Category: Sandy’s 2014 Legislative Diary

Sandy’s Campaign Diary: The Standout Performer

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This morning the Baltimore Sun endorsed me and my 41st District colleagues, Jill Carter and Nathaniel Oaks. The full editorial follows.
        In District 41 in the Northwest reaches of the city, incumbents Samuel “Sandy” Rosenberg, Jill Carter and Nathaniel Oaks, all House veterans, have performed well as a team despite their diverse backgrounds, and they merit reelection. The delegates were critical in the effort to secure $1.1 billion in school construction funds as well as financing for the $2.6 billion Red Line light rail project while protecting homeowners living near the proposed right-of-way from losing their property through eminent domain.
       The standout performer in the group remains Mr. Rosenberg, 64, who is seeking his ninth term in the House, and who served as floor leader in the successful repeal of Maryland’s death penalty. But kudos also to Delegate Carter, once seen as a thin-skinned outsider in the State House, who has in recent years demonstrated a far better grasp of her role with a focus on juvenile justice, police training and transparency in government.

Solving the problem and asking why not

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I want to share with you my opening and closing remarks at the League of Women Voters 41st District candidates forum last night.

             At this event two elections ago, an audience member asked us if we could help a member of the Islam community obtain a funeral license.

             Embalming is not permitted in the Muslim faith, but it is part of the required training under state law.

             Working with my 41st District colleagues, I passed a bill that solved the problem.

             A few years ago, I heard from the Sher family. They close their used car business on Saturday to observe the Jewish Sabbath.

             Now that car titles and other transactions are submitted electronically, they can’t do this work on Sundays, when the Blue laws require used car dealerships in Baltimore City to be closed.

             Working with my 41st District colleagues, I passed a bill that solved the problem.

             We have worked together in all of the neighborhoods of the district for the past 12 years.

I began my closing statement by referring to an event I attended yesterday afternoon.

             Orientation for the Governor’s Summer Interns Program was held at the Shriver Center at UMBC, named for R. Sargent and Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

            That prompted me to end my talk by quoting Robert Kennedy.

            “Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were…”

            Someone in the audience spoke out, “And ask why not.”

           Like a Baptist church, I thought to myself.

           Afterwards, that person introduced herself to me. She is a daughter of the late Rev. Vernon Dobson.

           Rev. Dobson; Congressman Parren Mitchell, whom I worked for; and Walter P. Carter, whose daughter I proudly serve with, were the leading civil rights activists in Baltimore.

 

Asking for your vote and your help

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I haven’t done much legislative work this summer.

Last Wednesday was an exception.

I attended a meeting in Annapolis of the Task Force to Study Implementing a Civil Right to Counsel in Maryland.

Having a lawyer makes a crucial difference in housing court or in child custody cases.

I drove to and from the meeting with former Attorney General Steve Sachs.

Steve is an adviser and a contributor.

He told me that he would be out of town on Election Day and voting by absentee ballot.

Just before we returned to Steve’s home, I said, “Since I won’t see you before you leave, I’m asking for your vote.”

“You have it,” Steve replied.

 

I’ll be at Cross Country Elementary School on June 24, again asking people for their votes.

I need your help asking people for their votes at other polling places.

If you can volunteer, please click the link below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jKJKHaCMBEWgGHpiPOueh4mhk4tT5UUDeYVFsAud6-0/viewform

 

Perhaps you have read about Michele Robinson

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Funding for instruction geared to high performing students in Baltimore City public schools may be jeopardized by the budget now being considered by the School Board.

It’s a positive sign that we’re discussing how to retain and attract such students. My testimony last night, on behalf of myself and my 41st District colleagues, follows.

Enabling our children to enter school ready to learn was the objective of the Prekindergarten Expansion Act of 2014, a $4.3 million competitive grant program introduced by the O’Malley-Brown Administration and enacted by the General Assembly.

           Enabling our children to graduate school ready to excel should be our objective in the Baltimore City Schools budget for for Fiscal Year 2015.

         At a minimum, there should be level funding for the Ingenuity Project, the International Baccalaureate program, and all other efforts designed for our high achieving students.

 Last year, Mt. Washington Elementary/Middle School received just over $131,000 in funding from North Avenue specifically for the I.B. program. This coming year, it would receive $100,000 under the budget proposal.

 Three years ago, this Board approved the middle-school expansion at Mount Washington School. The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program was crucial to the success of the expansion, with inquiries from families around the region and attendance from within the community at or above capacity. Moreover, it has been offered to all students in the middle grades, regardless of their place along the academic spectrum.

 Max Yuhas is a Baltimore Polytechnic sophomore who has been in the Ingenuity Project since 6th grade. In elementary school, his mother writes, he showed a keen aptitude and interest in math, but he was not challenged and given the opportunity to learn at a pace that matched his ability until he began the Ingenuity Project.

 This experience has continued at Poly, where he is completing a rigorous course load that will prepare him to attend a top tier university. Ingenuity Project seniors were accepted at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Hopkins, Cornell, University of Maryland Honors, among many more top-ranked schools. These students are also being provided an opportunity to do hands on research projects with world class academics at Hopkins, the University of Maryland, UMBC, and other institutions.

Felicity Ross, a former Ingenuity Project teacher and the parent of a 6th-grader in the program at Roland Park, shared with us her experiences.

What the Ingenuity Project offers is a rigorous math and science program for highly academically able students around the city. It is a highly competitive program that offers a very needed service for highly able students, who need to move at a faster pace, deal with more challenging work, and interact with peers with similar abilities.

