2004 General Assembly Session Newsletter
Delegate Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg
41st District, Baltimore City
Done But
Not Done
We did not pass legislation this session to authorize slots, address the
structural deficit in the state budget, or provide a State loan to the Baltimore
City school system. For the short term, that's how the last 90 days can be
summarized. However, those issues remain before us.
The State budget won't be balanced in Fiscal Year ‘06 unless we legalize
slots, raise more revenue through taxes or fees, or make substantial cuts in
Medicaid, aid to local government, and public higher education. The City
school system must educate our children and balance its budget.
In this, my 22nd annual newsletter, I write to share with you the actions I took
on these issues and the legislation that I introduced this past session.
Slots and the Budget: Paying for What We Receive From Government
What services should government provide? How should we raise the money to do
so? Those fundamental questions must be answered in adopting the state budget.
During the floor debate on the House tax package, I said to my colleagues, "Taxes
borne by everyone, based on their ability to pay, are a far better way to
provide for our children's education than doing so on the backs of those who
gamble."
Nonetheless, if slots are enacted, Pimlico Race Track would not be an
appropriate venue because of the negative effect it would have on the
surrounding neighborhoods. The Governor, the Speaker, and I all agree on this,
as do the Mount Washington Improvement Association and the other communities
north of the track. Thoroughbred racing should be sustained and enhanced at
Pimlico - without slots, and the Preakness Stakes should continue to be run
there.
The Governor supports building a new race track - with slots, near the Camden
Yards baseball and football stadiums. If this happens, Pimlico would close. To
prepare for that possibility, I will work with affected individuals and groups,
as well as my 41st District colleagues, to draft bill language that would ensure
both state funding and local input for the redevelopment of this site.
Baltimore City Schools: Accountability and Fiscal Responsibility Are a Must
It is intolerable that inadequate financial oversight of the City school
system threatened our students and their families with disruption of their
academic program and our teachers with the unacceptable choices of deferral of
their pay or a compulsory furlough. I participated in the negotiations that
resulted in the Governor's proposed legislation, which authorized unilateral
changes to union contracts. This would have wreaked havoc on the learning
process.
I support Mayor O'Malley's decision to resolve the school crisis without a state
loan. Accountability for the fiscal and academic performance of our schools now
rests with him and other Baltimore City stakeholders, myself included. Union
contracts and teacher salaries will be negotiated but will not be torn up.
The lives and futures of our children and teachers are at risk without a
sound long-term resolution of this crisis. It is impossible to teach and
learn when you are not sure about what the next day or week holds. Our schools
have made significant academic improvements over the last several years. We
must now build upon those achievements in a fiscally responsible way.
Encouraging Public Service: Schaefer Scholarships Created, Loan Forgiveness
Studied
I had a Rosenberg scholarship for college and law school. My parents could
afford the tuition. After graduating, I could work for the Housing Authority of
Baltimore City, instead of practicing corporate law at a much higher salary.
Many outstanding young college graduates want to work in the public or
non-profit sector but can't afford to because of their academic debt. I
sponsored two bills to enable public-spirited individuals to follow my career
path.
Last summer, I read about the Harry S Truman Scholarships, which pay the full
tuition of students entering college or graduate school, based on their history
of public and community service, commitment to careers in government or the
non-profit sector, and outstanding leadership potential and communication
skills. Upon graduation, Truman Scholars must work full-time in a public
service career or occupation for every year that they have received the award.
I successfully introduced House Bill 1307, which will create a similar program
in Maryland. To mark an extraordinary public career, I have called it the
William Donald Schaefer Scholarship.
To recruit or retain their best employees, Cabinet Secretaries in the federal
government can repay all or part of an employee's academic debt. Sixteen
federal agencies provided over $1.3 million in student loan repayments on behalf
of 690 federal employees in fiscal year 2002.
Our state agencies could have done the same under House Bill 387. My bill did
not pass, but the State will review with employee groups how loan forgiveness
would fit with the other benefits provided state workers.
