Senate Floor

Table games would be allowed in Maryland along with a sixth casino in Prince George's County, if a measure on the Senate floor tonight is passed by the General Assembly. The bill is set for debate in the Senate Monday evening and, if it passes, it will miss a key deadline for consideration in the House of Delegates. The lower chamber is thought to be unfriendly to the bill. The legislation would change how the slot machines for casinos are purchased. Now the state buys or leases them, but under the new plan casinos would take on that burden.

With less than eight hours remaining before the General Assembly would have to go into an exteneded session, the House and Senate remain divided over income taxes and -- some believe -- casino gambling. As of late afternoon Monday, legislative leaders were doing more fingerpointing than negotiation as the clocked ticked down toward the scheduled adjournment at midnight. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller accused the House of intransigence in negotiations over the state budget and related bills.

A proposed ban on 18 types of semiautomatic pistols is expected to reach the floor of the Maryland Senate for debate as early as tomorrow, with opponents threatening to filibuster or sink the measure with amendments."

A trio of Maryland colleges students were arrested today after sitting down by the State House entrance to protest lawmakers' failure so far to pass legislation boosting offshore wind development. The students, two from St. Mary's College and one from theUniversity of Maryland, College Park,  sat atop the steps with signs saying "Wind Works" for 20 minutes while police gathered and warned them they'd be arrested if they didn't move. Johanna Galat, a St. Mary's senior and the group's leader, said they chose civil disobedience as prospects for the bill fade.

The House of Delegates approved a measure yesterday that would restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies and other crimes, but a similar proposal stalled on the Senate floor when senators threatened to derail it. After the Senate debate delayed action on the measure, Majority Leader Clarence M. Blount, who is making passage of the bill one of his priorities this year, agreed to send it back to committee. Blount, a Baltimore Democrat, said he plans to make changes to the proposal and return it to the Senate floor within days.

ANNAPOLIS -- A bill that would require motorcyclists to wear helmets survived a close Senate committee vote yesterday and now has its best chance of becoming law in more than a decade.Forget rhetoric, safety arguments and the lure of federal safety funds, said the two senators who proved to be the swing votes on the Judicial Proceedings Committee.The only issue for them was the $1.3 million the state can save on medical care for injured cyclists who are on Medicaid or have no health insurance.

WASHINGTON -- Legislation that would create a federal trust fund to compensate victims of asbestos exposure will come to the Senate floor this week after months of delay, although the bill's prospects remain uncertain. The legislation would move asbestos cases out of the court system and create a $140 billion fund to compensate people sickened by asbestos. A new federal office would oversee payments ranging from $25,000 to $1.1 million. Asbestos manufacturers and insurance companies would pay into the fund, in exchange for relief from any further liability.

A bill that would halt executions in Maryland for the next two years while the death penalty receives a more stringent review cleared a major hurdle yesterday, surviving a close committee vote and moving next week to the Senate floor. The move comes after a study conducted last year by a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park that found geographic and racial disparities in how the death sentence is handed down in the state. It comes as 12 men sit on Maryland's death row, with several death warrants ready to be signed in the next few months.

Republican senators sent strong signals Tuesday that they intend to put up a fight over a bill that would ban smoking in a vehicle occupied by a child under 8 -- a proposal some GOP lawmakers see as an intrusion into people's private space. The legislation, sponsored by Montgomery County Democratic Sen. Jennie Forehand, won 7-4 approval last week from the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, but the bill ran into skeptical questioning as it made its first appearance on the Senate floor for the adoption of amendments.

Anti-war protesters who rallied yesterday in front of Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes' downtown Baltimore office called on him to raise the volume of his political voice against an impending armed conflict in Iraq. Among about 100 people who gathered in the late afternoon at the Bank of America Plaza on South Charles Street were a woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty and draped in chains and a man in an Uncle Sam outfit with painted-on bruises. The hourlong protest was organized by Citizens for Peace, an organization established about a year ago. Although Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat, has said he opposes a U.S.-led war without the approval of the United Nations, protesters called on him to be more outspoken.

