Maryland Legislators

The Maryland ethics commission has closed a loophole in state law that allowed lobbyists to avoid disclosing how much money they spend on selected legislators.Until the July 15 ruling, some lobbyists attempted to get around a legal requirement for reporting which legislators they entertained at receptions -- and the cost of wining and dining each of them -- by inviting the entire General Assembly.State law requires that lobbyists report giving gifts worth more than $15 -- including food and drink -- to individual lawmakers.

SUDDENLY, the outlook for a Camden Yards football stadium is brighter. Owner Art Modell's announcement of a $24 million contribution toward construction, combined with support from the state's business community, has put opponents on the defensive. The stadium plan now has momentum -- what sports enthusiasts call "Big Mo."Yet just as quickly as the Baltimore stadium has reached the fast track, a plan for the state to help build a Redskins stadium in Prince George's County has hit the skids.

Baltimore County state Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell's exchange tours with German lawmakers brought him a wave of public criticism in 1990 -- and a construction contract in Russia this year.The Democratic legislator, who runs a tiny commercial construction company from his Perry Hall townhouse, has a crew hanging drywall in a hospital being built near Moscow -- thanks to his friendship with a German legislator, he says.The contract for installing 200,000 square feet of drywall is worth about $400,000, Bromwell says.

He wants Maryland legislators to give him $273 million to build two football stadiums. He wants them to approve stricter controls on handguns. And he wants the first-ever collective bargaining rights for state employees.So, Gov. Parris N. Glendening might well have appeared for the start of the 1996 legislative season last week with a new pair of velvet gloves.Instead, he came out with bare knuckles, attacking the men and women whose votes he will need.He was not "one of the good old guys," he told a Washington Post reporter, and not "a buddy to a bunch of insiders."

At midnight last Monday, Maryland legislators said goodbye to The Year of the Mogul.In every year, the General Assembly is a jamboree of competing commercial and professional interests. Banks, insurance companies, utilities, the real estate industry, doctors, lawyers, acupuncturists, cosmetologists and newspaper publishers trundle into Annapolis with just the right words and commas to make the statutes read to their liking.The stakes for individual businessmen are often immense,involving not just turf but taxpayer's money, often spent in the name of economic development, present and future, quantifiable and intangible.

Maryland legislators will have to consider the cost to small businesses before approving new laws under a measure enacted by the General Assembly yesterday.Advocates for small businesses, who argued they are being "choked" by state taxes, fees and regulations, declared victory after the House of Delegates gave the legislation final approval. The measure now goes to Gov. Parris N. Glendening, who is expected to sign it into law.It will require the General Assembly's budget advisers to analyze every legislative proposal and estimate the cost or benefit to businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

The General Assembly has come up with a sure-fire way of getting the attention of the University of Maryland. If the university is slow in responding to legislative requests for information, or if it seems to be stonewalling, the lawmakers simply withhold a portion of its budget. Budget panels want to put on hold $21 million of UM's 1994-95 budget until it develops a policy on faculty workload.There is good reason why faculty productivity has become a major issue in statehouses across the land.

When John Stierhoff retired this month as top aide to the president of the Maryland Senate, legislators gave him a standing ovation. Two hours later, he left the State House with a double Rolodex the size of a toolbox -- filled with contacts he developed during his career in government.Then he walked two blocks to his new law firm, Dukes Evans Rozner Brown & Stierhoff, to begin his job as a lobbyist. Among his duties: trying to influence many of the legislators who had just given him such a rousing send-off.

There's no doubt the shining moment in this year's General Assembly session, which ends this evening, took place last Thursday when lawmakers enacted far-reaching health-care legislation designed to broaden access to medical insurance and force down the soaring cost of medical treatment. It was a monumental achievement.Doubts still loom large over the health-care measure, though. Will it prove effective in extending affordable coverage to the 600,000 uninsured Marylanders? Will it act to rein-in doctors' fees?

Taxpayers are getting a break this summer -- in more ways thanone.Not only is money being saved by the Maryland General Assembly, but lawmakers are being denied the opportunity to micromanage government and to create busy work to justify their existence.Chalk it up to a happy coincidence. Legislative leaders, faced with cutting back General Assembly operations earlier this year to help balance the state budget, decided to eliminate reimbursements for committee meetings this summer -- an item that meant on the order of $10,000 a week in expenses in previous years.

When it comes to Gov. Martin O'Malley's decision to furlough state employees to help offset a budget deficit, not all workers on Maryland's public payroll will be compelled to participate. The governor has no control over the legislative or judicial branches of government under the state constitution, which means Maryland lawmakers and judges won't necessarily have to feel the pinch. But the leaders of the General Assembly, House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, have said they will voluntarily participate in the governor's unpaid furlough plan once it's been decided - and they will strongly encourage their fellow legislators to join them.

Maryland's speeders can rest easy another year. Thanks to the tender concern of the Maryland General Assembly, they are free to race through your neighborhoods and through highway work zones without fear of being nailed by speed cameras. Gov. Martin O'Malley's modest gesture toward highway safety passed both chambers but expired when the House and Senate couldn't resolve their differences. The near-passage of the bill could be taken as a signal that the governor should try again next year.

After a wave of recalls of lead-tainted toys from China that frightened many consumers and parents, Maryland legislators are pursuing a bill to ban the hazardous products and allow for random inspections of factories, warehouses and stores. The bill would prohibit the manufacturing or sale of a children's product - including toys and jewelry or a consumable product such as candy - that contains lead. Maryland legislators said they are moving forward in the absence of more stringent federal action on the issue.

Legislators may raise non-budget issues Gov. Martin O'Malley has called a special session of the General Assembly to focus on passing a large legislative package to close a $1.7 billion budget gap. But legislators can have minds of their own. Maryland legislators have filed requests for bills unrelated to the budget to be drafted for consideration during the special session - scheduled to begin Oct. 29 - which O'Malley, a Democrat, and legislative leaders...

Abolish parole for sex offenders According to a Study by the U.S. Department of Justice titled "Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994," 9,691 male sex offenders were released from 15 states, including Maryland. Of this population, 4,295 were documented as released child molesters. Some of the facts gleaned from that study are as follows: Released sex offenders were 4 times more likely to be rearrested for a sex crime compared to non-sex offenders released from State prisons.

School takeover an abuse of power The recent attempt by state schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick to seize control of 11 Baltimore schools is unfortunate ("With state plans at bay, city acts to save schools," April 12). The threat by the U.S. Department of Education to withhold funds from our city's schools is regrettable. More than anything else, these actions reveal the disconnection between those who work in Baltimore's public schools and the state officials charged with administering those schools.

Now and then, Maryland legislators go off on their own and run the show. Over the last decade or two, mini-revolts have been triggered by various crises: a failing savings and loan industry and public employee pension reform, for example. Both involved bread-and-butter issues and powerful groups of votes. This year, it was rapidly rising energy prices that drew lawmakers to fix something they had helped to create by deregulating electricity prices. Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. suffered the political equivalent of a brownout.

THE ISSUE: U.S. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes has introduced a bill to close the Oak Hill Youth Detention Center in western Anne Arundel County and divvy up the land among the county, the National Park Service and the nearby National Security Agency. Under Sarbanes' proposal, the 888-acre property, the site of the District of Columbia's juvenile facility, would be transferred in pieces. The Army would help with Oak Hills' closure and with the building of a new facility, preferably in Washington.

Maryland legislators are expected to introduce legislation to protect personal information from identity fraud in response to the security breach at ChoicePoint Inc. in which thieves acquired data on thousands of consumers. The legislation could be introduced as early as today or tomorrow by Del. Brian R. Moe and Sen. Leonard H. Teitelbaum, who serve on the Joint Technology Oversight Committee, said Steve Sakamoto-Wengel, assistant attorney general in the Consumer Protection Division. Sakamoto-Wengel said yesterday that the legislation is modeled after a law in California, the only state that requires companies to notify consumers when personal data has been compromised.

THERE MUST BE something to that expression about elites existing in a rarefied atmosphere. Surely corporate and political leaders who have the power to substantially clean up the nation's polluted skies wouldn't keep refusing to do so if they and their families had to breathe the same gunky air as everybody else. The lives of 24,000 Americans -- including 687 Marylanders -- are cut short every year because of damage caused by emissions from utility smokestacks, according to federal estimates.