Category: Sandy’s 2018 Legislative Diary

I waited until the midnight hour

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

I testified in the midnight hour last night.

I’ve passed bills in the last hour of the 90-day session. I’ve seen my bills die because the clock ran out at midnight.

I don’t think I’ve ever testified on a bill as late as I did yesterday.
House Bill 819 was one of 40 gun bills heard by the Judiciary Committee, starting at 1 pm.

This legislation deals with a license to carry a concealed weapon, specifically who hears appeals from the initial decision made by the State Police.

Under existing law, it’s the Handgun Permit Review Board, whose members are appointed by the Governor.

The current members, all appointees of Governor Hogan, have reversed many more license denials by the State Police than did their predecessors.

HB 819 would send those appeals to the Office of Administrative Hearings, where administrative law judges are experienced in reviewing decisions by state agencies.

A little later than normal, but still early this morning, I contacted OAH to get the relevant data on issues raised the night before by the pro-gun opponents of HB 819.

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Tzedek means justice, in Hebrew.

At the funeral of Judge Dana Levitz, one of his eulogists told the mourners that the judge’s license plate was TZEDEK.

That prompted me to ask the Governor’s Office if that license plate could be retired.

It soon was and will not be issued again.

I told Dale Levitz, Dana’s widow, and she has given me permission to share this story.

We call this a mitzvah, a good deed that is a positive commandment.

Case Won

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No amendments were offered to the medical marijuana bill.

I was the floor leader, responsible for explaining House Bill 2 and defeating unfriendly amendments.

“This is your big day,” a committee colleague said to me shortly before today’s session began.

“I hope not,” I replied.

If we had done our job – bringing a good bill to the floor (with twenty committee amendments) and then suggesting to members thinking of offering floor amendments that this good bill did not need to be revised further, there would be no amendments.

“If you have your case won, sit down and shut up,” I was taught in law school.

In a court room or a legislative body.

Deja Review

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I represented my committee, Health and Government Operations, at the Medicaid budget hearing this morning.

Medicaid is the second highest expenditure in the budget, exceeded only by aid to local schools.

There are 1.2 million Marylanders on Medicaid.

That’s 20% of the state’s population and 40% of our children and mothers.

Today was not the first time I got to review this budget.

For most of my 20 years on the Appropriations Committee, I served on or chaired the Health Subcommittee.

My first term I sat next to and was mentored by Delegate Robert Neall, a Republican.

Bobby was in the hearing room today.

He’s now the Secretary of Health.

I don’t have a vote anymore on the Health Subcommittee, but today got me thinking about how we can use Medicaid’s leverage as a provider/insurer to improve the quality of health care in our state.

Nothing specific yet…

My conservative side

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

I’m a conservative…

When it comes to bill drafting.

If there’s law that already addresses the issue I’m concerned with, copy it.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

That was the case yesterday for my bill imposing penalties for the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors.

They would be the same as those for the sale of tobacco products to minors, as enacted in House Bill 185 last session.

I was the sponsor of that bill.

—

On a similar note, legislation to give a preference to Maryland architects when bidding on state government projects was heard by my committee today.

I wrote our committee counsel, “Is the local preference standard in the bill the same as that in other states?”

She responded, “Yes and it would only kick in if another state had a specific preference that we would apply an identical preference.”

The meaning of malicious and the Leadership Conference

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The bill before us would impose a stiffer penalty if the violation of our public accommodations law was malicious.

“What does that mean?” asked the representatives of restaurant owners and small businesses as they testified in opposition to the bill.

I was tempted to respond by saying that Justice Scalia would rely upon the dictionary definition of malicious – its plain meaning.

But then the restaurant spokesman said that there was a bill before the Congress that would set a reasonable requirement for structural changes to meet the needs of customers with a disability.

“Is that bill supported by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights?” I asked.

The witness knew that the business community supported the bill but didn’t know about the Leadership Conference’s position.

I’ll find out before my subcommittee acts on House Bill 935.

Better to rely upon my liberal roots than my conservative baseball friend, Justice Scalia.

Déjà vu all over again

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

My testimony on my bills today was déjà vu all over again.

“This committee has dealt with 20th Century domestic election fraud – leaflets and robo calls,” I told the Ways and Means Committee. “Now we have to deal with 21st Century international electronic election fraud.”

My bills addressing old fashioned fraud were favorably reported by the committee. They’re now the law.

House Bill 767 this session would require that steps be taken to protect our voter registration infrastructure from hacking.

The next bill today dealt with the Cigarette Restitution Fund, the repository of the money from the multi-state settlement with the tobacco industry.

Delegate Pete Rawlings and I were the lead sponsors of the bill creating the fund.

“If we don’t spend more money from the fund to urge kids not to smoke or to stop smoking if they already are hooked,” I told the Appropriations Committee, “we’ll spend more money on Medicaid to treat the illnesses caused by smoking.”

My bill requiring that a tenant have a lawyer before being jailed for failure to pay rent has been referred to two committees.

Today was the hearing in the second committee.

Fewer lawyers among the committee members this time – and more questions.

I care very deeply about the right to legal counsel.

Answering the questions was a challenge I relish.

Posting and negotiating

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

I’m posting on Facebook.

And I’m negotiating with Facebook.

House Bill 768 would require online platforms to keep records of political advertisements.

