The State House reopens to the public Monday after a $10 million renovation, just in time for Wednesday’s convening of the General Assembly.
For the most part visitors will notice very little difference, since the money was mostly spent replacing old pipes and wiring. The newer part of the oldest state capitol in continuous use is 105 years old, the older part over 230 years old.
The governor’s reception room underwent major changes, a place where bill signings, news conferences and the meetings of the Board of Public Works take place.
For years, the walls were a rich, deep red. But with the ceiling lifted by two feet, it is now repainted a cream color that is bland.
The official portrait of Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr. has been hung next to those of the last four governors, but the seating for the board meetings has been reconfigured so that Gov. Martin O’Malley won’t have to face his predecessors across the room for hours on end.
Plowman and fisherman A new $37,500 carpet lies on the floor, with a massive 9-foot seal of the state of Maryland in the middle, handwoven in India. The huge renderings of the small seal designed to be stamped on paper is now found in floor mosaics in the House and Senate office buildings. Blown up, its figures of a farmer with a shovel and a booted waterman holding a big fish come off rather cartoonish. There’s another rug with the woven state seal in the governor’s outer office, with the same goofy figures. Perhaps it was a buy one, get one free deal, a GOP staffer suggested.
At a press gaggle after the board meeting, The Examiner asked O’Malley what happened to the painting of Queen Henrietta Maria that once graced the front wall by the fireplace mantel. She’s now out in the hall, O’Malley said. So now gone is the only woman depicted on the walls of the reception room – the person for whom Maryland was named by her hubby, King Charles I (honest).
Not to worry, Frank At the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer put his arm around Frank Kratovil Jr. as he addressed the reception in the new congressman’s honor. As Hoyer spoke, Kratovil’s official beeper kept going off, the one that informs members about floor votes and what they’re about.
A nervous Kratovil said he didn’t want to miss his first vote, the way Hoyer had decades ago. Not to worry, Hoyer assured the crowd and the new congressman. Frank will have plenty of time to vote against the motion by Republicans to change the rules.
After the vote, the National Republican Congressional Committee promptly issued a press release that lambasted Kratovil and other “target Dems” for their hypocrisy in restricting legislative amendments and eliminating term limits for committee chairmen.
Not alone on pay raise Kratovil was not the only Maryland representative to reject the upcoming $4,700 pay raise for members of Congress, who now make $167,000. Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, the most conservative member of the Maryland delegation, and Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards, one of the most liberal, also signed on to the bill on the first day.
In his 16 years in Congress, Bartlett has consistently voted to reject automatic cost of living increases instituted in 1989. Most of those efforts have failed, but this year, the measure has more co-sponsors from both parties.
Silly boy, silly state At Thursday’s Maryland Association of Counties inaugural dinner in Cambridge, O’Malley recounted what he thought was an instructive tale of waking up his 6-year-old son Jack to get him off to day care.
O’Malley tried calling him, turning up the TV, and then he heard, “Dad! Dadddddd!!”
“What’s matter, Jack?”
“I fell asleep with silly putty and I can’t get the pillow off my head.”
After the laughter died down, O’Malley said, “As a state we kind of fell asleep with silly putty on our head” cutting taxes and at the same time making “huge investments” in education – bipartisan initiatives, he conceded – “and eventually we found we couldn’t get up.”
Last year’s tax increases was designed to get us out of the bed we had made, O’Malley said.
Flurry of fundraisers Come Wednesday as the legislature convenes for 90 days, all fundraising for state elected officials stops. Since the beginning of the year, there has been a flurry of 20 different events to rake in campaign dough, according to lobbyist Bruce Bereano. They ranged from the modest $25 oyster, chicken and dumpling dinner for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Norman Conway to the $500 breakfast for Speaker Michael Busch at Camden Yards, with the governor as the “special guest.”
Just under the wire will be Tuesday night’s “First Annual Wine and Cheese Party” for the 12 Republican women in the House and Senate.
