Calvert News December 2005 - Mr. Ehrlich’s Vetoes
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
2005-12-12
We here present some information that might usefully be considered when the General Assembly takes up its first order of business–consideration of executive vetoes. As is shown below, these bills, taken as a group, say much about the present leadership of the General Assembly. In the age when Marvin Mandel, Thomas Hunter Lowe, and Benjamin L. Cardin were Speakers of the House, and William S. James and James Clark Presidents of the Senate, most bills such as these would not have seen the light of day. Indeed, even in the era of Speaker Casper R. Taylor, most of them would have been sent to their demise.
The Labor Vetoes
The Wal-Mart Bills, S.B.790, H.B. 1284 Page 2
The Minimum Wage Bill, H.B.391 10
The Libertarian Vetoes
Camera Charges for Traffic Offenses, H.B.443 10
Camera Charges for Dumping Offenses, S.B.312, H.B.111 11
Disclosure of Child Abuse Records, H.B.900 11
The ‘Gay Rights’ Vetoes
Registration of ‘Life Partners’ Health Care Directives, S.B.796 11
Exemption of ‘Domestic Partners’ from Recordation Taxes, H.B.1298 12
The Election Law Vetoes
Five-Day Voting, S.B. 478 13
Legitimation of Ballots Cast in Wrong Jurisdiction, S.B.287 14
Partisan Deadlock of Board of Elections, H.B.675 14
Unlimited Absentee Voting, H.B.621 15 -1-
Verification Systems for Voting Machines, S.B.849, H.B.479 55
The Special Interest Bill Vetoes
Reduced Fees for Wetland Licenses, S.B.1005 55
Reduction of Performance Bond Requirements, S.B.324 55
Price Preferences for Environmental Products,H.B.346 55
Uninsured Motorist Burden of Proof, H.B.1162 55
Expungement of Nuisance Convictions, H.B.607 55
Assignment of Lottery Prizes, S.B.225, H.B.678 55
Fees for emarketplace, H.B.498 56
The Partisan Patronage Vetoes
Advisory Committee on Water Resources, S.B.164, H.B.361 56
Reconstitution of Commission for Women, S.B.257 56
Commission to Study Southern Maryland Transportation Needs, S.B.281 56
Advisory Board on Diversion Services, S.B.468, H.B.405 56
Juvenile Justice Monitoring, H.B.1342 56
Juvenile Justice Oversight Committee, H.B.979 56
The Labor Vetoes
The Wal-Mart Bills, S.B.790, H.B. 1284
This bill would require all employers above a specified size, measured by number of employees, to pay an 8% tax on payroll dedicated to a health insurance fund or demonstrate that they are providing health insurance with equivalent cost.
The most publicized objection to the bill is that it applies to but a single company, or at most to two or three readily identifiable companies, and therefore does not partake of the generality that operates as a check on arbitrary legislation. This is a weighty objection; the bill is in effect an adjudication by the legislature on the employment and other practices of Wal-Mart. The trouble with legislative adjudications is that legislators are under no duty to be fair, and are purpose-2- fully made dependent rather than independent officials. Bills such as these radiate in their implications far beyond their immediate targets; like Huey Long’s tax bill aimed at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, they are a signal that the property or businesses of unpopular persons are not secure in Maryland. This is not to say that Wal-Mart’s employment or business practices are beyond criticism. If its union-busting activities are to be curbed, this is appropriately done through the provision of appropriate sanctions for unfair labor practices under federal law. If the legislature is of the view that out-of-town big- box retailers are not worth what they cost communities, the principled course of action is that marked out by the French and the British. The former have flatly prohibited ‘hypomarkets’ exceeding a certain square footage; the latter have banned new shopping centers not served by rail transit. This is serious legislation, not empty-gesture politics.
