An Absolute Majority Asking colleagues to co-sponsor the death penalty repeal bill during today’s floor session reminded me that co-sponsorship is the biggest waste of time in Annapolis – except when it isn’t. In this instance, we can demonstrate that we have absolute majorities in both houses who are willing to sign on …more >
My Legislative Diary
Legislative Diary
Pitch Selection and a Legal Question
For nearly 40 innings this past week, I needed to count to one, instead of 71 – the votes needed to pass a bill in the House of Delegates. I’m a catcher. If I put down one finger and the pitcher agrees, he will throw a fastball. If he doesn’t like my pitch …more >
Beginning the discussion on taxes
We got to the heart of the matter today – taxes. Education, elections, gambling, and transportation are in our jurisdiction on the Ways and Means Committee. But taxes are the most important and politically difficult decisions we make. Briefings like today’s are informative; bill hearings are decisive. Nonetheless, we began the discussion …more >
Opportunities in the classroom and the voting booth
Show me the program! I was watching the State of the Union speech last night, not a rerun of “Jerry Maguire.” When President Obama spoke about the educational reforms resulting from the Race to the Top competition and a once failing school in Denver where 97% of the seniors had graduated this …more >
Israel Family Mission 2010 Display
The elephant in the economy
There’s an elephant in the room, but the Republican Party won’t acknowledge it. One would think an op-ed on the state budget would mention the impact of the Great Recession. Not the one in today’s Sun written by Larry Hogan, a Cabinet secretary in the Ehrlich administration. Our deficit is all the fault …more >
Doing what the Romans do
I can’t recall the last time an action by the government of Italy affected one of my bills. The regulations for state executions, now under review by the legislature, require that sodium thiopental be used. The lone American manufacturer of this drug has stopped manufacturing it, according to Saturday’s New York Times. …more >
Spreading the good news
It’s good to be the person who spreads good news. At a budget briefing, I sat next to a staffer who made very few such calls this week. He did share some good news with me before the Governor told the rest of the group. There’s $12.4 million in the budget for stem …more >
Touching all of the bases
I thought I had touched all of the bases on one of my bill drafts. My constituents, who had come to me with a problem that the legislation would resolve, were satisfied. I’ve spoken with the lobbyists for both of the relevant industry associations and sent the proposal to them yesterday. But …more >
Sargent Shriver: His teaching lives on
Today’s Peace Corps is Teach For America. I’m prompted to write about the Peace Corps because of the passing of Sargent Shriver. Under his leadership, idealistic Americans went to foreign countries to teach in classrooms and everywhere else in the communities where they lived. For the last 20 years, idealistic recent college …more >
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