Maryland Senate

Gov. Martin O'Malley's bill to legalize same-sex marriage quickly won approval in the Maryland Senate Thursday night. The measure now needs the governor's signature. Cheers erupted in the Senate chambers after the 25-22 vote was read out loud and the group of seven gay and lesbian lawmakers from the House of Delegates rushed to the middle of the floor to embrace supportive senators. "I think I'm speechless," said Sen. Richard Madaleno, the only openly gay senator. "This is a remarkable day. " O'Malley, a Democrat, shook hands with activists after the vote.

Much of the coverage of the need for a special budget session of the Maryland legislature has focused on the political machinations of its leaders. That's understandable. But we should not ignore the impact on ordinary people if the legislature fails to finalize a budget. Major victims will be thousands of middle-income college students from every community in Maryland. The budget package proposed by Gov.Martin O'Malleyand endorsed by both houses of the legislature caps tuition hikes at 3 percent for this fall at all the public four-year campuses.

The state Senate voted Thursday to significantly raise taxes on Marylanders earning half a million dollars or more — prompting complaints that liberals were bent on launching class warfare in the state. The Senate's vote to adopt what is being dubbed a "millionaire's tax" came after some liberal-leaning senators said they would refuse to support a smaller, across-the-board increase in income taxes unless the wealthy took a special hit. The chamber was considering a plan to raise taxes on most Maryland taxpayers by up to a quarter of a percentage point — a proposal that eventually passed by a vote of 26-20.

Democratic members of the Maryland Senate  caucused Wednesday morning  in Annapolis, apparently summoned by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller to discuss the prospects for special sessions of the General Assembly this year. More than half the members of the Senate's majority party got together at 8 a.m. in the James Senate Office Building. Senators said they expect Miller to take soundings on how much support he could count on for plans to raise income taxes to avert hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts.

TAKE a good look at the makeup of the Maryland Senate. Many of the faces you see won't be around very much longer.By dint of retirement and reapportionment, the Senate could lose at least one-third of its 47 members. Still others will depart in the normal evolutionary process of running for higher office.As the numbers crunch now, at least 16 senators have announced their retirements or have left their futures in the Senate uncertain. And every departing senator is likely to generate a corresponding vacancy in the House of Delegates as delegates attempt to move up to the Senate.

Margaret Jefferson "Jeff" Jackson, a Maryland state senator from 1953 to 1955 and Democratic activist, died in her sleep of a circulatory ailment Sunday at Pickersgill Retirement Community in Towson. She was 94. Born Margaret E. Jefferson in Chestertown, she graduated from Washington College in 1929 and went to work at a women's clothing store owned by her father. After his death, she ran the store until 1939, when she married Omar D. "Gus" Crothers Jr., and moved to Walnut Lane in Elkton.

Efforts to get mixed martial arts sanctioned in Maryland appear on track after a senate committee showed no signs of opposition yesterday to a bill that would give the state athletic commission regulatory power over the sport. The committee on education, health and environmental affairs likely will decide by Friday whether to forward the bill to a vote by the entire state senate, said sponsor Joan Carter Conway, a Baltimore Democrat. But no one spoke against the legislation at yesterday's hearing in Annapolis.

Elinor Louise Gee Murphy, a former state senator who represented Northeast Baltimore and was also a city school principal, died of cancer Feb. 15 at Gilchrist Hospice Care. She was 88 and lived in Morgan Park. Born Elinor Louise Gee in Baltimore and raised on Druid Hill Avenue, she developed a love of travel from her father, Ossarew Gee, who was a personal assistant to Baltimore & Ohio Railroad executives, including President Daniel Willard. She accompanied her parents on trains as a child and later visited five continents.

THE MARYLAND Senate's majority can be divided into two basic groups: Dems that got and Dems that don't.And Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and other members of his Democratic leadership team -- definitely the "haves" in this equation -- have found a way to help their less fortunate colleagues in next year's election.By creating the Maryland Democratic Senatorial Committee, which took in nearly $500,000 at a fund-raiser last week, Miller and his party's majority of 31 other senators will be able to shift unlimited amounts of money to candidates who may need it.Under Maryland law, campaign committees are limited to transferring $6,000 to any other committee.

As a handful of undecided Maryland delegates wrestle over their position on same-sex marriage, they've received calls from national leaders trying to move them one way or another on the bill. Prominent figures dialing Maryland area codes include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman and Cardinal-elect Edwin F. O'Brien — who called from Rome — according to delegates who've received messages from them and sources familiar with the calls.