The second, and perhaps most weighty, objection to the bill is that even if the bill is viewed not as a retaliatory gesture but an opening wedge for ‘pay or play’ health insurance coverage, the policy that it seeks to implement is outmoded and foredoomed. The problem of workers lacking health insurance is a real one, but it is not to be cured by employer mandates. Employer-provided health insurance became prevalent under exceptional conditions: World War II wage controls were imposed on manufacturing industries, ports and railroads with no capacity to move beyond their reach. Today there are no wage ceilings leading to competition in benefit payments, and many if not most employees are employed in the rendition of services that can be contracted out, out-sourced, or procured in other states or even abroad if state mandates become too onerous. In 2004, 41% of Maryland’s labor force was engaged in the rendition of services and another 23% in wholesale or retail trade and 6% in finance, insurance and real estate, all mobile industries capable of providing goods and services by interstate shipment, mail, and the internet. Only 30% of Maryland’s workers are in less mobile occupations, 8% in manufacturing, 1% in agriculture, 6% in transportation and public utilities, 9% in government, and 7% in construction. There has also been an explosion of self-employment, documented in the tables that follow, especially among immigrant populations. Since it is not administratively feasible to impose employer mandates on one and two man businesses, a substantial and increasing portion of the population will be left out of any ‘pay or play’ scheme.
A third objection is that the bill is a spur to third-party insurance systems, which in turn are a spur to inflation of health care costs. The bill discriminates against employers purchasing insurance with high deductibles and sponsoring medical savings accounts, even though there is increasing recognition, by persons ranging from Ralph Nader on the left to many economists on the right, that either direct government payment and cost control through budgets or substantial consumer payment and consequent resistance to over-usage and over-billing are necessary if medical costs are not to absorb unacceptable portions of gross product in a society with an aging population.
A fourth objection is that the bill trumps both the judgments of employers and those of employees as to the appropriate relationship of wages and benefits. Health benefits cease to be a good traded off against other goods, and instead assume the character of a portion of pie sliced by the legislature, which in the long run will be under heavy pressure from provider groups to expand the mandate.
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Finally, the bill, even in its application to Wal-Mart, will have unintended collateral consequences. Major retail chains are important employers of the elderly, including the part-time elderly. Elderly medicare recipients are attracted by employers who pay significantly more than minimum wages, and whose compensation budgets are allocated to wages rather than benefits. Employers like Wal-Mart are prone to hiring elderly employees who are contented with wages in preference to younger ones more demanding of benefits. If an employer mandate is superimposed, calculated on the pay of all employees, the competitive advantage of the elderly disappears. It is not clear that the part time and other jobs lost to them in the retail sector will be recovered elsewhere.
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The Minimum Wage Bill, H.B.391
Most economists maintain an at least theoretical objection to minimum wage laws, on the ground that they will generate unemployment by interfering with the market-clearing functions of freely determined wages. The burdens of the unemployment generated are apt to fall on the young and inexperienced, not on those vested by seniority systems; on those seeking to enter the labor market, not those already employed there.
However, there is an economically respectable case for some sort of minimum wage in a society in which the government provides subsidies in addition to wages. Two important such subsidies now exist and are unlikely to be limited or repealed: medicaid and the food stamp program. In criticizing such subsidies, John Stuart Mill observed (1 Mill, Principles of Political Economy 352-53 (Colonial Press: New York, 1900): "When the laborer depends solely on wages, there is a virtual minimum. If wages fall below the lowest rate which will enable the population to be kept up, depopulation at least restores them to that lowest rate. But if the deficiency is to be made up by a forced contribution from all who have anything to give, wages may fall below starvation point; they may fall almost to zero. This deplorable system [is] worse than any other form of poor law abuse yet invented, inasmuch as it pauperizes not merely the unemployed part of the population but the whole." The minimum wage increase proposed by the bill is a modest one, well below wage levels prevailing in most industries, and at least one of Maryland’s neighbors has adopted similar legislation. Gradual minimum wage increases, not surpassing inflation, have not been shown to have serious employment effects, and to the extent there are such effects on the young, they can in part be offset by zealous state promotion of the federal targeted tax credit, one of the last open back doors to the federal treasury. The increase is also of symbolic importance; it curbs government-subsidized exploitation of labor and removes low-productivity businesses from the scene in much the same way as a bankruptcy law. In this case, the Governor appears to have been excessively doctrinaire.
The Libertarian Vetoes
Camera Charges for Traffic Offenses, H.B.443
In vetoing this bill, which would in effect re-denominate certain moving motor vehicle offenses as civil offenses and allow fines to be imposed using photographic evidence through a civil summary judgment procedure, the Governor voiced his opposition to ‘trial by camera’. While the bill allows motorists recourse against camera-imposed penalties, it importantly shifts the burden of proof, as well as eliminating the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt normally attaching to criminal offenses. It makes appearance before, and determination of penalties by, a judge the exception rather than a commonly understood right, and habituates the public to imposition of monetary penalties by administrative rather than judicial officials, and in this case without initial intervention by any official at all. Schemes such as this are open to the same objection as that voiced by the Maryland State Bar Association in successfully opposing administrative adjudication of minor traffic offenses (70 Trans.Md.State Bar Assn.69(1970)
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The veto does not bar the use of cameras as a means of identifying dangerous intersections warranting ‘stake outs’, and cameras may also be used to identify particular motorists habitually speeding there, warranting arrest on future occasions.
Camera Charges for Dumping Offenses, S.B.312, H.B.111
This bill is open to most of the same objections as the camera bill directed against speeding offenses. Where the illegal dumper is a member of a licensed and regulated industry, imposition of administrative fines on standards less than absence of reasonable doubt may be more defensible. But the bill reaches private and casual dumpers, not merely those subject to licensing. Once again, rejection of the bill imposes no barriers to the use of cameras to identify areas where dumping takes place and to identify repetitive dumpers, thus facilitating ‘stake-outs’ for future violations.
Disclosure of Child Abuse Records, H.B.900
The veto of this bill rests on concern about the distribution of normally confidential court records outside the criminal justice system, to officials not readily subject to court regulation and sanctions. This seems a legitimate concern.
The ‘Gay Rights’ Vetoes
Registration of ‘Life Partners’ Health Care Directives, S.B.796
The Governor adopted a sensible and nuanced approach in dealing with so-called ‘gay rights’ legislation. He signed two bills designed to protect against discrimination, one having to do with hate crimes and one with school bullying, while vetoing two bills which would have the effect of according their beneficiaries privileges not accorded the public generally. Many persons are bemused by the extent to which the case of Lawrence v. Texas, which invalidated anti-sodomy laws so as to protect against police intrusion was transformed from a shield into a sword, now being used to claim tax and other benefits. The hyperbolic dissenting opinion of Justice Scalia, which led directly to the Massachusetts Supreme Court opinion, provides part of the explanation for this unjustifiable development. The vice of the criminal laws against sodomy was that they ordinarily could not be enforced without transgressing on fourth and fifth amendment rights, except in cases involving revenge, blackmail, extreme carelessness of privacy, or complicity to create ‘test cases’ such as that evident in the Lawrence case itself. Recognition of privacy interests, however, does not require adoption of a regime in which all relationships are treated as equal. The preferences accorded marriage rest , at bottom, on the public interest in the continuance of civilization. Most married couples are either saving to have children, are supporting children, or have borne the burden of supporting them. The fact that there are exceptions to this rule does not disable legislatures from legislating for normal cases rather than exceptional ones, nor does it require that comparable benefits be given to the relatively few ‘gay’ couples with legal responsibilities for child support. The Constitution, as Justice Holmes once said, does not enact Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics. Nor does it invalidate John Stuart -11- Mill’s utilitarian principle: the greatest good for the greatest number.
Essentially everything sought by the ‘life partner registry bill’ can be achieved through the use of medical and other powers of attorney, or through the designation of personal representatives by will. Those legally sophisticated enough to avail themselves of a ‘life partner registry’ are sophisticated enough to use these other devices. What is in fact being sought here is a form of self-validation, and creation of a registry as a springboard for litigation and for the achievement of other benefits, particularly tax benefits. These benefits will fall on a group which in general is more prosperous than the norm, and which is unburdened by responsibilities to the next generation.
