last two weeks of the session.

Moving from the realm of expectations and promises to favorable action:

Two of my bills reforming antiquated and unfair ground rent laws passed the House today, with no votes in opposition. Currently, a homeowner can lose his property after failing to make a $24 payment.

Under my legislation, the holder of the ground rent can either seek a money judgment for the amount owed or place a lien on the property.

The House floor is the next stop for the Public Service Summer Internship Scholarship Program. Within the last 24 hours, the Education Subcommittee and then the full Ways and Means Committee have added amendments naming the program in memory of Walter Sondheim, Jr., Baltimore's extraordinary public citizen who recently died at age 98, and limiting eligibility to students attending college or graduate school in Maryland.

The Sondheim amendment was my idea; the local limitation was not.

Passage by the full House is a given. My attention has now turned to the Education Health and Environmental Affairs Committee - the bill's destination in the Senate.

My fair employment bill will be voted on by the Health and Governmnt Operations Committee tomorrow or the next day. The identical Senate bill received preliminary approval on 2nd reader this morning.

A study could build the case for funding my employment training program in next year's budget as well as would enactment of my bill. And we needed to convince only two members to say yes.

The two signatories of the letter requesting the study are the two chairs of the committees with jurisdiction over most of the legislation affecting the Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation. The letter is addressed to the Secretary of DLLR, Tom Perez.

----

The Baltimore Sun's editorial today, "Mr. O'Malley's opportunity," hits the nail of this session directly on the head: legislation is being put forward now with an eye to the legislative chess game that will resolve the state's structural deficit next fall or winter.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.cigtax20mar20,0,4561182.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines

"Don't even talk to me," grumbled one member of the leadership.

"It must be three weeks til sine die," observed a staffer, referring to the last day of the session.

"No," I replied, "It's one week til cross over."

If House bills cross over to the Senate by 8 pm next Monday, they’ll avoid delay or demise in the Rules Committee.

I’ve been assured that over the next few days:

Two of my bills will be acceptably amended in subcommittees, with full committee approval following; and

A full committee vote will be taken on another bill, the subcommittee having already voted favorably on it.

With a lesser degree of certainty, I have good reason to believe that:

A Senate committee will move a bill to the floor, prompting the House committee to act in response on my legislation;

Committee staff is working on an amendment to one bill;

A revised fiscal note will move my bill off the hold list; and

A letter from the Attorney General's Office will address the lone concern expressed at the hearing on another bill.

----

The Senate counterpart of my bill to help the Orthodox Jewish women chained to their marriage by their husband's refusal to grant them a religious divorce failed last week.

We were unable to convince enough legislators - Jewish and non-Jewish, that Orthodox rabbis would not change their religious beliefs if the bill failed. Instead, it would harm these women - their plight not addressed.

At the outset, we thought it might take two years to repeal the death penalty.

Nonetheless, I was disappointed when I learned early this afternoon that the bill had failed in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

We expected that the committee would amend the bill to create a commission to study the death penalty but fell one vote short.

The Governor can create such a commission by executive order. I told the press that I hope he does.

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Sigmund Freud would have smiled.

Del. Don Dwyer is the author of the proposed amendment to the state constitution that would prohibit same-sex marriage. In his opening statement, he spoke of his uncle and the very sad life he led because of his "homosexual lifestyle."

I formulated this question for him in my head:

"If your uncle had been in a loving and monogamous relationship, why should the state deny him the benefits it provides to others by civil marriage because of his homosexual lifestyle?"

But when the chair recognized me, I began, "If your husband..."

After the laughter subsided, Del. Dwyer said that his uncle had been in many loving relationships - a fact that he had not mentioned before.

We now have a roll call vote on funding K-12 public education. That's how 102 Democratic delegates - and eight Republicans, will characterize it.

29 Republicans, on the other hand, will seek to portray it as a vote to reduce the growth in government spending and lessen the need for a tax increase next year.

The minority leader offered the only floor amendment to the budget bill today. It would have reduced spending by $683 million. The bulk of that cut would have been the $567 million increase mandated for education by the Thornton law.

An amendment can be decided by a voice vote. There's a recorded roll call only if at least five members request it. I was one of the Democrats primed to request a roll call, but the Republicans beat us to it.

Both parties want to use this vote in their soundbites.

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No amendment was offered on Medicaid-funded abortion. According to our whip count, we have a very comfortable pro-choice majority. Perhaps that's why no amendment was offered.

In scheduled meetings and chance encounters over the last 24 hours, I learned that...

Amendments to my public service summer internship scholarship program are being considered by the Education Subcommittee of Ways and Means. That's great news! It means the bill is on track to get a favorable report from the full committee.

One amendment would limit the scholarships to students attending college or grad school in Maryland. We wouldn't be able to lure some of our best students home for the summer and perhaps a career. But that's a fight to wage another day.

Prospects are also bright for my bill addressing Muslims' religious objections to performing embalmings. We had our first meeting on the Senate side.

Unanimous support for the amended bill from the industry and the regulators. And a favorable response from the member.

There may not be an amendment further restricting Medicaid funding for abortion. A leading pro-life delegate had agreed to tell me what amendments his group would be offering on Wednesday. He told me none.

A subsequent email from a pro-choice lobbyist shared with me her intelligence that one would indeed be offered.

A whip count will be taken. Trust but verify that you have the votes.

For my first 20 years in Annapolis, I served on the House Appropriations Committee.

The budget bill must pass. The state constitution requires it. That's not the case for any other piece of legislation.

What are the consequences of that unique status?

To pass any other bill, first you have to count to a majority of twelve in the committee to which the bill is referred, overcoming the chair's reluctance to take a controversial issue to the House floor, where its fate is uncertain. There you need 71 votes.

On the budget bill, however, if you can count to a majority of four in the subcommittee, the full committee will defer to the subcommittee, and the House floor will defer to the full committee.

You can't change the law with an amendment to the budget bill. However, you can start moving public policy in the direction you want it to go, building the consensus needed to count to 71.

The budget bill was on the House floor tonight, with two provisions that will further the policy objectives of legislation I introduced.

House Bill 570 would have created a task force to study providing incentives for teen parents receiving welfare benefits to stay in school and seek preventive health care for their children. One of my co-sponsors is the chair of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees welfare reform.

When I learned that HB 570 wouldn't get a public hearing until March 19, I asked my co-sponsor to add language to the budget bill virtually identical to that of our bill. As chair of the subcommittee, she had no trouble counting to four.

You may recall my bill to provide aftercare planning for people who've completed their substance abuse treatment. I concluded at the bill hearing that the best way to address this need would be in the budget bill.

I learned today that both the House and Senate budget committees have adopted the language needed for this study.

This time I spoke.

The bill would exempt the lethal injection procedure for executions from review by the General Assembly. Unlike the death penalty legislation we killed last week, it was sponsored by a member of the Judiciary Committee. So I expected that this time there would be debate.

