2002 General Assembly Session Newsletter
Delegate Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg
42nd District, Baltimore City and County
Dear Friend:
I write to discuss with you the issues I dealt with at this year's General Assembly session - my twentieth as a member of the House of Delegates.
BUDGET The downturn in the economy, security costs in response to the 9/11 terrorist attack, and President Bush’s tax cut all contribute to the State’s fiscal problems. However, our projected deficit at the start of the session was smaller than what most states faced because the General Assembly’s Spending Affordability process had wisely limited the growth in ongoing state spending during the boom years of the 90's.
Our state constitution mandates a "thorough and efficient" public school system. However, the poorer counties, Baltimore City most notably, are unable to adequately fund education for their children, whose needs are greater than those in wealthier jurisdictions.
We enacted a major change in the formula for State aid to local schools that is based on the wealth (or lack thereof) of each county, as well as the special needs of its children. A 34-cent hike in the tobacco tax will pay for this in the short run, but there will be a $1.3 billion increase in school aid five years from now. We created a commission to study how the State should find the revenue for this and other government programs. In this election year, candidates - myself included - should be asked how we would pay for public education and the other programs we tout on the campaign trail.
I chair the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Resources. This session, our fiscal plight forced us to make budget cuts or to oppose bills that would increase funding for worthy programs. One very notable exception was our decision to fund an increase in monthly welfare payments.
State law requires that a family’s monthly cash grant and Food Stamps equal 61% of the State’s minimum living level. The General Assembly mandated this when we instituted welfare reform in 1996. The Governor did not budget money for the required increase. However, the budget is balanced, in part, by moving funds from over two dozen special accounts, the largest being the one for certain transportation projects in the D.C. suburbs, into the general fund. My subcommittee stipulated that a portion of the transferred funds be used to increase the benefit for a family of three from $472 to $490.88.
LEAD POISONING As many of you know, reducing lead poisoning among our children has been one of my highest priorities as a legislator. This preventable disease often results in permanent brain damage.
Two years ago, Governor Parris Glendening and Mayor Martin O'Malley announced a $50 million, three-year effort to tackle this disease, in response to a series of articles in the Baltimore Sun. Delays in renovating properties with these funds prompted the Baltimore City Health Commissioner to ask me to streamline this process. In response, my subcommittee required that this money be given to the City in one lump sum. Property owners will no longer have to get approvals and sign papers for several grant or loan programs before they can start rehabbing a single house.
I also wanted to target these funds to those who need help the most. Consequently, priority will be given to current or prospective homeowners whose income is less than $60,000 and to owners of fewer than five rental properties. Any property owner who participates in this program will have to eliminate health and safety violations in all of his rental units.
In addition, I co-sponsored legislation requiring that the lead dust level in properties meet the federal safety standard. Although this bill did not pass, I will try to convince the next Governor to support such a requirement.
WELFARE REFORM Helping people train for a better paying job that will lift them out of poverty is an essential part of the next phase of welfare reform. That’s why I introduced legislation to extend unemployment insurance to individuals in job training or education programs relevant to a career in which there are job opportunities. As introduced, my bill was estimated to cost $35 million because over 21,000 students would have become eligible for benefits. Although I submitted an amended version with a negligible cost, the bill still received an unfavorable report. I expect to introduce a revised proposal next year.
Many skills are taught by example, outside of the classroom. I have benefitted from such mentoring in my legislative career. I’ve worked to provide this kind of support for people moving from welfare to the workforce and for adolescents. Last year, we authorized a mentoring program for former welfare recipients to address their workplace problems. This session, I sought to extend that program to people who are still receiving benefits. I also introduced a bill to provide a state match for money raised by the non-profit Maryland Mentoring Partnership to work with children in families who are on assistance. Although neither of these bills was enacted, I will continue to pursue efforts to foster mentoring.
