delsandy – Page 88 – Sandy Rosenberg

Losing Leverage

January 19, 2012January 19, 2012 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Our first deadline is next Tuesday.

That’s the day I must request that a bill be drafted and be guaranteed that it will receive a public hearing.

So I began the day by reviewing the ideas and conversations – not to mention my dead bills from last year, that could become legislation and change public policy.

The list will grow shorter.

A problem has been solved. My plate is already too full.

But if I don’t introduce a bill this session, the leverage it provides will not return until next year.

Networking for jobs and votes

January 19, 2012 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I’m not going to Orioles Fantasy Camp this year.

Instead, I spent the day at Camp Amherst College, where students are on campus but classes don’t resume until next week.

I was on a Career Choices panel on Non-profit and Public Service.

Networking was the buzzword among my fellow alumni.

“In politics, networking is a little different,” I stated. “When I ask people to help me get a job, I’m asking for their votes.”

“We try to create consumer excitement for new apps,” said a Media and Communications panelist.

“That’s what advocates try to do every session,” I said to myself. “We try to return the favor every 4^th year on Election Day.”

—

“Follow your desire,” I said to the students.

That’s what I’ve done.

On the job for 50 years

January 18, 2012January 18, 2012 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

“Our focus must be jobs, jobs, jobs,” declared a Democratic leader. “The Republicans will say, ‘Taxes, taxes, taxes.'”
The individual or party that frames the debate usually wins it.
We’ll know the outcome in 83 days.
—
“As legislators, we make a lot of decisions – from answering a constituent’s email questioning why we voted for a bill to actions in the operating budget conference committee that preserve Maryland’s AAA bond rating.
Our decisions are based upon our ideology and politics, but in many instances, we benefit from the advice of our staff.”
I said those words on the House floor as we honored Bill Ratchford for his 50 years of work with the General Assembly.
After heading the legislature’s Department of Fiscal Services, a semi-retired Bill now crunches numbers for Baltimore City’s lobbying team.
He remains an adviser and friend.

A digital lesson

January 16, 2012 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

I’m back from the planet Digital.

I’m upgrading my website, delsandy.com, and got a one-hour lesson on its bells and whistles this morning.

The smartest thing I did was ask one of my twenty-something staffers to accompany me.

She can tutor me from now until session ends. By then, hopefully, I can do things on my own.

That was not my only encounter with the binary. (The binary system is used by virtually all computers. That I knew before today.)

I had breakfast with the State Archivist, Ed Papenfuse. Digitization has also come to the keeper of “Maryland history from 10,000 B.C. to present day.”

P.S. delsandy.com is a work in progress. I welcome your comments.

Three of a different kind

January 14, 2012January 16, 2012 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2012 Legislative Diary | No Comments

At the race track, when you try to pick the first three finishers in exact order, it’s called a trifecta.

I had a trifecta of sorts this afternoon – consecutive meetings with the lobbyist for Planned Parenthood, the lobbyist for the Catholic Conference, and the Senator who is the leading proponent of marriage equality.

We talked about abortion, a tax credit for donations to parochial schools, and the death penalty, in that order.

The Catholic Church and I are on opposite sides on social issues (choice, stem cells, and gay rights) but on the same side on death penalty repeal, poverty issues, and aid to parochial schools.

You don’t always count to 71 the same way. (71 votes are needed to pass a bill in the House of Delegates.)

But when you do reach that number, you always cash your ticket. And move on to the next race in the Senate.

Drawing maps and striking the right balance

January 12, 2012 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

The most important legislation I worked on this past summer won’t have my name on it.

The Governor introduces the resolution redrawing the boundaries for our legislative districts.

If you can’t be elected in your new district, you can’t pass any bills.

So my 41^st District colleagues and I met early and often. We proposed a map that looked very much like our existing district – geographically and demographically.

The 41^st District in the Governor’s plan meets both of those criteria.

We lose none of our current neighborhoods and add Roland Park below Cold Spring Lane, Sinai Hospital and its adjacent residential communities, and the Uplands redevelopment along the Edmondson Avenue corridor.

—–

This morning, I introduced the first bill this session that will have my name on it.

House Bill 62 would exempt a professor’s research from a Public Information Act request.

Translation: Someone who disagrees with a professor who took a stand on a public issue could not harass the academic by demanding a copy of his or her research.

This is not hypothetical. It happened during Wisconsin’s battle over union rights and government spending last year and a controversy over climate control research by a former faculty member at the University of Virginia.

For HB 62 to pass, I must demonstrate that it strikes the right balance between the public’s right to know and academic freedom.

First Days

January 11, 2012 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

When I was 10 years old, Aunt Margie took me to the U.S. Senate gallery. “See that person strutting around like a peacock,” she told me. “That’s Lyndon Johnson, the Majority Leader.”

Today, as I began my 30^th year in the House of Delegates, Aunt Margie was in the gallery in Annapolis, with her daughter/my cousin, Babette.

I asked a legislator who’s beginning his second year how it differs from his swearing-in last January. “I was nervous and excited then. This time, I’m excited,” he replied.

“I was thrilled,” recalled a colleague who was here when I began in 1983. “My parents were here.”

My parents joined me for breakfast at Chick and Ruth’s Deli my first day. This morning, I called my mother after my annual cholesterol-fest.

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin spoke from the rostrum today where he once presided as Speaker: “In Annapolis, you confront issues directly, engage in open and honest debate, and move forward with your best response to a problem.”

Left unsaid was the contrast with the Congress.

P.S. Aunt Margie insists that the peacock she was referring to 50+ years ago was Bobby Baker, LBJ’s aide. Nonetheless, I’m sticking with Johnson. Only he could cast a vote.

January 10 – None of us is safe

January 10, 2012January 11, 2012 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

“None of us is safe as long as there is a death penalty,” declared Ben Jealous, President of the NAACP, at our death penalty repeal press conference.

(Kirk Bloodsworth had made that very clear to me at breakfast. An honorably discharged Marine with no criminal record, Kirk was sitting on Maryland’s death row for a murder he did not commit until DNA evidence freed him. )

“We have a very simple request,” I said to the reporters and advocates. “Give us a vote on repeal in both houses of the legislature. A majority of senators and delegates want to end the death penalty.”

I ran into an NAACP official later in the day. Ben Jealous will be returning to Annapolis to lobby for repeal.

That’s more important than an eloquent statement at a press conference.

Read the Baltimore Sun’s account of the press conference.

January 9 – At home

January 9, 2012January 10, 2012 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

My workday began and ended in Baltimore.

That won’t happen again until April because the legislative session starts in two days.

Education reform was the topic of my meeting at the Canton Starbucks. Senator Bill Ferguson and I discussed with a reporter our bills to repay the college and graduate school debt of our most highly rated teachers if they agree to remain in the classroom and to fund pre-kindergarten classes for four-year olds so that they can enter school ready to learn.

My after-dinner meeting at the CHAI offices dealt with the use of slots revenues in the neighborhoods above Northern Parkway. A weak economy and the decision not to open a temporary facility in Anne Arundel County will significantly decrease the money allocated to these communities this fiscal year.

Tomorrow begins with a 9 a.m. press conference on repeal of the death penalty – in Annapolis.

My Key Issues:

Author: delsandy