I let Delegate McComas speak first so that I could respond to her argument. "If we don't pass this bill, the death penalty will, in effect, be repealed," she stated, "becaused the Governor hasn't submitted a lethal injection protocol for us to review."

"If we are going to kill someone, that needs heightened scrutiny," I responded. "Under this bill, it would get none."

Thirteen members voted for the unfavorable report, seven dissented, and one was absent. For the second time, we've demonstrated that we have the votes in the Judiciary Committee to repeal the death penalty.

Next week, we'll learn if that's also the case in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

Our weekly strategy meeting on the death penalty will be next Tuesday, right after session, at the offices of the Maryland Catholic Conference. I'll be late.

I'm going first to our meeting on Medicaid funding for abortion. The state budget will be on the House floor the next day. We need to strategize on an expected amendment limiting access to the procedure.

I'll be discreet when I arrive at my second meeting.

If we can agree on goodwill, we'll have a bill.

The issue is eminent domain, specifically the compensation that state or local government provides an individual when condemning that person's business or home.

Everyone agrees that we need to raise the existing limits on how much money can be provided for certain costs, such as relocation and re-establishment expenses. They haven't been updated for 30+ years.

Goodwill is the loss of business resulting from a forced move. We heard testimony that a liquor store in downtown Baltimore went out of business three years after it had to move around the corner from its location of several decades.

Five other states provide compensation for these costs. It was also recommended by the task force on business owner compensation that was created by legislation I sponsored three years ago. Our amendment would have the amount decided by the condemning agency, instead of a jury.

Nonetheless, local governments called it speculative and uncertain. But in an unsual way.

Demonstrating how close we may be to a compromise was the bad cop, good cop testimony of the two witnesses from the Maryland Association of Counties. The first criticized our goodwill provision, but the second extolled the other elements of the bill.

Peace is from from being at hand with the Republicans. The minority leader reminded the committee more than once that a vote for this bill would be a vote for allowing the government to take someone's private property for the benefit of another private company.

If we reach agreement with local governments, we will then have to frame this issue our way - helping the small business owner by increasing compensation.

Big Day was the subject heading of an email I sent a friend early this morning. The first of many big days as we approach the March 26 deadline for bills to pass the House and avoid delay in the Senate Rules Committee.

It's called cross over, not Passover, as I mistakenly said in a meeting earlier this week.

On my Muslim burial bill, I asked the newly elected Muslim delegate, Saqib Ali, to co-sponsor, but no one else. That way, the sponsor line read, "Rosenberg and Ali."

When the bill was on 2nd reader today, I looked at the electronic voting board in the House chamber and saw instead "Rosenberg et al."

Turns out 21 of the 24 members of the committee that heard our bill added themselves as co-sponsors. What's known as a pile-on amendment.

Ecumemism loves company.

Testifying on my Voters' Rights Protection Act of 2007, I quoted the unlikely pair of Senator Clinton and former Governor Ehrlich.

When I spoke of the Senator's reference to voter supression Maryland in Selma this weekend, more than one committee member nodded in recognition. I also reminded the delegates that the former Governor had vetoed my Voter's Rights Protection Act of 2005.

When he vetoed the early voting bill that year, he wrote, "Maryland has a rich history of voter fraud." More recently, I told the committee, we have a rich history of voter intimidation and deception.

This past November, misleading campaign literature was distributed in minority neighborhoods, implying that Republican candidates had received the support of prominent Democrats Kweisi Mfume and Jack B. Johnson, the Prince Georges County Executive. Senator Obama has introduced a bill that would criminalize such literature. Mine would make it a state crime.

19 more days til cross over; then next month in the Senate.

Don't take it for granted...

...That you're going to win (see yesterday's account of my failed budget language on stem cell research) or the other guy's going to lose.

"Despite strong backing by Miller, opponents say they are unconcerned"

That was the headline in today's Baltimore Sun about the Senate President's slots bill.

Granted, the President has acknowledged that his legislation won't pass this year, and slots opponents will vigorously lobby against next year's version.

But you should never pass up an opportunity to go on the record with your objections to a bill. Silence is not golden. It can be considered acquiescene or indifference.

That's why I emailed these concerns about the bill to interested parties so that they could be raised at today's hearing:

Slots license for Laurel or Pimlico revoked if Preakness moved outside state p. 33 (this should be Baltimore, not state)

Slots "may operate daily from 8am - 2 am." p. 47 (may is not must, but City could not regulate hours of operation)

5% of what isn't returned to slots players at Pimlico would go to Baltimore City for use in the communities in immediate proximity to track. p. 52, 56-59 (Immediate proximity not defined, no fiscal note yet - can't compare to estimated $13 million in House's slots bill '05, Local development council - appointed by Mayor, to be consulted before expenditure, master plan for development of site where slots located provided to local developmet council - but no review authority)

Maryland was mentioned at Selma yesterday, and it wasn't complimentary.

Rather than limit myself to sound bites of the Obama and Clinton speeches, I watched them in their entirety on CSpan.

Senator Obama spoke of the Moses generation that stood up to Pharaoh and the phalanx of Alabama state troopers but didn't get to the Promised Land. It was now the opportunity and responsibility of the Joshua generation to move forward.

The leading Democratic candidates were ensuring that this cause remained our cause, I said to myself. Shortly after Bloody Sunday in Selma, LBJ told the Congress, "Their cause is our cause."

Senator Clinton reminded her church audience of more recent denials of voting rights - in Florida, Ohio and Maryland. She mentioned the literature which urged people in Prince George's County and inner city Baltimore to vote on the wrong day - the Thursday after the election. Senator Gladden and I made that illegal in the Voter Rights Protection Act of 2005.

This Wednesday is the hearing on the Voter Rights Protection Act of 2007. It would make illegal the literature distributed last November which falsely listed endorsements of Republican candidates by prominent Democrats.

When I testify, I'll let the committee know Maryland was recognized in Selma.

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I didn't follow my own advice, and it made a difference.

I drafted language for the budget bill that would have the Stem Cell Research Commission assess the funding needed in future years for Maryland to remain a leader in this field.

I spoke to the subcommittee chairman about it, but no one else. He offered the language today. It failed.

There may still be a way to get the Commission to do this. If so, I'll count all of the noses.

We just took our first step towards repealing the death penalty in Maryland.

By a vote of 13-7, the Judiciary Committee killed a bill that would have added the murder of a victim or witness from another crime to the list of aggravating circumstances that a jury can consider in a death penalty case.

There was no debate. We knew we had the votes.

And those 13 members, plus one who abstained, will be the focus of our efforts to have twelve vote "aye" when the roll is called on my bill to repeal the death penalty.

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Yesterday, I asked the chairman of the Economic Matters Committee the status of my bill creating the Job Skills Advancement Training Program. Today, I got the answer.

