Senate Committee

Plan for database on spending stalls A bill to create a searchable online database of information on all state spending will not advance in a Senate committee, its chairman said yesterday. The legislation, which passed the House of Delegates, was sponsored by an unusual coalition of some of the state's most conservative and liberal lawmakers, as well as progressive groups and anti-tax associations. But Sen. Ulysses Currie said it needs more study and might be too costly to implement during a budget crunch that has necessitated more than $300 million in cuts.

The O'Malley administration wants to use its computerized "BayStat" system to determine how to spend a new $50 million Chesapeake Bay cleanup fund, a top official said yesterday. "We want to be able to refocus funds from programs that aren't working to those that are," Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin told a Senate committee. "That's another touchstone of BayStat: rigorous performance review," he said. But some lawmakers have other ideas about how the money should be spent, with House leaders wanting percentages for agricultural runoff prevention and other programs and some senators asking for accountability to make sure the money would actually reduce pollution.

Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday that he hopes the House of Delegates will revive some of the tax breaks for middle- and working-class families that a Senate committee stripped out of his revenue-raising package. The Democratic governor praised senators for moving quickly on his plan to resolve Maryland's projected $1.7 billion budget shortfall, and he gave no indication that he would reject the Senate's version of his bills, which eliminated proposed property tax cuts and income tax reductions for most Marylanders.

Top-earning Marylanders and big businesses got a break yesterday when a Senate panel amended Gov. Martin O'Malley's revenue package by reducing top income tax rates and eliminating a measure designed to ensure that multi-state corporations pay taxes. The Budget and Taxation Committee also voted to eliminate some of the breaks the governor had included for lower-income households and against O'Malley's proposal to reduce the state property tax by 3 cents per $100 over the next three years.

WASHINGTON -- Speaking days after the last surgeon general told Congress that he had been muzzled by the White House, President Bush's new nominee for the post told senators yesterday that he would quit before he let politics interfere with science. Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., a Kentucky cardiologist, also sought to distance himself from a 16-year-old church paper in which he characterized gay sex as abnormal and unhealthy. "I can only say that I have a deep, deep appreciation for the essential humanity of everyone, regardless of their personal circumstances or their sexual orientation," Holsinger, 68, told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

WASHINGTON -- A Georgia man with a highly infectious strain of tuberculosis, whose travels last month caused an international health scare, told Congress yesterday that he had no idea he was contagious. "I don't want this, and I wouldn't have wanted to give it to someone else," said Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old Atlanta lawyer who is under quarantine at a Denver hospital. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "knew that I had this. ... I was repeatedly told I was not contagious, that I was not a threat to anyone," he said.

Amid a highly charged court case about the role of monied interests in Maryland politics, the state Senate is set to debate public financing for General Assembly races. But concerns about the measure's cost - more than $30 million over four years - could sidetrack the proposal. The House of Delegates passed a similar bill last year, and leaders there remain confident that it could win House approval again. A Senate committee endorsed the plan this week, and backers think their chances have improved since the release this month of FBI transcripts of conversations showing former Democratic Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell, in a meeting with an undercover agent, apparently bragging about doing the bidding of corporations who funded his campaigns.

Efforts to repeal the death penalty in Maryland were dealt an apparently fatal blow yesterday when a key state Senate committee defeated the measure, leaving a court-ordered moratorium on state executions in place and some legislators weighing a study of the issue. Weeks of behind-the-scenes wrangling and lobbying by religious and law enforcement officials culminated yesterday with the bill's defeat in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on a tie vote. Sen. Alex X.

A Senate committee yesterday rejected a ban on assault weapons, effectively ending the proposal's chances for this General Assembly session. The Judicial Proceedings Committee deadlocked 5-5 over the ban, which means the bill will likely not get a full vote on the Senate floor. With no corresponding legislation in the House of Delegates, that means the issue is almost certainly dead for the year. Two Baltimore County Democrats - Sens. Norman K. Stone and James Brochin - joined three Republicans on the committee to kill the bill.