Mike Miller

Maryland will help sponsor eight festivals this year commemorating the War of 1812, an effort officials hope will boost tourism and economic development. The state would put up $2.1 million in matching grants to various non-profits for 23 War of 1812 projects, Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, Jr. and Department of Business and Economic Development Secretary Dominick Murray announced Wednesday. About $400,000 will help pay for the festivals, which run from late April through September and most of which are in rural areas, except for one in September, called "Star-Spangled Banner Weekend" in Baltimore.

The Maryland State House is similar to a marble mausoleum: Not much changes over time but the residents. Politics and the creaking advancement of democracy are the session norm. This process involves piles of paper and a lot of pontification, both stuffed with procedural formality. What little evolves does so lazily, trickling along like a withdrawing glacier. From this photographs are to be made. Better yet, photographs with visual interest. The difficult part arises in trying to create stimulating pictures of people who, for the most part, do one or more of the following: Stand with microphone, sit listening, stare at laptop screens, read papers or quietly converse in person or by phone.

ORLANDO, Fla. - As far as can be determined, voters in Orange County, the jurisdiction where this magical city is located, didn't suffer the same Election Day hassles that their friends in Palm Beach County did last week. But that doesn't mean Orlando residents, like the ones in West Palm Beach, aren't scratching their heads over November outcomes. In this case, however, the confusion isn't over butterfly ballots or pregnant chads, but over the Magic basketball team, which, over the first 1 1/2 weeks of the NBA season, hasn't been declared a winner.

The Maryland Senate will take up a proposed increase in the state's gas tax Friday, and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller is expected to push it to a final vote before Sunday. According to Senate staff, Miller will try to bring the transportation revenue bill through preliminary approval and a final vote in a single day. But Miller told senators they might have to work Saturday of Easter weekend -- a not-so-subtle incentive to forestall delay. The gas tax bill was appoved Thursday by the Budget & Taxation Committee.

Backers of the new law allowing more than 50,000 ex-felons to register to vote in Maryland say they don't expect many of them to exercise the right, and Senate President Mike Miller sounded a pessimistic chord about it the other day. "People that have a history of not voting are not going to just pick it up on their own," he said. You're right, Big Mike. So, tell you what: How about launching a voter education drive aimed at the ex-felon? Go ahead. Do something grand before you retire.

It was real-life drama and not a movie, but something about it reminded me of a scene from The Godfather: The developer David Cordish shows up in the middle of the Maryland slot machine thing like Michael Corleone flying out to Vegas to make Moe Greene an offer he can't refuse. Mr. Cordish arrives in this recessionary winter with a billion-dollar casino plan for Arundel Mills - a mall, not a racetrack - and he meets the state's deadline to put up $28.5 million for nearly 5,000 slot machines, and he does it with a big smile, saying to the people of Maryland and their elected leaders: "I got the best deal on the table, and I'm ready to go."

Late entrants on ballots widen election field Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller will face a challenge from a conservative, anti-gambling former Air Force officer with the same surname - personally recruited by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to run against the powerful Democrat who had been a key ally in the governor's effort to legalize slots in Maryland. Ron Miller's filing yesterday as a Republican in Senate District 27 - spanning Calvert and Prince George's counties - came as procrastinators and late-deciding candidates for state office streamed to Annapolis to beat the deadline to get on the Sept.

With just two weeks remaining in this year's General Assembly session, a solitary figure could play an important role in shaping the outcome of various legislative disputes: Gov. William Donald Schaefer. Though he is a lame duck with little clout left in the House and Senate, Mr. Schaefer can still wield -- or threaten to wield -- the power of his office to get his way on certain issues.His most impressive power, at this late stage in his governorship, is a negative one. Mr. Schaefer's veto cannot be overridden this year because it is the end of the legislature's four-year term.

Anne Arundel County didn't open its arms to Jack Kent Cooke's proposal for a 70,000-seat stadium for his Washington Redskins football team. So the fabulously wealthy Mr. Cooke moved his act to Prince George's County, where he's targeted a farm inside the beltway for his stadium. Our message to P.G. officials: Proceed with caution.Mr. Cooke is used to getting his way. He tried to massage state and Anne Arundel officials and neighborhoods near the Laurel site. He tried to minimize the cost and impact of his huge edifice on a suburban community.

In an effort to halt additional tuition increases at state universities, a majority of senators signed on to a bill yesterday that would restore most of the funding cuts that led to double-digit tuition increases last fall. "Cutting higher-education spending is a false economy," said Sen. Brian E. Frosh, the Montgomery County Democrat who sponsored the bill. Frosh's bill - which has the support of Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller - would require Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to restore about $80 million of the $120 million cut from public higher education last year and increase the college budgets 5 percent a year from 2006 through 2014.