Assembly

Bill aims to restore right to vote for all ex-offenders Advocates for convicted felons are hoping a new approach to restoring voting rights to all ex-offenders will win lawmakers' approval this year, despite failure of such efforts in two past General Assembly sessions. The proposal, announced during a news conference and heard before a House committee yesterday, would allow all ex-offenders to vote after they are released from prison. Past legislation called for minor changes to the current law, which many found confusing because it involved waiting periods based on types of offenses.

Police departments around the country are collecting DNA in largely unregulated databases, The New York Times reported today, providing a broader look at a practice The Baltimore Sun revealed in Maryland earlier this year. The largest collections of DNA records are held at the state and federal levels, but local agencies are also free to collect their own samples and keep their own records, which are not always subject to the same rules. New York City, for example, has a database of 11,000 suspects and Orange County, Calif., has 90,000 records on file, according to the Times . Baltimore police had samples from more than 2,000 suspects and more than 3,000 homicide victims, The Sun reported in February .  The state's DNA law, which allows the collection of DNA from people arrested in connection with serious crimes and was recently upheld by the Supreme Court , makes no reference to the local databases.

AS MARYLAND legislators convene today in Annapolis, it bears repeating what their first order of business is: Confronting the $1.8 billion budget deficit for this year and next. Delegates and senators must solve immense financial problems without making government more dependent on gambling, without disrupting critically important programs and without killing valuable momentum achieved in recent years on public secondary and higher education, crime-fighting, environmental protection and many other fronts.

Ann K. Crane, who went to the wrong place in Dundalk when applying for a job and ended up staying there anyway for nearly a quarter of a century, died Wednesday from heart failure at Oak Crest Village. She was 93. The daughter of immigrant Lithuanian parents, the former Ann Kwedar was born in Baltimore and raised near the corner of Lombard and Pine streets, where her mother and father owned and operated a grocery store and restaurant. "As a small child, she only spoke Lithuanian, and the kids used to make fun of her in school when she was asked to solve a math problem and gave the answer in Lithuanian," said a niece, Fran Burch of Kill Devil Hill, N.C. "She told of being taught to read English by an African-American woman tenant, reading newspapers in a back room," recalled Ms. Burch.

Annapolis.-- After the celebratory confetti fell into his thinning hair last Monday, House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr. made clear how he felt about the just-concluded 1991 legislative session, a session characterized by tight budgets and short tempers."

The North Carroll Democratic Club will meet Wednesday at Longview Nursing Home on Main Street in Manchester for dinner at 6:30 p.m. and a program at 7:30 p.m.The program will be on the outcome of legislation that was proposed during the 1994 Maryland General Assembly.Democratic candidates for sheriff and register of wills also have been invited.Reservations are required for the dinner and meeting.Information: 374-9247 or 239-7139.FIRE* Hampstead: Engines from Hampstead, Manchester, Lineboro, Westminster and Arcadia and Boring of Baltimore County were dispatched to a house fire in the 1400 block of N. Main St. at 10:44 p.m. Thursday.

When he was appointed to the House of Delegates in 1991, Phillip Bissett enjoyed a measure of new respect from friends and neighbors.The reaction at work was another thing.It was not long before he learned a painful lesson: Jobs are not always compatible with the democratic process.Then a warehouseman for Giant Food, the Anne Arundel County Republican was chosen to fill the unexpired term of the late Dr. Aris T. Allen.Suddenly Mr. Bissett had to fit his work around new duties -- in the midst of a legislative session.

The WinnersBaltimoreA bit of political engineering now allows former congressman and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume to run for mayor of the city. His supporters persuaded the Assembly to cut the residency requirement for mayoral candidates from a year to six months.Business and utilitiesThey had their way in a complex deregulation bill, including the benefit of the doubt about whether -- and how much -- market competition will help Maryland consumers. Legislators admitted they didn't know whether consumers would be helped.

In mismanaging the state's transportation crisis, lawmakers in Annapolis are proving once again that most politicians have no sense of political timing. What could have been an ideal chance to quickly dispense with the distasteful chore of raising taxes has turned into a complete mess.Legislators have known for several years that the state's transportation trust fund was going to need another cash infusion in 1991. Assembly leaders even conceded last summer that it was all but inevitable: road and mass transit projects are expensive and require more money than the fund brings in.When the recession rocked Maryland last September, the transportation fund was especially hard hit. By December, Department of Transportation officials put a freeze on new projects to protect their dwindling cash reserves.

Taneytown Economic Development Commission will hold its monthly business breakfast at 7:30 a.m. April 11 at Thunderhead Bowling Centre at Routes 140 and 832. Del. Donald B. Elliott will discuss "What Has or What Has Not Happened in Annapolis, " a look at this year's General Assembly session. The cost for breakfast is $5.50, payable at the meeting. Reservations are required by Wednesday at 410-751-1100.