Restrictive Covenants: Removing Discriminatory Language From Land Deeds
The civil rights movement prompted some of my first political activities.
I was elected student government president of an integrated Baltimore City
College. Today, I represent a legislative district where a majority of my
constituents are African-American. My work on the two bills I describe below is
an important manifestation of the issues that still confront us today.
Fifty six years ago, two Baltimoreans successfully argued before the U.S.
Supreme Court that enforcement of racially restrictive covenants violated the
Equal Protection Clause of the federal constitution. Thurgood Marshall was the
attorney for the Shelley family, whose purchase of a home in a St. Louis
neighborhood would have violated a covenant prohibiting occupancy by anyone of
the "Negro or Mongolian race." Solicitor General Phillip Perlman spoke for the
United States.
This past December, the leaders of a neighborhood association in my district
asked me to draft a bill that would enable them to remove this objectionable
provision from their deeds of property:
At no time shall the land included in said tract or any part thereof, or
any building erected thereon, be occupied by any negro or person of negro
extraction. This prohibition, however, is not intended to include the occupancy
by a negro domestic servant or other person, while employed in or about the
premises by the owner or occupant of any land included in said tract.
Under current law, a unanimous vote of all homeowners is needed to remove this
odious but unenforceable language from their deeds. Three residents of this
neighborhood objected to excising the provision.
My 41st District colleagues, Senator Lisa Gladden, Delegates Jill Carter
and Nathaniel Oaks, joined me in introducing legislation which allows an 85%
majority to remove a restrictive covenant that discriminates on the basis of
race, national origin, or religious belief. Our bills passed both houses of
the General Assembly, unanimously.
Dignity in Death: Preserving the Cemetery at What Was the Hospital for the
Negro Insane
In the segregated public health system of Maryland, people labeled as mentally
ill were confined in the Hospital for the Negro Insane. And often buried there.
An estimated 2,000 people are laid to rest in the cemetery at what is now called
Crownsville State Hospital. For years, mentally ill patients who died at State
hospitals were often buried on the grounds.
At some cemeteries, graves were marked with numbers, and a register was
kept in order to identify individual gravesites. In some instances, graves were
marked with a small headstone. However, many graves went unmarked, and some
of the registers used to identify burial sites have been lost.
Prompted by a newspaper article about the efforts of historian Janice
Hayes-Williams to find the names of those buried there, I introduced
legislation that requires the State to maintain these cemeteries and erect a
monument in memory of those laid to rest there. The cemetery land cannot be
sold unless the contract binds the purchaser to these conditions. With the
passage of House Bill 1351, we will now provide dignity in death to people who
were denied it in life.
Frozen Embryos: Advance Directives Protect Individuals and Health Care
Providers
Couples who use in-vitro fertilization to have a child need to decide what to
do with any unused frozen eggs, sperm and embryos. I introduced House Bill 1043
to encourage couples seeking in-vitro services to sign an advance directive
stating their intent. Far better to discuss this matter at the outset than
to sue about it after a divorce, separation, or death of one of the individuals.
Most, if not all, health care providers require that such forms be signed. My
legislation is needed so that both the health care provider and the individuals
involved will be legally protected when they dispose of the eggs, sperm, or
embryos, in accordance with the advance directive.
HB 1043 would provide liability relief when following a directive that
conforms with the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
It passed the House but was not voted on by the Senate committee to which it was
referred.
Compensating Displaced Businesses: Guaranteeing Small Entrepreneurs Their Due
Small business owners epitomize the American entrepreneurial spirit. We should
not penalize these people in the name of progress, but we do. An outdated
law severely limits the relocation payments government makes to displaced
property owners and small businesses when public money is used to redevelop
a neighborhood.
My bill has passed, creating a task force that will consider shortening the
condemnation process, which would lessen the uncertainty a business owner faces,
and compensating that person for the loss of goodwill caused by forced
relocation.
