Eye of the legislative storm: Lawmakers enjoy low-key week before crunch time
Gifty Okrah poses for a picture at Lawyers Mall on Wednesday, after presenting bill to the House Ways and Means Committee on behalf of the senator she interns for. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
Annapolis has its own way of marking time. In the frantic weeks before Monday's 'crossover' date, hearings are often long and tempers are short. After crossover, hearings are short. Tempers – what are they?
Things will heat up soon enough, with the House and Senate and governor's office all fighting for their part of legislation, big and small, with just under three weeks left to get it all done.
But for now, legislators this week are in that sweet spot. It didn't hurt that spring was starting to make its presence felt, too.
Crossover was Monday, the deadline by which a bill has to move out of one chamber if it's to be guaranteed a hearing in the other. A bill has to be approved by both chambers before it can be signed into law.
After crossover, many of the bills are familiar to lawmakers, who may have heard testimony on their own chamber's bill on the same topic before. Instead of hearing rooms full of potential witnesses, many bills now have only a handful of people testifying — often just the sponsor.
Crossover day brings a flurry of action on bills rushing to beat deadline, stay alive
In some cases, legislators send their staff, or even interns, to present bills and say a few words on behalf of their bosses.
Not everybody's a fan.
Del. Mark Fisher (R-Calvert) said the fact that a bill has been heard in one chamber shouldn't limit testimony.
'People want to have their voices heard,' said Fisher, noting that some people aren't always able to travel to Annapolis for testimony. 'We should have everybody that's want to testify be able to testify.'
But with the final day of the session less than three weeks off, it's hard to argue with efficiency.
Case in point: It took less than 15 minutes for the House Ways and Means Committee to review nine bills. Pre-crossover, it might take the committee twice as long to hear just one bill.
A light moment occurred when Azra Ozturk, the chief of staff for Sen. Alonzo Washington (D-Prince George's), showed up at Ways and Means to testify on Washington's bill, Senate Bill 378, which proposes to establish a family literacy pilot program.
The bill would let incarcerated individuals record themselves reading books for their children, with the book and the recording sent to the children. The House already heard and passed its version of the bill, sponsored by Del. Julie Palakovich Carr (D-Montgomery), that will be heard by the Senate Education, Energy and the Environment Committee.
'He [Washington] apologizes for not being here,' Ozturk told the House committee Wednesday. 'He wanted me to specifically mention that he dearly misses the Ways and Means Committee, and it stands as the best committee in Annapolis.'
Del. Vanessa Atterbeary (D-Howard), chair of the committee, quickly interjected.
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'Tell him if he did, he would be over here right now to say that to our faces,' Atterbeary said with a smile, to some laughter in the committee room.
Even the criticisms are gentler post-crossover.
The senators who showed up to summarize their bills for the committee were Sens. Benjamin Brooks (D-Baltimore County), Cheryl Kagan (D-Montgomery) and Dawn Gile (D-Anne Arundel).
Sen. Brian Feldman (D-Montgomery), whose bill was first up, entrusted the job of presenting it to an intern, Gifty Okrah, 20, a senior at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Okrah spoke for about 40 seconds on Senate Bill 293, which would require that school board members complete antibias training at least once during their term in office. According to the bill, the training must be offered in a peer-to-peer setting, take a half-day or less and incorporate lessons learned from incidents of bullying, harassment, or intimidation in the county.
'It is a privilege to know that it's possible for students like myself to be in that position to be talking about policies that directly affect them,' Okrah, who majors in public policy, said hours after her brief testimony. 'So just knowing that it's required for board members and teachers as well, that's really good.'
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