“I have a few things up in the air,” I told someone as I walked to the State House this morning. “I hope they land on the Governor’s desk.”

The Voter’s Rights Protection Act of 2008 is the most important of my bills whose final destination is still unknown.

“Efforts to deny the franchise are more subtle today than they were 52 years ago in Selma, Alabama. They are no less invidious,” I said in my written testimony on this legislation.

It’s identical to the bill that passed the House last year but was never voted on in the Senate. For the first 87 days of this session, its treatment in the Senate has been the same.

That’s about to change.

The relevant House committee has agreed to amend most of my bill’s provisions onto one of the few election-related bills that the Senate has passed. The rules permit this, as long as the bill meets the “single subject rule.” In this case, the single subject is election law.

There were a few twists and turns to get to this point, however.

I spoke with the committee chair yesterday to address what I had been told were her concerns about my request to bootstrap my bill onto the Senate bill. Later in the day, the committee was about to do that when a delegate raised a procedural question.

That delayed the vote until this afternoon. However, the provisions in my bill that the Republican delegates had squawked about on the floor three weeks ago were deleted, even though the bill had passed, 97-38, with only three Republicans voting “aye.”

The full House needs to agree to this amendment on Saturday. Then the bill will go to a conference committee with the Senate. Hopefully, much of my bill will be accepted by the Senate conferees before midnight on Monday.

My deed advancing civil rights on this 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On the first day of my Legislation class at Maryland Law School, I tell my students:

"For a bill to get to the Governor’s desk, where his signature makes it the law of the state, the legislation must pass both houses in identical form with the support of a constitutional majority (24 votes in the Senate and 71 in the House) on a recorded vote."

House Bill 1129, Real Property - Homeowners Associations - Amendment of Governing Documents, is the first of my bills this session to meet that test.

It’s not a major public policy initiative, but it’s very important to the residents of Chatham and other communities in my district and elsewhere in the state.

One of my colleagues said at dinner this week, “I’m down here to make policy. I don’t respond to constituent phone calls or emails.”

I love my job because I can work with others to improve public policy. I have the opportunity to do that because my constituents felt I would do so capably and in a way consistent with their views in most instances.

There will be other bills of mine with greater import that make it to the Governor’s desk by midnight Monday. But House Bill 1129 improves public policy too.

Our strategy to avoid a conference committee on the death penalty commission died an early death this afternoon.

We proposed two changes to the bill that passed the House. One would increase the number of clergy from one to three, and the other would reduce the number of public members from 6 to 4.

The Republicans repeated their arguments that the commission was a stacked deck – even more so, they declared, if there were more religious leaders and fewer public members.

It’s inconsistent, to say the least, for right-wing Republicans to object to a greater role for religious figures in public debate on the death penalty.

They welcome the participation of conservative clergy on abortion and same-sex marriage and criticize others who raise concerns about the separation of church and state. .

I urged that we move forward with the two amendments because we would be supported on the House floor.

No Republicans voted for the commission bill last week. It passed, 91-74.

No Republicans will vote for an amended bill this week. It will pass with 90 votes.

No Republicans will vote for repeal of the death penalty next year. It will pass with more than 71 votes.

My argument about numbers didn’t count, however. We decided to amend the Senate bill on the death penalty commission so that it is identical to the House bill.

The differences will be resolved in a formal conference committee.

The conference committee met at Starbucks and by cell phone.

At issue this morning was the bill creating the death penalty study commission. A delegate, a lobbyist, and I were present. I had discussed the differences between the House and Senate bills with a Senator by phone last night.

Our goal was to reach a consensus among the four of us that would preserve the sizeable majorities the bills got last week when the amended bill is again before the full Senate and House.

If we can do that, we won’t need a formal conference committee.

There was no money for my pregnancy prevention initiative in the Governor’s supplemental budget, which was introduced last night.

So today I contacted the lobbyist for the Department of Human Resources and a high level budget official to see if federal welfare reform dollars could still be committed to family planning and counseling of unwed mothers and fathers, without formal legislative approval.

“The amount we have cut from the Governor’s budget over the last 12 months is nearly the same as the projected revenue from the taxes we enacted at the special session,” the Appropriations Committee chair told us at the Democratic caucus this morning.

That news is both welcome and surprising. I’ve asked our budget staff for the specific numbers.

I asked to give the Opening Prayer at this evening’s floor session:

Both Easter and Passover are rites of spring, marking, in part, the rebirth that is central to this season of the year.

Opening Day of the baseball season is an American rite of spring and rebirth. Every team starts the day in first place, even if the last 10 years have been losing ones.

The final words at the Passover seder – spoken during the centuries of the Diaspora, as well as the last 60 years - since the creation of the State of Israel, are “Next year in Jerusalem.”

In Brooklyn, after another year without a World Series win, they used to say, “Wait til next year.”

Let us now pray, as Gene Parker did before every game that he coached at City College:

“Dear Lord, help us to play our best. If we should win, let us be humble. If we should lose, help us to do so in a way that is pleasing to our Lord. Amen.”

I didn’t know for sure until the end of the House floor session.

The majority leader rose and said, “I move that the House stand adjourned until 7 pm on Monday.”

The first pitch on Opening Day of the Orioles season is at 3:05 pm. I should be able to stay for all nine innings and get to Annapolis by 7:00.

What awaits when I get to the State House is an unusual last week of the session.

Three major bills have yet to get a favorable committee vote, but they are expected to pass both houses before midnight on April 7.

One would implement the settlement reached by the Governor and Constellation Energy. Customers will receive $533 million in credits and the utility’s ability to raise capital for a new nuclear power station will be enhanced.

Another would repeal the computer services tax. Its enactment, of course, is contingent upon agreement on how to balance the budget without the $200 million that this tax would generate.

Finally, there’s the Iran divestment bill. It would require the trustees of the state pension system to sell stock in any company that has invested $20 million in Iran’s energy sector.

As baseball Hall of Famer Ernie Banks would say, “Let’s pass three!”

Lilly Ledbetter will be a pre-file.

You can get an early hearing on a bill by pre-filing it before the session starts.

Yesterday’s hearing on the Senate version of the Lilly Ledbetter Act of 2008 didn’t change any minds. Three members of the committee that heard the bill told me that today.

So I’ll be pre-filing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009.

Between now and then, I will work with two supporters of the bill who serve on the committee to get a majority of their colleagues to commit to vote for the bill next year.

And I’ll request that the early hearing not be scheduled for a day when I’m at Orioles Fantasy Camp.

I went drinking last night for the first time this session.

After downing my one and only beer of the evening, I sat down at the bar next to an executive branch lobbyist.

This person shared with me some very positive but not yet public news about one of my bills. However, I can’t tell you the details.

My memory of our conversation is clear, but I was asked to keep it confidential.

While I was partying, the Governor and legislative leaders were meeting about the computer services tax.

My constituent, Tom Loveland, is the head of the computer industry lobbying group seeking to eliminate this levy.

His first contact with a legislator about this issue occurred last fall, when he emailed me at the conclusion of the special session, when the tax was enacted. We have kept in touch since.

Tom emailed me today, seeking my thoughts on last night’s meeting.

“Based on no inside knowledge but my 26 years of experience,” I responded, “if the Governor and the leadership are this public about their search for an alternative to the computer tax, they will find one.”

Today was the calm after the storm of yesterday’s crossover deadline.

It was also the calm before the storm of the final days of the session.

I met with the Speaker to ask him for help on a bill of mine that the Senate has not yet acted on. He readily agreed.

I also thanked him for the language in a budget-related bill that would provide an additional $8 million for stem cell research if the State Lottery brings in more money than is expected.

Slots money for Pimlico’s neighborhoods at the special session. Lottery dollars for life-saving research this time around the track.

Gambling and politics make for strange bedfellows.

----

Since both houses have now passed DNA legislation, a small group of committee members met with staff to discuss the differences between the two bills

Are the Senate’s changes to our bill policy distinctions, bargaining chips, or drafting errors?

More importantly, when the conference committee members meet to resolve these differences, their goal will be sound public policy.

How can the government collect this evidence in a way most likely to help the police and the court system convict the guilty and exonerate the innocent, while protecting the privacy of individuals arrested but not found guilty of criminal acts?

The Republicans threw the kitchen sink at me.

They offered four amendments to the legislation establishing a Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment during this morning’s session.

Among the arguments they made:

“This bill should be sent to referendum so the public can decide if we should have the death penalty.”

“The Commission is biased, a loaded deck. No one who is ‘employed by an organization that has the primary purpose of influencing public policy’ should be eligible to serve on the Commission.”

(The target was anyone who worked for an organization funded by George Soros, the liberal philanthropist.)

“The Governor has failed his constitutional duty by not issuing regulations on how lethal injections should be performed.”

