Summer 2009 - You don’t wait until January

You don’t get your bills passed if you wait until January to start working on them. If your bills are enacted, you have to keep working to make sure they’re implemented.

So ninety days into our nine-month interim, I write to discuss with you some of the issues I’m working on.

The Congress has passed two laws that create opportunities for similar action at the state level.

The sale and distribution of tobacco products will be regulated by the federal government under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This law gives the states clear authority to regulate in this area as well. My focus will be on sales to minors and advertising directed at these potential smokers.

It will be easier for young people saddled with academic debt to enter public service under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, whose chief sponsor was Congressman John P. Sarbanes. If you work for the government or a non-profit for ten years, what you still owe on your federal student loans will be forgiven.

I sponsored the laws which created similar incentives with state funds. I will be meeting with financial aid experts to see if we should modify our programs in light of this major federal initiative.

As vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, criminal law is one of my responsibilities. The rash of violence perpetrated by gangs and the senseless shooting of a five-year old bystander by a teenager with a long history of offenses demand a thorough review of our existing policy. I have begun that process.

Do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy about the cell phone calls you make when you’re traveling from one place to another? Should the police be required to get a judge’s approval for a search warrant before they obtain the records of the locations where you made such calls? I think they should and will introduce a bill to require that they do so.

My green jobs bill was enacted this past session, making it a priority to train current and former welfare clients for jobs in this growing sector of the economy. I just learned that this will be a key aspect of the state’s job training efforts.

My Lilly Ledbetter bill reversed a Supreme Court decision that made it very difficult for workers to recover damages from employers who had discriminated against them because of their gender.

Justice Ruth Ginsburg wrote the dissent in this case. I had the honor of presenting her a copy of our legislation, signed by Governor O’Malley.

This was not the first time I met the Justice. She was one of my law school professors. Her class was “Sex Discrimination and the Law.”

I may get a second chance to give the Justice a bill that reverses a decision she dissented from. Last month, the Supreme Court made it very difficult for workers to win a case if they had been treated unfairly because of their age.

I welcome your thoughts about these issues or other matters of concern to you.

Never done before

Tomorrow, I will do something I’ve never done before.

On the same day that a bill is signed into law by the President of the United States, I will introduce legislation to make Maryland law identical to that new federal statute.

Congress just enacted the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, overturning a much criticized Supreme Court case that erected a major hurdle for employees seeking to challenge unlawful pay discrimination based on gender, race, age and disability.

In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that Lilly Ledbetter - and all other employees subject to pay discrimination, must file a claim within 180 days of an employer's original action treating them unfairly. This was the case even if the employee continued to receive smaller paychecks or the employee did not discover the discriminatory treatment until months or years after the first violation.

Justice Ginsburg, reading her dissent from the bench, declared:

“Each and every pay decision she [Ledbetter] did not immediately challenge wiped the slate clean. Consideration may not be given to the cumulative effect of a series of decisions that, together, set her pay well below that of every male area manager.”

I was not at the Supreme Court that day, but I have heard Justice Ginsburg discuss gender discrimination in the workplace.

I was a student in her law school class on Sex Discrimination and the Law.