Maryland Senate

I am writing in opposition to the proposed legislation in both the Maryland Senate and House to ban assault weapons ("Governor predicts assault weapons ban will pass" Jan 13). The proposed legislation will not accomplish stated purposes of increased public safety. It will only injure Maryland's law abiding citizens. It proposes to fix problems that we do not have in Maryland. According to the Maryland State Police data for the year 2011 there were only two murders with any type of rifle.

Moments after Gov. Martin O'Malley urged lawmakers that "it is time to repeal the death penalty in Maryland and replace it with life without parole" during his State of the State speech Wednesday, a Roman Catholic nun famous for her repeal work resumed the effort to secure the votes. Sister Helen Prejean, whose autobiography "Dead Man Walking" detailing her work with death row inmates was made into a movie, planned to meet Wednesday with undecided lawmakers. She said she was pleased that O'Malley had created a simple framework that cast the death penalty as an ineffective tool that isn't worth using.

Annapolis boys basketball coach John Brady, Maryland's winningest coach among public schools, and cross country standout Hale Bullen will be honored guests at the Maryland General Assembly on Monday, Jan. 28. Brady, who has a 728-158 career record in his 36 seasons at Annapolis, led the Panthers to a state title in 1990 and three other appearances in the championship game. Bullen was named The Baltimore Sun's Cross Country Runner of the Year after a senior season that was capped with a win in the Class 3A championship race.

That was no small development heard the other day from the longtime president of the Maryland Senate, Thomas V. Mike Miller. The white-haired gatekeeper of the General Assembly said he would allow a vote to repeal the death penalty on the Senate floor, presumably bypassing the committee that usually blocks the legislation from getting there. This from the politician who once declared: "If there's a gallows, I'll pull the lever. If there's a gas chamber, I'll turn the valve. If it's lethal injection, I'll insert the needle.

Anyone who has followed the effort to repeal the death penalty in Maryland knows that the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee is the last obstacle needed to bring it to a long-overdue floor vote. The Maryland State Conference of the NAACP believes that repeal of the death penalty is too important to be stymied by the committee's makeup. Death penalty abolition would save Maryland millions of dollars and prevent future murders. The question deserves an up or down vote on the floor of the Maryland Senate - even if it means restructuring the committee.

John Carroll Coolahan, a decorated Marine and former member of the Maryland Senate who acquired the reputation as the "Lion of Halethorpe" when he opposed construction of the Baltimore Metro rail system, died Sunday at St. Agnes Hospital. Family members said he fell in snow Dec. 26 and died after surgery. He was 80. After leaving the Maryland Senate he became a District Court judge and heard cases throughout the state until September 2012. "He played to win. He believed in debate and never shied away from conflict, whether it was on the Senate floor or around the family's dinner table," said his son, William D. "Bill" Coolahan of Relay.

Former state Sen. John A. Pica Jr., who has been out of office the past 16 years, is considering a return to the political arena with a possible Democratic primary challenge to Baltimore Sen. William C. Ferguson IV. Pica, a Baltimore County resident who represented Northeast Baltimore in the Senate from 1983 until abruptly resigning midway through his fourth term in 1996, said Friday that he plans to move to Little Italy -- "the neighborhood where...

Your coverage of the fracking conference held by Maryland environmental, faith and health organizations ("Activists rally for fracking conference", Dec. 9) states that activists met "to organize a push for a legislative ban" on fracking. The focus of the discussion was actually to put a legislative "pause" or moratorium on fracking into law that would allow science, open debate and democracy to ultimately decide the fate of fracking in Maryland. In 2011, Gov. Martin O'Malley ordered a series of studies on the potential impacts of fracking on groundwater, the climate, air, forests, human health and our rural communities.

Comptroller Peter Franchot, considered one of the leading prospective Democratic candidates for governor in 2014, said Dec. 11 that he will not run that race and will instead seek a third term in his current office. A few hours after Franchot's announcement, District 21 Sen. Jim Rosapepe, who was among those who had expressed an interest in running for comptroller if Franchot ran for governor, issued his own statement, saying he intends to seek re-election to the state Senate in 2014.

This month's passage of a new U.S.-Russia trade law has done more than showcase Senator Ben Cardin's dedication to international human rights. By sending the shock to the Kremlin - that the U.S. values prosecuting rights abusers as much as it values profits for businesses - the Maryland Democrat has catapulted human rights atop the international agenda and brought new attention to the U.S. Helsinki Commission that he chairs. The Helsinki Commission - founded amid the Cold War, just like the legislation the new trade bill replaces - once helped secure freedom for Soviet refuseniks unable to emigrate from under the thumb of Communism.