They even read the Governor’s own words – from his op-ed announcing his support for repeal last winter, to demonstrate that he could not choose a balanced commission.

My response to each of the four amendments was similar:

The legislation requires that those appointed by the Governor represent “the broad diversity of views on capital punishment.” If the make-up of the commission and the study that it conducts lack credibility, it will influence no one – among the public or in the legislature.

The number of votes recorded against their amendments ranged from 79 to 87. Those are good numbers, I said to myself, but not everyone who votes against weakening amendments will necessarily vote for the bill.

Two hours later, the bill was on third reader. Both sides repeated their arguments from earlier in the day.

The tally this time was 89 in favor, 48 against.

“Wow!” I said to my seatmate.

Not everyone who votes for a study will necessarily vote for repeal, but that’s 18 more votes than we need to pass a repeal bill.

Wait til next year.

I’m shocked, shocked that the Republicans are smearing Senator Obama’s record.

This week’s Baltimore Jewish Times had an article about a speech given by Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s former press secretary, to the inaugural meeting of the Baltimore chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition.

I wrote the following letter to the editor in response.

"It is in the interests of Israel to establish peace in the Middle East," Senator Barack Obama said at a meeting of the National Jewish Democratic Council last year.

"It cannot be done at the price of compromising Israel’s security, and the United States government and an Obama presidency cannot ask Israel to take risks with respect to its security,” he continued. “But it can ask Israel to say that it is still possible for us to allow more than just this status quo of fear, terror, division. That can’t be our long-term aspiration."

The Senator’s actions match his words. He has led the effort in the Senate to pass legislation that would assist states that choose to divest from Iran, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Divestment of state pension funds from businesses involved in Iran’s energy sector is the highest priority of the Jewish community in Annapolis this session.

The Senator’s top Middle East adviser is Dennis Ross, who was the Middle East envoy and chief peace negotiator in the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Mr. Ross has written that the Palestinian leadership is principally responsible for the failure of the Oslo Peace process.

Despite Senator Obama’s consistent record of support for Israel, Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s former press secretary, told a Baltimore audience that if Senator Obama becomes President, “Israel and her supporters have much to fear.” He further stated that the Senator is a “classic case of false advertising.” (“False Advertising,” March 21)

When a leading figure in the political party that swiftboated John Kerry wrongly accuses another candidate of “false advertising,” that’s chutzpah.

“Fund it and they will come.”

If the Governor puts more money in the budget for treatment for first-time drug offenders after they’re released from prison, I told a colleague, that can achieve the objective of your bill to reduce the prison term for these offenders.

After a committee amendment to his bill failed on the House floor yesterday, it was going to be recommitted (returned) to the Judiciary Committee today.

As I learned during my 20 years on the Appropriations Committee, you can affect public policy by how you spend taxpayers’ dollars, just as you can by passing a bill.

-----

I was defending the death penalty commission bill on the House floor when a delegate asked that it be special ordered (delayed) to Monday.

I asked the Speaker for assurances that it could still get final House approval in time for Passover.

He replied that there would be no problem getting the bill to the Senate before Passover or crossover (the deadline to avoid delay in the Rules Committee for a bill that has crossed over from one house to the other).

Next week in the Senate! (The Passover seder concludes with the saying, “Next year in Jerusalem!”)

The death penalty repeal bill is dead.

We have more support for abolition in both houses than we did last year, but we still lack the necessary sixth vote in the Judicial Proceedings Committee to get the bill to the Senate floor.

So it’s time for Plan B, legislation establishing a Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment.

In New Jersey, several legislators stated that a similar study was influential in their decision when the death penalty was eliminated last December. An Illinois study changed the views of commission members.

I made that point when the bill was debated in our committee voting session this afternoon. The Republicans countered that the bill stacked the commission with a heavy anti-death penalty majority.

The commission’s final report will be credible with the public, only if it is seen as a legitimate and balanced study. Consequently, we had prepared amendments requiring that the “broad diversity of views on capital punishment” be reflected in the eight members appointed by the Governor and the four legislators chosen by the Senate President and House Speaker.

Nonetheless, we accepted a Republican amendment increasing the number of representatives of the general public from three to six and adding our diversity requirement. The number of family members of a murder victim to be chosen increased from one to three.

A Republican amendment reducing the representatives of the religious community from three to one was also adopted. But not before its sponsor said that the diversity requirement should be added, only to withdraw that suggestion when reminded that would be mathematically and theologically impossible.

If your amendments are accepted, you’re usually obligated to vote for the bill. That was not the case here, however, as the six Republican members all voted no. All 14 Democrats present voted yes.

The Senate version of this bill received a favorable committee vote yesterday. We’ll need a conference committee to reach agreement on our divergent language.

I went pre-digital today.

I compiled my annual late session list of my bills that are still alive – on the back of a business card.

Eighteen made the list.

The one that would be the biggest coup to pull off is Lilly Ledbetter.

My bill is modeled after legislation now before the Congress. If we are the first legislature that undoes the Supreme Court’s regrettable decision limiting a worker’s right to compensation after being denied equal pay, that would be a big deal.

So I asked a former staffer of mine, now working on Capitol Hill, to give me the names of the key groups that are supporting the federal measure. There are eight.

Now it’s our job to get their local counterparts involved.

I don’t like to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I had no choice.

Last night, my committee killed my bill establishing standards to determine the liability of lead paint manufacturers for the harm they’ve caused to thousands of children.

In my email to the advocates for the bill, I informed them of the vote and then looked to the future:

My first thoughts on what we need to do to get a different result next year:

Talk to those we thought were “yes’ votes but weren’t;

Review industry testimony so we can counter their misleading statements and revise the bill to address legitimate concerns;

Find a Senate sponsor; and

Prefile the bill next fall so that it gets a hearing earlier in the session.

----

During the debate on the budget bill, I spoke on the House floor twice – one of those times for only two words.

In the Senate, the Republicans had offered an amendment to delete all funding for stem cell research – embryonic or adult.

Under the House rules, a recorded vote is not taken on an amendment unless a certain number of members rise to indicate their support for a roll call. I wanted to put the Republicans’ opposition to this research on the record. (Both political parties highlight votes on controversial issues at campaign time.)

I walked around the House floor, quietly asking several colleagues to support my motion. When the time came, I rose and said, “Roll call.”

The amendment failed, 39-96.

Later in the session, an amendment eliminating Medicaid funding for abortions was offered. I had no advance notice this time, even tough it’s normally provided as a courtesy.

After the sponsor of the amendment concluded his remarks, I realized that someone had to speak for the pro-choice side.

“For 30 years, we’ve had compromise language in the budget that allows Medicaid to pay for abortions in a limited number of circumstances later in a pregnancy. That makes the procedure riskier to the woman’s health,” I stated. “We should not eliminate all funding for abortions.”

This amendment failed, 43-89.

As the floor session drew to a close, another delegate emailed me, “Nice choreography on the stem cell vote!”

“Choreography on stem cells,” I replied. “Quick to my feet on abortions.”

“Lots of balls/bills in the air,” I responded to a friend who emailed me this morning, “Hope your week is going well.”

I was our committee’s floor leader for a bill that would make it a crime to display a noose or swastika with the intent to threaten or intimidate someone. I hoped to get a lot of questions on the permissible limits of free speech.

No one asked any questions about the legislation. I remained seated.

However, there was debate about criminalizing false campaign literature, a provision in my Voters Rights Protection Act of 2008. This time I rose to assist the subcommittee chairman who was explaining the bill.

“Is this provision identical to the one in a bill that passed the House last year?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did the Attorney General’s Office advise the committee that this provision is constitutional?

“Yes.”

I sat down.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed the Senate last night. I spoke with the House committee chair about the hearing on the bill and the Senate sponsor about who could help us lobby the bill in the House.

I took a count of my committee on the death penalty issue. There was positive movement, even among the Republicans.

Three years ago, I introduced a bill to address price gouging after a natural disaster or other emergency. Thanks to negotiations between the Attorney General’s Office and the business community, consensus may be at hand.

One of the concessions we made was to drop condiments from the bill.

Or to put it another way, “Hold the mayo!”

This is an “only in Baltimore” story.

Delegate Oaks and I were meeting with the leadership of Wayland Baptist Church and the Secretaries of Aging and Housing and Community Development.

The topic was Wayland Senior Village, a proposed 90-unit apartment building for low-income seniors, planned for property adjacent to the church.

The Housing Secretary said that our next meeting should be with Assistant Secretary Frank Coakley, who is responsible for the department’s housing programs.

I turned to Rev. Hoffman Brown, Wayland’s pastor, and said, “Frank Coakley, you, and I have one thing in common. The three of us went to City College.”

