Pubdate: Tue, 08 Apr 2014
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2014 The Baltimore Sun Company
Contact:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Authors: Erin Cox, Michael Dresser and Timothy B. Wheeler

WAGE HIKE, NEW MARIJUANA BILLS OK'D AS SESSION ENDS

Lawmakers Fail to Agree on Film Industry Restrictions, Long-Term Plan for Bail

By the time confetti fell in Annapolis on Monday night, state 
lawmakers had loosened marijuana laws, made Maryland the second state 
in the country to raise its minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and 
whittled their way through more than 2,600 bills considered during 
the 434th legislative session.

The two major votes on marijuana decriminalization and increasing the 
minimum wage closed out the annual 90-day frenzy of lawmaking. 
Measures to create stricter penalties for drivers who cause fatal 
accidents while texting and to revamp Maryland's stalled medical 
marijuana program also received final passage.

Since January, legislators have passed a wide spectrum of other 
bills, including protecting transgender people from discrimination 
and allowing hunting in Western Maryland on Sundays.

Along the way, they were caught up in a dispute over how many 
millions to set aside to subsidize the film industry - first 
threatened by the production company behind the Netflix thriller 
"House of Cards," then wooed in person by none other than the series' 
chief star, actor Kevin Spacey.

Lawmakers could not agree on whether to give the state more tools do 
deal with future threats. The failure to compromise means $3.5 
million will be trimmed from the $18.5 million the General Assembly 
had set aside for the film industry.

Senators and delegates failed to resolve the thorniest issue of the 
session: revamping Maryland's system for setting bail in the 
aftermath of a court ruling that deemed the current process 
unconstitutional. They could not agree on a long-term solution, 
approving only a stopgap plan to give the judiciary $10 million to 
hire some of the lawyers the court said are needed to represent the 
poor at the earliest bail hearings.

It is not clear whether that solution will satisfy the court. Gov. 
Martin O'Malley said he would work with willing jurisdictions to 
develop a computerized tool to decide who gets bail and who has to 
wait to see a judge.

The end of the session leaves the state's 188 lawmakers - and 
O'Malley - with time to focus on their coming political pursuits and 
raising campaign cash.

O'Malley capped the eighth and final session of his tenure by 
persuading lawmakers to approve gradual increases to the state's 
minimum wage, hiking it from the current federal level of $7.25 to 
$10.10 by July 2018.

"We were able to raise the minimum wage for hardworking Marylanders 
throughout our state who, playing by the rules and working hard, 
should not have to raise their children in poverty," O'Malley said.

Maryland became the second state, after Connecticut, to pass a hike 
this year to $10.10, the mark set by Democrats across the country 
seeking to address income inequality.

Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have wages set above 
the federal rate. President Barack Obama has sought a hike at the 
national level. In a statement Monday, Obama praised O'Malley and 
state lawmakers, and said the move should prompt Congress to act.

"The Maryland legislature did the right thing for its workers today," 
Obama said. "Maryland's important action is a reminder that many 
states, cities and counties - as well as a majority of the American 
people - are way ahead of Washington on this crucial issue."

Once the Maryland measure is signed by O'Malley, the first of five 
wage increases in Maryland will take effect on Jan. 1, 2015, raising 
the minimum pay to $8 an hour. Six months later, it will go up by 
another 25 cents.

"This is huge," said Matthew Hanson, campaign director of the 
grass-roots group Raise Maryland, which pushed for the increase. "Our 
victory today means that hundreds of thousands of working Marylanders 
will receive a significant pay raise over the next several years. 
This will lift families out of poverty."

Republicans, drastically outnumbered in both chambers, called the 
increase an unnecessary government intervention and predicted some 
small businesses would shed workers or close up shop.

O'Malley, who is contemplating a bid for the White House, was 
reluctant in an interview to discuss his legislative legacy. The 
legislature delivered all of his initiatives this year - passing not 
just the minimum wage, but stricter domestic violence laws, a modest 
expansion of the state's pre-kindergarten program and doubling the 
amount of land under tough wilderness protections.

"I always kind of chafe at the legacy thing," O'Malley said. "I think 
of it more as momentum."

In eight years, O'Malley has pushed legislation that repealed the 
state's death penalty, imposed one of the nation's toughest 
gun-control laws, legalized same-sex marriage, granted in-state 
college tuition to some undocumented immigrants, increased the sales 
tax and raised income taxes for the state's wealthier residents.

