Maryland Voters

Maryland voters will decide the outcome of seven ballot questions in November. Question 1 - All Maryland voters will decide whether the judges in Prince George's County who oversee estate and will disputes must be admitted to the Maryland Bar. Baltimore City and Montgomery and Harford counties currently require this. Supporters say the measure will professionalize the so-called “Orphan's Court” which oversees estate disputes. Opponents are concerned that the change will lead to a statewide requirement that Orphan's Court judges be attorneys, which they believe is unnecessary.

I have followed national news reports of 13 correctional officer involved in partnership activities with inmates as well as four female correctional officers getting pregnant by inmates ("Alleged gang leader in poor jail conditions, his lawyer says," May 15). No one can deny that this is alarming and disgraceful! Unions will say it is the result of under-staffing and more money is the answer. Money and more staff is not the answer. It is leadership! Gov. Martin O'Malley demonstrated his lack leadership skills and lack of common sense when he endorsed the union's bill of rights which gives correctional officers an automatic appeal before three correctional officers.

Maryland has endured a bruising recession better than many other states, but voters here are still wary over the economy and personal finances, and could punish incumbent politicians at the ballot box next month, a Baltimore Sun survey shows. The Sun survey of 798 likely Maryland voters showed that nearly two-thirds worry about their finances — and one in four say they fret about money every day. More than half of voters say the performance of the economy will influence their voting decisions.

Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to sign a law abolishing capital punishment in Maryland next week, though a referendum effort may be on the horizon. O'Malley's spokesman Raquel Guillory confirmed Thursday that the death penalty repeal law is scheduled to be signed on May 2. Maryland will become the sixth state in as many years to abandon state executions. Five men, all convicted of murders dating back to 1983, are on death row. O'Malley, who pushed for repeal, has said the men's fates will be considered on a case-by-case basis.  Maryland has had a de facto moratorium on executions since a 2006 court ruling overturned details in the process for carrying them out. The last execution in Maryland occurred by lethal injection in 2005.  After hours of impassioned debate in the General Assembly earlier this year, lawmakers voted 109-76 for repeal.

Maryland voters are supportive of health care reform even though some still haven't grasped all the details, a new survey has found. The survey sponsored by independent health philanthropy The Horizon Foundation and advocacy group Maryland Health Care for All! Coalition , found that those who would gain the most from health reform seemed to know the least about it. The study results were based on a telphone poll of 1,413 voters conducted September 14 to 23. Fifty-nine percent of respondents support health reform, compared to 19 percent who oppose it. The other 22 percent are unsure.

A headline in your paper reported that "2012 called year gas tax must go up" (Sept. 20). Yet the article accompanying it failed to explain why. Has everyone forgotten that Gov. Martin O'Malley cleaned out the Transportation Trust Fund to balance his budget? Not only did he raid the transportation fund, he raided several others as well. The year 2012 needs to be the year that Maryland government lives within its means and that its trust funds are used as intended. These are not slush funds for politicians to hand out as perks.

In 2010, Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker and his fellow conservative Republicans campaigned with a clear message that if elected, they would confront the public unions right to collective bargaining, cut salaries and benefits instead of using public worker layoffs to correct budget shortfalls. The public unions threw everything they could at Mr. Walker and the Republicans candidates but the voters found the conservative message the right one to correct the budget deficit and voted them in. The Sun's recent editorial ("Union Badgering," Feb. 22)

If four years ago they voted for historic change, on Tuesday, Maryland supporters of President Barack Obama cast their ballots for patience. "I figure that in four years, he couldn't have done everything to right the course after the previous administration," Kimberly Shorter, 39, of Woodlawn said after casting her vote for him. "Of course, there was some disappointment with the fact that he didn't do everything he set out to do, but he's human...

Call it a Maryland miracle: While voters had to slog through snow to reach the polls in Wyoming and endure heavy rain in New England, clear skies and spring-like temperatures made the quadrennial exercise in citizenship feel like a picnic here."

Paul Tsongas is a popular guy these days. So is Ross Perot. Virtually every Maryland candidate contemplating a run for governor next year has embraced one of these iconoclasts.And no wonder. Mr. Tsongas coasted to victory over Bill Clinton in Maryland's 1992 Democratic presidential primary with a suburban strategy that could set new standards for future statewide elections. Then in November, Mr. Perot highlighted the discontent among a strong minority of voters -- 271,000 strong -- who could provide the winning margin in next year's state races.