That’s not the only connection I have to the church.

“The structure where Wayland Baptist now worships was once Beth Tfiloh,” I told the group. “75 years ago, my father was Bar Mitzvah there.”

I felt like I was back in law school.

I was answering a series of questions, but they were being asked by legislators, not a professor.

Today, it was my bill to require a condo association or apartment owner to make a “reasonable accommodation” for residents’ religious practices. Yesterday, it was the death penalty repeal bill.

Both the First Amendment and civil rights laws require governments and employers, respectively, to make “reasonable accommodations” for an individual’s religious beliefs, I explained to the committee.

The issue that prompted my legislation was a request from Jewish residents of a condo on Park Heights Avenue to have a Sabbath elevator installed.

A computer chip can have an elevator automatically stop at every floor so that observant Jews don’t have to push a button for their floor, which would violate the prohibition on work on the Sabbath.

“Shouldn’t someone rent or buy in a building that has such an elevator, instead of moving into one that doesn’t?” one delegate asked me.

“We decided fifty years ago that housing should not be denied someone because of their race,” I replied. “What we’re asking for here is comparable.”

Another legislator said that he had visited Sinai Hospital recently. Now he knew why there was one elevator that stopped on every floor.

I don’t know if my bill will pass, but unlike Professor Kingsfield in the movie “Paper Chase,” no one offered me a dime to call home to tell my mother that I wasn’t going to make it as a legislator.

Three hundred and fifty years ago, Jacob Lombrozo stood accused in a court in Maryland.

His crime was blasphemy. Lombrozo, a Jew, had questioned the resurrection of Christ.

The penalty he faced was execution.

Thirteen years ago, in remarks at the inauguration of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Nelson Mandela said:

“The last time I appeared in court was to hear whether or not I was going to be sentenced to death.”

The people on Maryland’s death row are not Jacob Lombrozo or Nelson Mandela.

But we cannot create a system that executes only those who commit the most brutal murders, without also putting to death the innocent, those who had inadequate legal representation, or those who are on death row because of the race of their victim.

That’s the conclusion former Assistant U.S. Attorney and novelist Scott Turow reached after serving on the Illinois commission that studied the death penalty.

That’s how I began my testimony today on House Bill 1328, Criminal Law – Death Penalty – Repeal.

Don’t ask me the details of what we agreed to during five hours of meetings today on the Governor’s DNA bill.

“I’m no good at science,” I once told my parents.

Forty plus years later, my knowledge of biology isn’t much better.

Plus, I’m no scholar when it comes to Maryland criminal procedure.

So I used my political science skills to chair three work sessions with delegates, legislative and executive branch staff, and prosecutors and defense lawyers. Shortly after 7 pm, we left smiling.

When someone proposes an amendment, you can accept it, modify it, study it this summer, or reject it. We did some of each today.

Sometimes, I proposed one of those options at the start of the discussion of a certain issue. More often, I waited for a consensus to develop and someone else to propose a solution.

I’ll bone up on the details of the bill by Thursday night or Friday afternoon. That’s when the Judiciary Committee will be voting on it.

I was sloppy on one of my bills today.

But now I’ll work a little harder to make sure it passes.

The law creating the Handgun Roster Board requires that one of the members be a representative of Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse (MAHA), a gun control organization that no longer exists.

Or so I thought.

My bill would require that the MAHA position on the board be filled instead by “a representative of an organization that advocates against gun violence.”

After I gave my testimony, two Republican delegates asked me questions. From the way they phrased their questions, I had a hunch that MAHA did, in fact, exist but was now led by people who opposed handgun control.

But being my usual precise, cautious self, I didn’t want to say that unless I was certain it was the case.

When I returned to my desk, there in the pile of papers submitted by witnesses today was a statement from MAHA, which declared, “The previous organizations [that held the corporate charter for MAHA] misled the general assembly.”

If I had gone through the pile, as I normally do before testifying on a bill, I would have known that the organization had changed hands and switched sides when I responded to my colleagues’ questions.

However, I was now able to make this point to the director of the revised MAHA. “A member of our organization could still serve under your requirement that the person belong to a group that ‘advocates against gun violence,’” he testified. “We’re against violence.”

I wanted to respond, “Gandhi not being available, we’ll have to settle for someone of lesser stature.” But as my grandmother would say, “I was raised properly.”

With the crossover deadline for my bills to reach the Senate two weeks away and eight items on my “to do” list – at the start of the day, the only constant today was making my case to whomever I could reach on the phone, talk to on the House floor, or bump into in the hallway.

Bond bill hearings were the first event of the day. Afterwards, my 41st District colleagues and I discussed whether our projects had the required match – in-kind contributions or hard cash in donations, or if they could be funded through some other state program.

If the latter, we’ll set up meetings with the relevant Cabinet secretary in the very near future.

A usually reliable source told me late Friday that the Senate had increased funding for textbook aid for parochial school students by $1 million.

The head of our budget staff confirmed today that the money had been added.

I chaired the first meeting of the work group on the Governor’s bill to take DNA samples from people arrested for serious crimes.

Around the table were members of the Judiciary Committee, a delegate representing the Black Caucus, the lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, and two of the Governor’s lobbyists.

At the 6 pm House leadership meeting, I learned that I would be presenting two committee bills to the Democratic caucus Tuesday morning because our chairman will be in court.

On the House floor, I received a commitment that if the Lilly Ledbetter bill makes it out of the Senate, it will receive a second hearing in the House.

After the 8 pm session, I bumped into a subcommittee chairman and asked him the status of my bills.

He reassured me that the delay in reporting my bill was of no consequence.

I’m off to Fantasy Camp again.

Except this time it’s a theatrical one. I’m going to see Patrick Stewart as Macbeth at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Before heading to Penn Station, I checked the status of my bills on the General Assembly website.

There was an unfavorable report for my bill prompted by a Supreme Court decision harmful to the plaintiff, Lilly Ledbetter, and other workers who are discriminated against by their employer.

I had been concentrating on two other bills of mine in the Health and Government Operations (HGO) Committee and didn’t know that the Ledbetter legislation was on the voting list.

Meanwhile, I learned that the Senate version of this bill just got a favorable committee report – with amendments.

If the bill passes the full Senate, our next task would be to persuade the chair of HGO that substantive changes have been made to the bill. If not, the Senate bill will be dead in the House.

However, if the chair agrees, Lilly Ledbetter, like Banquo’s ghost, will reappear at the HGO witness table.

We had two votes more than we needed.

87 members supported the motion that decided whether the House of Delegates would reconsider the Orphans’ Court judges bill.

But three of those people deserted us a few minutes later when we voted on the bill itself. Plus, four people who voted for the bill on Thursday were absent today.

Once again, one vote short.

I got on the phone with the Orphans’ Court judge spearheading the effort to pass the bill.

We decided that we would try to have the Senate amend its version of the legislation so that it applied only to Baltimore City.

That would meet one of the objections raised during the floor debate from counties that do not want to change the qualifications for their judges.

I went up to the rostrum to inform the Speaker of our strategy. “If we succeed on our third try, I’ll be batting .333. Will I stay on the team?” I asked.

He gave me a thumbs up.

My bill had 84 votes, but it failed.

It’s my constitutional amendment regarding election of the Orphan’s Court judges, who handle wills and estates. Constitutional amendments require support from a supermajority , 85 of the 141 House members, instead of the 71 needed to pass a bill.

Right after the Speaker announced the tally, I rose to request that the House reconsider the vote by which my bill failed to get 85 votes and to delay that vote until tomorrow.

Then I asked a page to get me a copy of the roll call so I could start counting.

I looked first to the four members who were present but didn’t vote, then to the Democrats who voted no, and finally to the one Republican who voted for the bill in my committee but against it today.

“No one asked me for my vote,” said one.

“If you need me tomorrow, I’ll be with you,” volunteered another.

So far, I have not been asked to support someone else’s bill in return for their vote for my bill tomorrow. But I have agreed to put in a good word for their bills with my chairman.

Doing it on the merits…

We had a five-hour hearing this afternoon and evening on my bill that seeks to hold lead paint manufacturers liable for the harm they have caused to thousands of children.

We have to answer two questions, the standard “Why do we need this bill?” and in this instance, “Who’s responsible?”

No one disputes that children have been damaged for life, and more should be done to prevent even more kids from being poisoned. But should the sole legal responsibility lie with the landlord?

Thus far, that’s been the case. The manufacturers have yet to pay their first dime in damages - despite significant evidence that they knew their product was toxic and went to great efforts to keep this fact from the public. As a result, lead paint was outlawed in most of Europe 50 years before it was in this country.

The opponents had more firepower than we did – out-of-town lawyers and representatives of several local industries, who expressed fear that they would be the next to be sued, if a precedent is set with my bill.

