Latest news with #HouseBill1156
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House OKs parole reform, expanded PDAB gets Senate approval, more political notes
The House of Delegates chamber in session in a file photo. (Photo by Bruce DePuyt/Maryland Matters) The House voted 101-38 for final approval Thursday night on a parole reform measure that advocates have said will not only allow more people to be released from state prison and other correctional facilities, but will also diversify the state's Parole Commission. House Bill 1156 would increase the current 10-member Parole Commission to at least 15 members but no more than 20. Instead of being appointed by the secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services, as is the case now, new Parole Commission members would be appointed by the governor, who would draw from a list of nominees prepared by a 12-member nominating panel. That panel would include three people from the general public, a prison rights advocate and law enforcement and education officials. The bill, sponsored by Del. N. Scott Phillips (D-Baltimore County), would take hearing examiners out of the process of recommending parole approval or denial. Under the current law, the commission can skip a hearing on a parole case and accept the hearing examiner's recommendation as final, if there are no objections from the inmate or the department. Prior to the vote, House Minority Whip Jesse Pippy (R-Frederick) said the bill's fiscal note of more than $1 million makes it too costly, especially as the state faces a nearly $3 billion budget shortfall for fiscal 2026. According to the note, the money would be spent on 10-full time commissioners and another 11 employees. 'I don't think the change is there, or necessarily the best interest of public safety, in my opinion,' Pippy said. But Phillips, pointing to the roughly $60,000 the state spends per year to care for each incarcerated person, said the savings would more than make up for the money cited in the fiscal note. 'We could clear up the backlog for those persons who deserve to be released,' he said. '[Releasing] those individuals will actually, over the long term, be reducing the cost. For that reason, I think we need to vote for efficiency and effectiveness of our parole system.' The bill now heads over to the Senate. Both the House and Senate have now approved bills that would expand authority of the Prescription Drug Affordability Board to help bring down drug costs in Maryland – and days before crossover day, the key deadline for legislation to be approved. The Senate, in a Wednesday night session, voted 35-12 to pass Senate Bill 357, sponsored by Sen. Dawn Gile (D-Anne Arundel) and Sen. Brian Feldman (D-Montgomery). The bill would expand the authority of PDAB, which is currently tasked with finding ways to reduce the cost of prescription drugs on the state's health plan, saving some taxpayer dollars in the process. The bill would expand the board's authority to set what are called upper-payment limits on prescription drugs in the commercial market. Doing so would limit how much drug purchasers could spend on certain medications, which supporters hope would result in savings for more Marylanders. The Senate vote came almost three weeks after the House voted 94-38 on party lines to pass its own version of the bill — but not before debate devolved into a partisan shouting match. After Republicans argued that the bill would limit access to health care for some, Majority Leader David Moon (D-Montgomery) said the real threat to health care were the cuts being made to federal health agencies by the Trump White House. The two-chamber approval of companion bills is an improvement over last year, when similar legislation stalled in committee. But it's not a done deal: The Senate bill passed Wednesday is slightly different than the House version, and those differences will need to be worked out before lawmakers can agree on a final bill to send to the governor for his signature. The Senate version has provisions that expand the size of the board's stakeholder council to include more perspectives from different points of the prescription drug industry. It also issues different reporting requirements on how the PDAB's actions affect access to certain drugs. Despite the differences, health care advocates are energized by the legislation's progress, calling the Senate vote 'amazing news.' 'Too many people in our state struggle to pay for their essential medications, and we must do more to make drugs affordable for all,' Vincent DeMarco, president of Maryland Health Care for All, said in a written statement Wednesday. The LifeBridge Health board of directors said it will mount a national search to replace President and CEO Neil Meltzer, who announced plans to retire after 37 years at the company, 12 as its head. The company operates five acute care centers in Baltimore City and Carroll and Baltimore counties, and more than 130 offices throughout Central Maryland, according to its website. It said the $2.2 billion nonprofit system has doubled in size during Meltzer's tenure, adding Carroll Hospital in Westminster and Grace Medical Center in Baltimore in that time. LifeBridge Board Chairman Lee Coplan said the board is 'deeply grateful to Neil for his extraordinary leadership and lasting impact on our organization and community.' 'Neil has led LifeBridge Health with a bold vision, creating seamless connections across the continuum of care—from a fitness and wellness center to long-term and specialty care,' Coplan said. 'His leadership has strengthened our ability to serve our community holistically.' Meltzer joined Sinai Hospital of Baltimore in 1988, eventually becoming president and chief operating officer a decade later. He became CEO of LifeBridge Health in 2013. He is currently chair of the Advisory Panel on Outreach and Education for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and serves on the boards of the Greater Baltimore Committee, the Maryland Hospital Association, among others. Meltzer will continue to serve as CEO until a successor is in place.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Amid flurry of parole reform measures are two that tackle the parole process itself
