In a setback to Republican lawmakers seeking to invalidate tax, spending and gambling bills passed during the special session of the General Assembly, the Court of Special Appeals ruled yesterday that a key witness cannot be deposed today as planned.
Court filings indicate that attorneys for GOP legislators want to ask Mary Monahan, chief clerk of the House of Delegates, about official documents relating to a five-day adjournment by the Senate in November.
"I wouldn't expect that this is at all a comment on the merits of the positions," said plaintiffs' attorney Irwin R. Kramer about the court's decision to stay Monahan's deposition until it rules on the admissibility of her testimony.
"I'm pretty confident that when the judges take a look at the merits ... they will allow us to ask the questions we all need answers to."
Yesterday's ruling by a three-judge panel, made in response to an emergency petition filed Christmas Eve by the attorney general's office, is the latest in a flurry of developments in a high-stakes lawsuit about a little-known provision in the Maryland Constitution.
Led by Del. Michael D. Smigiel Sr. of Cecil County, five Republican lawmakers and a local businessman filed suit Dec. 13 in Carroll County Circuit Court claiming that the General Assembly violated a constitutional provision requiring that either legislative chamber formally consent to a break of more than three days by the other.
The lawsuit argues that when the Senate took a five-day break during the special session - while waiting for the House to finish its work - it failed to get proper approval from the House, thereby invalidating all the bills that were later passed.
The state says the lawsuit is an attempt by Republicans to undo laws they could not defeat legislatively and is without legal merit. The state further argues that Monahan's testimony is irrelevant and is in any case "privileged" by the constitutional separation of judicial and legislative powers.
Leslie D. Gradet, clerk of the special appeals court, said she did not know when the judges would issue a final ruling on whether Monahan could be deposed. Sandra B. Brantley, an assistant attorney general in the General Assembly's office, said she expected a ruling would come before proceedings on the lawsuit reconvene Jan. 4 in Westminster.
A central figure