Before a bill hearing, I often try to meet with the opponents of my legislation to see if we can reach a compromise.

In this instance, the more accurate term would be the business most directly affected by the bill.

I met with a Facebook executive and the company’s Annapolis lobbyists before the bill hearing.

This weekend, the company sent me its reactions to the conversations it had with me and another legislator, as well as its reactions to the hearings and SBE thoughts.

The discussions continue.

Winning the race

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

Nothing happens by chance – at the legislature or the race track.

The budget analysis for the Maryland Stadium Authority, prepared by our non-partisan professional staff, states, “In March 2016, the Maryland Racing Commission asked MSA to manage a study evaluating Pimlico Race Course’s ability to serve as the permanent home for the Preakness Stakes.”

That’s accurate, but the Racing Commission was not the first player to set foot on the track.

Preakness week 2015, Sal Sinatra, general manager of the Maryland Jockey Club, was quoted in the Sun as saying, “Right now, I’d say Laurel is in the lead [to host the Preakness]. My goal is to try and not let that happen.”

“This building is old, you just can’t add suites to it,” Sinatra said of Pimlico. “It’s almost a rebuild here, where Laurel is a pretty healthy building. Laurel you can renovate, so that plays into it as well. … Obviously, we have more acreage over at Laurel than we do here.”

My district includes Pimlico. I’ve been going there since I was in elementary school, not to bet but to watch the races from Jay Slater’s house – across the street from the top of the stretch.

In light of Sinatra’s statements, I asked myself, “Who is a respected neutral party that can study what it would cost to modernize Pimlico, as well as what it would cost the Baltimore region to lose the Preakness?”

The obvious answer was the Maryland Stadium Authority – highly regarded in Annapolis after building Oriole Park, M&T Bank Stadium, the Hippodrome Theatre, and the Comcast Center at College Park.

Don Hutchinson arranged a lunch meeting for me with Tom Kelso, the chairman of the Authority.

We agreed that a consultant study should be funded by the State, the City of Baltimore, and the Maryland Jockey Club, Pimlico’s owner.

Funding commitments were made, and the Racing Commission asked the Authority to manage the study.

At today’s budget hearing, the Authority indicated that it expected the second and final phase of the study to be completed this December.

At the 2019 legislative session, I won’t depend upon chance to win the race and keep the Preakness at Pimlico.

Trumpeting and Extending Gideon

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

I read Gideon’s Trumpet when I was 14.

The book tells the story of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court case which established every defendant’s right to counsel when accused of a felony.

Providing legal counsel in non-criminal cases has been one of my priorities as a legislator, in no small measure because of the case and the book.

Consequently, I did not need to read my testimony today on House Bill 942.

My bill would require that before a person is thrown in jail for not paying the rent, he or she is entitled to a lawyer.

Just like the ruling in Gideon.

“There is a simple but fundamental premise for my bill,” I told the committee. “No one should go to jail for failing to pay the rent.”

The Maryland Judicial Conference opposed my bill because it is “rare for individuals to be detained by commissioners when brought in on a body attachment.”

“Rare is too often,” I told the committee.

I contrasted that opposition with the support of retired Chief Judge Robert Bell, whose written testimony stated, “This process [of body attachment] applies, and is especially invidious with respect, to debts arising from a residential tenancy.”

For good luck, I brought my tattered copy of Gideon’s Trumpet to the hearing.

Anthony Lewis, the author, autographed it: “for Sandy Rosenberg, who writes laws.”

My testimony – Unpolished

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

When I write this blog, I try to polish each sentence so that every word is the best way to make my point to you clearly and effectively. It’s not that way when I testify.

Here’s a transcript of what I said today on House Bill 768, my legislation to treat online political ads as Maryland law already regulates written or broadcast campaign material.

I did not pretty it up. I did delete certain sentences. In the brackets, I’ve added explanations.

This committee well knows the effect that fraud and deceit can have upon our election process. Several years ago, the committee amended the Voter’s Rights Protection Act, the state law to criminalize deceit and fraud that was intended to affect an individual’s decision whether to vote [This was my bill.] and that language/provision has been used successfully in a prosecution involving robocalls.

So, that dubious, and that’s a nice word for it, those fraudulent attempts to interfere with our fundamental process of electing candidates to public office is now at risk and just indictments don’t matter thus far because since the indictments handed down by the Justice Department on Friday we see even just after the shooting in Lakeland, Parkland, sorry, the Russian bots are at work.

So, what this legislation would do, similar to the bill you just heard before, is to build upon our existing structure.

For instance, to add online advertising to the existing definitions of campaign material, public communication, and electioneering communication to impose the same requirements that we already do on non-digital communications dealing with Maryland candidates in Maryland elections.

The bill would take effect on June 1 because as we all know we have a primary at the end of that month.

The bottom line here is, we need to act to address clear attempts to disturb to destroy our political process, our fundamental electoral process, fundamental to our democracy, to any democracy, and we’re now well aware that we’re not talking about a hoax.

We’re talking about sustained, systemic efforts to upset, diminish, destroy our fundamental system and I would hope, and I know, feel confident that the committee, as it has in the past, will take the appropriate action on my bill and as well and/or on the bill you heard prior to this. [House Bill 981, sponsored by Del. Alonzo Washington, chair of the Subcommittee on Election Law]

Thank you very much.

  • My Key Issues:

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