Executive Order

We want your opinions ISSUE: Anne Arundel County officials said they will sever ties with government contractors that employ illegal immigrants. County Executive John R. Leopold issued an executive order last week that will require businesses to sign an affidavit swearing they do not employ people living in the country illegally. Evidence that a company has hired illegal immigrants would allow the county to drop the contractor. Leopold said the federal government "hypocritically" tolerates such practices, but Anne Arundel will not. Critics of the measure include Gustavo Torres, executive director of Casa de Maryland, who said it had the potential to further discrimination of Hispanics and could hurt businesses that use immigrant labor.

Democrats in Congress expressed displeasure this week with a presidential decree aimed at what they see as a White House attempt to rein in agency control over private industry. President Bush's executive order, published in the Federal Register last month and first reported in trade publications, permits the White House's Office of Management and Budget to delve deeper into agencies' efforts to protect public health and safety by reviewing their "significant" guidance documents. Business groups have frequently complained that agencies are using guidance documents, as opposed to more strictly vetted regulations, to explain how they plan to implement laws passed by Congress.

Gov. Parris N. Glendening has told labor leaders he will make a new attempt to write collective bargaining for state employees into law this year -- possibly with an expanded reach that could add thousands of workers to union rolls.At the same time, Glendening has shelved an ambitious proposal to make Maryland the first state to ban the sale of all but child-proof handguns, going back on a campaign promise to introduce such legislation in the coming session.Glendening's decision to include a collective bargaining bill in his legislative package for the 90-day General Assembly session will reopen a battle the governor fought and lost in 1996.

PRESIDENT Clinton said last month on the 50th anniversary of Harry Truman's issuance of an executive order calling for equal treatment for blacks in the armed services that it was "one of the best decisions any commander in chief ever made."Best political decision, certainly. It got him re-elected.The postwar services were almost entirely segregated by unit and by job. Civil rights leaders demanded a change. A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, was insistent in pressing for equal opportunity in enlistments, schooling, promotions, assignments and retention -- and especially in integrating units.

In a reversal likely to disappoint conservative supporters, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ellen R. Sauerbrey said yesterday that, if elected, she would not undo Gov. Parris N. Glendening's executive order that gives state employees collective bargaining rights.Sauerbrey was among those who harshly criticized the governor when he issued the order in 1996, but she said yesterday that undoing it would likely prompt employee unions to file costly lawsuits against the state."It would be like trying to put the genie back in the bottle," Sauerbrey said in an interview.

Gated community the ultimate aimI have followed with interest your stories concerning the development debate between St. Timothy's School and the Green Spring Valley Association and the purchase of the Shawan Farms by a group headed by Charlie Fenwick and Pedie Killebrew.In both cases, wealthy and politically connected individuals are striving to stem the tide of development in their little corner of the world. I, of the firmly middle class and unconnected, applaud their efforts. Open space benefits all of us in the long run. But it did cross my mind that these groups are attempting to create the ultimate in gated communities.

An article in yesterday's editions described Gov. Parris N. Glendening's directive to the Parole Commission not to release murderers or rapists as an executive order. No such formal order was issued, although a judge overturning the governor's new policy described it as having the same effect as an executive order.Pub Date: 9/18/97

A Baltimore circuit judge overturned yesterday a 2-year-old executive order by Gov. Parris N. Glendening that blocked inmates serving life sentences for rape and murder from seeking parole.Judge Richard T. Rombro said that Glendening did not have the authority to issue the order he gave to the state's Parole Commission in September 1995, in which he told commissioners "not to even recommend -- to not even send to my desk -- a request for parole for murderers and rapists."Glendening did make two exceptions in his order -- one for "very old age" or terminal illness.

State public safety workers have voted to approve the first contract negotiated under Gov. Parris N. Glendening's collective bargaining policy.Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters cast 98 percent of their ballots in favor of the contract, the unions said yesterday.The agreement calls for raises totaling $2,550 per worker over two years, as well as modest changes in benefits and working conditions. The General Assembly will be asked to appropriate the money for the raises when it meets in January.

Lawyers for Maryland business groups took their challenge to Gov. Parris N. Glendening's controversial executive order on collective bargaining before a judge yesterday, arguing that his "gubernatorial edict" usurped the power of the General Assembly.An attorney for the state countered that the order, which granted modified bargaining rights to state employees, fell well within the governor's "very broad discretionary authority" to run the executive branch.The hearing before Judge Eugene M. Lerner in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court marked the first round in the legal battle over last spring's executive order, issued by Glendening after the General Assembly declined to enact a broader collective bargaining bill backed by the governor.