A committee staffer called to say that only a pilot program could pass. I volunteered to draft the amendment. But not on my own. I discussed the outlines of our amendment with my job training expert, who said she would talk further with her expert.

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I also read the Education Funding Act of 2007 - the Senate President's slots bill. The provisions pertaining to slots at Pimlico Race Track were of particular interest.

For instance, the bill states that it is "exclusive in its effect." Translated, Baltimore City could not regulate any aspect of slots at Pimlico. That includes, but is not limited to, the hours and days of operation. Normally, if a state statute is silent, local government can act.

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

You didn't have to watch "Casablanca" recently, as I did on cable this weekend, to be reminded of Captain Renault's observation when you read this headline in today's Sun: "Miller brings slots back to the table".

Senate President Miller's support of slots is longstanding and well known, as is Speaker Busch's opposition.

Governor O'Malley also supports slots but not this session. He wants to make government more efficient, with the expected savings from State Stat, the computer analysis of government performance he brought from City Hall. That will bolster his case to the public: We are spending your money wisely but need more revenue to educate your children and provide health care for the uninsured.

The Speaker supports a $1.00 increase in the cigarette tax to extend health care coverage to the working poor. Delegate Maggie McIntosh, chair of the Environmental Matters Committee, spoke to Democrats this week about her Chesapeake Bay Green Fund.

I've written before about the jockeying among interest groups this session to get their issue moved to the front of the line. Same principle applies to slots and other revenue measures.

This could be the beginning of a beautiful legislative battle.

"There was a time when a judge had to be convinced that drug treatment was preferable to incarceration," stated Judge Charlotte Cooksey. "That day is long past."

The issue now is the long-term effectiveness of that treatment.

Judge Cooksey was testifying on my bill to require that individualized post-treatment plans be prepared for every person that a judge sends to substance abuse treatment, instead of jail.

We already require such planning for people who have been hospitalized for mental illness. I know because I helped write the law.

But today's hearing seemed like it was stalling. Regulations already require that such plans be provided for substance abusers but every one acknowledges that they are often observed in the breach.

"What difference would statute make vs. regulation?" I scribbled on my written testimony as I listened to those who followed me. "What is the appropriate follow-up to this hearing?"

If I was still the chair of the Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, it would be easy.

I'd ask our budget staff to draft committee narrative "asking" all of the relevant players to sit down this summer, discuss the flaws in the existing system, and propose needed changes.

Then, as the hearing closed, I heard these magic words from the chairman of the Health and Government Operations Committee, "The Public Health Subcommittee will consider this legislation at its next meeting."

A chairman doesn't ask his committee members to work on a bill unless he wants it to pass.

When your remaining issues are drafting and not substantive, you're in very good shape.

That's where we are after today's work session on the Muslim burial bill.

We need to clarify the amendment language in a handfull of instances. All of the substantive questions are resolved.

Afterwards, one of the participants told me that the funeral home industry had resisted any change to accommodate Muslim religious belief in past years.

The difference this time is due to three people, I responded.

Delegate Ali, my co-sponsor, is a Muslim. It's much harder to say no to someone you know, even more so if that someone has a vote.

I bring credibility and experience to the issue.

Finally and most importantly, the chairman has made it very clear that he wants us to compromise and has remained very involved to make sure that happens.

I took a Judiciary Committee vote tally list to the hearing on repeal of the death penalty.

I wanted to make notes on the questions asked by my fellow committee members. Over the next four hours, these statements/questions were a very good indication of how they're likely to vote or what concerns need to be answered to get their vote.

I've been asked by several reporters if we have the votes to pass the bill - in committee and on the floor. "We'll tell you that when the roll call vote is taken," I reply. "Not before."

I testified first. Governor O'Malley spoke next, the most visible and powerful evidence thus far of his support for repeal. No one asked either of us any questions.

This is how I concluded my brief remarks:

Speaking at the opening session of the South African Supreme Court, Nelson Mandela said, "The last time I was in a court room, it was to learn whether I would be sentenced to death."

The Super Max in Baltimore is not the Robben Island jail, where Mandela was imprisoned for 5 years.

There are no future Nobel Peace Prize winners on death row. But a society is judged by how it treats the least among us.

I urge a favorable report on this bill. We will cast no more important vote during our careers in public service.

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Positive developments today on two of my other bills.

My Muslim burial legislation will be amended to provide for an alternative license for morticians who choose not to perform embalmings. Before today's hearing, my co-sponsor, Delegate Ali, and I met with Delegate Hammen, the chair of the committee to which the bill is referred; a lobbyist for the funeral industry; and a high ranking official from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

After the alternative license was suggested as a possible compromise, Chairman Hammen asked all of us to meet again to draft the necessary language.

I spoke about my Public Service Summer Interns Scholarship bill with three of the seven members of the Education Subcommittee of Ways and Means. All three thought the hearing had gone very well, despite the late hour yesterday.

Meeting with all of the subcommittee members beforehand made a difference.

When hospital executives and members of the Service Employees International Union are seated at the same table, they're usually on opposite sides.

Not today. Both the Maryland Hospital Association and SEIU testified in support of my Job Skills Advancement Training Program.

Even more importantly, the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation supported the intent of my legislation in a written statement, noting that workers' skills have "a direct impact on Maryland's ability to attract and retain businesses." A very affirmative way to continue the conversation I began with DLLR Secretary Tom Perez on this issue last Friday. We now need to discuss how to find the public and private dollars to do more than just talk the talk on job training.

(Labor and the Chamber of Commerce returned to their accustomed corners on my second bill heard by the Economic Matters Committee. It would give state employees the ability to present an alternative to a proposed privatization of state services and guarantee that a private business awarded a contract provide its workers the same compensation as state employees doing the same work.)

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Terrific testimony from two alumni of the Governor's Summer Internship Program late this afternoon on my Public Service Summer Intern Scholarship bill. Both said that the summer job they had was crucial to their choice of a public service career.

But they testified at the end of five hours of hearings on 13 educatioon bills in the Ways and Means Committee, muting the impact of their personal experiences. It's now up to me to discuss my bill with the seven members of the Education Subcommittee.

It won't be my first conversation with them. I met with each one about this bill before today's hearing.

"The names have been changed to protect the innocent."

That voiceover at the conclusion of every episode of "Dragnet" becomes, in the legislative diary setting, "the names and the subject matter are omitted to protect the negotiators."

I was in a meeting today about one of my bills. Earlier this month, discussions began to try to reach a consensus among the affected parties.

"Would you support amending the bill to provide for a study of this issue?" I was asked. The issue was very important to us and very troublesome to others.

If these discussions are successful, I said to myself, a whole array of matters on this topic will be resolved by this legislation. There will be no longer be any incentive for the other folks to seek agreement on this specific issue.

"Not only will the horse be out of the barn door," I responded. "The entire stable will be gone."