Former state Sen. Walter M. Baker, who had served in the legislature representing the upper Eastern Shore for more than two decades and also had been a Cecil County attorney, died Tuesday of complications from diabetes at Christiana Hospital in Delaware. The longtime Elkton resident was 84. "Walter was a lifelong Democrat. He was from a large family that was rural and poor, and he grew up with a great sense of values," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller. "He was conservative, and loved the Eastern Shore and reflected its conservative values.

Alfred J. Lipin, a former Anne Arundel County hardware store owner turned Democratic politician who served in both the House of Delegates and state Senate, died Friday of a heart attack at Hanover Hospital in Hanover, Pa. The lifelong Glen Burnie resident was 92. He was born and raised in Pasadena at Lipin's Corner, where his parents owned and operated a combination grocery store and gas station. After graduating from Glen Burnie High School in 1938, he attended the University of Baltimore for three years.

As they get older and feel the press of time, some men need to condense into a short span all that they feel they've missed before it's too late; they worry about their legacy and what the eulogist might say of them. Others are more relaxed about the whole thing; they fear neither time nor public opinion. They realize they can't change the world and look around with wonderment at those who do. Take Mike Miller - please. He's the president of the Maryland Senate who, with a great mane of white hair, looks in profile like a founding father, or perhaps an early 19th Century politician in the spirit of Clay and Calhoun, names he uttered in the State House last week after the 2012 General Assembly ended badly, without a budget compromise.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller warned Saturday that "time is running out" on efforts to reach an agreement on the state budget for next year without having to go into an extended session but he sent a message to House leaders that he is perfectly willing to do so if necessary. "If a special session is in the offing, it won't be the fiest time we have been in special session," Miller told reporters as the Senate took a break between meetings. ""I'm certainly willing to work all summer to get the job done we were elected to do. " The General Assembly is scheduled to end its 90-day session Monday night, but failure to pass a budget would trigger an extended session.

For readers in shock from Sun articles about the Maryland state government's drive to take more and more of our hard-earned money, there is a solution. Maryland government is now controlled by interests that strongly benefit from an ever-increasing welfare state. My friend Tom calls them the "tax-takers" - public sector unions, urban developers, public service providers, and socialists/communists. By taking advantage of low voter turnout in primary elections, these groups make sure that tax-takers and their friends vote, so pro-tax Democratic candidates always win the primaries.

I heard from a self-described Maryland millionaire. His name was Les. He was kind of cranky. He put the hate on me for Tuesday's column about state Sen. Bobby Zirkin (Democrat and defender of millionaires), and Les condemned the Maryland Senate for raising the tax rate on households, like his, with annual incomes of $500,000 or more. "If it's wrong to balance the budget on the backs of the poor," Les said, "then it's wrong to balance the budget on the backs of the rich. " I guess that means Les dislikes our progressive income tax system, where the taxable rate rises along with taxable income.

State aid to public schools and universities could be slashed, 500 state jobs abolished and local law enforcement grants eliminated under a "doomsday" budget prepared for the Maryland Senate to show the impact of a budget balanced without tax increases. The budget cutting would especially be hard on Baltimore, which would lose almost $75 million in state aid — including $34 million for education and $10 million for law enforcement. The $720 million in cuts are part of what Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller has called a doomsday budget, prepared for the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee as an alternative to Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposal to raise about $300 million in additional revenue, largely through an increase in the income taxes paid by Marylanders earning $100,000 or more.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake could be in office for five years, under a new election plan being debated in the Maryland Senate. After the 2016 elections, the mayor and other city elected officials would serve four year terms. Rawlings-Blake sought the change this year, and the Senate gave it an initial nod Wednesday morning. A final vote on the measure is expected later this week. The House of Delegates would have to pass the measure too. Putting Baltimore on the federal election cycle is intended to boost turnout, which was at a near record low in last November's election.

"Disgusted" is a strong word. I tend to hold it in reserve; I save it for things that fill me with actual loathing or nauseate me. Others are more cavalier about the word's usage - to the point where they demean its meaning. They claim to be "disgusted" by things they simply disagree with, or things that, in the big picture of life, are merely annoying. Bobby Zirkin, who represents citizens of northwest Baltimore County in the Maryland Senate, invoked the "D word" last week in Annapolis, and it was really strange - not only hyperbole, but misdirected hyperbole.