On Monday, the governor shifted from his long-held position against 
loosening marijuana laws, saying he plans to sign legislation that 
decriminalizes possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Adults caught with less than 10 grams of pot will get a citation that 
carries a fine, similar to a traffic ticket. They could no longer be 
sent to jail.

"As a young prosecutor, I once thought that decriminalizing the 
possession of marijuana might undermine the public will necessary to 
combat drug violence and improve public safety," O'Malley said in a 
statement. "I now think that decriminalizing possession of marijuana 
is an acknowledgment of the low priority that our courts, our 
prosecutors, our police, and the vast majority of citizens already 
attach to this transgression of public order and public health. Such 
an acknowledgment in law might even lead to a greater focus on far 
more serious threats to public safety and the lives of our citizens."

More than a dozen other states have decriminalized possession of 
small amounts of marijuana, as advocates push to treat minor drug 
offenses as a public health issue and not a crime.

The NAACP and the ACLU joined other advocates for a new approach to 
marijuana in arguing that current possession laws are unfairly 
applied. They pointed to studies showing that African-Americans who 
use marijuana are twice as likely to be prosecuted for the offense 
than their white counterparts.

The argument gained traction this year as key Democrats vying for 
governor embraced the idea, including Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown.

As recently as Friday, the proposal seemed to be dying in the House 
of Delegates, until the Legislative Black Caucus and others persuaded 
a key committee chairman to change course.

The House of Delegates passed the proposal Saturday with just seven 
votes to spare. Opponents argued that decriminalizing possession sent 
the wrong message about drug use. On Monday, the Senate voted 34-8 to 
adopt changes made by the House.

In a less controversial measure, the House revamped the state's 
medical marijuana program, which was approved last year but failed to 
get off the ground. It had relied on academic centers to administer 
medical marijuana, but none volunteered to do so. The new version 
would create a system of at least 15 private growers, dispensaries 
across the state and specially licensed physicians to prescribe the 
drug. All of it - plus scores more regulations - would be overseen by 
the state's medical marijuana commission.

Over the course of the session, lawmakers granted pay raises to 
future state lawmakers and the next governor by declining to overturn 
the recommendations of a special compensation committee.

Not many environmental bills passed this year, and environmentalists 
were largely fine with that. Republicans and some Democrats came to 
Annapolis vowing to repeal or revise the stormwater fee derided by 
critics as a "rain tax." More than a dozen bills to do that died in 
committee. At the last minute, though, a handful of lawmakers tucked 
a provision in a budget bill allowing Carroll and Frederick counties 
to skip the fee if they pledged enough money from their property tax 
revenues to pay for reducing polluted runoff.

Lawmakers also put language in the budget delaying a regulation 
opposed by Eastern Shore chicken farmers and the poultry industry 
that would curtail the use of chicken manure as fertilizer.

On energy, lawmakers helped one wind project while possibly killing 
another. One bill lets farmers who've sold their development rights 
lease up to five acres for renewable energy projects, including wind. 
Another imposes a 13-month moratorium on commercial wind projects 
across much of the state to protect a Southern Maryland naval air station.

O'Malley told reporters late Monday he was "trying to understand" why 
that bill was necessary when the Navy did not object to the project, 
though he stopped short of saying he would veto it.

The final day of the legislature brought to a close the careers of at 
least 49 lawmakers, 47 delegates and two senators, who did not file 
for re-election.

Sen. Norman R. Stone of Dundalk is retiring from the longest 
legislative career in state history, with 52 years in the 
legislature. The 78-year-old Democrat he said he had mixed emotions 
about ending his half-century in the State House.

"I've been doing it for so long," Stone said. "I'm going to miss it, 
there's no question about it."

Sen. Nancy Jacobs, a Harford County Republican who is leaving after 
two decades in the legislature, isn't just ending her Senate career. 
She's leaving Maryland for a Central Florida retirement community in 
January. "I'm going to be teaching tennis in Florida," she said. "The 
taxes are not only pushing out ordinary citizens, they're driving out 
legislators too."

The vast majority of lawmakers are about to kick into an even higher 
gear, as they race toward a primary June 24 - three months earlier 
than in the past.

"I can sleep on June 25," said Del. Jolene Ivey of Prince George's 
County, a Democrat running for lieutenant governor on Attorney 
General Douglas F. Gansler's ticket.

Del. Jon Cardin, who is running for the Democratic nomination for 
attorney general, likened the end of the session to breaking through 
mile 12 of a marathon, "and I'm going to be in a dead sprint for the 
next 78 days." Cardin said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom