2012 End of Session Letter
Dear Friends,
During this year's legislative session I received many messages from constituents on the issues facing the State and I welcomed that input from the people I am proud to represent. I did succeed in getting through 11 of my legislative initiatives; however, for the first time in all the years I have been here, we ran out of time to pass a complete budget package.
The General Assembly met its constitutional mandate to pass the Governor's budget but failed to put through a revenue bill or the legislature's budget reconciliation bill. I anticipate that the Governor will call a special session in mid May to address this. If no further action is taken, though, there will be approximately $500 million in drastic cuts. These will be in addition to over $400 million in cuts the Governor already made in the budget he sent to the Legislature.
Still, the budget as passed provides over $5 billion for K-12 education, over $3.5 billion for health and over $1 billion for public safety.
This term, I continued my work fighting Human Trafficking and helping victims. The legislature passed my bill expanding the child abuse law to include human and sex trafficking and pornography. Now trafficked children arrested by the police can be diverted into social services programs for abused kids instead of juvenile detention for criminal offenders. Through another of my bills, all Maryland truck stop restrooms will now have a toll-free human trafficking hotline number posted so victims can call for help and suspected trafficking activity can be reported.
Because of my efforts on human trafficking, domestic violence and victim protection, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center gave me their Visionary Voice Award in February. I am honored to receive this recognition.
Working with the American Academy of Pediatrics, my bill bringing state child safety seat standards into line with the latest Federal guidelines and research will become law. The revised requirements are based on the age and height but no longer the weight of the child. My bill to keep kids from exposure to second hand smoke and its terrible effects on their lifelong health would have stopped smoking in cars with kids under 8 years old. While the bill passed the full Senate, it was held in a House Committee.
Working for you on the Senate floor
I worked to protect consumers by debating against two bills on the Senate floor. One would have added a $2 monthly fee on top of a rate hike for every residential and commercial natural gas customer regardless of their usage. This unfair rate hike would be the same whether for a family in a small house, a hospital, or a superstore. Approving fees for replacing utility infrastructure is a matter for the Public Service Commission, not the legislature.
Also, I was the first to stand and speak against legislation that put the burden on customers to opt out, that is notify electric utility companies, to prevent the utility from selling personal customer information including address, phone and energy usage to marketers. With my help, both these bills failed.
Judicial Proceedings
With the other members of the Committee, I spent hours listening to advocates and opponents deciding where the law can be improved to address these issues.
Children are the new popular target for identity theft. The Maryland Child Identity Lock bill allows parents to freeze their kids' credit information to prevent thieves from opening charge accounts in the child's name. For our senior population, financial institutions will now be required to report suspected financial abuse of their elder adult customers. Another measure will create new regulations requiring continuing care communities to set aside adequate operating reserves. I was a sponsor on all these measures.
This year, we extended the statute of limitations for prosecuting the possession of child pornography and we expanded the e-mail harassment law to include other types of communication such as tweeting and texting.
Working against puppy mills, we added consumer protections for those purchasing a dog from a pet store by requiring more recordkeeping, reporting and remedies for dogs with undisclosed illness.
While I voted for the abolition of the death penalty, the bill again failed to pass out of the Judicial Proceedings Committee. Legislation to permit same-sex marriage passed and was signed into law early in the Session. We also passed a bill to require courts to identify when a guilty defendant’s crime is connected to domestically related violence to create more accurate statistics in the State's justice information database.
Other legislation
Coming as a boon to many government and government contractor workers in our county is a measure I cosponsored creating an income tax deduction for costs related to obtaining a federal security clearance.
To improve transparency in a year of ethics investigations, we passed a new law requiring lawmakers to post their ethics disclosure forms online for the public.
Environment
Environmental legislation I cosponsored included the Maryland Offshore Wind Energy Act which unfortunately died in the Senate Finance Committee. Meanwhile, the bill requiring local governments to establish stormwater permits and watershed protection programs passed on the last day. I was also proud to be a sponsor of two bills safeguarding our food: one that establishes standards for honey to protect consumers from overseas products of inferior quality and questionable purity; and one that bans arsenic in chicken feed to prevent this poison from getting into our food and water supply.
Local
Montgomery County becomes the first jurisdiction in Maryland to have voting by mail with the passage of my bill. With the ability to use vote by mail, the County can save tens of thousands of dollars staging special elections for the County Council while increasing voter turnout. The law requires a voting center in each district for those who wish to vote in person.
The legislature did pass the Capital Budget, approving bond bills for a number of projects in District 17. These include:
City of Rockville Swim and Fitness Center - $ 200,000
The Learning Center's Katherine Thomas School - $ 276,000
Rockville VisArts Center - $ 25,000
I received many e-mails about state funding of local teacher pensions and while a tentative agreement had been reached between the state and counties on needed changes, the measure died as part of the failure to pass the Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act (BRFA) on the last day.
Frankly, the conclusion of the 2012 Legislative Session fell short of our goals. Yet I am still encouraged by all that we did accomplish and by the fact that Maryland’s private sector created more than 42,000 jobs last year. Our unemployment rate continues to be below the national average and we maintain our AAA bond rating, the highest rating of a state’s creditworthiness. I am confident that Maryland will continue its economic progress into the future.
I enjoy hearing your thoughts and ideas. Please feel free to contact me by e-mail me at jennie.forehand@senate.state.md.us or call my office at 301 858-3134.
Sincerely,
To see a summary of the full session, go to The 90 Day Report. To see a list of legislation I sponsored, go here.