That was also the case with my initial efforts to address lead paint poisoning more than two decades ago. The landlords have for more influence in Annapolis than poor African American parents.

But over time, our cause won out.

----

A Baltimore Examiner editorial today on my bill concluded:

“Del. Rosenberg must drop HB 1241. Only his trial lawyer benefactors, his campaign coffers and those of his fellow Judiciary Committee members will gain from it.”

My letter to the editor in response begins:

“Since your editorial writers are new to Baltimore City, perhaps they are unaware of my efforts to prevent lead paint poisoning throughout my 26 years in the House of Delegates.”

I have been assured that it will be published next Monday.

“I was left with no choice but to walk away from the job where I believed I would begin and end my career.”

The witness was Jodi Stern. Despite $150,000 in student loans, she went to work for the Public Defender.

Her mother’s illness resulted in “an expensive, last minute plane ticket to Phoenix in December when she lost her fight to leukemia.”

She can no longer get by on her salary as a public defender - even with $16,500 in grants from the Janet L. Hoffman Loan Assistance Repayment Program over the last two years.

I introduced the legislation that created this program.

I love my job.

I was able to pursue a career in public service, in part, because I graduated with no academic debt.

I may have written this before, but it bears repeating.

The bills I’ve worked on that mean the most to me are those that give financial relief to those whose lifelong dream has also been a career in public service.

----

Pension envy.

That’s the term one of my witnesses used when testifying on my bill to make it easier and less costly for small businesses to sponsor tax-deferred pension plans for their employees’ retirement.

I don’t think I need to Google this phrase to learn if it’s found in the psychoanalytical literature.

Very few bills pass unamended.

So you need to inform the people you’re working with about the changes that are being considered.

The predecessor of my bill to allow expungement of a conviction for certain nuisance crimes was vetoed by Governor Ehrlich. An amendment that a Republican member of my committee is drafting would remove one or two of those minor offenses from the bill.

I shared this with the executive director of the organization that asked me to sponsor the bill. I also let him know that I would seek his input before deciding whether to accept such an amendment, which could have the effect of minimizing Republican opposition on the House floor.

State employees would get notice of a proposal that would transfer their jobs to the private sector under another bill I introduced. The chairman of the subcommittee that is reviewing this legislation told me that the executive branch has proposed some amendments that would give state agencies more flexibility in meeting the requirements of the legislation.

I suggested that he run them by the AFSCME lobbyist whom I’ve working with on this bill. I happened to see her later today. She was pleased that I had asked that she be informed.

I asked a staffer in another committee about the status of one of my bills. He said that an interest group told him that I had agreed to its proposed amendment.

“That’s not what I remember,” I replied. I got a copy of the amendment but haven’t had a chance to review it yet.

Truth be known, I frequently write my diary while also listening to the witnesses at a bill hearing.

That was the case during yesterday’s hearing on same-sex marriage.

So I had finished writing when I asked the final panel of advocates for marriage this question:

I agree that the gay rights movement is similar in many ways to the civil rights movement. But there was a Civil Rights Act of 1964, a Voting Rights Act of 1965, and a Civil Rights Act of 1968.

What is your response to the argument some make that marriage rights must also be won over a period of time?

The lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union responded, “Separate is never equal.”

I knew that Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that threw out the “separate but equal” doctrine, culminated several years of litigation by Thurgood Marshall, but I said nothing further. I wanted to be precise.

I didn’t Google the question.

Today, I walked outside instead – to the statue honoring Marshall in front of the State House.

His lawsuit challenging segregation in admission at the University of Maryland Law School was decided in 1935.

19 years before Brown v. Board of Education was decided.

“You and I have the same job but not the same benefits,” Delegate Heather Mizeur testified before my committee today.

“My spouse doesn’t get a badge that gives her access to the State House without having to go through security,” she continued. “Unlike you, I’m not guaranteed that my spouse will be beside me at the hospital.”

Delegate Mizeur is lesbian.

Today was marriage day in the Judiciary Committee. Six bills would provide for marriage or its legal equivalent for same-sex couples. One would amend the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, as well as “the uniting of two persons in a civil union, domestic partnership or other similar relationship.”

“New Jersey’s civil union law is a disaster,” declared Rabbi Steven Goldstein.

He was not testifying in opposition to gay rights.

“Civil unions are a band aid on a cancer,” Rabbi Goldstein continued. “One in four employers in New Jersey is ignoring the law.”

He was making a strategic argument: Don’t compromise.

The votes are not there for an anti-gay constitutional amendment. No one disputes that.

If a roll cal was taken today, there would be more votes for civil union than marriage.

But persuading committee members to change their position is the purpose of a bill hearing.

Whatever bill passes, it will be petitioned to referendum. So a bill that gets 24 votes in the Senate and 71 in the House must also get 50.1% of the vote at a general election.

Democratic legislators are concerned about the effect such a referendum would have on voter turnout. If a bill passes this session, it would be on the ballot this November – when we are not.

However, a bill passed in 2009 or 2010 would be on the ballot in 2010 – when we are.

Consequently, if no bill is enacted this year, it’s wait til 4 years from now.

Every big institution has its unsung heroes.

They are indispensable to the organization’s functioning but receive little public recognition.

Bob Zarnoch was one of those.

Until today, he was my attorney. 187 other legislators were also his clients.

Bob was an Assistant Attorney General and Counsel to the General Assembly. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of state and federal law and an unsurpassed knowledge of the legislative process.

Today, he was sworn in as a member of the Court of Special Appeals.

“I had hundreds of clients who are easy to please,” he told the audience in the House chamber, which, after a pause, broke into laughter. “Just say our bills are constitutional,” I jokingly whispered to my seatmate.

Over the years, I was his most prolific correspondent. He reminded me and the audience that when my number of requests for legal advice reached 300, I would owe him a lunch.

Bob was not the only judge sworn in today. So was Alexander Wright.

He talked about his father, who kept a scrapbook of his son’s accomplishments. He did not know of this until he found it among his father’s effects, soon after his death.

“My father served in the Marines during World War II,” stated Judge Wright. “He tried to become a State Trooper in 1946, but it was not meant to be.”

The Maryland State Police was segregated.

In Annapolis, there are pre-meeting meetings, where the chairman or chairwoman meets with the legislators in the committee’s leadership to reach a consensus on legislation before the public voting session.

Those gatherings are often preceded by a pre-meeting pre-meeting, where a chair meets with the staff and only one member of the committee leadership.

I’m certain such meetings are not unique to Maryland.

In law school, you’re taught not to ask a question if you don’t know the answer. In the legislature, you’re taught not to take a vote if you don’t know the outcome.

Today, I participated in a post-meeting meeting.

It followed the public hearing on my legislation to forgive the academic debt of doctors who make a ten-year commitment to practice in areas of the state with a physician shortage.

I introduced my bill in response to a study which found that Maryland is 16% below the national average for the number of physicians in clinical practice, most acutely in rural areas of the state.

Some witnesses expressed concerns about the bill but did not oppose its objective – encouraging doctors to provide medical care where it is not being offered today.

“How do we move this bill forward?” I scribbled on my printed testimony.

When the hearing ended, my light went on. “Let’s discuss this further,” I said to all of the witnesses – pro and con.

We briefly huddled outside the committee room and Agreed to work on amendments that everyone could agree to.

Lead paint poisoning has cost the State of Maryland plenty.

Thousands of children have been harmed for life.

Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been spent to provide health care and special education services for these victims of a preventable disease.

I will make this point in my testimony on the Maryland State and Children's Lead Poisoning Recovery Act.

I’ll be a credible witness, given the effort I’ve put into this issue over the years, but our non-partisan budget staff has even more authority.

At today’s strategy session on the bill, I suggested that we provide the fiscal note writer with the data on how much money the state has spent over the years on this problem.

We won’t have to generate the numbers. They can be found in studies on the impact of lead paint poisoning. The staffer will then decide whether to include this information in the fiscal note.

The paint companies that manufactured lead paint - knowing that it was toxic, have yet to pay a dime in damages.

Providing the Judiciary Committee with an objective statement of the millions of dollars that this product has cost the State would strengthen the case for our bill.

Child abuse is a horrible crime.

But should we also make it a crime to fail to report suspected child abuse to the police or other authorities?

The Senate passed such a bill Friday. My committee is the next stop for Senate Bill 243 and similar House bills.

“Why do we need this bill?” is the question a bill’s sponsor and advocates must always answer.

In this instance, the question is: Will fewer children be abused if a doctor, teacher, human services worker, and other professionals face the threat of a criminal conviction and a fine of up to $1,000 for failing to report suspected abuse?

In the past, the House Judiciary Committee has responded, “No,” killing such bills.

