Tomorrow at midnight the ’90 days of terror’ come to an end as the Maryland General Assembly session goes sine die.
One key bill of interest locally is the fight over an elected school board, and instead of keeping this as a simple vote for our fair citizens to decide in November 2012, the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Delegates – which includes no local members – decided to muddy the waters a little bit by amending the bill. While Norm Conway isn’t on that committee this move has his fingerprints all over it.
Assuming one version of this bill (which also gained the co-sponsorship of Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, the lone local holdout) passes tomorrow, what will happen is that we will face two ballot questions next year:
- First the ask whether we should change the system to one of electing members in a non-partisan election, broken down by both County Council districts and at-large. (The proper answer would be YES.)
- The second is more tricky. “Are you against changing the current method of selection of the members of the Wicomico County Board of Education of appointment by the Governor?” (The proper answer would be NO.)
I guaran-damn-tee you the intention in doing this was to create a situation where people not paying attention will just say either yes or no to both so that either the first question fails or the second question passes – in either case preserving the status quo the teacher’s unions and NAACP prefer.
After all, the last thing those running Maryland want is to give the people a straight option on anything. It’s why they bury tax and fee increases in amendments to budget reconciliation and financing legislation, or promise that “dime a drink” proceeds would go to fund mental health issues but instead watch it become a bonanza for certain cities and counties.
We had our change to change this, but fell well short in 2010. Looks like we have to live with this sort of lunacy for another three years – not counting any Special Sessions (like the one required this fall for redistricting), we have another 271 days of terror to go before the next election.
Mark this day well.