The Governor’s veto message makes the salient point that even as to married persons, as well as siblings and parents, the present practical state of medical powers of attorney is not satisfactory. When medical crises arise, health care providers have no reliable means of ascertaining the existence of medical directives, which may be at home with the patient’s effects, in the hands of relatives absent from the scene, or simply forgotten by all concerned. It would be sensible to have a registry for all health care directives, accessible by providers authorized to treat patients–a registry which would include the directives of the married and the single, not merely those of ‘gay ‘ couples. The failure to provide such a universal registry suggests that the bill is a rather nasty and dishonest piece of special interest legislation, not a serious effort to effectuate the wishes of medical patients. It should also be noted that the existence of a limited registry casts upon medical providers the burden of consulting the registry in the case of all patients lest a ‘life partner’ come out of the woodwork to claim that his wishes were ignored or advice not sought.
Exemption of ‘Domestic Partners’ from Recordation Taxes, H.B.1298
This statute was vetoed by the Governor on the basis that it was an obvious opening wedge for a great treasury raid. The raid can take one of two forms: a) claims by roommates, friends and others that they are ‘domestic partners’ entitled to the recordation tax exemption or b) efforts to extend the principle of the law to other tax provisions such as the $1,200 two-income married couple subtraction from the income tax, or the income splitting and consequent reduction of progressive marginal rates which the use of joint federal income tax returns makes possible.
The effect of any such change will be to substantially reduce the yield of broad-based taxes, resulting in either increased tax rates falling in part on married persons with children or in the elimination of tax benefits for such persons.
The inflation of the 1960s and 1970s, which preceded the indexing of federal exemptions during the Reagan administration, greatly damaged the economic position of families with children, as has the increased burden of payroll taxation imposed for the benefit of the elderly to finance social security and medicare. There have been massive increases in both bases and rates for the federal payroll tax. In addition, only 5% of the U.S. population paid income tax in 1940. The peacetime percentage was 58.9% in 1950, but ‘bracket creep’ caused the proportion to rise to 80.8% by 1980. "A decline in the value of the personal exemption, and a related reduction in
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the income of nontaxable individuals, is by far the most significant change over the postwar period. Together they resulted in an expansion of the tax base by about one-quarter of total personal income. The decline in the personal exemption also helps to explain why tax-exempt levels of income fell dramatically relative to average income and why households with dependents increasingly paid a greater share of the tax burden." K. Messere, Tax Policy in the OECD Countries (Amsterdam: IBFD Publications, 1993), 217, 221-22. If the tax benefits of the married are eliminated or the burdens upon them increased, the economic position of families with children will be further worsened.
The Election Law Vetoes
Five-Day Voting, S.B. 478
This bill would allow early voting for eight hours a day in the Tuesday through Saturday before the election at at least one voting place in each county and at three polling places designated by the County Board of Elections in six enumerated counties. The Governor’s veto message pointed out some but not all the objections to the bill. He emphasized the dangers of fraud by reason of the absence of the normal complement of election judges and poll watchers. In addition he noted that Maryland, unlike other states with provisions for early voting, does not require photo identification of voters. He might also have noted several other problems: a) possible partisan motivation in the location of early voting places by the local elections board b) ballot security problems when ballots must be retained for seven days c) the increased danger that voters will migrate among polling places to cast ballots over the seven-day period and will cast multiple ballots d) the fact that those voting early will not have the benefit of late-breaking developments in the election campaign e) the tendency of political parties to use early voting to get their core supporters to the polls, before altering their last-minute appeals to seek marginal voters and f) the influence of exit polling as a device to attract and repel voters, turning elections into a seven-day struggle.
