The State House time machine has been cranking for the last week, as the House and Senate rushed to meet today?s key deadline known as the “crossover” date. Legislation that passes one of the chambers by today is guaranteed a hearing in the body across the hall. Otherwise, sponsors take their chances, and bills can quietly die by inaction.
Last Friday morning, the House recessed until the afternoon of Friday, March 20. Most other places in Maryland on Friday, it was actually March 23. But on the floor of the House of Delegates, it was still “legislative day” March 20. This Assembly time machine saves up “legislative days” toward the end of session. To be enacted, a bill must be read across the desk on three separate “legislative” days, so in a pinch, you can run through three “legislative days” on a single calendar day.
You don?t need to understand this sleight of hand completely to realize that people who can play like this with something as straightforward as the calendar can also play fast and loose with other “realities,” like other people?s money, rights and property.
At least they don?t turn the clocks back in the Senate on the last day of session as they used to many years ago. Everything must pass by midnight on the 90th day. In the bad old days, midnight could stretch till 4 a.m.
Plume sans nom
Gov. Martin O?Malley seems to enjoy his new job, such as Thursday?s bill signing of the first ground rent bill. Few Annapolis ceremonies are as consistently celebratory as a bill signing in the governor?s ornate reception room. The final signatures on a bill represent lots of work by lots of people. Lawmakers and advocates line up to get pens and have their pictures taken.
Senate President Thomas Mike Miller pointed out that the souvenir pens didn?t have the governor?s name on them yet. So instead of nom de plume ? pen-name or pseudonym in French, O?Malley joked, there was really plume de nom, or to be more correct, plume sans nom (pen without name.)
The closing of the House of Corrections on Monday was a more somber affair, but after the news conference, O?Malley was clearly delighted his new administration had pulled off a difficult and complicated operation in a hurry.
“We?re making government work again,” he said to a reporter on the other side of the prison bars, the O?Malley mantra, along with “standing up for working people” ? the line he used for the ban on ground rents.
Len Lazarick is the State House bureau chief of The Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected]
