Legislative Leaders

Under pressure from legislative leaders after his indictment on federal mail fraud charges, Del. Tony E. Fulton gave up two House leadership posts yesterday and agreed to abstain on votes affecting clients of his co-defendant, State House lobbyist Gerard E. Evans.The Baltimore Democrat agreed to the moves at the urging of House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr."I ... want to avoid any cloud hanging over the actions I take in the legislature to represent my constituents while this matter is pending," Fulton said in a statement released by Taylor's office.

In a show of support for Maryland's business community, the General Assembly gave final approval yesterday to a bill helping Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. keep up in the increasingly competitive power industry.With only one dissenting vote, the House and Senate sent emergency legislation to the governor's desk that will allow the Baltimore-based utility to form an unregulated holding company.Gov. Parris N. Glendening promised to sign the holding company bill today, making it the first legislation to become law less than three weeks into the 1999 session.

NEW YORK -- By agreeing Friday on a $1 billion plan to provide health insurance for a third of the state's 3.2 million uninsured, Gov. George E. Pataki and legislative leaders sent a message to the rest of the country that the state was trying to regain its stature as a leader on health care policy.At the beginning of the decade, the number of New Yorkers without health insurance was below the national average; at the end of the decade, it exceeds it. About 20 percent of New Yorkers under 65 do not have insurance; the national average is 16.3 percent.

Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin says he is optimistic the General Assembly will approve without major changes a study panel's recommendations for changing Maryland's ethics laws.Cardin, a Baltimore-area Democrat and former speaker of the House of Delegates, was chairman of the study committee, which met for the last time yesterday to review the language of its legislative proposal.The General Assembly is expected to take up the proposal as one of its first orders of business after it convenes Jan. 13. The state's two top legislative leaders have promised to work to get the proposals passed.

OCEAN CITY -- Transportation and taxation will be at the top of the General Assembly agenda next year regardless of who is elected governor, legislative leaders told the Maryland Chamber of Commerce yesterday.The Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate and House of Delegates told business leaders that there is a broad agreement that the state's Transportation Trust Fund needs to be shored up -- but little consensus on how to do so. In particular, the legislators said, there is little political will to raise the state's gasoline tax -- the traditional source of money for transportation funds.

After 2 1/2 months of preliminaries, the General Assembly will get down to the main event this week with crucial decisions looming on income tax cuts, suburban sprawl and the Baltimore school aid and reform package.Showdown votes this week should frame the outcome of the top items on the year's legislative agenda, but they come amid increasingly stressful squabbling among lawmakers from different regions of Maryland over state aid for their areas.Things got so bad last week that Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said county executives and lawmakers from Montgomery County and even his home county of Prince George's were behaving like "pigs at the trough."

HALFWAY THROUGH the 1997 General Assembly session, this much is clear: The influence and importance of House Speaker Casper R. Taylor and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller are on the rise; the influence of Gov. Parris N. Glendening is in decline.Witness the negotiations over a major boost in school aid by the state's Big Seven local executives. Did they sit down with the governor to work something out? No. They huddled with Messrs. Taylor and Miller on coming up with a consensus plan.

A healthy economy and a booming stock market have helped lift Maryland to a budget surplus of about $60 million, giving the Glendening administration a modest cushion as it begins putting together an election year budget.Although figures for the fiscal year that ended June 30 are not final, Maryland officials will be able to present news of the apparent surplus to the three leading bond rating agencies Tuesday as they meet to review the state's coveted AAA rating.Comptroller Louis L. Goldstein also will report to them that Maryland's economic growth, which has lagged behind the national rate in recent years, has caught up.Ray Feldmann, a spokesman for Gov. Parris N. Glendening, called the surplus "another indication that we are moving the state in the right direction."

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Politicians and tenant organizers mobilized yesterday as if for war, bracing for the possible expiration of state rent laws tonight.Left hanging in the balance was the status of millions of apartment dwellers.In a sign of mounting panic over the prospect that the laws could lapse, a phone line inaugurated yesterday by New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani was inundated with calls from frightened tenants unsure of their rights.Gov. George E. Pataki instructed the attorney general's office and the state courts to prepare, if the rules expire, for the prosecution of landlords who harass tenants.

The legislature's ethics committee will begin investigating the business affairs of Sen. Larry Young today, with the veteran lawmaker's reputation and potentially his State House power on the line.The 12-member panel is expected to outline the areas it wants to investigate, drawing from an article last week in The Sun that reported possible ethical violations by Young.The committee inquiry could clear Young of violating state ethics laws or, if it finds improprieties, lead to disciplinary action by the 47-member Senate, including expulsion.