SLAPP Suits: Protecting First Amendment Rights and Limiting Abusive Lawsuits
If you protest a plan to destroy open space for a shopping center or testify
against a bar owner who permits under-age drinking, you no longer have to fear
being SLAPPed. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation are brought
against an individual who has exercised his or her First Amendment rights on a
public issue. They are designed to intimidate legitimate public debate.
With the passage of my bill, a citizen who has been SLAPPed can ask a judge to
dismiss the suit and halt all proceedings connected with it. The judge will do
so if the lawsuit is brought in bad faith, materially related to a citizen's
communication with a governmental body or the public, and intended to inhibit
that person's free expression.
I first introduced this legislation 12 years ago, after learning about SLAPPs on
an episode of LA Law. The show may no longer be in prime time, but my
bill finally is.
Whistleblower Protections: Shielding Employees Who Uncover Illegal Practices
Employees who have the courage to blow the whistle on unethical and illegal
practices should be protected against retaliation by their employers. Such
individuals were instrumental in exposing the corrupt practices at Enron and
WorldCom.
Executive branch employees of state government cannot be fired for disclosing
information when they have a good faith belief that there has been an abuse of
authority, gross mismanagement, a substantial and specific danger to public
health or safety, or a violation of law. House Bill 1044, which passed,
extends that protection to people working for a private company under a contract
with the State.
Stem Cell Research: Scientific Inquiry Compared to Nazi Experimentation
It is immoral to waste the potential of scientific research using embryonic stem
cells to save lives and cure diseases. However, those who believe that an
embryo, a clump of 100 or so cells, is human have stymied these efforts.
Progress is already being made with stem cells in addressing Parkinson's,
Alzheimer's, sickle-cell anemia, and leukemia. New Jersey recently became
the first state to finance such research, and Harvard University has created a
Stem Cell Institute.
To help Maryland's biomedicine and biotechnology industries remain competitive
with other states, I worked with a leading researcher at Johns Hopkins and
introduced a bill that would regulate stem cell research and prohibit human
cloning.
One opponent of the bill compared it to Hitler's "horrible scientific
experiments on classes of human beings that he decided were not persons."
The Baltimore Jewish Council joined me in objecting to this gross
mischaracterization and distortion of my legislation. The controversy this
generated was one of the reasons the bill was referred to summer study.
Marriage Promotion Act: Addressing Values Issues Responsibly
The number of people receiving cash assistance in Maryland has fallen by 64%
since the Congress enacted welfare reform in 1996. Reducing both teen pregnancy
and out-of-wedlock births are two of the goals of that law. The Bush
Administration wants to add marriage promotion.
The evidence is overwhelming that children fare far better in life when raised
in a two-parent family. Liberals and moderates need to address values issues
such as this.
That's why I introduced the Marriage Promotion Act of 2004 - to demonstrate, in
part, that religious conservatives do not have a monopoly on promoting
marriage. This bill would require Maryland organizations that receive federal
Marriage Promotion funds to provide domestic violence counseling, forgive the
child support obligations of non-custodial parents if they reunite with the
custodial parent, and create a pilot program to promote marriage and
relationship skills.
My legislation was referred to the Joint Committee on Welfare Reform for
further study. Since I serve on that panel, I will use that study to refine my
bill and reintroduce it next session.
City Social Services Director: Interim Appointee's Actions Will be Reviewed
The interim director of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services was
appointed by the Governor without the required approval of the Mayor. He has
proposed the closure or consolidation of neighborhood DSS offices in the City.
I was instrumental in having language added to the budget, requiring that such
changes be submitted to the legislature for review and comment.
Ensuring Mental Health Funding: Community Based Services Benefit, Carter
Center Sale Monitored
The State is no longer building or maintaining large institutions to
warehouse the mentally ill for the majority of their lives. When these
facilities are downsized or closed, the property must be sold or leased at fair
market value, with the proceeds going to a community-based services fund, under
legislation that I successfully sponsored. The fund will provide employment
opportunities and affordable housing for individuals with mental illness and
develop the Mental Health Crisis Response System, which I was instrumental in
authorizing two years ago.
