The festivities had barely begun at the swearing in of the new General Assembly when the same tough issues new lawmakers must grapple with began to take center stage.
Funding for school construction and public education are top priorities, but Gov.-elect Martin O?Malley tried to dampen hopes for more aid to school systems with the highest expenses: Montgomery, Prince George?s and Howard counties, as well as Baltimore City.
House Speaker Michael Busch pushed for cutting the number of residents without health insurance, currently 750,000; boosting the Chesapeake Bay oyster population; and requiring Maryland to pass legislation mandating that new cars and trucks have cleaner emissions to reduce global warming.
The so-called clean-car bill is “going to pass,” said Senate President Thomas Mike Miller, D-Calvert.
O?Malley said, “We?re going to make progress on all four” of his education priorities. “We?ll most likely be ramping up” the geographic cost of education index next year, he said.
That was not what county executives, such as Prince George?s Jack Johnson, wanted to hear.
“I know we have challenges” in the budget, Johnson said. “I want to be talking about ramping up some of that this year,” adding he hopes he can persuade O?Malley.
But Howard County Del. Frank Turner, former vice chairman of the education appropriations subcommittee, said, the governor and assembly must fund the final phase of the Thornton K-12 aid formula, in addition to the $400 million O?Malley has promised for school construction and renovation.
House Republican Leader Anthony O?Donnell said he would “need to see the details” on the clean-car bill before he supports the measure.
About a dozen anti-abortion demonstrators outside the State House held signs calling for limits on abortion and for support for adult and amniotic stem cell research, rather than the embryonic stem cell research the legislature funded last year.
? Staff writer Stephanie Tracy contributed to this report.