But in the past, the House Speaker has not been quoted in the Baltimore Sun saying that SB 243 is likely to get a favorable reception in the House because “It’s important for people to be held responsible and accountable.”

Fewer infants and children will be abused if we intervene at the front end, instead of the back end.

We should provide better training for the people who come in contact with potential abusers and try to persuade these women not to have more children until they are able to raise them properly.

I’ll be contacting possible witnesses and drafting amendments for our hearings on this legislation.

It’s been five years since I last chaired a budget hearing.

However, I haven’t forgotten how to try to advance my pubic policy objectives through an amendment to the budget bill or committee narrative in the Joint Chairmen’s Report.

Yesterday was the Senate budget hearing for the Cigarette Restitution Fund. In attendance was the lobbyist for my bill that would mandate an increase in spending for programs to prevent teenagers from becoming smokers and free adults from their addiction.

He wrote me and others that the General Assembly’s non-partisan budget analyst had presented a report on how far short we are on counter marketing the public relations efforts of the tobacco industry.

Senator McFadden, sponsor of a bill identical to mine, is a member of the budget subcommittee. He made a “strong pitch” for the legislation.

I suggested that we ask the Senator to request that committee narrative be drafted, asking the Health Department to report on what steps it will take to reach the Centers for Disease Control’s recommended funding levels by FY 2012.

Insurance in case our bill doesn’t pass.

Positive developments to report on several of my bills:

The attorney/bill drafter, Kathleen Cahill, made her case. My bill on lawsuits for fair employment violations got a favorable vote in the subcommittee. A day later but not a vote short.

Orphans court judges resolve legal disputes about wills and estates. Judge Karen Friedman, another constituent and friend, asked me to introduce a bill that would change the qualifications for these judgeships.

A committee of these judges drafted the bill. The local government would have to pass a resolution requesting that legislation be introduced affecting the qualifications for orphans’ court judges in that jurisdiction before a bill could be filed in Annapolis.

I welcome recommendations from constituents, friends, advocates, and local government officials on bills that I should introduce. However, I should not be required to get that input. (Every four years, I’m judged on whether I’ve kept in touch with the people I represent.)

The bill is headed to a favorable vote but with the requirement for local government input removed.

Foreclosures are devastating many neighborhoods in Maryland.. State law requires that notice of a sale of foreclosed property be published in a local newspaper for three consecutive weeks.

Under current law, however, that notice cannot be published in a newspaper that readers don’t have to pay for. Very few young adults subscribe to daily newspapers. How are they going to get notice?

My bill to allow notices of foreclosures and other matters to be published in free papers had a hearing yesterday. It’s not going to pass, but there will be a summer study.

I’m helping to draft the letter initiating that study. You always want the discussion to be based on your document.

Sometimes you go it alone.

I relish the opportunity to be the only one at the witness table, testifying on my bill without any notes in front of me and then responding to the questions raised by my colleagues.

But only if I know enough about the legislation to do so persuasively.

If not, I make sure there’s someone by my side who understands my bill better than I do.

I introduced a bill dealing with arbitration procedures, at the request of two constituents and friends, Ken Breitbart and Ken Lasson. My exposure to this issue began with my preparation for today’s bill hearing.

It was the first time Ken Breitbart testified in Annapolis, but I told him I wanted him to join me at the witness table. The one question we were asked he easily handled.

Some subcommittee members raised questions today about my bill allowing someone to sue in state court on a fair employment violation, I learned from the chairman during a chance meeting at lunchtime.

I told him that I don’t know that area of the law well enough to address their concerns by myself. I asked the attorney who drafted the bill to speak to the members who raised questions.

Better for her to talk to them first; better to delay the vote than to lose it.

Rest assured, however, when the death penalty repeal bill is heard in the House Judiciary Committee on March 13, I will be alone at the witness table.

A defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

You don’t have to go to law school to know that.
I learned it watching “Perry Mason,” where the accused beat the rap every episode.

I’ve been reminded of it many times while serving on the Judiciary Committee.

Last year, we passed a law making it easier for someone to expunge his record from court files if arrested but never even charged with a crime.

Last year and this year, we’re considering bills that would impose a civil penalty on people accused of committing rape and other sexual offenses.

These are serious offenses, and the harm to the victim is often dreadful.

But should someone lose their parental rights or be listed on a sexual offender registry without their guilt being established beyond a reasonable doubt?

My committee is struggling with how to balance those interests. So am I.

----

17 points.

That’s two touchdowns and a field goal.

It’s also Barack Obama’s margin of victory in Wisconsin last night, 58-41%.

As in Maryland last week, he made inroads in demographic groups in Hillary Clinton’s base. His campaign inspires, while her’s is a laundry list of proposals.

As Dandy Don Meredith used to say on Monday Night Football when the result became clear, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”

Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for President.

For every wrong, there is a remedy.

Every first year law student learns that in Torts class.

In my first year as a legislator, I took on the issue of lead paint poisoning. I quickly learned that the landlords are powerful adversaries.

Nonetheless, we’ve made significant progress in reducing the number of children poisoned by lead – sometimes in collaboration with the landlords but most often not.

Over the years, the landlords have paid significant damages to their tenants who ingested lead dust and flaking paint. A remedy for the wrong done to these children.

But what about the companies that manufactured the lead paint? They have never compensated anyone in Maryland – or any other state, for the harm caused by their product.

That’s why I’m the lead sponsor of the Maryland State and Children’s Lead Poisoning Recovery Act. Injured parties – children who have been poisoned, governments that have paid for the special education these children require, and even landlords, could sue paint companies for the damages caused by their product, without having to identify specifically which one produced the paint, which was purchased decades ago.

At our weekly strategy meeting on the bill this afternoon, I reminded those around the table, “For every wrong, there is a remedy.”

“It’s supposed to be that way,” one responded.

“Are superdelegates not the most undemocratic thing imaginable? Do you feel there is any legitimate defense for their existence?” asked my legislative staffer in an email.

“They’re part of the ebb and flow of the nomination process,” I replied. “In 1968, may delegate were chosen with no public participation. Some were even chosen prior to ’68.”

Then the McGovern reforms swept things in the other direction. Superdelegates were instituted to allow elected officials (people who have run for sheriff, in Lyndon Johnson’s phrase) to be the saucer that cools the passions of the popularly elected delegates (George Washington’s description of the role to be filled by the U.S. Senate, whose members were chosen by state legislators, not the voters, until the early 20th Century).

“Old Clinton Ties and Voters’ Sway Tug at Delegates” reads the headline of the main story on the front page of today’s New York Times.

My view: The elected officials among the superdelegates are not going to deny Obama the nomination if he earns it in Wisconsin, Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

They want to get reelected and can’t risk the anger of Obama’s supporters – most notably, African American, college educated, and young voters.

Our committee voting session was scheduled to start at 12:30.

It’s now 12:45. A quorum is present, but several of our 22 members are not.

There’s a bill that the chairman opposes, but my whip tally is close. Twelve votes are required for the legislation to receive a favorable report.

Since the bill has a low number, it will be among the first to be considered.

Should the chairman gavel the committee to order, with those members absent?

Or should he wait until more appear?

The gavel fell and so did the bill.

Only 7 votes in favor and 13 against. More delegates did arrive but to no effect.

P.S. You don’t have to be in charge to try to have the clock work in your favor.

A committee member asked that his bill be held until the end of our voting session. One of his votes had yet to arrive.

She was there for the delayed vote, but the “yea” votes still fell short of 12.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and four other bills I introduced got their public hearing yesterday. Prospects are very good for four of the five – a batting average I’ll take any day.

My bill to deter cemetery vandalism by allowing the judge to order restitution (restoring a damaged headstone, for example) was heard in my committee. There are more than 56 Jewish cemeteries in the Baltimore metropolitan area, testified the President of the Jewish Cemetery Association.

That’s far more than I thought. However marginalized people may be (Jews, African Americans, and no doubt others), people make sure that they can properly bury their dead.

I had a positive discussion with my Chairman about amendments to my bill while my witnesses were testifying in support of it. It’s good to be the Vice Chairman!

I was not present for the hearing on my bill to allow 16 year olds to register to vote. I was testifying on three bills in front of another committee.

My sole co-sponsor, Jon Cardin, who chairs the Election Law subcommittee, spoke for me. No opposition, and more importantly, the committee chair indicated her support to me later on.

My other bills on the fast track would:

* give state employees an opportunity to comment and offer an alternative when the state is considering privatization of the work they perform; and

* make minor changes to my bill enacted last year that allows someone to sue in state court on a fair employment violation.

Lily Ledbetter still has to clear the hurdle of our moving forward on civil rights before the Congress does.

Lilly Ledbetter didn’t get her day in federal court.

Today, she got her day in the House of Delegates.