The premise of the legislation is that people do not vote because they do not have sufficient time to do so, notwithstanding the availability of absentee ballots in hardship cases. Since there was no interest in this legislation until Maryland became a two-party state, the suspicion arises that the sponsors of the legislation are disinclined to accept the fact that their political defeats sometimes result from the unattractiveness of their candidates and positions, problems which additional voting days will do nothing to remedy. Like the motor-voter law, intended to enfranchise welfare recipients but which also aided migratory executives and college students, its consequences will not necessarily be those hoped for by its sponsors; the act may somewhat aid the conservative elderly. But whichever way it politically cuts, there is no evidence it will significantly increase voter participation as distinct from voter fraud. Political apathy in state elections is in at least some measure due to public feeling that all significant political decisions have been either removed to the federal level or usurped by the courts. As Tocqueville observed: "where it has been thought right to retain the empty form of a free election, the people stubbornly refrained [from voting]. Nothing in history is more common than such a phenomenon." A. de Tocqueville, L’Ancien Regime (Oxford: Blackwell,1947), 50. Further, "every rational citizen discounts...because his voice [in large units] is only one among the many that make the -13- decision...returns must be drastically reduced to accord with the infinitesimal role which each citizen’s vote plays...the returns are so low that many rational voters refrain from purchasing any political information." A. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper, 1957), 258.
It should also be noted that, as respects federal elections, the constitutionality of multi-day voting is not free from doubt. Although all-absentee voting has been upheld on the basis that all ballots are counted on a single appointed day, Voting Integrity Project v. Keisling , No.99-35337(9th Cir.1999), mult-day elections are highly problematical in view of U.S.Constit. Art II, sec.1,cl.3 and 3 U.S.C.sec.1 and 2 U.S.C.secs.1 and 7. In 1844, debate on one of these statutes asserted that "time must be uniform in the states." Cong. Globe, 28th Cong.,2nd Session,15(1844). In 1872, it was said that "Whenever you provide that elections shall take place upon the same day, you do interpose a not inconsiderable check to frauds in elections, to double voting, to the transmission of voters from one state to another, and you do allow the people to vote for their representatives undisturbed by considerations which they ought not take at all into account." Cong. Globe. 42nd Congress, 2nd Session 618(1872). "[N]ever until there was a change in the suffragans, never until the colored people became voters, did we ever have an election held in this county continue for more than one day.." Id.,3408(1872)
Legitimation of Ballots Cast in Wrong Jurisdiction, S.B.287
This bill, broadening the counting of ‘provisional ballots’ to include those cast in jurisdictions other than those in which the voter was registered, and requiring that a voter voting outside his jurisdiction be given a ballot appropriate to his home jurisdiction, is a recipe for plural voting, fraudulent voting, and inadvertent voting for offices for which a voter is not entitled to vote, as well as for confusion, both in the distribution of ‘provisional ballots’ and in the counting of them. The Governor’s veto rightly noted the "increased opportunity for voter irregularities." Put simply, it is unclear that systems are in place to allow local boards to check on whether persons seeking provisional ballots outside their home jurisdictions have already voted there, and it is certain that each polling place does not have an inventory of fifty different types of provisional ballot so as to ensure that out-of-jurisdiction voters vote for their own local candidates and not those of the host jurisdiction. Nor are there systems for transmitting the provisional ballots of wandering voters to their home jurisdiction so they may be counted there, nor does the legislation make clear which precinct board is to count the provisional ballots. In close elections, the bill makes controversy and uncertainty certain--for what? Why should the confused be allowed to confuse? What is the public interest in this?
Partisan Deadlock of Board of Elections, H.B.675
This bill provides that vacancies on the State Board of Elections are to be filled by State Central Committees, without intercession by the Governor or Senate, displacing the present arrangements for a Board appointed by the Governor from both parties and confirmed by the Senate. It further provides that the Administrator, now a Board appointee, is to be confirmed -14- by the Senate. Thus the Board is made even more political than at present and the insulation of the administrator from politics is ended, reversing the structure resulting from recommendations of the Garber Commission appointed by Gov. Glendening. Finally, the whole board must vote to remove an Administrator, thus effectively requiring unanimity, since a board resignation and vacancy renders the Administrator irremoveable. The Governor is to have no role in selecting either the Board or the Administrator; the Senate has a large role with respect to both. The legislation, in addition to being a nakedly partisan effort to insulate the present Admininistrator from removal notwithstanding that a bi-partisan super-majority of the Board lacks confidence in her, also constituytes an effort to permit the Senate to micro-manage an executive agency. The consequences of this sort of transgression of separation of powers are well illustrated by the current controversy alleging micro-management of state agencies by Sen. Bromwell.