The Senate Budget & Taxation Committee has rejected a controversial amendment the House attached to an administration bill creating a new framework for public-private partnerships before sending its own version of the the legislation to the Senate floor. Sen. Edward Kasemeyer, the committee chairman, said his panel did not adopt language from the House  bill that would have allowed expedited appeals in a pending case involving a $1.5 billion partnership for the redevelopment of the State Center office complex in Baltimore.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's attempt to limit sprawl would be vastly weakened under an amendment offered on the Senate floor this morning by Sen. Thomas "Mac" Middleton. The changes would leave more control of zoning in local hands, allowing them to have the final say as to whether vast portions of farmlands and forests are eligible for large developments. "I think it seriously weakens the effort" to control development, said Sen. Paul Pinsky, the floor leader for the bill. O'Malley's legislation is intended to curb growth in rural areas by limiting where septic systems could be installed.

A controversial part of Gov. Martin O'Malley's bill aimed at curbing sprawl in Maryland was gutted on the Senate floor Friday night, with conservative Democrats and Republicans joining forces to keep development decisions in local hands. The legislation would have given the state broad authority to determine which pieces of land could have new houses and buildings -- and which parcels could not. But an amendment offered by Sen. Thomas "Mac" Middleton was adopted 32 to 13 and changed the bill so the counties retained the final say on where subdivisions can be built.

Table games would be allowed in Maryland along with a sixth casino in Prince George's County, if a measure on the Senate floor tonight is passed by the General Assembly. The bill is set for debate in the Senate Monday evening and, if it passes, it will miss a key deadline for consideration in the House of Delegates. The lower chamber is thought to be unfriendly to the bill. The legislation would change how the slot machines for casinos are purchased. Now the state buys or leases them, but under the new plan casinos would take on that burden.

The budget package passed by the Maryland state Senate has many good elements -- investments in local schools, a cap on tuition hikes at public colleges, more money for road repairs and cuts in nonessential spending. However, it also includes a provision making it easier for county councils to override voter-imposed property tax limits. Five counties - Prince George's, Montgomery, Anne Arundel, Talbot, and Wicomico - currently have such limits. Whether or not you think your local property tax rate is high enough to support good schools, we should all be able to agree that the voters' will ought to be respected.

Republican senators sent strong signals Tuesday that they intend to put up a fight over a bill that would ban smoking in a vehicle occupied by a child under 8 -- a proposal some GOP lawmakers see as an intrusion into people's private space. The legislation, sponsored by Montgomery County Democratic Sen. Jennie Forehand, won 7-4 approval last week from the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, but the bill ran into skeptical questioning as it made its first appearance on the Senate floor for the adoption of amendments.

Gun control advocates began an end run around a key state Senate committee yesterday -- bringing an attack from opponents who called the move "a perversion of the legislative process."Bypassing the conservative Senate panel that traditionally hears and kills most gun control measures, advocates brought an assault weapons bill before a more liberal committee that usually handles health and education matters.The bill was drawn very narrowly, crafted specifically so that it could be considered and approved by the Economic and Environmental Affairs Committee.

It is no secret in Annapolis that the biggest impediments to handgun control are Cecil County Sen. Walter Baker and his Judicial Proceedings Committee. Already this session, Mr. Baker has sworn to kill any and all handgun legislation that comes before his committee. "Banning guns has nothing to do with crime," he said. Mr. Baker's Senate colleagues, though, have other ideas.Their concern is that opposing handgun controls in an election year could be political dynamite, especially for incumbents running in urban or close-in suburban communities where crime is a dominant campaign issue.

The governor's bill to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland sailed through the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on Tuesday and is expected to be debated on the Senate floor as early as Wednesday. Supporters easily defeated two proposed amendments. Either could have killed the bill because any changes would have required another vote in the House of Delegates, where the measure passed by a narrow margin Friday. Even opponents said they expect the full Senate to approve the legislation.

In using his public office for private gain, Sen. Ulysses Currie disgraced the Maryland Senate. Today, in rendering its final judgment on that offense, the Senate has disgraced itself. The upper chamber of the Maryland General Assembly voted unanimously to censure Senator Currie for failing to disclose his paid work on behalf of Shoppers Food Warehouse. He loses any possibility of ever regaining his committee chairmanship or climbing the ranks of the Democratic leadership, but those sanctions are meaningless.