This fall the Congress will be reauthorizing the welfare reform law that it passed six years ago. I’m a member of the National Conference of State Legislatures’ task force on this issue. I look forward to putting the shoe on the other foot and lobbying the Congress. I’ve already done some of that with Congressman Ben Cardin, who is the Democrats’ leader on welfare reform in the House of Representatives.
FAMILY PLANNING The Bush administration has proposed that the states be given money to encourage marriage among poor families when the Congress acts on welfare reform this year. My alternative: increase funding for family planning, counsel younger sisters of teenage moms to delay unprotected sex, and encourage abstinence with a media campaign. Several years ago, I was one of the "Gang of Four," four legislators - two pro-choice and two pro-life, who successfully sponsored a similar initiative.
"Reducing the number of children born to single mothers is an essential aspect of addressing poverty in Maryland," I wrote Governor Glendening in January. "The correlation between births to single women who are living in poverty and unfavorable life outcomes for these children is undisputed." Our budget deficit thwarted funding for my initiative this year, but I’m already working on making this a priority for our next Governor.
CHOICE Using human embryos to cure diseases would be a stunning scientific achievement. House Bill 1171 would have created a task force to study the use of stem cells derived from fetuses. A group of experts would study the ethical dilemmas, scientific possibilities, and economic opportunities presented by this research. Any legislation introduced in a future General Assembly would be judged against the findings and recommendations of the task force. Bills seeking to impose greater restrictions on research would have to overcome a significant hurdle.
HB 1171 did not pass, but the chairman of the committee that heard this legislation agreed to my suggestion that we send a letter requesting that the issues raised by stem cell research, as well as the disposition of frozen embryos by providers of in vitro or assisted reproductive services, be studied by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the General Assembly’s research staff.
MENTAL HEALTH The unwarranted stigma associated with mental illness means that inadequate or inappropriate care is often provided to those who suffer from it. I successfully sponsored two bills designed to ameliorate this problem. Residential crisis services, which provide in-home and community based psychological treatment as an alternative to costly and sometimes unnecessary hospitalization or court-ordered commitment, will be a mandated health insurance benefit under House Bill 896. I also introduced House Bill 483, which will create a mental health Crisis Response System, contingent on the receipt of federal funding, to help individuals get the diagnosis and treatment for mental illness they need - when and where they need it. Patients or their family members who contact this system would get a coordinated response from emergency personnel and mental health providers.
Numerous providers of mental health care have gone out of business or face that dire prospect because of inadequate funding from the State. My subcommittee required the executive branch to prepare a prioritized list of service expansions and rate increases for the Governor and the General Assembly to consider for next year's budget.
DNA EVIDENCE Last year, I initiated a rule change by Maryland’s highest court that allows a convicted individual to present exonerating DNA-evidence to a judge at any time while serving his or her sentence. Until then, such material had to be offered within one year of the imposition of sentence, with the exception of death penalty cases, where there are no time limits.
However, the relevant statute required that this evidence be retained for only three years. I successfully introduced legislation which amended that law to mandate that evidence be preserved for the length of an individual’s sentence.
DNA evidence freed Kirk Bloodsworth after nine years in jail, including two years on death row. Testifying in support of my bill, he said, "If my DNA evidence had been destroyed, I would be a corpse."
CIVIL RIGHTS State governments have been exempted from several federal civil rights statutes by a series of recent 5-4 rulings by the Supreme Court. Only the state government can waive its sovereign immunity from lawsuit, the Court held. The Congress cannot pass a law making a state do so.
As a result, state employees no longer have these protections against unfair treatment because of their handicap, age, or need to take family or medical leave. These laws had been in effect for more than a decade, and state employees around the country had successfully brought legal actions.
I introduced a bill to restore our employees’ right to take action against the State if it violated these anti-discrimination laws. Simple fairness is the principle at stake here. State employees should not be denied the legal rights guaranteed to a vast number of American workers.