Two aging inmates in a prison in San Luis Obispo, California. Maryland lawmakers are considering several parole reform bills this year, including two little-noticed bills that would reform the parole process itself. (Photo by) Amid high-profile proposals to make it easier for long-serving inmates to seek sentence reductions and to make work safer for parole agents are two largely overlooked efforts that supporters say are no less important: Reforming the parole process itself. 'Looking at the process of parole may seem, you know, not as big, but it is, especially for those incarcerated. Just trying to increase … a little bit more transparency and predictability,' said Del. Elizabeth Embry (D-Baltimore City). 'I'm just saying [there's] room for improvement, and we hope this bill will advance us toward that improvement.' Embry is the sponsor of House Bill 1147, which calls for an annual report by the Maryland Parole Commission breaking down the number of cases it has heard and approved in a year, broken down by race, and requiring that inmates who are rejected for parole get a report detailing the reasons why. Currently, they have to ask for that information. Del. N. Scott Phillips' (D-Baltimore County) House Bill 1156 would increase the number of Parole Commission members from the current 1o to at least 15 but no more than 20. More importantly, those members, currently nominated by the secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, would be nominated instead by the governor, from a list of candidates drawn up by a new commission made up of law enforcement officials, public defenders, health and education officials and more. The Parole Commission nominees would still need to be confirmed by the Senate. Both Phillips' and Embry's bills are scheduled to be heard March 4 before the House Judiciary Committee. 'Parole [reform] will be something we will definitely take a look at,' Del. Luke Clippinger (D-Baltimore City), chair of the committee, said in an interview earlier this month. Clippinger said the two bills 'generally, but not specifically' resemble legislative priorities from Campaign Zero, a national social justice organization led by a Maryland native DeRay Mckesson. Mckesson, one of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement, served on a Maryland task force in 2023 to evaluate data collection and policies within Maryland's state's attorneys' offices, and to assess whether prosecutors' practices are fair and equitable. Mckesson said attempts to reform of the Parole Commission are welcome. 'We need to modernize the structure of the Parole Commission. So few people understand the parole process. We just want fairness in the parole system,' he said in an interview earlier this month. The Parole Commission, a part of the department within correctional services, is a full-time body that holds parole hearings on a case-by-case basis to determine whether those serving six months or longer should be granted parole. The commission chair draws a $132,000 salary and commissioners are paid $117,000, according to the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. The 10-member board is scheduled to meet every other Wednesday but currently it has three vacancies. The department declined comment on the two latest bills, except to say that it 'recognizes the critical role legislation plays in building a more just and effective correctional system in Maryland.' Embry's bill calls for additional data that is not currently required in the commission's annual report of its work to the governor, such as figures 'disaggregated by race of relevant incarcerated individuals.' Some of the other information must highlight the number of cases in which the commission granted or denied parole; the number of people granted administrative release; the number of parole hearings and purpose of each hearing; and the number of people eligible for parole but never granted it. Hearing examiners who review each incarcerated individual's case and make a recommendation to the commission for or against parole would have one week, instead of the current three, to deliver a report the to the inmate, the commission and the Department of Corrections, spelling out the reasons for the recommendation. In addition to including the 'reasoning and justifications for the recommendation,' an individual denied parole would have to get another hearing scheduled 'not later than two years' from the denial. Currently, there's no requirement to when a subsequent parole hearing must be scheduled. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE The bill also specifies that, 'The Commission does not have the authority to permanently deny parole.' 'There's a need for [parole] improvement and we hope this bill will advance us toward that,' Embry said in a recent interview. Phillips' bill would take hearing examiners out of the process of recommending parole approval or denial. Under the current law, the commission can skip a hearing on a parole case if there are no objections from the inmate or the department, in which case the hearing examiner's recommendation become the final decision. Phillips' bill would also alter not only who serves on the Parole Commission, but how members are appointed for a six-year term. When there's a vacancy on the commission, a 12-member panel would submit at least three nominees to the governor. Those panel members would include the public defender, president of the Maryland State's Attorney's Association, the executive director of the Maryland Police Training and Standards Commission and four appointees of the governor – three from the general public and a prisoners' rights advocate. Some advocates noted the Parole Commission should diversify its panel. DPSCS confirmed that three former department employees are now parole commissioners: Chair Ernest Eley, Robyn Lyles and Lisa Vronch. Second Look Act draws hours of testimony in House Judiciary Committee Maryland is currently one of just four states, along with Kansas, Michigan and Ohio, that do not allow the governor to directly choose person to serve on a parole commission. 'This is to start a conversation about really looking at how the Parole Commission operates, particularly who's on the Parole Commission and what workload do they have right now,' Phillips said in a recent interview. 'Really having people to be a little more accountable in the process.' Clippinger said he wants to see action this year on one parole measure that has been reviewed for several years — removing the governor from the medical parole process. That bill, sponsored since 2022 by Del. J. Sandy Bartlett (D-Anne Arundel), vice chair of the Judiciary committee, will be heard Tuesday by Judiciary. A companion Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. C. Anthony Muse (D-Prince George's), was held Feb. 13. The measure passed the Senate last year, but did not get out of Judiciary. 'We want to get the medical piece done this year. We're going to try and make that happen,' Clippinger said, standing near Bartlett. 'We're going to get it done,' Bartlett said.
