Thursday, April 9 – Little things and new things

Lots of little things can go wrong with your bills in the final week.

But not this session. Not so far, at least.

In fact, little things have been going right.

A hurdle was removed for my writ of innocence legislation when the Senate committee acted favorably on my bill and did not adopt the wordsmithing amendment it put on the Senate version.

We finally read the Senate amendment to the green jobs bill. It’s ok. So we won’t need a conference committee on that legislation.

So with fewer of my bills still to watch over, I’ve been given additional responsibilities.

In addition to the workgroup on the Preakness bill, I was appointed to the conference committee that will decide whether we should issue a driver’s license for people who don’t have the documents to establish legal presence in the country.

Deals struck and struck

Who would oppose providing training in green jobs for current and former welfare clients?

23 members of the House did this morning, all but one of them Republicans.

And I thought the Gingrich revolution was about moving people from a welfare line to the work place.

Giving people an opportunity to enter a growing sector of the economy is apparently no longer a plank in the GOP platform.

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Dozens of conference committees will meet over the next seven days. Three delegates and three senators will be asked to resolve the differences in a bill that were created by amendments put on the legislation after it crossed over to the second house.

Of particular interest to me are those for my bills.

My legislation creating a writ of innocence is one of them. I expressed my desire to serve on the conference committee.

“The difference here is over just a couple of words,” someone responded.

“I want to make sure the right thing happens,” I replied.

A discussion on someone else’s bill that’s headed to a conference committee revealed that a deal has already been struck as to the end result.

“You need a conferee who will keep the deal struck,” I replied.

Entering the home stretch

A new entrant in the Pimlico bankruptcy stakes.

Except horse racing and the Preakness are not in Carl Versatandig’s plans for the race track site, according to Friday’s Sun. He wants to build a shopping center instead.

That prompted me to ask the Attorney General’s office if the State or Baltimore City could take certain steps to prevent the track from being razed.

I don’t want to go public with a proposal if it’s unworkable or unconstitutional.

My requests outnumber those from any other legislator, the AG’s office has also advised me.

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My green jobs bill got a favorable report from the secondary committee, its chairman informed just before Friday’s floor session.

So I asked the Chief Clerk what steps had to be taken now to get the bill to the House floor.

Then I passed the details on to my colleague and co-sponsor on Appropriations, the lead committee.

On the General Assembly web site this morning, I read the good news:

HB 268 Status as of April 6, 2009: Bill is in the House - Favorable with Amendments Appropriations

On to the House floor and the final week of the session!

Final days and delays (April 2)

It isn’t glamorous, but it’s what I need to do.

The green jobs bill should be on the voting list of the Economic Matters Committee (ECM) this afternoon.

So for this morning’s floor session, I wrote the names of the seven ECM subcommittee chairs on a file card. I spoke with five of them - and the committee chairman, about the bill. Positive responses from all.

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The politics can get very local in the final days of the session.

A House committee or member will delay action on a Senate bill and a Senator will do likewise in response.

Or put another way, if you kill my cat, I’ll kill your dog.

So it was encouraging to see that 36 House bills, many of which were heard in my committee, Judiciary, got a favorable report from the Judicial Proceedings Committee yesterday and will be considered by the full Senate tomorrow.

To vote or not to vote

“I don’t care which bill gets signed.”

I was talking to Senator Delores Kelley.

The subject was green jobs.

She is the sponsor of the Senate crossfile.

“You shouldn’t wait for my bill to pass the House and then get out of the Senate Rules Committee,” I continued. “The sooner the Senate Finance Committee acts on the issue the better.”

Under my longstanding newsletter test, if I can legitimately take credit for moving public policy in the right direction, my name doesn’t have to be first on the sponsor line of a bill.

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I was about to speak on my burial bill before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

I always try to begin my testimony with a phrase or sentence that will get the attention of my colleagues. “It’s the rhetorical equivalent of hitting someone in the middle of the forehead with a two-by-four,” I tell my students.

I thought about quoting from the graveyard scene in Hamlet: “Alas, poor Yoric, I knew him well.”

But the committee chair said no one had signed up in opposition to my bill. So I kept it short and simple.

The bill is before us

I was reminded today that we don’t act on a bill unless it is before us. Literally.

“There is no more work at the desk,” the Speaker said at the conclusion of this morning’s session. Nothing unusual about that.

For the full House to take action on a bill, a folder containing a hard copy of the bill and any amendments to it must be on the Chief Clerk’s desk, right in front of the Speaker’s rostrum.

One time, a bill of mine failed because my chairman couldn’t retrieve it from the Clerk’s Office and bring it to the chamber before midnight on the last night of the session.

I didn’t lose a bill today, but for a while no one knew where the folder was.

The green jobs bill was referred to two committees. Appropriations acted favorably on it Saturday, but Economic Matters had not taken it up.

The reason: the bill folder could not be found. This morning, my staff helped find it.