Ms. Ledbetter is not a constituent. She lives in Alabama, where she worked for Goodyear Tire & Rubber for 20 years. She waited too long to sue Goodyear, ruled Supreme Court Justice Alito in a 5-4 decision last May.

Consequently, she was denied a decision on the merits of her discrimination claim, despite the fact that the monthly pay of one of her male peers exceeded hers by $1,511.

Today was the hearing on my bill to reverse the Court’s decision, which also applies to Maryland’s Fair Pay law. House Bill 439 would allow an employee to be compensated for up to two years of lower pay - from the date he or she files a lawsuit.

I urged the committee not to wait for the Congress to change the civil rights law before we did ours, but I didn’t know of any past instance when we did that.

The next witness did. We made discrimination against a woman because of her pregnancy illegal before the Congress did, Glendora Hughes, counsel for the Maryland Human Relations Commission, informed the committee.

Opponents of a bill speak after the sponsor and any supporters. If you don’t anticipate their arguments (see Monday’s diary), you’re dependent upon a committee member knowing enough to ask the right question.

A witness may incorrectly say that your bill would apply to pay periods from six years ago. Records that old don’t have to be retained. If no one challenges that assertion at the hearing, you have to correct it afterwards.

And I will.

The turnout was steady early this afternoon in the frozen tundra also known as Cross Country Elementary School.

But I lasted for only 45 minutes.

I was the only person electioneering outside my alma mater. I am certain that I convinced no one to vote for Barack Obama. People had already made up their minds.

The Obama campaign called me to say that volunteers were needed to “pull” voters – knock on their doors to urge them to vote, with a follow-up later in the day to see if they had. So I was off to Northeast Baltimore to spend nearly two hours knocking on doors.

You stay warmer when you’re moving.

----

I said it (to a few people) before you heard it on CNN tonight:

Hilary Clinton could meet the same fate as Rudy Giuliani.

Texas and Ohio are her firewalls, she says, two states where she will rebound from a series of losses. Florida was supposed to do that for Rudy.

She has resources that he didn’t. Yet, Obama continues to gain in demographics that are her base. 57% of women voted for him in Maryland, according to exit polls. No comparable inroads for her.

As the former Mayor of New York learned, If you don’t make it elsewhere, you may not make it anywhere.

Most controversial bills die the first time they’re introduced.

The second time around, however, you can modify your legislation to address the concerns raised by fellow legislators at last year’s bill hearing. You can also catalogue your opponents’ arguments and/or spin and rebut those claims in your presentation – before they have a chance to make them again.

Many bills get killed because of a big fiscal note.

That note estimates the cost to the state if the bill is enacted. Someone who is publicly neutral can sabotage your legislation by providing the General Assembly’s fiscal staff with a worst case scenario of the bill’s cost.

But the bill sponsor or an advocate can meet with that staffer and provide data indicating a lower cost.

Some bills never get introduced.

An executive order issued by the Governor can accomplish your objective, especially if what you’re seeking is a task force to study an issue. You’re negotiating with one person, instead of two legislative committees.

I did each of the above today. I’ll share the details at the public hearing on the first two and a press release for the third..

You don’t want your opponent (or the press) to know your strategy for passing a bill.

Consequently, I can’t share with you the substance of our weekly meetings on death penalty repeal. That prompted an email exchange this week with one of our leading advocates:

She wrote me, “Maybe you should keep a private diary for history books.”

I replied, “I've fleetingly thought of that, but one public diary is plenty. :-)”

Nonetheless, it’s no secret that we have 12 more delegates co-sponsoring the repeal bill than we did last year.

And this exchange at today’s meeting can be shared:

One legislator (who shall remain nameless) complained to one of our lobbyists: “This issue makes people uncomfortable.”

“It should,” I responded.

“Is this a good bill?” someone asked me during our committee voting session this afternoon.

“No, it’s a good idea,” I replied.

That’s a big difference.

When a bill becomes a law, its language can determine whether someone goes to jail or is eligible for a government benefit. House Bill 262 would have affected how a social worker deals with suspected child abuse or neglect.

After many tough questions were raised at the bill hearing, even the sponsor acknowledged the many uncertainties as to how the bill would be implemented.

The bill got an unfavorable report. If the idea is refined, the result could be different next year.

----

The language in a bill can become outdated. In 1997, I introduced the bill that made it a crime to “use electronic mail with the intent to harass one or more persons.”

It took to several years for me to convince the Judiciary Committee – of which I was not yet a member, that someone could be harassed by electronic mail, just as they could be harassed by use of the U.S. mail or the telephone.

Today we heard a bill that would make it a crime to “use electronic mail OR MAKE AN INTERNET TRANSMISSION OR POSTING with the intent to harass one or more persons.” (proposed change in ALL CAPS, as it is in the printed bill)

The reason for the change – MySpace and FaceBook. Chairman Vallario had not sent anyone an e-mail in 1997, and his record is still intact. I, on the other hand, am still limited to email.

My twin niece and nephew get my diary. So Rachel and Elliot, if you’re reading this, fill me in. Then I’ll inform the committee.

----

Some are younger in age and more current in technology; some are older in age but still able to reach base when it matters.

The highlight of my Orioles Fantasy Camp experience earlier this week:

I'm at the plate, second inning, bases loaded, two outs, my team ahead, 4-2. I swing at a fastball that’s too high and a curve that’s too low. Then I foul off a pair, and take a pitch, before dumping the ball into short right field. Two runs scored.

"By the time I get back to Annapolis," I told my teammates, "That will be a frozen rope."

With 18 bills introduced before I left for Orioles Fantasy Camp last week and 13 more headed to the Clerk’s Office before 5 pm tomorrow, I should be the last one to remind someone else of the burden you must meet if you want to pass a bill.

But then I got this email from someone who’ll be making his debut as a witness when he testifies in support of one of those 31 great ideas next week.

“It would be helpful to know what format and what questions will be asked so we can be prepared as well,” he inquired..

I replied: "Why do we need this bill?" is the question that the supporters of a bill must always answer. In this instance, will the change in the law that I'm proposing deter these acts of [cemetery] vandalism? I know that's not specific, but I hope it's helpful.

“Format: I will testify and be asked questions by the committee members. Then you and other supporters will testify. Do not read your testimony. You understand the issue better than I do. ‘Speak from your heart,’ as our chairman says. If I have not satisfactorily answered the questions asked of me, you can.”

The last comment is not flattery. I’m a generalist. Someone who knows the subject matter better than I will often give a better, more detailed answer.

If I needed a reminder of the format a witness can expect in the Judiciary Committee, the chairman provided it this afternoon.

The legislation would raise the maximum penalty for assaulting a driver or passenger on a public transit vehicle.

“How many have been given the existing maximum?” asked the chairman. The witness didn’t know.

The odds aren’t good for this bill to get an up arrow (for favorable action) when first considered by the committee leadership.

----

This morning, I introduced my bill to direct more money to addressing the harms caused by tobacco. Late this afternoon, it still had not received its committee assignment.

I want it to go to Health and Government Operations. We’ve already discussed it with that committee’s chairman. Most of our co-sponsors are on HGO.

Bills amending the same provision of the state code have been sent to this committee over the last two years, with a secondary referral to Appropriations.

After looking that up on the General Assembly’s web site, I shared that information with the Speaker’s Office.

Turns out they had asked the same question of staff.

And had already decided on the committee assignment I wanted.

No doubt you’ve read about the death of two year old Bryanna Harris. Her mother, Vernice Harris, is a drug abuser who had lost custody of her two older children. She is charged with first degree murder for exposing Bryanna to the drugs that caused her death.
.
Much has been written about the need to alert government social workers when a mother whose parental rights have been terminated gives birth to another child. That’s nine months too late!

We should encourage these women to delay another pregnancy and make family planning and other counseling available to them. I had a very positive meeting about this with state officials earlier this week.

But what about the 18 supervisors and case workers who were in contact with the Harris family and did not intervene to save Bryanna?

This morning I emailed the dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland. Turns out members of the faculty his recently completed a study on recruitment and retention of social workers - with the goal of having them make a difference in the lives of the families they work with, rather than only monitoring what happens to them.

The bills responding to the Bryanna Harris tragedy will be heard by my committee. I’ll be drafting amendments to meet the policy objectives I’ve discussed above.

Email makes it easy to contact every member of the House of Delegates.

No stamps or envelopes to lick. No labels either.

Not recommended, however, if you’re sharing your strategy on a controversial bill you’re asking everyone to co-sponsor.

I received such an email late yesterday. It touted the constitutional amendment to outlaw both same-sex marriage and civil unions. The sponsor disclosed his intent to petition the bill to the House floor if it doesn’t get a favorable vote in committee.