Discussions on this matter will continue.

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The subject was stem cells.

I was meeting with a member of a budget committee about the Governor's proposed $10 million increase in funding for this research. I was joined by one of our most effective advocates in getting the bill passed last year, John Kellerman, who has Parkinson's. Unlike last year, a member of the Governor's staff was also there.

"When we're facing a huge structural deficit, how can we justify any increase in spending?" asked the legislator, who had voted for our bill creating the Stem Cell Research Commission last session. "Do any other states have money out the door for this research?"

I said I would ask our budget staff to find out whether other states had actually funded any grants.

I also tried to make the case that this would be an investment paying economic dividends - even in the short run, by keeping and attracting top flight scientists in Maryland. "We had $81 million in research proposals for the $15 million appropriated for the current year," I added. "We aren't meeting the demand for this research."

"I'm making the I want to get cured argument," said John Kellerman.

"That's the best argument I've heard," replied the object of our lobbying.

While reading the Sun's obituary of Walter Sondheim, Jr. early this morning, I was inspired to name my Public Service Summer Internship Scholarship Program in his memory.

"How lovely!" responded a fellow mentee of Walter's, who quickly added, "He would be mortified."

Walter would be in good company. My first successful bill to enable students to enter public service is a loan repayment program, named in memory of Janet Hoffman, Baltimore City's extraordinary fiscal expert and Annapolis lobbyist. Students receive help at the front end of their academic career if they commit to public service upon graduation under the William Donald Schaefer Scholarship Program.

This afternoon, I met with a high ranking Executive Branch official to discuss my bill to create the Job Skills Advancement Training Program. "This is the beginning of a conversation on this crucial topic," said this individual. Passage of HB 926 would be a very good way to continue that conversation, as would funding in the supplemental budget.

The tone of the conversation was not as positive when I discussed my Muslim burial bill with two representatives of the funeral industry. The bill would authorize a designee of a religious institution to handle a dead body in the performance of a religious funeral service.

The industry is concerned that this would open the door to allowing many others to handle a body without employing a licensed mortician. They do not object to another aspect of the bill, which would exempt an apprentice for a mortician's license from having to assist in at least 20 embalmings, if doing so would conflict with the individual's religious beliefs.

Hearings on both bills next week.

I was under water when I began writing the close to my testimony on repeal of the death penalty.

My (almost) daily swim makes me feel better physically and mentally. When my head really clears, I can count laps and think about legislation at the same time.

I can't Google in the pool, but I did recall my earlier research. Nelson Mandela began his remarks at the inauguration of the Constitutional Court of South Africa by saying, "The last time I appeared in court was to hear whether or not I was going to be sentenced to death."

What will follow I hope to commit to memory for Wednesday's bill hearing.

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Just before the adjournment of today's floor session, I got an email that Walter Sondheim, Jr. had died. I asked the Speaker for permission to note the passing of this extraordinary civic leader and mentor.

"Walter Sondheim was chairman of the Baltimore City School Board when Brown vs. the Board of Education was handed down. Our schools integrated that fall without the violence and rhetoric in other cities below the Mason-Dixon line largely because of his leadership," I told my colleagues.

As I write, I recall Walter's telling me that he went to see Mayor Thomas D'Alesando, Jr., advised him that the decision should be followed, and the Mayor concurred. Quietly and appropriately done.

When you introduce 33 bills, some will be heard early and some will be heard late.

Time is your enemy when the legislature meets for only 90 days. A late bill hearing gives you less time to clear all the hurdles in both houses. Your opponents get a greater opportunity to make mischief that you may not have time to undo.

A printed copy of the updated hearing schedule will be on our desks in the House chamber tomorrow at 10 a.m., but I accessed it online this afternoon.

Next week will be busy, to say the least. I have committee hearings Tuesday on my bills creating a public service summer internship scholarship, setting employee compensation standards when the state contracts with private businesses, and establishing a new job skills advancement program.

The next day is death penalty repeal and Muslim burial. Thursday is the "get" (Jewish divorce) bill and extending the Earned Income Tax Credit to non-custodial parents.

Most I already knew about but some I learned of a few hours ago.

I’ve been known to finish my written testimony the morning of a hearing, but you can't wait until then to pull together your witness list. That we'll have to do before the weekend.

For my bills given a March hearing date or still unscheduled, that's an incentive to sit down with the affected parties and see if we can reach a compromise before the bill hearing. That can also be done on bills heard today.

The advocates and the bureaucrats reached agreement on amendments to a bill Del. Hubbard and I co-sponsored that seeks to provide medicines and Medicaid coverage for the mentally ill when they are released from prison.

"Pick your spots."

That was the advice a committee chairman gave me at a reception a few weeks before I was first sworn in - 24 years ago.

I followed that advice as a freshman delegate and again today.

Legislation to reduce the number of Marylanders without health insurance was the focus of the Democratic Caucus meeting. The Children and Working Families Health Care Act of 2007 would provide Medicaid coverage for working poor adults and pay for it with a $1.00 increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes.

Some of that revenue, however, would go to smoking prevention efforts and substance abuse treatment. Since I have sponsored laws on both of those topics, I picked my spot and asked a question about how this money would be spent.

After the meeting, I walked to the State House with a freshman member of the committee that is reviewing this legislation. I suggested that he hone in on an aspect of the bill that was of greatest interest to him, as well as the formula for allocating the smoking prevention and substance abuse dollars to each county health department.

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"Always try to work off of a document you've drafted" is a piece of advice I received more recently.

Since my fair employment bill will be voted on by a subcommittee this Thursday, we drafted amendments in response to the concerns raised at the bill hearing. No guarantee that they will be adopted - in whole or in part, but they will be considered.

Late this afternoon, representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the State Board of Elections met in my office and reached tentative agreement on amendments to my Voters Rights Protection Act. It's better for them to be working off the same document at the bill hearing.

An essential part of the chess game that is the legislative process is anticipating what moves your opponent will make.

However, on repeal of the death penalty, organized opposition to our bill has yet to surface. Granted, our testimony at the public hearing will try to anticipate the toughest questions that legislators and others have raised since we introduced our legislation. We also expect the state's attorneys and police chiefs to testify in opposition.

But no one on the other side appears to be generating constituent mail or press coverage. When one of our arguments is that public support for the death penalty has diminished, that's helpful.

The lobbying efforts are also unequal on a bill my committee heard last week. House Bill 110 would allow an injured party to recover damages when partially at fault. The business community is joined by such white hats as hospitals and local government in opposing this change. I received a phone call about it from a prominent attorney.

On the other hand, no one expects to be hurt in an accident. So that makes it near impossible for the trial lawyers to generate grassroots support for HB 110.

Last and certainly least, there are the lobbyists who say their client is neutral on your bill but are quietly (and without being noticed, they hope) working against you.

Or as Chico Marx once said of Harpo, "He's honest, but you gotta watch him."

