While state lawmakers had 90 days to introduce, amend and vote on various measures, they had just 14 hours Monday to either push through or kill measures that had been put on the backburner for the last three months.
Legislators scrambled to pass several pieces of legislation on the session’s last day, but others, including bills that would eliminate the death penalty, protect students’ online privacy and permanently cap tuition, never made it out of committees. Although many speculate Gov. Martin O’Malley will call a special session for some measures – meaning the General Assembly will have until July 1 to vote on them – others will have to wait at least another year until they are reintroduced.
n Death penalty
Although lawmakers have repeatedly proposed legislation that would repeal capital punishment in the state, the bill once again failed to make it to a vote in this year’s legislative session.
Sen. Lisa Gladden (D-Baltimore City) said she didn’t expect the bill to pass because the 11-member Judicial Proceedings Committee, which was tasked with moving the bill forward, had not been able to garner the votes needed to get it to the House of Delegates and Senate floors. Gladden said for the bill to ever make it out of the committee, Gov. Martin O’Malley would need to throw his support behind the measure – like he did with same-sex marriage, which passed both chambers earlier this year – and urge lawmakers to vote in favor it.
“He needs to now use the power and the influence of his office to make it happen,” she said. “I am dependent on him to help us get this out.”
The only other way to get the bill out of committee is to petition it to the floor, which would require the signature of 15 senators, Gladden said, noting it was a difficult task and rarely used.
“I am hopeful we wouldn’t have to do something like that,” Gladden said. “It’s draconian, it would aggravate all of the Senate leadership, but that might be the only option.”
Gladden said she expects to propose the bill next year, despite the exhaustive legislative route it may have to take to pass.
“The issue is bigger than the legislators who support the repeal of the death penalty,” she said.
n Electronic privacy for public and non-public institutions
In an attempt to keep the online identities of students private, Del. Shawn Tarrant (D-Baltimore City) proposed a bill that would prohibit universities from having access to certain Internet sites and electronic accounts of students through personal electronic devices.
But the bill, which would prevent administrators from asking students for logins and passwords for websites such as Facebook, never made it out of a House subcommittee. Since the chairman of the committee, Del. John Bohanan (D-St. Mary’s), did not support the bill, it was unlikely to ever move forward, Tarrant said.
“Bohanan is very protective of the universities, and they weren’t too thrilled of the overall mission of what we were trying to do,” Tarrant said.
But Tarrant is not deterred, and said he would continue to propose legislation that would protect the electronic privacy of students and employees in the state.
“I really felt like students deserved to have the right to their privacy,” he said. “When I was in college, we had no cell phones or the Internet, so 50 men shared one phone, but every conversation I had was private, so I would think that kids should have the same kind of privacy I had in my day.”
n Tuition cap
As students have grappled with consistently higher tuition rates for two years, Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D-Anne Arundel and Prince George’s) sought to ease their financial burden by proposing a tuition cap for the sixth year in a row, but ultimately failed to move the measure forward.
Rosapepe’s bill would mandate funding to the University System of Maryland, with the intention of permanently capping tuition. However, the bill met a familiar fate this session, failing to reach a vote. Rosapepe said although system officials voiced their support for the bill – system lobbyist P.J. Hogan testified on behalf of the measure – they didn’t mobilize a strong enough campaign for it.
“It didn’t pass because the university system didn’t put its weight behind it,” he said. “It will take a massive mobilization by students, by faculty, by alumni.”
He added he would continue to propose the bill until it passes.
“I’m just hopeful that the university system will lobby for it,” he said.
bach@umdbk.com
