April 7, 2008

Dear Friends:

My 2008 Legislative Agenda in Annapolis

I am honored to serve the people of District 20 and am delighted to be working on the following bills:

The Comprehensive Global Warming Solutions Act, which is designed to achieve dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in Maryland to deal with the looming perils of global warming.

The Jane Lawton Farm to School Program. Last year, with Delegate Jane Lawton, I introduced a bill to bring locally grown Maryland farm foods into public school kitchens and cafeterias. With the terrible and sudden loss of Delegate Lawton at the end of last year, I have reintroduced the legislation in her name, along with Delegate Sheila Hixson and the District 18 delegates and a large numbers of cosponsors. The idea is to promote healthy local foods for our kids at lunch and agricultural education too.

The Seniors Tax Relief Act of 2008 to increase tax deductions for Maryland seniors and the blind.

An Income Tax Credit for Providing Adult Literacy Education. We have a tremendous need to teach people how to read and write, and this is one good way to do it.

Protection of Homeowners in Foreclosure. The sub-prime mortgage crisis has resulted in a titanic wave of foreclosures across our state and too many homeowners have been subjected to abusive and fraudulent practices at their moment of crisis. This bill will end phony mortgage foreclosure “rescue” transactions.

Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act of 2008. No church, synagogue or mosque should ever be forced to marry anyone that they do not want to, but in the eyes of the state and the civil law, all Marylanders must be equal and all of us—straight and gay—should have an equal right to obtain a marriage license from the county courthouse. When this bill was introduced ten years ago by Senator Sharon Grosfeld, she had no cosponsors. This year, I became a lead sponsor along with my Montgomery colleague Senator Rich Madaleno after the terribly sad and untimely death of Senator Gwendolyn Britt. We now have 49 cosponsors in the General Assembly and a real chance of making history by legislating equality instead of prejudice.

Collective Bargaining Rights for Graduate Students and Adjunct Faculty. Before I ran for State Senate, I chaired the state’s Higher Education Labor Relations Board, which oversees union organizing and collective bargaining among employees on the state’s university and college campuses. It always troubled me that the graduate students had no right to organize, and a group of graduate students approached me last year about introducing legislation to give them—and adjunct faculty--this right. Given that graduate students and adjunct faculty are poorly compensated and are treated like the migrant laborers of higher education, given that our peer institutions—like Berkeley and UCLA, Rutgers, the University of Michigan, NYU, Iowa and the SUNY system—have allowed grad students to organize with excellent results for everyone, and given that union membership increases people’s sense of community and commitment, I will be introducing legislation to allow more than 10,000 grad students and adjunct faculty in Maryland to organize and participate in collective bargaining.

Chesapeake Bay 2010 Trust Fund and Nonpoint Source Fund. The Governor has taken the lead on reversing long-term damage to the health of the Bay, and this Trust Fund is critical to our ability to reduce pollution with no known starting point.

Voting and Political Participation By 17-Year Olds Constitutional Amendment. As you know, I worked hard to restore the right of 17-year olds to participate in the February primary election, a right that has now been secured for tens of thousands of young people through changes to the rules of the political parties. But we need to cement this change into law and extend it to nonpartisan elections as well. With 15 Senate cosponsors, I have introduced a constitutional amendment to guarantee voting and registration rights for Maryland’s young people.

Denial of Paternity and Custody Rights to Rapists Who Conceive During Their Crime. Believe it or not, Maryland law permits rapists and sexual offenders to sue for paternity, custody and visitation rights for children they conceive during the course of their crime—a rather horrific thing when you think about it. A bill that I introduced last year to stop it passed the Senate but failed in the House. This year we have a majority of members of the House cosponsoring, and I am hopeful that we will pass it.

"Clean Election" Campaign Financing. As you know, I rejected all corporate, partnership and gambling money when I ran for Senate and I have always championed public financing of our campaigns. This will be a way to empower new voices and new choices and to take down the grappling hook of special-interest money. I favor doing this at the state level and also enabling the County Council to do it at the local level as well.

Allow Consumers to Purchase Wine By Direct Shipment and Over the Internet. With Delegate Hucker, I have introduced a bill to permit direct wine shipments in Maryland, a reform that is being demanded by countless wine consumers and wineries and is being supported by all the major wine associations. We have the chance to expand consumer choices and improve the market by allowing people to make purchases on-line in the same way that people can purchase clothes, cars and other items on-line. This is a right that the people of 34 states presently enjoy. The bill includes protections to ensure that minors will not order wine on-line, including a requirement that FedEx and UPS receive a signature of a recipient

Replace the Misguided Tax on Computer Services With Another Revenue Source. One aspect of the special session budget deal was deeply problematic: the selective, indeed arbitrary tax on computer services. It is true that our tax system is antiquated in its focus on manufacturing and its failure to address services in our service-oriented economy, but modernization requires careful and thoughtful study—not a roulette-like process of choosing winners and losers. Just as I opposed the unprincipled approach of selectively taxing landscapers, engineers or architects, I oppose a special tax on computer service professionals, who can easily up and move across the river in a very competitive regional economy. I favor repealing this tax and replacing it with other revenue, such as a gas tax, which will be environmentally favorable and fiscally sound. We can direct half of the money into mass transit and transportation fund priorities.

This is not an exhaustive list— we are also working on other bills to deal with identity theft and fraud; to create a task force on shaping a bottle bill to clean up our neighborhoods and streams; and numerous other bills to help and promote local institutions and the health and vitality of Silver Spring and Takoma Park. As always, it has been an absolute thrill and honor to serve you in Annapolis and at home as well; please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

• To craft a fair and sustainable budget that allows us to invest in our schools and universities; to improve health care access and delivery; to protect the environment and restore the Chesapeake Bay; to advance our pressing mass transit and transportation priorities; and to meet the needs of the disabled, our children, the elderly and other vulnerable Marylanders;
• To close egregious and unjustifiable corporate loopholes paid for by special-interest money;
• To develop a fair and progressive revenue system, which means that tax rates should correspond to ability to pay and we should not soak the middle class and working people;
• To build coherence in our tax policies so that we don’t simply name winners and losers (like landscapers, computer professionals or auto repair professionals) in selective and arbitrary fashion;
• To make prudent reductions in public spending on unnecessary items; and
• To resist the sucker bet of slot-machine gambling, which is a low road for Maryland that promises only increased family dysfunction, gambling addiction, bankruptcy, crime and political corruption.

Best wishes,
Jamie