Before I was brought home from the hospital, my parents had decided to call me Sandy. I was the third Samuel of my generation.

Twenty five years later, when I was preparing to run for office for the first time, I asked a law school friend to file the legal papers changing my name to Samuel Isadore "Sandy" Rosenberg. I kept my paternal grandfather's name and added "Sandy." Since I always introduce myself to people as Sandy, voters wouldn't know who Samuel I. Rosenberg was.

S.I. Sandy Rosenberg has appeared on the ballot every four years since, without incident, until today.

It began with a message from a staffer for Senator E.J. Pipkin. He called to warn me about the hearing today for Senate Bill 90. It would prohibit having a candidate's nickname on the ballot, he said.

I read the bill. Only your "given name" could appear. I called the sponsor. She told me that the bill drafter had advised her that "given name" included a name that was legally changed. To be certain, I emailed my law school friend. Not so, he replied after some pro bono research. "Given name" means your name at birth. "Sandy" would not be on the ballot.

My friend emailed the sponsor his legal analysis. She wrote back asking me to have an amendment drafted to solve my problem.

I could have written you about my bill hearing today on the rule against perpetuities or discussed some of the 15 bills that I introduced today - before the 5 pm deadline to avoid the Rules Committee.

But as I told my staffers when "Sandy" was in jeopardy, "There is nothing more important than this."

"That was a VERY good hearing," I told our witnesses after it was all over.

House Bill 314 would allow people to sue in state court if their employer has violated Maryland's fair employment law. We are one of eight states that blocks the local courthouse door. Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi are among the others, I told the committee - at both the beginning and the end of my remarks.

I know this issue. So I didn't need to look at my written text when I testified.

"If you had the misfortune of going to law school," I declared, "you know that for every wrong, there is a remedy. That is not the case today for our constituents."

(Later in the day, I searched Lexis and found this great quote, which I hope to have the opportunity to use if our bill gets to the Senate. In his 1963 Message to Congress on Civil Rights, President Kennedy stated that the "venerable code of equity law commands 'for every wrong, a remedy.'")

Two of our other witnesses were more compelling than I was.

Delegate Kevin Kelly is a conservative Democrat from Western Maryland. He asked to testify on the bill after reading the summary of it in the House synopsis the day I introduced it.

He spoke of constituents who came to him with accounts of "egregious employment practices." Their only recourse is a six-hour round trip ride to Baltimore - if they sue in federal court or seek the limited relief available from an administrative hearing before the Maryland Commission on Human Relations.

LaShawn Jones was a correctional officer. She gave a very moving account of the sexual harassment she endured. When she reported it, it was ignored. The harassment escalated. Today was the first time she told her story publicly.

"I now realize why the Commission is not able to do more for my constituents," said one committee member.

The most important committee member, the chairman, concluded the hearing by saying that our bill would be considered by the Government Operations Subcommittee next week. Such a public declaration is often a very positive sign, but we won't take it for granted.

My first bill hearing of the session figured to be an easy one. I was reintroducing legislation that received unanimous support last April from the committee I vice-chair. It didn't pass, however, because time ran out on the last night of the session before the House of Delegates could vote on final passage.

House Bill 103 would require each law enforcement agency in Maryland to adopt written policies relating to eyewitness identification in compliance with standards set forth by the U.S. Department of Justice. The objective: reduce the number of erroneous convictions attributable to flawed witness ID procedures. Procedural challenges by defense attorneys would also decline if the police adhered to these guidelines.

Last year's bill sailed through the Judiciary Committee because it was a compromise agreed to by all parties - from police departments to public defenders. Nonetheless, when I looked through the written testimony submitted on my bill, three different law enforcement groups were opposed.

I checked the witness list to see if any of these groups would be testifying in person. They were not. (Ascending levels of opposition to a bill are demonstrated by written testimony, oral testimony at the bill hearing, a one-on-one meeting with a member, and a mass letter writing/email campaign.)

I walked to the public seating area to show these opposition statements to the witnesses who would be testifying with me. They had already seen them.

We should be prepared to respond to these objections if any of the committee members raise them, we decided, but if they don't ask, don't tell them.

We didn't. The only question was a softball, making the point that eyewitness identification is the most unreliable form of testimony in a criminal case.

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Earlier in the day, I had also prepared for committee members' questions. At our weekly strategy meeting on death penalty repeal, I discussed the most effective concerns legislators, constituents, and even radio talk show callers are raising. We agreed that we should try to refute them with our first panel of witnesses.

"Talk to all of them."

"Meet with all 18 members of the Baltimore City House delegation," I told Michael Sarbanes, the executive director of Citizens Planning and Housing Association. "Don't take anyone's vote for granted."

The subject: our bill that would authorize Baltimore City to grant a property tax credit to a developer who builds a residential complex that has market-rate units and affordable housing for the poor or working poor.

An ordinance before the City Council would define the specifics of this credit, one aspect of a broader CPHA agenda to increase the variety and supply of homes available to people at all wage levels in Baltimore. But that local law can't take effect unless our legislation is enacted.

The bill will be referred to the Ways ands Means Committee. However, since only one jurisdiction would be affected, the Committee will give great deference to the position of the City delegation.

Unlike Ways and Means - and most of the standing committees of the legislature, the City delegation does not refer a bill such as this to a subcommittee for review and recommendation. So all 18 members should be lobbied.

When your bill is referred to a standing committee and there's no local courtesy, you talk to all of the committee members as well, but you start with the members of the subcommittee that is likely to consider your legislation. Likely because the chair can decide not to send the bill to the smaller group - sometimes to your benefit and sometimes not. But always with the intent to achieve the result the Chair desires.

In contrast, my second meeting of the afternoon was with a group that received money in Governor Ehrlich's supplemental budget proposal last year. However, the Governor's people told them not to speak to any legislators about it.

So they're back again, still looking for the money the legislature cut from the Ehrlich "request" last year.

Wednesday, January 31 - Off the Plane, Hitting a Rope

I don't think I ever had 2 hits in 3 at bats in a Little League game.

Today, I did against big league pitching.

Davey Johnson, the local boy from Dundalk who made good for the Orioles in their magical 1989 season, was pitching. He threw soft toss as if it were still batting practice but held our team to two runs over nine innings. But it was just right for my bat speed. Two singles to left - both line drives, one of them a frozen rope.

Just off the plane, I was 13th and last in our lineup. Tomorrrow, I'll see where I am in the order and how I do when the pitches will be faster but perhaps not my bat speed.

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At dinner tonight, our skipper, Bob "Rocky" Johnson, a utility infielder for the 1966 Orioles, told us about "the largest unemployment check I ever received." It was his World Series share. The Birds had no pinch hitters, pinch runners, or defensive replacements during their four-game sweep of the Dodgers.


Thursday, February 1 - Do The Math

It's not often that you go 2 for 4 and see your batting average fall 95 points.

