Senate Version

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman lent his support this week to a pair of bills in Annapolis that would make cyberbullying a crime in Maryland. "The insults and accusations that rush through the cyber-sphere can be beyond anything with which we adults are familiar," said Ulman in written testimony submitted for a March 7 hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. A House version of the bill, the subject of Thursday's hearing, is sponsored by Del. Jon Cardin, a Baltimore County Democrat.

Maryland's pit bulls remained in peril Wednesday as two legislators clashed over a lingering House-Senate impasse on a bill that would invalidate a court decision labeling the bill as inherently dangerous. Del. Luiz R. S. Simmons took advantage of a House hearing on the Senate version of the bill to fire question after question at Sen. Brian E. Frosh, chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, over changes that panel made to a compromise the two Montgomery County Democrats struck early in this year's session.

A state Senate committee yesterday moved cautiously on legislation that would decrease the unemployment insurance surtax on businesses and increase benefits to the jobless.By a 10-1 vote, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to decrease the tax from 1.7 percent of wages to 1.2 percent and raise the weekly benefits paid to the unemployed from $223 to $250.The House of Delegates last week approved a more liberal approach to the program, decreasing the tax to 0.9 percent and raising the benefit to $265.

The House of Delegates approved a measure Tuesday designed to get tough on gangs - over the opposition of black and Hispanic delegates from urban areas who worried it would be overreaching. Later in the day, a Senate committee voted for another version of the measure. If that passes the full Senate, the two chambers must work out their differences before Monday's end of the legislative session. Lawmakers and law enforcement officials have worked for months on a way to expand anti-gang legislation enacted about two years ago, after prosecutors complained it was unwieldy and had barely been used.

The issue of whether Baltimore County should have an elected Board of Education is once again being discussed in Annapolis, with House and Senate bills on the matter scheduled for hearings this week. State Sen. Bobby Zirkin, a Democrat representing District 11, is the lead sponsor of a bill that would establish a 10-member school board, with nine members elected by district. The 10th member would be a student board member, as there is now. Under the language of the bill, SB 407, candidates would run independent of political party, and one member would be elected by voters from each of nine school board districts.

Just two weeks ago the legislative attempt to place reasonable new legal controls on assault weapons was thought to be as dead as the most recent victim of one of those alleged "sporting" weapons.But maybe not.Though the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee killed one version of the bill, the House of Delegates was passing its own version, by a decisive 80-55 vote. That House bill can now be taken up by the Senate -- if, that is, it can get out of committee.Both the House and Senate bills called for a ban on future sale of these terror weapons and for a limit on magazine size, no more than 20 bullets to a clip.

The House of Delegates moved closer to abolishing Maryland's death penalty Wednesday night as it rejected changes that attempted to turn Gov. Martin O'Malley's bill into something less than full repeal. In the first of several key tests, delegates voted 77-61 to reject an amendment that would allow capital punishment for inmates already incarcerated for murder who kill again. The House worked into the night rejecting amendment after amendment — most offered by Republicans — before giving the bill preliminary approval shortly before 9 p.m. The bill is likely to come up for a final vote in the House Friday.

WASHINGTON - Headed toward his first confrontation with the White House since becoming Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle threatened yesterday to block final action on President Bush's education bill until Bush commits to providing billions more for school programs. "I told the president last week that it was not our desire to complete this work until we have some understanding about the degree of resources that will be made available," the South Dakota Democrat said. "So far, we've not been able to come to an agreement."

Most state lawmakers say this era of uncertainty compels them to gird against another terrorist attack. But deciding how to do that without inviting Big Brother into Maryland is proving a difficult balance for the General Assembly to strike. The debate has forced legislators to examine how many restrictions on individual rights they are willing to abide in the name of security and intelligence. "This is all new ground that we're on," said House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. "To the extent that we change our legal framework as it relates to civil liberties and constitutional rights, I think it requires going slow."

What if Congress apologized for slavery and nobody cared? The Senate late last week followed the House in voting to apologize for slavery and the Jim Crow segregation that followed it. In other words, it only took almost 150 years and the election of an African-American who is not descended from slavery to move Congress to apologize for slavery. Thanks, senators, but you're a little late. As "senior black correspondent" Larry Wilmore quipped on The Daily Show: "I thought Obama's election was our apology."