I’m on the other side. On the correct assumption that the sponsor of the gay marriage legislation isn’t as compulsive about reading email as I am, I shared this message with that delegate, suggesting that he pass it on to others, which he did.

----

A “red haired Eskimo” is a bill that applies to only one individual or group.

The courts don’t look kindly upon such legislation.

A neighborhood group asked me to introduce legislation to make it easier to amend its bylaws. A lobbyist for the Maryland State Builders Association met with me about it this afternoon.

The bill would affect too many associations and create some unintended problems. “We can draft an amendment that limits the bill to agreements dated prior to 1938,” she advised me. “It solves your constituents’ problem without affecting others.”

We’ll call it a grandfather clause.

What a difference a Governor makes.

I met today with supporters of stem cell research to discuss how to prevent any cuts to the $23 million that Governor O’Malley put in his budget for this purpose.

One of the people in the room was not there several years ago, when we were considering my bill to authorize funding for embryonic stem cell research. Governor Ehrlich opposed my bill, and the other fish this individual had to fry with the Governor were bigger than embryos.

----

More on the value of co-sponsors: At tonight’s floor session, I asked my colleagues who had co-sponsored the death penalty repeal bill last year to do so again. I spoke to 35 delegates who had signed on to the bill before; all but one did so again. I also got nine new signatures.

I was encouraged.

If only we could get one more member of the Senate committee to agree to vote it to the floor.

----

“All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to,” Caroline Kennedy wrote in yesterday’s New York Times.

My fourth grade classmates would attest that I was interested in politics and public service before I wrote to all of the Democratic candidates in the winter of 1960. The autographed photo I received from Senator Kennedy hangs in my Annapolis office today.

So many of my generation were inspired to do something for our country because of JFK. Even if that means that today we are among the “older Democrats” that Caroline Kennedy appeals to, according to Tim Russert on “Today” this morning.

Forty African American women, 3/4 of them over 60, were gathered for a Chat & Chew Social for the Obama campaign in a Mt. Washington home this afternoon.

When I spoke, I said, "I can't feel the emotion of this historic moment as you can, but I was at the convention where Sen. Lieberman was nominated for VP, and when I leave here today, I'm going to a swimming pool where none of us in this room could swim when I was a child."

I was good, and the group was responsive.

Asking delegates to co-sponsor your bill is the biggest waste of time in Annapolis – except when it isn’t.

Most of the time, members agree to co-sponsor because they don’t want to say no to a colleague or an interest group. At best, you give the bill a cursory reading.

At the bill hearing, the committee gives the legislation a thorough examination, and the number of names on the sponsor line is of little consequence.

But there are exceptions. If your bill is controversial, it’s a show of strength to have co-sponsorship from a majority of the members of the committee where the bill is assigned.

Even that is no guarantee that all of those members will vote for the legislation, assuming the chair brings it to a vote.

On my bills dealing with pregnancy prevention and liability for lead paint manufacturers, we’re asking committee members to add their names. At a minimum, it’s an opportunity to lobby them on the bill.

A few weeks ago, I agreed to introduce a bill that’s not controversial. On the affected group’s lobby day, they asked my colleagues to co-sponsor the legislation.

How did I learn this? Delegates began telling me so in chance conversations. When I get the draft bill, I won’t ask my intern to track down these delegates. Instead, I’ll send a blast email to all members asking them to stop by my office to initial the bill if they want to co-sponsor.

The right to be let alone is “the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” Justice Brandeis’ language on an individual’s right to privacy is often cited in cases dealing with abortion.

However, the issue before the Supreme Court when Brandeis wrote was wiretapping. He believed that a wiretap was a “search and seizure” and subject to the limits imposed by the Fourth Amendment.

Brandeis was in the minority 80 years ago. In 1967, the court reversed itself and ruled that the government must get a warrant from a judge before wiretapping someone – in most instances.

The issue today – in courts and legislatures across the country and in the House Judiciary Committee this afternoon, was taking a DNA sample from an individual arrested for a felony.

The bill’s sponsor called it a “biological fingerprint.” “DNA is not ‘just a fingerprint,’” responded the American Civil Liberties Union.

We will grapple with this issue over the next two months.

My first weekend home from Annapolis, I told people that most legislators were still talking about the November special session.

Last week, we began to look forward, as members made bill drafting requests, sought co-sponsors, and held hearings on a handful of bills.

Today, the Governor gave his State of the State address. Its subtext was “change the subject.” Understandably so.

He talked about “protecting, not abandoning, our priorities” in education, the Chesapeake Bay, and public safety, most notably. “We must do so,” he added, “even when it’s not easy or politically popular.”

But today’s proposals were meritorious and popular, unlike those in his last speech to a joint session of both houses – at the start of the special session.

----

I spent much of the day with Scott Turow, lawyer, novelist, college friend, and opponent of the death penalty after serving on an Illinois commission to study he issue.

He made a very knowledgeable and articulate case for repeal in our meetings and encounters with legislators.

To summarize his argument: “It’s a fantasy to think you can reform the death penalty system.”

Baltimore City’s murder rate will go down if we eliminate the requirement that someone seeking a handgun permit convince the State Police that he or she has “good and substantial reason to wear, carry, or transport a handgun...as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger.”

I don’t recall if the witness was a member of Maryland Shall Issue or the Second Amendment Sisters.

What I know for certain is that each and every witness today believes that more citizens carrying guns will mean fewer violent crimes.

No one spoke against the bill, but there will be legislation this session that the Second Amendment Sisters will oppose.

Mayor Dixon thinks that Baltimore City’s murder rate will go down if people convicted of gun crimes serve longer prison sentences and anyone who has lost a weapon must report its disappearance to the police within three days.

We’re meeting in my office tomorrow to discuss strategy.

Tomorrow is the first deadline of the 90-day session.

By day's end, you must request that a bill be drafted for it to be ready by the next deadline - February 7. If you miss that date, your bill goes to the Rules Committee, and its hearing date will be near the session's end.

I've got a lot of requests already in. But I hope to affect policy on some issues without introducing a bill.

College tuition is a real burden for many working families. Harvard announced last month that it would significantly increase the financial aid it offered to middle-class and upper-middle-class students, those with household incomes from $120,000 to $180,000.

That prompted me to meet with University of Maryland officials about how to prompt a discussion of increasing tuition assistance for families making far less than $120,000.

Instead of legislation, one of them emailed me today, “it maybe better suited for language [in the budget bill] or referral to the Bohanan Commission [on Funding Higher Education] to be included in their final report Dec 2008.” My reply: “Keep me in the loop.”

We often talk about lifting people out of poverty. How is "poverty" defined?

The federal measurement hasn’t been changed since it was first introduced in 1964. What difference does it make?

The outdated calculation "obscures both the good results we’ve achieved, as well as the hard work that remains to be done," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently said. "I come from a background where numbers matter, and data drive decisions."

I asked the poverty expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures if Maryland should also reexamine this measurement. He said we should and is drafting a letter for me to send to the Governor.

On Sunday Morning on CBS, I heard Lyndon Johnson say, “We shall overcome” at the climax of his voting rights speech to a joint session of Congress.

Not applauding was Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, not yet of Watergate fame.

Later in the morning, the congregation sang “We Shall Overcome” at Bethel AME Church, the fifth year of joint services with Temple Oheb Shalom on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend.

All of us rose, held hands, and sang.

I don’t need to pass a bill to fund my pregnancy prevention initiative.

All I need is the Governor’s support; only he can put it in his budget.

But I’m introducing a bill anyway.

The reason why: the Maryland Catholic Conference heralded the virtues of its so called crisis pregnancy centers before the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee yesterday.

“It is imperative that women with an unplanned pregnancy are cared for by highly trained, licensed medical professionals,” wrote Maryland’s Secretary of Health and Mental Hygiene, regarding these centers, which are not staffed by such professionals.

The advocacy community is justifiably concerned that the counselors do not objectively discuss all of the options that a pregnant woman has.

Weeks ago, I read in The Catholic Review that the Conference would request that the Governor fund these centers and introduce legislation outlining what these facilities would do.

I don’t want the bill hearing (and the media coverage) to focus on that bill alone. My preventive approach will get a full airing as well.

State Senator Gwendolyn Britt was buried today.

Before her election to public office, she was arrested for demonstrating at the segregated Glen Echo Amusement Park in Montgomery County. She was also a Freedom Rider in the Deep South.

Several of her eulogists said that they had learned of her civil rights history not from her but from someone else.

The presiding minister introduced the politicians in attendance. Then he asked the Freedom Riders to stand. There were ten – eight African American, two white - sitting together. The whole congregation rose to applaud.

Senator Britt was about to introduce the gay marriage bill, but no one mentioned that today.