My bill did not pass because the Department of Budget and Management felt that it would make the State liable for expensive recoveries if it violated these laws. I will be reintroducing this measure next year, after trying to persuade state officials that preserving our employees’ right to fair treatment should take precedence over saving money. Of course, if supervisors obey the law, the state will be defending itself against fewer legal claims for damages.
TERRORISM Terrorists do not exist in a vacuum. The money used to buy weapons and explosives, as well as the training to use them, comes from many sources, some of them here in the United States. A key step in preventing terrorism is stopping the flow of money and other aid from those who would facilitate these atrocities.
I worked with the American Jewish Congress in introducing House Bill 815, which would help stem the flow of money from Maryland by penalizing those fundraisers and contributors who knowingly assist terrorist organizations. This bill went through numerous drafts to ensure that it did not restrict First Amendment freedoms. Although it was not enacted, some members of the Judiciary Committee have encouraged me to resubmit it next year. They felt that the attention given to the Governor’s anti-terrorism bills prevented the committee from fully examining my proposal.
PRIVACY To protect personal privacy, State officials are prohibited from inspecting a variety of documents that might contain sensitive information about an individual. The list of prohibited documents includes such obvious items as medical records, but personnel records, even letters of reference, are also restricted.
You may recall that several years ago I successfully sponsored a bill that restricts searches of a library’s database of individuals’ borrowing of books and other materials. This session, my legislation would have limited access to a person’s purchases from private booksellers.
Starting with Kenneth Starr’s request for the records of the books Monica Lewinsky bought at Kramerbooks in Washington, DC, there have been a flurry of attempts by prosecutors and the police to obtain such information. My bill failed because the State Police felt it would have hampered certain investigations, but they have agreed to work with me this summer on drafting a bill that meets their concerns and provides adequate protections for individuals’ privacy.
RELOCATION ASSISTANCE Whether business owners are being adequately compensated when forced to move by the government has been highlighted by recent urban renewal efforts in Baltimore County and the Howard Street corridor. My bill that would have raised payments to entrepreneurs forced to relocate by government condemnation was not enacted. However, the committee chairman has sent a letter to the Transportation Secretary, asking him to conduct a review of the State’s relocation assistance program.
PUBLIC SERVICE Many college or graduate school students can’t accept lower paying public service positions without help in repaying their academic debt. In 1988, I sponsored legislation creating what is now called the Janet L. Hoffman Loan Assistance Repayment Program (LARP). As
currently administered, LARP is not available to people until they have accepted such jobs. This leaves students in a Catch 22. If you accept the job, you may not get the aid. That’s because the number of people eligible for LARP exceeds the money budgeted for the program.
Last year, I introduced a bill to allow people to become eligible for this assistance in their final year of school - before they have received a job offer. The bill didn’t pass, but I’ve continued to work with the State Scholarship Administration on this matter. The Administration is considering a change in the LARP regulations that would allow law students in their final year to be pre-approved for an award if they have a verified employment offer.
This is an example of my newsletter rule: Passing a bill with my name on it is not the only way to get something accomplished. If I can say that I played a part in moving public policy in the right direction, in this instance through a regulatory change, then I discuss it in my newsletter.
HARD WORK - REAL RESULTS
That’s the slogan that Senator Barbara Hoffman, Delegates Jim Campbell and Maggie McIntosh, and I use in our political campaigns. We didn’t pay some high-priced consultant to dream that up. We thought of it ourselves.
It’s not slick; it’s accurate. It describes what I’ve discussed in this newsletter and what my three colleagues and friends do as well. Work hard on issues that are important to our neighborhoods, our region, and our State; achieve real results.
During the coming months, I will continue to work on many of the issues you’ve read about here. On the campaign trail and elsewhere, I welcome your comments on these matters or any other areas of concern to you.
diary over the 90 days of the 2002 legislative session.Yours truly,
Samuel I. Rosenberg
Not Printed At Government Expense