Baltimore schools chief Andrés Alonso went to Annapolis last year seeking approval for a bold $2 billion plan to replace many of the city system's crumbling buildings. The idea didn't even make it out of committee. Prospects still looked bleak in January when the Senate president described the financial package as "ridiculous. " But by the end of the legislative session in April, a $1 billion version of the proposal had cleared both chambers by overwhelming margins. The plan - signed into law Thursday by Gov. Martin O'Malley - went from ridiculous to reality because of hard work by scores of people in both Baltimore and Annapolis, and a host of political forces were in play.

General Assembly leaders say a joint committee of top legislators will hear from corrections officials about alleged corruption at the Baltimore City Detention Center. The briefing, to be held in June, replaces a House Judiciary Committee hearing that had been scheduled for next week. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch announced the joint public briefing of the Legislative Policy Committee by top corrections officials in June. Alexandra Hughes, a spokeswoman for the speaker, said the exact date of the briefing is expected to be announced next week.

Howard County legislators said this week that they believe the General Assembly will need to make adjustments to a state-mandated stormwater management fee imposed on Howard County and nine other Maryland jurisdictions. "I don't think it's over yet," said state Sen. James Robey, co-chair of the county's delegation to Annapolis. "We need to go back and make this more fair. " Robey and six other members of the county delegation spoke at the Howard County Chamber of Commerce's annual legislative wrap-up breakfast Thursday in Columbia.

Workplace violence is a serious occupational hazard in hospitals and other health care facilities, a fact that has escaped an unsuspecting public. Nationally, nursing assistants employed by nursing homes have the highest incidence of workplace assault among all workers, according to federal data. For women who work in nursing homes, social services and hospitals, the likelihood of being harmed on the job is like that of women working the late-night shift in convenience stores. To draw attention to these and other hidden risks, the Alliance Against Workplace Violence has designated April as Workplace Violence Awareness Month.

In addition to an extension of the Homestead Tax Credit application deadline, several other pieces of legislation relevant to homeowners passed both chambers of the General Assembly during the most recent session, which ended earlier this month. Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to sign them -- provided they pass a constitutional review, according to spokeswoman Raquel Guillory. Among the 2013 session housing legislation that is likely to become law: House Bill 235, introduced by Harford County Republican Del. Susan K. McComas, would require the Department of Assessments and Taxation to add five fields of information to the publicly available online database of property tax assessment information.

Among the likely Democratic candidates for Maryland governor in 2014 - Howard County executive Ken Ulman, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Attorney General Doug Gansler - Ulman comes closest to being the "Baltimore-area candidate. " But a genuine Baltimore-area candidate - someone who could pull votes from Baltimore County and the city, and enough in other key sectors of the state - would be a serious contender for the big-daddy chair in Annapolis. And who might that be? Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the six-term congressman and former Baltimore County executive, "is considering it," says his spokeswoman, Jaime Lennon.

A bill to create a property tax exemption for developers who convert old downtown Baltimore office buildings to residences won final General Assembly approval yesterday.If signed by the governor as expected, the legislation will allow the exemption for commercial properties that are at least 25 years old and have been at least 75 percent vacant for at least three years.The measure, which was proposed by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, is part of a package of bills being pushed this year to encourage such conversions.

A major hurdle to the construction of a new nursing and allied health building at Carroll Community College was lifted Monday night when the General Assembly approved amendments to the state construction budget that included $2.7 million in funding for the building. When the governor announced his capital budget for fiscal 2003, the building was excluded. Carroll Sen. Larry E. Haines, Carroll Community College President Faye Pappalardo and county agencies lobbied legislators to reinstate bond projects such as this in amendments to the bill.

Police could pull you over for talking on a hand-held phone while driving. Some patients could legally use marijuana. And veterans would get a new assist in getting jobs under legislation approved by the Maryland General Assembly on its final day. As they worked toward a midnight deadline, lawmakers considered - and shelved - hundreds of bills Monday on issues as small as designating a state sandwich and as dramatic as halting new fees designed to...

Legislation that would have placed stricter limits on where local governments could put speed cameras and required them to appoint ombudsmen to hear complaints died in the General Assembly Monday night. The legislation would have strengthened language prohibiting governments from entering into new contracts under which they paid private companies for each ticket issued, but would have allowed current contracts to stand. A Republican filibuster prevented a Senate vote on the measure as the General Assembly session neared its end. Gov. Martin O'Malley had planned to sign the compromise legislation, which was prompted by a Baltimore Sun investigation that documented erroneous tickets and other problems in Baltimore's program.