MD Assembly 2006

The Maryland General Assembly session for 2006 has been over for almost a week now. In at least The Aegis, there are editorials blasting the Democratic members for blatant partisanship. The arguments fail to look at the source of the problem and instead blame the effect and not the cause.Lets take a look at a few, shall we?

1. The Assembly started out the session by overriding Gov. Ehrlich's vetoes of the "WalMart bill". That's a blatant slap in the face of the Governor's office.

*cough* Huh? Blatant? I'm sorry, did we forget something here? The Governor made a big show about how he was going to veto that bill. No real suprises when he did. It was an anti-worker veto. This was made apparant by the huge ceremony and the fundraiser Walmart held for Ehrlich in 2004. This veto was a slap in the face for the people of Maryland, and taunted the Assembly to override it.

Speaking of anti-worker, we have...

2. The Assembly overturned a veto to the proposed minimum wage bill sent to him last year.

Again, anti-worker. Let's do some math real quick. $5.15/hour*40 hours/week=$206/week x 52 weeks/year= $10,712. That number is way below the cost of living (this is before we even talk about the BGE rate hikes). $6.15/hour is not much better (comes out to $12K+), but its a good compromise. An extra $2k allows a person to pay rent on time. This is certainly not ideal, but the low-income workers have needed this for a long time.

3. All the vetoes the Assembly overturned kept them from the BGE deal.

Woah, pull the bus of overpretentiousness over right now! This would be the nine bills Ehrlich vetoed within a few days of the Assembly's end. The bills were...

• Stop a restructuring of Baltimore schools. (1)
• Mandate legislative oversight ofConstellation Energy-FPL Group merger. (2)
• Force Constellation to return $528 million in deregulation transition costs. (3)
• Replace the Public Service Commission members.
• Establish an arbiter in state employee collective bargaining.
• Require renomination of cabinet appointees by a second-term governor. (4)
• Establish early-voting polling places. (5)
• Ban political fundraising by University System of Maryland regents. (6)
• Establishes a limit on copayments the state drug benefit plan may charge.

I placed numbers by each bill for each one I'm going to comment on.

1. I'd love to hear from the Governor's mouth as to why he thought a veto on this bill would stand up against the majority that voted for it. This was a ridiculous attempt to bog down a legislative session that already had too much on its plate with BGE to deal with.
2. When Ehrlich wants to get something done, he gets it done quickly. He was dragging his feet because he knew this was a hot button issue that, if vetoed, would keep the Assembly from the BGE issue.
3. Constellation got over $500 million when energy became regulated. E.J. Pipkin, an Eastern Shore Republican was one of, if not the, biggest proponents of this bill. No residential competition arrived, and BGE's plants grew in value. There is no logical reason this bill was vetoed.
4. I'd like you to think as a legislator real quick. A bus/rail system is vital for many of your constituents, and the Transportation Secretary is poorly restructuring the bus system and holding money back from highway construction. The people from your district would rather have the "old system" back and really dislike the people in charge of the changes. Now that you've entertained this...do you really think that the legislators won't attempt to get someone else to take the helm?
5. Whether you're for or against this, a Democratic majority will sweep this through an override. To veto this, even if you think you have a legit reason for doing so, is only an attempt (yes, I'm saying this again) to keep the Assembly from doing something on the BGE rate hike.
6. Wow, a guy you personally put on the University of Maryland Board of Regents is helping you raise funds. Well this would be cool if this weren't a gross conflict of interests.

Argue my points all you wish, but this all boils down to election year politics. Ehrlich is cutting himself on the double-edged sword of politics and is trying to bring down as many people down as humanly possible.