Unlimited Absentee Voting, H.B.621
The objections to unlimited absentee voting were succinctly stated in a judicial opinion by Judge Richard Posner rejecting an assertion that it was constitutionally compelled: "Voting fraud is a serious problem in U.S. elections generally...and it is facilitated by absentee voting. John C. Fortier and Norman J. Ornstein, "Symposium: The Absentee Ballot and the Secret Ballot: Challenges for Election Reform", 36 U. Mich. J.L. and Reform 483 (2003); William J. Mc Cauley, "Florida Absentee Voter Fraud: Fashioning an Appropriate Judicial Remedy", 54 U. Miami L. Rev. 625, 631-32( 2000); Michael Moss, "Absentee Votes Worry Officials as November 2 Nears", New York Times, September 13, 2004, A1. In this respect, absentee voting is as to voting in person as a take-home exam is as to a proctored one. Absentee voters also are more prone to cast invalid ballots than voters...who may be able to get assistance from the election judges...they are deprived of any information pertinent to their vote that surfaces in the late stages of the election campaign." Griffin v. Rompers, No.03-3770 (7th Cir. 2004) (emphasis added)
A recent report by the generally liberal Constitution Project eloquently sets forth the objections to widespread absentee voting. A pilot project permitting it in a few jurisdictions has resulted in the worst British voting scandals in the last hundred years. The State of Washington, which allows it, as had two bitterly contested statewide elections in the last four years, both of which took longer to resolve than the bitterly contested Bush v. Gore presidential election, both marred by belatedly ‘discovered’ ballots and disputes over the reading and safeguarding of absentee ballots and alleged undue inluence and plural voting.
The vice of absentee ballots is that they can easily be bought, since the purchaser can insure he is getting value received by actually watching the ballot being marked and transmitting the ballot. The introduction of the secret polling-place ballot after Baltimore voting frauds in the late 1880s was a major event in Maryland history. Previously, ballots were cast in the open air, leading a Baltimore boss of the period to declare: "Give me the window [overlooking the polls] and I don’t care who has the votes!." This bill, incontestably the worst of the session, would return Maryland to the old system. In one respect, the new corruption is more humane than the old: it will no longer be necessary to keep denizens of skid row ‘cooped’ until the time comes to mark their ballots on election day, the practice which gave rise to the death of Edgar Allen Poe; the new-15- system allows them to receive their reward and deliver the goods immediately
Documents on the Constitution Project recommendations and the recent British and Washington State experience follow:
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Verification Systems for Voting Machines, S.B.849, H.B.479
This constitutes another effort to insure a completely partisan administration of the election laws. Under the bill, an Advisory Committee is established, appointed entirely by the President and Speaker, with no gubernatorial input. The Committee is to advise the State Administrator, a protected Democrat, not the bi-partisan State Board of Elections. Previous Presidents and Speakers would have found this bill more than slightly distasteful.
The Special Interest Bill Vetoes
Reduced Fees for Wetland Licenses, S.B.1005
This bill, intended to benefit homeowners but a large gift to commercial developers also, would sharply increase the net cost of protecting the state’s valuable wetlands.
Reduction of Performance Bond Requirements, S.B.324
This bill dilutes requirements that state contractors be bondable and financially responsible. Exempting small businesses from basic bonding requirements on substantial state projects is no service to their trustworthiness anmd integrity.
Price Preferences for Environmental Products,H.B.346
This standardless bill can easily serve as a cloak for negating competitive bidding requirements. Its administration is lax and its definitions nebulous. It is cetrtain to result in higher construction costs, and ultimately in scandals as well.
Uninsured Motorist Burden of Proof, H.B.1162
This is a ‘trial lawyers’ bill’ designed to reverse a burden of proof properly carried by plaintiffs.