Can we make it a hate crime to place or display a noose on a person’s property because of that individual’s race, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or national origin?

House Bills 41 and 80 would do that. Both were heard today by my committee.

I was the lead sponsor when we first enacted Maryland’s hate crime law. Today, I was an interested spectator/vice chairman.

A fundamental principle of the First Amendment is that speech cannot be criminalized – with very limited exceptions. Conduct is a different matter.

The Attorney General’s Office wrote the sponsors of today’s legislation that if the bills are altered “to be more content neutral or to address true threats,” they could be constitutional.

The hypothetical frenzy was soon underway. Some scenarios raised legitimate concerns; others were oblivious to the language of the bill.

As the spirited hearing drew to a close, I leaned over to the chairman and said that I wanted to work with some colleagues to draft amendments that could make the bill acceptable – to the committee and the First Amendment.

No commitment sought and none granted.

----

When I was fourteen years old, I read “Gideon’s Trumpet,” an account of the case where the Supreme Court ruled that every criminal defendant is entitled to a lawyer. A few years ago, I met the author, Anthony Lewis.

I told him his book was one of the reasons I wanted to become a lawyer. He inscribed my copy, “To Sandy Rosenberg, who writes laws.”

Last night I began reading “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment,” also written by Anthony Lewis.

Did the Sun hire a pollster who predicted an Obama win in New Hampshire to survey Marylanders on the death penalty?

How else could it ask voters if “the death penalty should remain legal in Maryland” but fail to see if people supported the alternative of life without the possibility of parole?

57% supported the death penalty; 33% opposed it. “In Md., most want option of execution” read the front page headline.

Another poll, released today coincidentally, asked:

"What do you think is the more appropriate sentence for someone convicted of first degree murder: the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole?"

42% preferred execution, but 48% thought life without parole was the appropriate sentence.

You don’t need a pollster to learn which survey result more people read or hear about today.

----

I introduced my first bill of the session today, the Voter’s Rights Protection Act of 2008.

It’s identical to the bill that passed the House last year but was never voted on in the Senate. It would make it illegal to distribute campaign literature, with the intent to influence a voter or prevent someone from voting, knowing that its explicit endorsement of a candidate by a person or organization is false.

This legislation, which Senator Lisa Gladden has also introduced, would prohibit making challenges to someone’s eligibility to vote indiscriminately or without good cause, interfering with or unduly delaying the work of an election judge, or challenging a qualified voter for the purpose of annoyance or delay.

Before I dropped the bill in the hopper, I spoke to Ways and Means staff to see if election law bills are scheduled for a hearing when I will be at Orioles Fantasy Camp.

They are not.

Sobering news for Democrats in the Governor’s 35% approval rating, according to a poll in today’s Sun.

The bulk of the taxes we passed preserve existing services, making it difficult to demonstrate the benefit to the average citizen.

A majority of those surveyed consider the tax package unfair. So I wrote the following email:

“People will pay their sales tax every day, but they won't benefit from the personal exemption increase or the Earned Income Tax Credit until they file their return in 2009. All filers will receive the former but what can be done to make people more aware of the EITC?”

This is also bad news for advocates of controversial bills. Over the next 90 days, legislators will try to mend fences with their constituents and not cast more tough votes.

The Republicans’ lawsuit that sought to nullify the results of the special session was dismissed yesterday.

“When a technicality in procedure is violated,” the judge wrote, “the entire slate of lawfully enacted legislation should [not] be invalidated.”

But he could not resist calling the legislature’s conduct “reprehensible.”

The legal term for that is dicta – extraneous language in a judge’s opinion that is not binding on the parties to the lawsuit nor precedent for future cases.

To paraphrase Sonny Corleone, who wanted assurances that a gun would be hidden in a restaurant bathroom for his brother, Michael, to use:

The Republicans came out of the courtroom with only dicta in their hands.

“We’ll learn who’s spooked by the push back from the special session.”

We were discussing my bill to increase the money the State spends to prevent teenagers from becoming smokers and free adults from their addiction.

$45 million would come from two sources. Raising the tax on non-cigarette tobacco products, such as little cigars and chewing tobacco, to the same rate as cigarettes. Allocating $30 million in new money from the tobacco companies as part of the settlement of the State’s lawsuit against the industry.

Earlier in the day, one of the House fiscal leaders had said, “The question every bill sponsor will be asked is this: “What’s your funding source?’”

Our bill meets that test, I said to the advocates at our strategy meeting.

But will enough members vote to raise any taxes during the next 90 days, having done so in historic proportions at the special session in November. Or are they spooked?

The Jim Crow poll tax was outlawed by the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Four decades later, ingenious efforts to prevent the poor and minorities from voting still abound. We’ve seen some in Maryland – leaflets urging people to vote on the wrong day, mailings falsely implying that a respected person supports a certain candidate.

You cannot vote on Election Day in Indiana unless you have a driver’s license or some other government-issued ID because of a law passed by the Republican-controlled legislature.

Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the constitutionality of that statute. I was there.

The legal question the justices must decide: does the burden imposed on eligible citizens, who would be denied their right to vote because of this requirement, outweigh the deterrent effect the law would have on voter fraud?

The liberal justices made references to the “real world” consequences of the ID requirement. I couldn’t help but think what Thurgood Marshall would have said if he were still on the court.

I doubt that any of the Court’s current members ever had a client who didn’t have a driver’s license or a birth certificate.

Such people were the life blood of Marshall’s legal career - in Baltimore and for the NAACP. On the bench and in the justice’s private conferences, he made his colleagues aware of the “real world.”

How does Maryland law compare with Indiana’s?

If your right to vote is challenged on Election Day, you can present a driver’s license, a Social Security card, the ID card issued by your employer, or a copy of a current bill or bank statement that shows your name and current address.

I introduced the bill.

Tuesday, 5 pm:

The independents are the key.

More New Hampshire voters are registered as independents than as Democrats or Republicans.
They can vote in either party’s primary.

Will they vote for John McCain in greater numbers than projected because the polls indicate that Barack Obama is ahead by double digits and will win without their support?

That concerned me – before I learned that Obama swept the midnight balloting in Dixville Notch (all 7 Democratic votes) and the turnout is record breaking.

----

Wednesday, 7 am:

African American women are now the key.

CNN says that women and people earning less than $100,000 were crucial to Hillary Clinton’s upset win.

In South Carolina and the big urban states that follow, which first will African American women vote for? A woman President or an African American President?

----

Forgiving the educational debt of doctors who do their residency training in Maryland, if they later practice here, was one of the recommendations of a study to address the state’s looming shortage of doctors.

After reading about this in today’s paper, I wrote the lobbyist for one of the groups that conducted the study:

“If a JD is acceptable as a lead sponsor for your loan forgiveness bill, I sponsored the existing Loan Assistance Repayment Program.”

The response: “You were already on my list.”

Huckabee "began by calmly mentioning his and Obama's contrasting views on issues from guns to life to same-sex marriage."

So wrote conservative pundit William Kristol in his debut op-ed today in the New York Times.

Life, for both Huckabee and Kristol, means that abortion is outlawed, and a doctor would go to jail for performing a medical procedure. That's not my spin; that would be the case if abortion is outlawed - even though they don't say it out loud.

Women's "ability to realize their full potential, the Supreme Court recognized [in the Casey decision], is intimately connected to 'their ability to control their reproductive lives.'"

So wrote Justice Ginsburg in her dissent to the Supreme Court's decision last June upholding Nebraska's partial birth abortion statute.

Childbearing at an early age severely limits a woman's ability to achieve her full potential. In addition, a child born to an unmarried teenager, who has not finished high school, is very likely to drop out of school as well and enter the foster care or criminal justice system.

That's why I spent time today crafting a budget proposal that would reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies in Maryland and make abortion safe, legal, and rare.

Governor Harry Hughes funded a similar initiative 20 years ago when I and three other legislators (on both sides of the abortion issue) urged him to do so.

Doing so again is one of my principal goals this session.

The day of the New Hampshire primary four years ago, I wrote:


"Here’s my Presidential Prediction, written at 6:06 pm, without the benefit of exit polls or pundits’ instant analysis: If Senator Kerry wins by 10 percentage points or more, he will be the Democratic nominee. Other candidates may continue on through the primaries next Tuesday, but their campaigns will be no more than a death rattle."


"You can substitute Obama for Kerry," I wrote a friend this morning, "and I'm predicting he does win by 10 points. For a change, I'm going out on a limb."

I endorsed Obama because he appeals to the better instincts in the American electorate. Two others have put it more eloquently.

"He makes me feel like it's one of those moments in American history where I need to take a chance," a Unitarian Universalist pastor told the New York Times after attending an Obama rally Friday.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune," said Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

2008
April (5)
March (24)
February (19)
January (21)