But I'll take a line single to right and a hard-hit one-hopper through the pitcher's legs any day. Especially when my team wins both games, one a laugher, the other a one-run victory with the tying run stranded at second.

The playoffs begin tomorrow. With our 4-3 record, we'll probably be seeded 4th in an 8-team field.


Friday, February 2 - A $500 Debt

My batting average didn't fall today because the rain drops did.

No baseball games but a great Q&A with Brooks, Earl, Boog and Palmer.

When asked about how he would manage today's players, Weaver noted that most of his players didn't go to college.

"I didn't," said Brooks.

"Neither did I," added Boog.

"I did go to college," noted Palmer.

"But you didn't graduate," responded Earl.

Another story, not surprisingly, involved Waever asnd Plmer.

"I never ordered my pitcher to throw at another hitter. If players were going to get hurt, I'd be losing the better ballplayers," said the former skipper.

"With one exception," Palmer reminded him. "Doc Ellis was pitching for the Yankees and hit one of our players. When our dugout yelled at him, he asked who wanted to be hit next. Reggie Jackson volunterered."

"So he hit Reggie flush in the cheek, sending him to the hospital and out of the lineup for two weeks. Earl turned to me and said, 'Hit the next batter.'"

"It was Elrod Hendricks. I wasn't going to plunk a former teammate. So I went after Mickey Rivers and got fined $500 by the American League."

"Earl, you owe me $500."

Finally, the first meeting between Palmer and Bobby Bonds:

"I could hit you," said Bonds to the now retired Palmer.

"Your father wore me out" was the response. "But he was a lot better player than you."

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We were rained out on Friday and Saturday. Our playoffs were postponed to the weekend of June 2 at Camden Yards.

Rain checks don't get any better than that..

Can I get a witness?

In this case, the leading staffer for the Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee when welfare reform was enacted by the Congress, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. He agreed to testify for my bill extending the Earned Income Tax Credit to non-custodial parents, which would be an incentive for men to pay their child support. He also asked if I could give him alternate dates.

I contacted a committee staffer to learn when the chair planned hearings, as several other bills have already been introduced on this topic. He shared with me the dates under consideration, which I promptly emailed to my witness.

My other calendar request dealt with the death penalty. I told our Judiciary Committee counsel the week we preferred for our bill hearing. The decision is ultimately the chairman’s.

Can I get my bill to the hopper in time?

Minutes before 5:00, David Conn, a lobbyist for the Baltimore Jewish Council, appeared at my door. He had finished getting co-sponsors on our bill that would benefit Jewish women who are “chained” to their ex-husbands because they will not grant them a religious divorce. She could have him swear under oath before a civil court - and at risk of perjury, that he had removed all religious obstacles to her remarriage.

Since I was about to leave for the airport, I hesitated. Then I realized that if I didn’t take the bill to the Clerk’s Office now, it wouldn’t get there until next Monday. And no one can put your bill in the hopper but you, the member.

I got to the Clerk’s Office in time.

And then to the airport in time for my flight to Orioles Fantasy Camp.

A lower bill number and an earlier bill hearing date are more important than lots of co-sponsors.

So I hope to introduce my bills providing scholarships for public service summer internships, preserving voting rights, and providing access to state courts for victims of job discrimination before my self-imposed deadline of the end of business tomorrow. But not without some false steps along the way.

The scholarship bill will be considered by the Education Subcommittee of Ways and Means. It's chair is Del. Nancy King. I asked my secretary to see if Delegate King could meet with me. The answer was yes.

I walked to the other end of our building only to meet the newly elected Delegate James King. "Are you on Ways and Means?" I asked. He is not and understood why I didn't need to take up his time.

A few hours later, I did meet with Del. King, the subcommittee chair. I told her that we already provided scholarships for people who make a commitment to enter public service and loan forgiveness for those who do so after graduation. My bill would extend that assistance to summer internships, which are often a vital first step to such a career.

She readily agreed to co-sponsor the bill. My only co-sponsor.

I decided to remove a controversial provision from my voting rights bill. I can still try to address the problem it seeks to remedy, but I need more time. I'll put it in the hopper tomorrow with a handful of co-sponsors.

My legislation to conform Maryland's fair employment statute to federal law and that of most other states, could not be found. The bill drafting office said I had it. I said I had returned I it to them to make revisions.

Turns out I had given it to the amendment office instead. The revised version was delivered to me on the House floor tonight. No harm, no foul.

Some early returns this week in the sweepstakes among interest groups - white and black hats alike, to get Governor O'Malley to take a leadership position on controversial issues.

The governor made himself the lead sponsor of the clean car legislation, which would adopt the California emission standards for automobiles sold in Maryland. Can't ask for more at this point.

A few hours after our death penalty repeal press conference, he told reporters that he would lobby for the bill's passage. The Governor’s support and persuasion are crucial. Now it's up to us to coordinate our efforts with his.

No slots, no Special. The Maryland Jockey Club announced that the Pimlico Special would not be run on Preakness Eve this May. With a $500,000 purse and no slots subsidy, the MJC said it couldn't afford it. Has definitely moved this issue from the back of the pack for now.

From this day forward, I shall no longer tinker with the machinery of death.

I cited Justice Harry Blackmun's statement as I began my prepared remarks at today's press conference on our bill to repeal the death penalty and impose instead the sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

We can not fix this system.

That's what I said extemporaneously. Whether it's botched executions, racial and class disparities in who is sentenced to death, or the very real prospect of the state's taking the life of an innocent person, we can not fix this system.

The time and money we spend litigating and legislating the death penalty, I continued, would be far better spent on deterring and punishing the crimes that affect far more people.

People should be safe where they work, where they play and where they sleep. That is a fundamental obligation of government. The death penalty does not make us safer in our everyday life.

Those remarks were made to a friendly crowd of supporters.

From 5-6 p.m., I was before a much different audience - the callers on talk radio.

The second half hour was more civil than the first. No more invective that I was "naive" or "full of crap."

However, there were two consistent and legitimate concerns expressed throughout the 60 minutes.

1. A sentence of life without the possibility of parole won't prevent lawyers from getting their clients back on the streets. I felt that I effectively responded by saying that this has never happened to prisoners under that sentence in Maryland or anywhere else.

2. We would be putting prison officers at risk because an inmate sentenced to life without the possibility of parole has nothing to lose by killing them. I said we needed to improve security for prison officers in those circumstances and cited a national survey of correctional workers who reported that lifers present fewer disciplinary problems than the general population.

I, and we, need to do a better job of answering that concern, however.

We must if we are to succeed when the vote is taken on our repeal legislation.

Here’s why I love my job.

At a candidates’ night this past summer, a constituent asked us our position on a bill providing for burials consistent with Islamic belief. None of us was aware of the legislation. (I later learned that it had died in a Senate committee and thus never came before the House of Delegates.)