President Barack Obama has signed an executive order instructing federal workers not to send text messages while driving government vehicles or their own vehicles while on the job. Thursday's order came Thursday, the same day a new state law took effect in Maryland prohibiting driving while texting. Thus, the state's 112,000 federal employees could face sanctions from both their state and their employer for violating the texting ban. The announcement by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood came at the conclusion of a two-day conference in Washington on distracted driving.

Seeking a voice on group homes It is disappointing to see continued misrepresentation of neighborhoods' opposition to the group home legislation before the City Council ("Treatment centers part of the solution," letters, March 22). We are not anti drug rehabilitation or group home operations; we are pro communities having a voice in the establishment of these facilities, many of which are run as for-profit businesses, in our neighborhoods. We can all agree that there is a need for group homes; however, this flawed legislation would create more problems than it would solve.

Nearly a year after Anne Arundel Executive John R. Leopold announced that the county would no longer hire contractors that employ illegal immigrants, no ties have been severed with any firm the county does business with. The order Leopold issued in August requires businesses to sign a contract swearing they do not employ people living in the country illegally and allows the county to end relationships with contractors that do. But the county does not actively screen contractors for illegal hires and will only take action if such practices are brought to light by federal authorities, which has not happened.

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has told Congress that U.S. intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law. The legal interpretation, outlined in recent letters, sheds new light on the still-secret rules for interrogations by the CIA. It shows that the administration is arguing that the boundaries for interrogations should be subject to...

President Bush spoke bluntly of his battles with substance abuse during a visit yesterday to a Baltimore job-placement program that has received the kind of federal faith-based funding he wants to boost. "Addiction is hard to overcome," Bush said yesterday at the Jericho program in East Baltimore, which helps former prisoners lead productive lives. "As you might remember, I drank too much at one time in my life. ... I understand that sometimes you can find the inspiration from a higher power to solve an addiction problem."

One of the first things President Bush did after taking office in 2001 was ask Alberto R. Gonzales, then his White House counsel, to draft an executive order that would gut the Presidential Records Act of 1978. The law, which was passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, requires that unclassified papers of a president or vice president be routinely released 12 years after the president's term ends. There has been speculation that the president was interested in shielding from public view papers from the Reagan administration that might prove embarrassing to the president's father, who was vice president to Ronald Reagan, or to give his father the ability to shelve records from his own presidency, which should have become public in 2004.

The Maryland attorney general's office plans to appeal a judge's preliminary injunction that prevents Gov. Martin O'Malley from enforcing his executive order allowing a union to represent home-based child care providers during negotiations for state subsidies. Yesterday, two Republican lawmakers, Sen. Allan H. Kittleman and Del. Michael D. Smigiel Sr. applauded the Friday action by Cecil County Circuit Judge Dexter M. Thompson Jr. The judge said the governor's Aug. 6 executive order, which covers residential day care providers who receive purchase-of-care vouchers from moderate-income parents, should have been handled through an executive branch regulation.

Speakout!We want your opinions ISSUE: Anne Arundel County officials said they will sever ties with government contractors that employ illegal immigrants. County Executive John R. Leopold issued an executive order last week that will require businesses to sign an affidavit swearing they do not employ people living in the country illegally. Evidence that a company has hired illegal immigrants would allow the county to drop the contractor. Leopold said the federal government "hypocritically" tolerates such practices, but Anne Arundel will not. Critics of the measure include Gustavo Torres, executive director of Casa de Maryland, who said it had the potential to further discrimination of Hispanics and could hurt businesses that use immigrant labor.

We want your opinions ISSUE: Anne Arundel County officials said they will sever ties with government contractors that employ illegal immigrants. County Executive John R. Leopold issued an executive order last week that will require businesses to sign an affidavit swearing they do not employ people living in the country illegally. Evidence that a company has hired illegal immigrants would allow the county to drop the contractor. Leopold said the federal government "hypocritically" tolerates such practices, but Anne Arundel will not. Critics of the measure include Gustavo Torres, executive director of Casa de Maryland, who said it had the potential to further discrimination of Hispanics and could hurt businesses that use immigrant labor.

Without fanfare, Gov. Martin O'Malley signed executive orders this month giving collective bargaining rights to home health aides and child care workers whose pay is subsidized by the state, despite the General Assembly's rejection of those proposals. In the orders, O'Malley said home health aides -- who provide services for disabled Marylanders through the Medicaid program -- often earn low pay, with few benefits or opportunities for training. And the child care work force, he wrote, needs to be stabilized and have a collective voice.