Economic Matters will vote on it tomorrow – when the bill will be before it.

Not too late

It was late Friday night, but it felt like early Saturday morning.

The second floor session of the day had lasted four hours. Bills on early voting and driver’s licenses for undocumented residents had prompted many amendments and much debate.

But the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Resources had two bills to vote on. One was my green jobs bill.

The chair, a co-sponsor of the legislation, called the meeting to order. The discussion was brief, and the favorable vote was unanimous.

It was 9:54 p.m.

Not at cross purposes

A crossfile can help you crossover week.

If a Senator agrees to introduce an identical version of my bill, it’s called a crossfile.

If my legislation passes the House of Delegates and crosses over to the Senate by the close of business next Monday, it is guaranteed a public hearing there during the last two weeks of the session.

So this is crossover week. Hundreds of bills, included some of the most important ones this session, will be debated and voted on by next Monday evening. “It’s the biggest week of the year,” one veteran legislator said today.

My green jobs bill had a very good hearing in the Appropriations Committee two weeks ago. Unfortunately, Delegate Mary-Dulany James, my co-sponsor and chair of the subcommittee that will consider my bill, was absent for the hearing and several days following because her mother passed away.

However, Senator Delores Kelley had agreed to introduce a crossfile. Her bill got a favorable hearing in the Finance Committee, where she serves.

It will be voted on by that committee this week.

I’ll wait for the Senate crossfile to crossover – hopefully, before I ask Del. James to act on my bill.

Public and Private and Action

Lots of questions from committee members at my green jobs bill hearing.

I took that as a sign of interest, until my GOP friends started asking why we were singling out former and current recipients of cash assistance for job training.

“The heart of welfare reform is providing incentives for people to join the work force,” I stated. “This bill builds on the legislation we passed a decade ago.”

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I received the legal memo on whether a court is likely to require accommodation of those hypothetical religious practices in a multi-family dwelling.

Not to use a legal term, it’s common sense. You don’t make exceptions for a religious practice that violates a law, such as those dealing with treatment of animals or fire hazards.

The subcommittee is supposed to consider the bill tomorrow. My staff hand delivered the memo to members’ offices. I added a handwritten note - not to sway anyone’s vote but to get their attention.

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Lilly Ledbetter is moving in both houses – favorable subcommittee action on the House bill and floor debate on the Senate version. Both have been amended but in different ways.

I’ve offered advice on how to allay Republicans’ concerns and then reach agreement between the two houses on identical language.

Zero is a good number

Mine is not the only green jobs legislation introduced this session.

I learned last week that the other bill died because its projected cost was “just under $600 million.”

To avoid the same fate, I wrote our fiscal staff:

“It is my intention that HB 268 be funded with either existing resources or federal stimulus money. If the fiscal note writer believes that this is not the case, please let me know so that I can draft an amendment to that effect.”

I won’t have to contact the Amendment Office. I was told that the fiscal note for my bill is zero.

My email didn’t make it so, but it’s better to ask than to be surprised.

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I ended Monday at dinner with Sister Helen Prejean.

I haven’t read her autobiography or seen the movie, Dead Man Walking.

So I listened to try to learn what motivated her opposition to the death penalty.

There are two factors: the class bias of the justice system, especially in her home state of Louisiana, and an execution’s degrading effect on humanity – for both the prisoner and those who carry out his death.

Time Has Come

Sometimes your bill may be an idea whose time has come.

Governor O’Malley will deliver remarks at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference this Friday.

At the first meeting of the Middle Class Task Force, the focus will be on “green jobs, those jobs that pay well, can’t be outsourced and will help us move toward a cleaner, more self-sufficient energy future,” said its chairman, Vice President Biden.

Tomorrow, I will be meeting with Executive Branch officials and environmental advocates about my legislation, House Bill 268 - Welfare to Work - Job Skills Enhancement Program - Green Jobs.

My goal: create a consensus in support of my bill.

Beginning a Conversation on Green Jobs

I always read Tom Friedman’s op-ed columns. (I don’t think that surprises any of you.)

I didn’t know who Van Jones was until Delegate Nathaniel Oaks and I heard him speak at Morgan State University this past May.

Jones spoke about creating a green economy – to resolve our ecological crisis and provide jobs that lift people out of poverty.

In September, Friedman quoted Jones: “Let’s put people back to work – retrofitting and repowering America.”

Put another way: Making a house in West Baltimore energy efficient can’t be outsourced to Bangalore.

So Delegate Oaks and I will be introducing legislation to add green jobs to the job skills enhancement program in Maryland’s welfare reform statute.

That law already requires certain companies doing business with the State to give priority in hiring to qualified welfare recipients.

We’re going to propose extending that preference to contracts funded by the economic stimulus legislation now before the Congress.

“That language in the bill will begin a conversation with the Governor’s Office,” I told a group of environmental lobbyists.

I’m also researching if other states are considering this approach.