I met with Abdul-Hamiyd Muhammad afterwards and promised to work with him after the election. We were then joined by Saqib Ali, a newly elected delegate and the first member of the Muslim faith to serve in the General Assembly.

The crux of the issue: Muslims wash the body in a certain manner and may not embalm. State law requires that an apprentice “assist in the embalming of at least 20 dead human bodies” before obtaining a mortician’s license. The challenge of solving a problem like this and forging a unique coalition to do so especially motivates me.

This afternoon we were joined by several other Muslims and reached agreement on the changes we needed to make to the bill draft. Over the years, I’ve worked on several bills to protect the exercise of religious belief.

This time, however, the sponsor line will read: Rosenberg and Ali.

I also spoke to the 2007 Maryland Stem Cell Research Summit. I began with what I have said on many other occasions: “No other issue I have worked on in my 24 years in the legislature touches more lives and gives people more hope than embryonic stem cell research.”

I then told this story for the first time: “Joe Hartzler, the lead prosecutor of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, has multiple sclerosis. He’s a college classmate of mine. If he comes to our 35th Reunion this June, it will be in a motorized wheelchair. Stem cell research holds the promise of his walking at our 45th.”

Joe is still an Assistant United States Attorney. I called him afterwards. We hadn’t spoken in ten years - since our 25th Reunion. He said he hoped to see me in June.

“Today's the deadline to make a bill request to the drafting office and be guaranteed that it will be back to me in time for the deadline to introduce a bill and be guaranteed a full hearing in a subject matter committee and not limbo in the Rules Committee,” I emailed someone this morning.

“Hope that doesn't sound like the contracts scene in The Marx Brothers’ A Night At The Opera.”

Or as Groucho might say, “The secret phrase today is bill request.” Not every detail is necessary but enough for the drafter to know where you’re headed. Some vignettes along my way to the 5:30 deadline.

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A friend with a new boss called. Last year, I had sponsored a bill for his old boss, but it didn’t pass. He had yet to ask his new boss if he wanted the bill reintroduced. “Can we have the legislation drafted in your name but you’ll put it in only if my new boss says OK?” he asked. “No problem,” I replied.

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“We miss you,” said an official of the Department of Human Resources. I realized he was leaving a briefing on welfare reform. “I’ll have some bills,” I responded.

A few hours earlier, I had transformed a memo I had requested from a staffer at the National Conference of State Legislatures into a bill request. It would create a task force to study whether we should provide financial incentives for teen parents to remain in school or obtain preventive health care.

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As the bewitching hour approached, I saw a veteran staffer in the hallway. “I hope to have a Senator crossfile my bill that you’ve drafted. Do I have to get the Senator’s name to you by 5:30?” I pleaded. “Don’t worry. That’s not an absolute deadline,” responded the drafter.

It’s good to be working with the Governor.

He will be an ally as we try to keep his $25 million appropriation for stem cell research in the budget. Last year, Governor Ehrlich proposed the same amount but spurned my offer to work with him on this issue.

Our efforts will focus on the two budget subcommittees that have jurisdiction over the Stem Cell Research Commission. We already have some insight into the views of the subcommittee members: the roll call last year on the stem cell research bill.

We should have the votes to defeat any proposed reduction or harmful restriction on the use of this money. “But we can't take it for granted,” I emailed a leading advocate. We will meet with each of the four senators and six delegates on the respective subcommittees - and the chairs of the full committees.

Is $25 million enough money to retain our best scientists and grow Maryland’s biotech industry? “A five-year, $200 million package would do the trick,” urged Baltimore Sun business columnist Jay Hancock yesterday.

My immediate reaction: we should ask the Stem Cell Research Commission to give the legislature its best judgment as to how much money should be allocated. Did I ask that a bill be drafted? Not in this instance. This can be accomplished with committee narrative in the budget bill.

Just before we went into session tonight, I told the Governor’s chief lobbyist of my plans.

“Welcome back to your house,” Governor O’Malley began his budget briefing to the legislature’s fiscal leaders this morning.

It has been a while. The last time we were invited to the Governor’s Mansion was the first year of the Ehrlich Administration.

The budget is the policy document of the State, I first learned 24 years ago. The Governor today called it “a moral document that expresses our priorities.”

It includes a $10 million increase in funding for stem cell research, which made my visit to the Mansion very worthwhile. Research proposals totaling $81 million have been submitted for the $15 million available this year. This afternoon, I asked the advocates to meet with me to strategize how to keep the $25 million in the Governor’s budget.

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“Let’s work together to solve the City’s problems,” declared Mayor Sheila Dixon several times in her Inaugural Address. The currently long list of challengers to her bears the burden of persuading the electorate that they will do a better job than the incumbent. Mayor Dixon’s performance during the transition period has strengthened her status. Now she must govern.

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Riding back to Baltimore, I read these two items in the New York Times. (Riding, not driving) Since 1976, Texas has executed 380 people. Yesterday, the 12th person since 2001 to have a conviction overturned in Dallas County because of DNA evidence was set free.

Next week is our press conference for the introduction of legislation to repeal the death penalty.

I heard Robert Frost at the first Inauguration I attended, President Kennedy’s. We were still in the family station wagon, headed from snowbound Baltimore to our parade seats opposite the National Archives.

Frost was referenced at today’s Inauguration. Anthony Brown took the “road less traveled” in choosing a career in public service, said former Attorney General Stephen Sachs when he introduced the Lieutenant Governor. He could have stayed at a prominent DC law firm with Sachs but chose a career in public service instead.

I took the same career path and that, wrote Frost, has made all the difference.

“Finding common ground to advance the common good” was the rhetorical theme of Governor Martin O’Malley’s address. Implicit was his predecessor’s failure to seek compromise over the last four years.

All was not ceremonial today. I discussed my Voters Rights Protection Act of 2007 with the chairman of the Election Laws Subcommittee, Delegate Jon Cardin. I plan on meeting with the other four members before the bill is introduced.


P.S. At the Inaugural Party in Baltimore tonight: Loads of people and long lines for food, which, to paraphrase Woody Allen, was very good, but the portions were so small. I stopped at a Subway before driving back to Annapolis.

My house was picketed when Senator Madden and I first proposed that welfare recipients be tested for drug use. (We now spend $5.6 million annually to provide referrals for treatment.)

There were no protests, however, when I introduced legislation making drug treatment a priority for the allocation of Maryland’s share of a legal settlement with the tobacco industry. ($17 million in the current fiscal year)

Today, I learned something new about substance abuse at a briefing on a judge’s authority to refer a criminal defendant to treatment for drug dependency, instead of jail. “If you don’t get a job, the benefits of treatment won’t last,” said one of the witnesses. Without a steady and legal income, addicts will revert to their abusing ways. Aftercare planning is needed to prevent that decline.