Her son floundered at his elementary school, where he knew the majority of the content in his Math class before the year had even started. He stopped enjoying school and was at times a distraction.

He is now thrilled to go to school every day, enjoys that his peers take school as seriously as he does, and enjoys having deep conversations about all of his subjects with his parents, his teachers, and his friends.

Perhaps you have read about Michele Robinson, who was born in Chicago at a time when public schools were still resisting integration. By the time she entered high school, the city — under pressure from the federal government — opened an integrated magnet school for high achievers.

Michele Obama credits that experience with setting her on a path to Princeton and Harvard.

There are many children like the First Lady in our city. We can and should give them an opportunity to excel as well.

We urge you to maintain full funding for these vital programs.

 

Advisers but no consultant

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I have political advisers, but I don’t have a media consultant.

He who represents himself has a fool for a client. I learned that in law school.

Even if you have a good political (or legislative) gut, you should bounce your ideas off of someone whose judgment you trust.

But after we decided to do a mailer emphasizing my civil rights record, I had to draft the text.

Fair Elections. Workplace Discrimination. Religious Freedom. Death Penalty. Holocaust Responsibility.

Sandy Rosenberg was the lead sponsor of major laws that protect our civil rights.

 The Voters Rights Protection Act makes it a crime to influence or attempt to influence a voter’s decision whether to go to the polls to cast a vote through the use of force, fraud, threat, menace, intimidation, bribery, reward, or offer of reward. The Election Day robo calls violated this law. HB5/SB287, 2005

 The Lilly Ledbetter Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2009 gives workers the opportunity to file a claim for unequal pay, reversing a 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court. HB 288, 2009

A business owned by an Orthodox Jewish family was provided an exception to the Sunday blue laws because they could not work on Saturday, their Sabbath. HB 624, 2011

Capital punishment is costly, is not administered fairly, burdens victims’ families, and does not deter murderers. We are a better state for ending the death penalty. SB 276, 2013

The French national railroad company made public its records transporting Jews and others to Nazi concentration camps. HB 520, 2011

 

I also drafted statements for other elected officials to make on my behalf.   How do I compose something that sounds like them?

Google “the office holder and the issue.”

The best way to campaign

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I knocked on doors last week.

Delegates Jill Carter, Nathaniel Oaks and I walked up and down the streets and hills of Keswick, one of the new precincts in the 41st District.

We met the father of a City College senior who will be entering the University of Chicago this fall, a friend of someone who took my Legislation class, and a fellow swimmer at the Meadowbrook pool. (It was not Michael Phelps.)

We heard from a father who got in line at 4:30 a.m. to make sure his son would be enrolled in the pre-kindergarten program at Roland Park Elementary and Middle School. We discussed fracking and the composition of the City School Board.

At every door, we asked for that person’s vote.

It’s the best way to campaign.

“All the research suggests that the most effective form of outreach is also the most seemingly old-fashioned: a conversation on a doorstep between a potential voter and a well-trained volunteer,” relates the cover story in the most recent New Republic.

Even more so if it’s the candidate in the flesh.

I first learned that campaigning with Parren Mitchell in 1970.

I’ve been reminded of it every time since.

Working for my clients

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     Mr. Keating soon called on five senators who had been recipients of his campaign largess — Alan Cranston of California, Donald W. Riegle Jr. of Michigan, John Glenn of Ohio and Dennis DeConcini and John McCain of Arizona — to pressure the bank board to relax its rules and kill its investigation.

     All five met with regulators, and Edwin J. Gray, then the board chairman, said four of the senators — all but Mr. Riegle — “came to me like lawyers arguing for a client.”

That’s from the obituary today of Charles Keating, the poster child of the savings and loan scandal 25 years ago.

     Any regulation must instead target what we have called “quid pro quo” corruption or its appearance…That Latin phrase captures the notion of a direct exchange of an official act for money.

That’s from Chief Justice Roberts’ decision yesterday striking down limits on the total amount someone can contribute to political campaigns.

No member of the current Supreme Court has served in a legislature, where you try to balance the needs and interests of constituents, friends, interest groups, and the House leadership.

Not even the sleaziest operators in Annapolis make it a quid pro quo proposition.  Instead, they may rely on a personal relationship with a member or remind you of the dinner their client sponsored for your committee.

I must admit.  When someone writes me a check, I answer their letter or phone call and meet with them.  But I try to do the same for any constituent.

The people of the 41st District are my clients.

Their votes, not someone else’s contribution, are what put me here.

In the home stretch

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Developments on three of my bills worthy of discussion…

My referendum petition bill was slowed when a senator offered a floor amendment.  It will be debated tomorrow.

I’ve been advised not to intervene.  The Senate committee that acted on my bill will handle it.

I thought my slots bill would be heard in the Senate Finance Committee.  I called a staffer there for advice.  It will go to the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee instead, he counseled.

I ran into the B&T chair at lunch and spoke to him about the bill.

“We’ve never done this before” asserted a lobbyist testifying before the subcommittee considering my legislation to adopt Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion regarding the definition of supervisor.

“Our Lilly Ledbetter law three years ago adopted another dissent by Justice Ginsburg,” I replied.

Afterwards, I remembered that we had reversed a Supreme Court case regarding pregnancy discrimination.  Our Attorney General’s Office confirmed my memory.

In 1977, we passed a law that the exclusion of pregnancy from a health plan was gender discrimination.

I’ve written a memo for the subcommittee members.

  • My Key Issues:

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