Expungement of Nuisance Convictions, H.B.607
This bill, probably inspired by some friend of a sponsoring legislator, would devalue the general deterrent effect of the criminal law by removing the stigma properly attaching to a criminal conviction. Exceptional cases are properly dealt with through the Governor’s pardoning power. If all violators of particular statutes are to have access to the functional equivalent of pardons, it may make sense to redenominate the particular statutes as civil offenses punishable only by fine. To leave the statutes as criminal statutes, but to have them criminal in name only, debases the criminal law and its deterrent functions
Assignment of Lottery Prizes, S.B.225, H.B.678 -55-
No good reason exists for displacing in this sole category of property the general rules relating to assignments in the Uniform Commercial Code. Creating a special rule operates as a trap for unwary persons advancing credit in reliance on the security interest obtained throgh filing of a notice of security interest under the U.C.C.
Fees for emarketplace, H.B.498
The Governor’s veto message demonstrates that the costs of this bill are unfunded.
The Partisan Patronage Vetoes
Advisory Committee on Water Resources, S.B.164, H.B.361
Once again, a committee is established consisting entirely of partisan legislative appointees.
Reconstitution of Commission for Women, S.B.257
The Commission for Women is an advocacy group masquerading as a state agency. The amendments are designed to eliminate bipartisanship by making the advocates creatures of the legislative leaders.
Commission to Study Southern Maryland Transportation Needs, S.B.281
The Commission is redundant, and designed to provide patronage for legislative leaders
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Advisory Board on Diversion Services, S.B.468, H.B.405
The bill vests advisory functions only in a limited caste of local officials, excluding those in most counties.
Juvenile Justice Monitoring, H.B.1342
The bill, as the veto points out, has the undesirable effect of vesting in the Attorney General the duty of both monitoring juvenile services officials and defending them when they are sued.
Juvenile Justice Oversight Committee, H.B.979
This bill likewise is an exercise in the creation of legislative patronage,
Conclusion
The General Assembly will be judged by its responsibility in dealing with these vetoes. Certainly, the practical curtailment of the secret ballot is an issue the public generally can be made to understand, aided by an articulate Governor. Multi-day voting and remote -56-provisional voting are proposals based on the false assumption that the public wants elections to be wars without end.. Indulgence of and sympathy for ‘gay rights’ will rapidly disappear if requests for privacy are converted into treasury raids damaging the interests of children and those responsible for their upbringing. It is this concern that led the California legislature to exclude tax laws from its ‘civil unions’ statute. Finally, the public is not uncomfortable with the idea of a bipartisan state. Efforts by the legislature to restore a Democratic monopoly on control of election machinery and on important public boards will appear in the guise of a rear-guard action by unrepentant Dixiecrats wedded to a traditional one-party system. Whatever votes legislators may have cast on these bills before the issues surrounding them were fully joined, there are real hazards in persistence in error.
Governor Schaefer has been criticized for the Schaefer Fountain; Governor Ehrlich for his Halloween decorations. A new item of decor will be added to Government House if the legislative leadership continues on its present course: the heads of a number of prominent persistent supporters of the worst of these bills will be displayed on spikes on the Government House railing after the next election.
Calvert Notes
The Institute plans symposia in the coming year on Business Taxation in Maryland and Teacher Certification in Maryland
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The need for publications such as this one is suggested by the continuing eclipse of the Baltimore Sun under its new direction. We particularly regret the impending departure of Tom Horton, long the newspaper’s natural resources and environment writer, and a serious student of state government
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A symposium on Math and Science Education, long a favorite subject of this publication, was recently held under the auspices of the Steele Commission on Education Reform. It is understood that consideration is finally being given by the State Department of Education to drastic reduction of education course requirements, at the urging, among others, of our board member David F. Tufaro
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Several state judges and others have recently urged greater funding for the drug treatment programs described at Calvert’s drug symposium by Alan Friedman of Governor Ehrlich’s office. We suggested at our budget symposium that the judiciary need not look far to contribute revenues for this purpose. For some reason, its civil filing fees have been frozen since 1997. -57-
The Baltimore school follies continue. The school board has responded to the state’s suggestion that it close or dispose of the extra buildings it should have in view of the one-third decrease in enrollment in recent years by preparing a list of supposedly needed improvements with a billion dollar price tag, including a demand for new building construction. One is reminded of the somewhat different attitude of the school authorities in Manchester, England who about ten years ago noted that they had ten buildings constructed in the 1950s that needed to be demolished and forty Victorian buildings that needed new roofs.. The only sensible remark amid these follies was Councilman Keifer Mitchell’s suggestion that the system assist charter schools with their building problems; they are likely to be more grateful for old but solid buildings.