Another perk for Maryland lawmakers has been yanked in the midst of some of the worst budgetary times in memory in Annapolis. House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller have asked the Maryland Transportation Authority to terminate the free E-ZPass program for the legislative branch. Scores of lawmakers don't have to pay for the electronic toll-collection service. About 15,000 government employees and officials in the state have the free accounts, including first-responders such as police and firefighters, and buses.

Magna Entertainment Corp. and its bankruptcy attorneys criticized Gov. Martin O'Malley's bid Wednesday to assert eminent domain powers over the Preakness Stakes, saying passage of the legislation could lead to more litigation. The governor and lawyers for the state said the proposed law - which has the backing of legislative leaders - is necessary to ensure that the Preakness does not go the way of the Baltimore Colts in the wake of bankruptcy proceedings that began in Delaware last month.

Legislative leaders, saddled with a new budget hole of $516 million and a deadline for balancing the budget, said yesterday that they might resort to additional furloughs for state workers and slashing aid to local governments that have largely been spared in previous rounds of spending cuts. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch laid out some budgetary options yesterday as the state's revenue forecasters officially reported that they now anticipate more than $1.1 billion less in tax revenue during the next 16 months.

By midnight tonight, Gov. Martin O'Malley must line up the necessary votes in the General Assembly to approve a $2 billion settlement he brokered with Constellation Energy Group or risk the deal's collapse. State officials and Constellation, BGE's parent company, reached a settlement two weeks ago to put an end to a dispute that's been simmering since the company sought a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006. The deal would give consumers $170 rebates this year, plus other benefits in the future.

Gov. Martin O'Malley abruptly abandoned his effort to force out state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick yesterday, appearing with her at the State House to announce that they had agreed to bury their differences and work together on education policy. Sitting down beside Grasmick to face reporters, O'Malley said he had asked legislative leaders not to pursue a bill that would have effectively nullified the State Board of Education's recent renewal of her contract. Some legislative leaders said last week that it was unclear whether there was sufficient support in the General Assembly for an effort to force Grasmick out, suggesting that even if O'Malley succeeded in replacing her, he probably would have had to use a great deal of political capital to do so. Grasmick also agreed yesterday to pursue several of O'Malley's educational priorities that she had not previously embraced.

Gov. Martin O'Malley called longtime state schools chief Nancy S. Grasmick "a pawn of the Republican Party" yesterday, and other top Democrats said she should resign, indicating on the opening day of this year's legislative session that they might make good on threats to force her out. In his first public comments about Grasmick since she was reappointed by the state Board of Education, O'Malley criticized her support for the federal No Child Left Behind...

Maryland's state school board defied warnings by legislative leaders and voted in private yesterday afternoon to renew schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick's contract for another four years. The decision, made after a three-hour executive session in Baltimore, immediately drew angry threats from legislative leaders in Annapolis, setting up the possibility of a long battle between the state board and the General Assembly over who will direct education policy. House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller had sent a letter to the board Monday urging it not to reappoint Grasmick.

Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley has dealt with plenty of problems as mayor of Baltimore, but there was one place he could always turn to for support: the City Council. He used the tremendous powers that Maryland gives its local executives, a strong relationship with a council president and his insider knowledge as a former councilman to amass a nearly perfect record in pushing his agenda. But as he leaves the city and its 15-person council behind after seven years, O'Malley could be in for a rude awakening if history is any guide.

Chances are rising that tomorrow's special General Assembly session on medical malpractice reform could end in discord that would tarnish both Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and legislative leaders, painting them more as bickerers than problem-solvers. Sensing a solution within reach earlier this month, Ehrlich ordered lawmakers to alter holiday plans and return to Annapolis to develop a fix for soaring insurance premiums that some fear are forcing doctors from their practices. It was a brash move by a governor hoping to solve what he considers to be the most vexing public policy issue facing Marylanders.

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. claimed to have distributed a copy of his medical malpractice reform bill to legislative leaders late yesterday, after most lawmakers preparing for next week's abruptly convened special session had left work for the day. Ehrlich's office distributed a news release at 5:50 p.m., saying he had given his plan to Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch. But the legislation, which apparently closely follows a set of reforms outlined in a worksheet used by the governor and legislative leaders in a meeting last week, had not arrived at Miller's and Busch's offices two hours later, and neither of the presiding officers saw it last night.