The light turned on in my legislative memory. I’ve successfully sponsored bills that require such counseling before someone with a mental illness can be released from a hospital. We should do the same here. Before the hearing ended, I emailed committee counsel, asking that such legislation be drafted.

Afterwards, I told several treatment providers of my idea. “Only if we get the money to do so,” they responded. “The bill will begin a needed discussion,” I replied.

"We established a marketplace of competing ideas and open debate,” wrote Governor Ehrlich in an op-ed in yesterday’s Sun.

But the Governor’s crucial failure over the last four years was his decision not to engage the legislature in a robust debate of his legislative proposals.

I have served under four governors. Hughes, Schaefer and Glendening had different personalities and governing styles. However, you knew that by the end of the 90-day session, each would sit down with us and try to reach a compromise on the major issues. That has not been the case - on the vast majority of issues, with Ehrlich.

(On funding for embryonic stem cell research, where he agreed with us, he said legislation establishing conditions for the research wasn’t needed - until the day he signed our bill and took full credit for its passage.)

When Ehrlich’s slots proposal failed in both of his first two legislative sessions, I said the Governor should never lose his Number One bill, given all the powers of his office. Some thought he wanted slots to fail so that he could campaign against the obstructionist Democrats. I considered them grassy knoll conspiracy theorists. But two special sessions later, after Governor Ehrlich spurned compromise on medical malpractice and utility rates, I joined their ranks.

The Governor spent too much time in the echo chamber of right-wing talk radio, blaming the Democrats and liberal media bias for his failures, instead of participating in the contact sport of the legislative process.

I went to Mass today.

Delegate Jill Carter, my 41st District colleague, was speaking to the New All Saints Church Men's Club afterwards.

The Gospel reading was from The Book of John, Chapter 2, the account of Jesus turning the water into wine at a wedding reception.

"And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece."

I knew this story but not that the water came from the act of washing one's hands before a meal, a ritual practiced by observant Jews today. Fr. Donald Sterling noted my presence when he referred to this passage during his homily.

"We still wash our hands before a meal," I said to him and the congregation.

Moved by this confluence of faiths, I will visit Cana of Galilee, where this miracle took place, the next time I'm in Israel.

I attended the first meeting of the Baltimore City House delegation, arranged for a letter making a budget request to be hand delivered to the Governor-elect, and met with a high ranking official of the O'Malley Administration about repeal of the death penalty.

But the most important thing I did today was get a ticket for tomorrow's Ravens-Colts game.

Initially, I was going to get a field pass, but then I hit the lottery. A friend had extra tickets upstairs, where, for football, the view is better.

I suffered from post-primary depression this past September.

“The embryonic stem cell research bill will touch more lives than anything else I’ve done or will do,” I said to myself. “Any legislation I might sponsor now would pale in comparison.”

My blue mood was short lived.

I recently wrote a friend: “I don't recall ever being as excited for the start of a legislative session as I am for this one. So many interesting issues that I'm working on.”

Here’s my top three list:

1. Death penalty repeal: Lead sponsor. The most profound issue I’ll ever work on: Should the state take a life?

2. Stipends for summer internships w government or non-profits: Modeled on the scholarship I started at Amherst College in memory of my grandmother and in honor of my parents.

Would be my third piece of enacted legislation enabling people to pursue public service. Of all the things I've worked on over the years, nothing moves me than allowing people to pursue the career path I was able to choose.

3. Voter Rights Protection Act of 2007 - authorizing court orders to block illegal Election Day activities, instead of penalizing after the fact (modeled after a provision in the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965), and making fraudulent campaign literature a civil violation.

My twenty-fifth Opening Day began at the Commodore Uriah P. Levy Jewish Chapel at
the Naval Academy and ended at the Westside Skills Center on Edmondson Avenue in the 41st district.

At the Chapel, a marker says “Samuel I. Rosenberg - Hon. Samuel I. Rosenberg.” My family provided for that tribute to my paternal grandfather and me.

In 1956, a Hecht Co. department store, the other side of my family tree, opened in the
building that is now the Skills Center. Blockbusting and white flight prompted the store to close.

Tonight’s meeting was about the development of the 130-acre Uplands site, which could revitalize the surrounding neighborhoods.

I also attended my first conference committee of the year today, even though we met before the session began.

(If a bill passes out of one house of the legislature and is amended by the other, the first house either concurs in the other’s changes or requests a conference committee to resolve the differences.)

The subject was ground rents. A recent investigative series in The Sun recounted how Baltimore City homeowners are losing their residences for failure to pay an annual rent of $24.

Present were the chairs of the respective House and Senate committees that will consider legislation to reform this process; other legislators who are concerned about the issue; and representatives of both presiding officers, the Governor-elect, and the Mayor-designate.

Our intent is to have identical bills introduced in both houses. And with the support evidenced by those in the room today, a conference committee may not be needed.

But a bill signing before the session ends is a distinct possibility.

“We’ve had four years or more of bottled up ideas on expanding access to health insurance,” Governor-elect O’Malley told Democratic legislators at our annual day-before-session lunch/pep rally.

And the same can be said for a host of other issues.

“Is the Governor going to take a leadership position on these issues?” a lobbyist said to me later in the day. That may be the central question of the next 90 days.

The stars appear to be aligned for us to take significant action on health care coverage this session. Players who sat on the sidelines or opposed the Health Care For All plan last year are now supporting that proposal or offering an alternative.

But will lobbying efforts and the force of events bring other issues to the fore and then the House and Senate floor?

For instance, I will be the lead sponsor of the House bill to repeal the death penalty. A recent court decision has halted executions until a regulation is adopted prescribing the procedure for administering lethal injections.

That ruling has given momentum to our cause. Now we must build on it.

We met today to plan a press conference for the day we’ll be introducing our bill. “Who are our swing votes?” I asked as we were discussing potential speakers. In addition to the public event, we will schedule meetings for them with undecided members that they know.

We aren’t the only ones strategizing on how to move our cause to the head of the line, where controversial issues need the Governor’s support to become law.

We’ll be judged by what we accomplish over the next four years, but no one wants to pass up the opportunity to move their cause forward over the next 90 days.

I went to the bank on Church Circle to cash a check.

Two picture IDs were required.

I gave the teller my driver’s license - no problem there, and showed her the State House security pass dangling around my neck.

“Does that have an expiration date?” she asked.

“The voters decided to send me back,” I replied.

—

Nine of the 22 members of the Judiciary committee are either freshmen or transfers from another committee.

When I was first elected, I had the great fortune of sitting next to Delegate Bobby Neale in subcommittee and full committee for four years. It was an extraordinary education in the budget and the legislative process. That Bobby was a Republican was of no consequence.

I met with committee staff this afternoon to draft a seating chart that would put our new members next to veterans who could mentor them.

My seat location is unchanged. The vice chairman sits next to the chairman.

He’s my mentor now.

2007
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