Now that our lawmakers have failed to pass breed-neutral legislation that would overturn the court ruling that declared one breed of dog dangerous, thousands of Maryland voters and their pets will unfairly be affected ("General Assembly session ends in flurry of votes," April 9). We counted on legislators to right a wrong that was already causing a negative impact in homes and animal shelters in Maryland. This did not happen. The direct impact from the lack of compromise between our legislators will lead to more landlords burdened with the responsibility of determining a dog's breed and forcing tenants to choose between their home and their pets; more Marylanders having to give up their beloved pets; and an increase in abandoned pit-bull type dogs in already crowded animal shelters.

With Gov. Martin O'Malley's landmark gun control bill given final approval by the Senate on Friday and waiting only the governor's signature to be enacted into law, Democrats in Annapolis are likely hoping that the next step will be talk of the "R" word. And we don't mean Ruger, Remington, revolvers or repeating rifles. Would you believe referendum? Oh, gun control advocates won't necessarily be happy about the prospect of seeing the gun legislation taken to referendum - it would, after all, delay the effective date for at least 18 months while the matter is decided by voters in November 2014 - but you can bet a lot of people on the Democratic side of the aisle would be ecstatic.

On Monday night, the Senate overwhelmingly approved the O'Malley administration's proposal to make it easier to cast a ballot in Maryland despite lingering criticism from some in the GOP that somehow early voting and same-day voter registration will lead to an outbreak of voter fraud. That is about as likely as Rep. Paul Ryan endorsing Amtrak, food stamps and an expansion of Obamacare in his next budget proposal. A far better criticism of the measure is that it doesn't go far enough, or perhaps that it imposes an expensive obligation on local government without providing for a funding source.

It's hard to imagine that gay marriage and Superman could be wrapped into a controversy, but that's happening across the nation as  DC Comics launches a new line of comic books featuring Clark Kent's alter ego. One of the authors signed on for the upcoming "Adventures of Superman" series is Orson Scott Card, who wrote the popular Ender series. He certainly has science fiction cred, but his views opposing gay marriage have caused some bookstores to boycott his newest works and have triggered a petition drive.

Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr. said Tuesday he “accepted” his admonishment by the General Assembly's ethics committee for using legislative stationery last year in trying to silence Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo's outspoken support for same-sex marriage.  But the Baltimore County Democrat insisted he had nothing to apologize for in speaking out. Burns said the ethics panel wrote him chiding him for using official stationery to write...

Maryland's predominantly Democratic voters continue to approve of the jobs being done by President Barack Obama and Gov. Martin O'Malley, according to a new poll released today. Two months after his re-election, Obama's job approval stands at 64 percent in the state, while only 35 percent disapprove, according to a survey by Gonzales Research. That represents a 9-point jump from the president's 55 percent approval rating in the state the previous January. O'Malley maintained a 54 percent to 41 percent approval rating, largely because of the overwhelming support of women (61 percent)

Maryland voters came out to the polls last year in greater numbers than they did during the 2000 election, according to new figures released today from the U.S. census. Nearly 66 percent of U.S. citizens in Maryland voted in the 2004 presidential election, an increase from 61 percent in 2000, the study revealed. The increase in voter turnout was similar to national figures, which showed an increase from 60 percent in 2000 to 64 percent in 2004. Statewide, 56 percent of blacks voted, which matched national figures.

An Anne Arundel County judge threw out a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the referendum last November in which Maryland voters approved an expansion of casino gambling after a $95 million campaign. Circuit Judge Ronald A. Silkworth rejected a contention by plaintiffs who opposed the expansion that the referendum required a majority of all Maryland voters — rather than a majority of those casting their ballots — to pass. Silkworth also said the plaintiffs waited too long to bring their suit.

Today, Gov. Martin O'Malley joins the NAACP and other civil rights groups in an all-out push to abolish capital punishment in Maryland. Advocates say they believe they have the votes in both the Senate and House of Delegates, and a long-standing bottleneck in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee appears no longer to be an obstacle to a floor vote on the issue. Given the governor's commitment to make this legislation part of his agenda, and the turnover in the Senate since the last major push for a repeal in 2009, the odds for abolishing capital punishment in Maryland appear better than ever.