A bipartisan compromise between different parties

We’re going to hear the word bipartisan quite often this session.

And well we should.

The public wants the two parties to work together, and we should try to do so.

Today we had an example of bipartisanship between labor and business.

The issue was the Governor’s veto of the Maryland Healthy Working Families Act

The bill would require businesses with 15 or more employers to provide paid sick leave.

When the bill was introduced, it applied to businesses with ten or more employees.

This change was one of 30 amendments adopted at the request of the business community.

“Advocates feel they’ve compromised enough,” said the chairman of the committee that considered the bill.

That’s a compromise. That’s bipartisanship.

Governor Hogan’s veto was overridden by the House, 88-52.

Every Republican voted with the Governor. One Democrat joined them.

In this instance, however, bipartisanship had already produced a compromise bill with those 30 amendments.

– – –

E.J. Dionne writes about the virtual impossibility of compromise in Washington in his most recent op-ed. It begins:

There is a reason bipartisan government is so hard these days. It’s not because “both parties” are intransigent or because “both parties” have moved to the “extremes.” It’s because what were once widely seen as moderate, common-sense solutions are pushed off the table by a far right that defines compromise as acquiescence to its agenda.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-accidental-moment-of-truth/2018/01/10/5119b312-f636-11e7-b34a-b85626af34ef_story.html?utm_term=.d1dea1ed0295

A worker in a laboratory of democracy

During today’s floor debate on the paid sick leave bill, I sent this email to one of the people who had asked me to make a charitable donation to Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital.

We’re in the midst of debating the paid sick leave bill. It reminded me of the meeting I had with a Levindale employee who participated in the job advancement program that I supported. Her ability to get to work hinged upon a car that wouldn’t start or day care she needed to have for her child. She and countless people like her need paid sick leave.

Justice Brandeis famously said, “The states are the laboratories of democracy.” I am proud today to do right for my fellow man and woman as a worker in that laboratory.

What planet does he live on?

President Obama had lunch at Charmington’s in Remington yesterday.

It’s too hipster for my tastes.  The kind of place where you can order alfalfa sprouts on mashed yeast.

The President wasn’t there for the cuisine, however.  He made the case for requiring paid sick leave for workers in companies with at least 15 employees.  The staff at Charmington’s has that benefit.

To provide balance, the Sun article quoted Sen. Lamar Alexander, the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which will consider the President’s legislation.

Americans already have “great freedom” when it comes to work, said the Tennessee Republican, who also said that workers have latitude to choose a career and negotiate for the benefits that matter most to them.

Perhaps the Senator’s contributors and social friends can do that but not the average working man or woman.

That’s what unions are for.

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