The Baltimore school follies are not limited to the capital budget. The State Superintendent, ever eager to expand her domain, has rejected the latest iteration of the schools’ master plan. and has appointed a monitor to second-guess the creation of a new one. The usual advocacy groups, the A.C.L.U., the Algebra Project, etc. have suggested that excess classrooms and buildings be filled by reducing class size, in defiance of ample evidence that smaller class size does not improve educational results, particularly when the new classrooms are staffed by dipping deeper into the rancid barrel of teacher candidates provided by the state’s colleges of education. It would be nice if the Baltimore schools had at their disposal for hiring liberal arts graduates the funds that have been and are being spent on monitors, planners, lawyers, special masters and draftsmen of ‘individual treatment plans’ for disabled students. It has apparently not dawned, either on the Baltimore City Board or the State Superintendent, that ‘master plans’ would not be needed if functions were devolved to the building level, as in Britain, Australia and New Zealand; if each school was given its own citizen board, so that all schools were ‘chartered; and if vouchers were used to assist in the closing of the many unsuccessful schools. The experience of Seattle and other cities demonstrates that there are virtually no limits to the ability of urban school systems to shrink as their middle class parents flee.
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The Maryland State Teachers’ Association’s response to the Steele Commission report with its suggestion of portable, i.e. defined contribution, pensions has been a demand for fattening of the existing defined benefit pension plan. The M.S.T.A. appropriately recognizes that at present benefits are limited because teachers are not required to substantially contribute to the plan. They suggest a fatter plan to which teachers will contribute 5% of payroll, to which must be added several hundred million dollars in new state contributions. What the M.S.T.A.has not explained is why, if teachers are to be required to contribute, they are deemed incompetent to manage their own accounts and why their contributions should not be immediately vested, as proposed by the Steele Commission. While private employers are abandoning defined benefit plans in droves, because rising life expectancy invalidates their actuarial assumptions and generates huge deficits, Maryland’s state government is being invited to plunge deeper into this morass. The modest deficits of the current retirement system will greatly expand if this suggestion is accepted. It is also to be noted that the investments made by participants in the State’s Deferred Compensation program have outperformed those of the State Retirement Systems.
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Calvert Institute for Policy Research, Inc.
8 West Hamilton Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
tel 410 752-5887
fax 410 539-3973
info@calvertinstitute.org
www.calvertinstitute.org
Christopher R. West, Chairman
Carol R. Hirschburg, Secretary
George W. Liebmann, Executive Director
David F. Blumberg
Joseph Brown, Sr.
Carol R. Hirschburg
Trent M. Kittleman
George W. Liebmann
Robert M. Mc Carthy
Robert F. Scholz
David F. Tufaro
Christopher R. West
K. Jane Williams-Ward
Directors
Membership (includes all publications) $50
Contributing Membership (social event and publications) $100
Benefactor(social event and extra publications on request)$250
Sponsor (the above plus acknowledgment in one publication) $500
Annual Sponsor (the above and acknowledgment in all publications) $2500
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Publication Order Form
The Maryland Budget $5.00 ______
The Drug War Revisited $5.00 ______
Creating Community in Planned Communities $5.00_____
Market Approaches to Congestion Control $10.00______
Baltimore City Criminal Justice System $5.00______
High School Math and Science in Maryland $5.00_____
Teachers’ Union Contracts $5.00______
Prices include postage. Additional copies $1.00 less.
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The support of our sponsors, The Roe Foundation, David F. Tufaro, the Grace and Ross Pierpont Foundation, Carl A.J.Wright, and Barton S. Mitchell is gratefully acknowledged.
Calvert Institute for Policy Research, Inc.
8 West Hamilton Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21201
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