The bill also requires that the General Assembly be kept informed of any
developments related to the proposed transfer of the Walter P. Carter Center to
the University of Maryland Medical System. The Carter Center, an acute
inpatient psychiatric facility in downtown Baltimore, is named after the late
civil rights leader and father of my 41st District colleague, Jill Carter.
Insuring Kids' Health: Creating An Express Lane
Children in working poor families are eligible for health insurance paid for by
the state and federal governments, but many of them have not applied for it.
Such coverage means more preventive care and fewer expensive trips to the ER.
Students applying for the free and reduced lunch program in Stamford,
Connecticut were asked if they had health insurance coverage. The result: 1,000
kids, half of those eligible but unenrolled, signed up. When I read about this
last fall, I introduced House Bill 1024, would duplicate this outreach effort in
Maryland.
Legislation requiring the State departments of health and education to make
recommendations on an outreach program to identify eligible individuals for this
insurance passed the House, but time ran out on the last night of the session
before the Senate could vote on it.
Providing Drug Coverage for State Retirees: Preserving Benefits
We now know that the projected costs of the Medicare law the Congress passed
last year were not real; the "benefits" for retired state employees may be
illusory as well. The prescription drug coverage in the bill has a huge
hole. Beneficiaries must pay for their yearly drug costs between $2,250 and
$5,100.
The 30,000 retired State employees currently have a better drug plan. However,
the State can now switch them to the new Medicare coverage. That's why I
introduced House Bill 1023, which would have prohibited the Governor from making
any changes in retirees' benefits as a result of the new Medicare law, unless
the General Assembly approved it by passing a bill.
My bill did not pass, but legislation was enacted that requires the Governor to
offer a prescription drug benefit to our retirees but does not limit his ability
to modify it. The House Appropriations Committee also wrote the Governor, asking
him to "consult and work with the General Assembly prior to altering the State
plan, based on the provisions of the Medicare Act." The committee will hold a
briefing on this matter in the fall.
Stopping New Flipping Tactic: Recording Options When Selling Residential
Property
Speculators who would destroy older neighborhoods by flipping properties at
inflated prices to unsuspecting buyers have a disturbing new tactic. They
create an option to purchase the property in someone else's name; then they
assign the option to the house purchaser for a fee or cost built into the
purchase price.
This problem was brought to my attention by St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center. My
bill required that these options be recorded in land records, to notify all
parties to the sale. House Bill 1196 passed the House of Delegates but failed
in the Senate.
Game Interference: Who's on First? Who's on the Playing Field?
It is a crime "to disrupt or interfere with a commercial athletic contest by
throwing or projecting an object on the playing field or seating area." But is
the coaches' box "on the playing field"? Last year, a fan at Chicago's
Comiskey Park attacked the first base coach of the visiting team.
I introduced a bill to amend the definition of "playing field" to include the
coaches' box, dugout, penalty box, and other areas where access by the public is
prohibited. Unfortunately, I struck out with the Judiciary Committee, which
killed the bill.
To Bear Witness
"Personalize the issue." That's what I tell both the advocates supporting my
bills and the students in my Legislation class at Maryland Law School. Here are
some moving examples from the last 90 days.
** Michael Taylor was hospitalized at Rosewood at age two because of his
developmental disabilities but moved out to the community thirty years later. He
told us, "My mother died before she could see me prove them wrong."
** "Not saying good bye to our dying partner is one of our greatest fears," the
witness said. He was one of several gays and lesbians who related heart
wrenching stories of being denied access to their loved one at a hospital in
Maryland.
** I sat down at the witness table in the Finance Committee, accompanied by
Janice Hayes-Williams, the African American historian who is researching the
identities of the 2,000 people buried with nameless gravestones at Crownsville
State Hospital. The vice chairman, John Astle, was running the meeting. "How are
you, Janice?" he said. He then explained that Janice's grandmother lived on his
block had helped to raise his children.
During the coming months, I will continue to work on many of the issues I've
discussed in this newsletter. I welcome your comments on these matters or any
other areas of concern to you.
Yours truly,
Samuel I. Rosenberg