Day: May 27, 2014

Running out of time

From the tone of the e-mail I received today, it appears that the petition drive to bring the “bathroom bill” to referendum is struggling to receive support.

With one week left to gather signatures for the 1st turn-in, we need more petitions. If we receive just a few more in the mail this week, that will not be enough. We are asking for help from everyone reading this email. Your own signature is not enough for this petition drive to succeed.

Would you be willing to ask your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors to sign the petition?

Over the next 5 days, we need thousands of signatures to meet the deadline. If you do not want for your daughters and granddaughters to have to be concerned about the risk of having a pedophile or sex-offender freely using the women’s restroom, I sincerely hope that you will act now. If we do not act now, the safety and privacy of our families will be at risk when this law goes into effect, October 1st.

Whether consciously or not, the backers of the bill may have found a route to success. People are so busy assisting other campaigns that they don’t seem to have a lot of time to help out with this petition. And to be quite honest, the experience of 2012 and losing on three different ballot measures is probably souring people on the whole referendum process. Why go through the whole petition process only to lose?

Moreover, it’s guaranteed that opponents are going to be painted with the “homophobic bigot” brush regardless of their legitimate concerns about privacy. Unfortunately, not every facility has a “family” restroom or locker room where the tiny percentage of Maryland residents who are dealing with these gender selection issues can be themselves. Most places only have men’s and women’s restrooms because that how all but a tiny portion are made.

Along a political line, there may also be a thought in the back of the mind of some Republican statewide candidates that anything with the potential to turn out Democratic voters should be avoided – again this goes back to the 2012 experience. Everything from the electorate to the ballot language for some of the provisions seemed to be stacked against conservatives in that election and there’s no reason to assume there won’t be headwinds this time out.

Yet regardless of the prospect for success in November, the message that failure to achieve the proper number of signatures would send is one that the General Assembly can bully the people of Maryland into whatever progressive wet dream they desire. If you prefer to keep the women’s restroom limited to women, make sure to sign the petition and get it back by Thursday – there has to be about 19,000 valid signatures collected by May 31 to advance to the full requirement of about 56,000 signatures by June 30. Once the primary is over, people can go pedal to the metal to finish the job in the last week but they have to make this May 31 deadline first.

The no-show

Slings and arrows go to the frontrunner in almost any race, but in this case they pit one group of Democrats against another who is seemingly coasting on his family name. I got this from Delegate Kathleen Dumais; a “letter to the editor” which was sent from the law firm for whom she is Senior Counsel. It reads as follows:

As members of the Maryland House of Delegates and State Senate, we must comment on the recent articles about Jon Cardin’s missed votes.

We have been trying to wrap our heads around his unacceptable attendance record and want to say clearly and unequivocally: under no circumstances should a member of the legislature selectively decide to skip 75% of his or her committee votes.

The significant work of the legislature is done in committee. Hearings on bills are held, debate takes place, negotiation over language occurs and amendments are adopted before the bills move forward. This process is the key element of our daily work during the legislative session.

As legislators we must be held to a higher standard because we work for the public. Choosing when to show up for work is not an option. We have a contract with the voters of our state to put them first. Our constituents have to show up to work 100% of the time. So do we.

Jon’s comment that he cleared his absences with his Committee Chair and that he never would have skipped a committee voting session if he thought his absence would have made a difference in the outcome on an important issue completely misses the point. The fact is his absence during the critical decision-making process that takes place during committee voting sessions means he also missed the crucial action that precedes the final committee votes and brings into question his preparedness on the House Floor itself since he was operating without full information.

We are deeply disappointed by Jon’s cavalier attitude toward his job and the suggestion that what we do in Annapolis in our committee is not important.

Contrast this behavior with that of another candidate for Attorney General, Senator Brian Frosh. Frosh did not miss a single vote in 2014 in the Judicial Proceedings Committee, which he has brilliantly led for the past 12 years. He did what we did. Brian Frosh showed up and did his work.

People are going to have a choice on June 24th. Our choice is to vote for and support the candidate that deserves a promotion, not the one that decided to take a pass this year.

We are proud to support our colleague, Brian Frosh for Attorney General. He has the skills and experience to lead and he will be a partner we can count on. (Link added.)

The Democratic race for Attorney General is quite interesting as all three aspirants are leaving seats in the General Assembly to vie for the job. Delegate Cardin obviously has the name recognition, so the backers of Senator Frosh are making a point about Cardin’s “cavalier attitude” – dare I say it’s one of entitlement? (For the record, the other Democratic officeseeker is Delegate Aisha Braveboy, with the winner facing Republican Jeffrey Pritzker in November.) Polling on the race is scarce, but Cardin led a February poll by a nine-point margin over Braveboy, with Frosh a distant third and Delegate Bill Frick (who eventually chose not to run) bringing up the rear. Much of that margin had to be simple name recognition.

But forget ducking a debate, as some on the Republican side have been accused of doing – Cardin is simply not doing what he was elected to do. One has to ask if Jon Cardin will even run for re-election for Attorney General or try to talk his uncle into retiring from the United States Senate – after all, succeeding his uncle was how Ben got his first political office so it must be an acceptable family practice.

Yet there is another lesson to be learned here. Read the description of committee work painted by Dumais again:

The significant work of the legislature is done in committee. Hearings on bills are held, debate takes place, negotiation over language occurs and amendments are adopted before the bills move forward. This process is the key element of our daily work during the legislative session.

In doing research for my monoblogue Accountability Project, I read through a lot of legislation. If a bill passes through committee as “favorable with amendment” it is generally amended by Democrats – sometimes good, but usually bad. On the other hand, most Republican amendments have to be made from the floor and voted on there; normally they die a painful 35- to 45-vote death. (Senate floor amendments die with 10 to 15 votes.) Case in point: the pro-life amendments I discussed the other day.

Yet there were a couple of really egregious bills where I noted the difference in the Senate committee was one vote – usually there are 11 on a Senate committee and at least one bad measure – an increase in the scope of prevailing wage – passed 6-5. (Prohibitions on smoking with a minor in the car and the use of tanning devices by minors only failed on 6-5 votes as well.) As a rule, bills which pass committee become law so the committee level is extremely important.

Perhaps Cardin’s vote would not have mattered, since it’s rare to see a House committee vote decided by a single tally. But one has to ask whether the politically ambitious nephew of our current Senator is going to pay attention to his job if he becomes Attorney General, or just use it as a resume enhancement for higher office.