State House

Recycling bins are back in the State House. The governor rides in a sport utility vehicle that can burn ethanol. Maryland is about to join a handful of states that mandate low-emission cars, and it is closer than it has been in years to prohibiting smoking in bars, abolishing the death penalty and banning assault weapons. In ways large and small, Annapolis is showing signs of a leftward tilt just six weeks after Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley succeeded Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. But halfway into the General Assembly session, just how liberal Maryland's new government is remains to be settled.

As Martin O'Malley officially became governor yesterday amid much pomp and circumstance, another power shift took place with little fanfare: Sheila Dixon became mayor of Baltimore. When O'Malley took the oath of office at the State House, resigning his post in Baltimore, Dixon ascended from City Council president to the mayor's office to serve out the rest of his term, which lasts through December. As a veteran of city politics, Dixon, 53, is expected to use her temporary post as a springboard to campaign this year to a full, four-year term.

Gov. Martin O'Malley might keep in mind the "High Society Revolt" of 1967 as he plans this summer's wining and dining in the state capital. On June 13, 1967, The Sun reported that Gov. Spiro T. Agnew had outraged Annapolis' cultural elite by suggesting that the yearly "music and champagne bash" of the Annapolis Fine Arts Festival be held somewhere other than the State House. Agnew felt the event was too frivolous for the location. Organizers lashed back, snubbing the anti-social Agnew by removing his name from the guest list for the festival's traditional candlelight visit to the historic Hammond-Harwood House.

Gov. Martin O'Malley descended the elegant marble staircase of Maryland's State House last week to repeat his administration's insistence that 83 percent of taxpayers will pay no more under his wide-raging tax reform plan than they do now. No one, he said during his eight-minute speech to the General Assembly, then convening in special session, had laid a glove on his claim. No one, in other words, had shown that his numbers were wrong, a snare and delusion to rally support. Of course, the governor and the legislators he addressed knew it would be a tough sell whatever the numbers show.

On the steps of the State House was a marching band, in the balcony a string ensemble. The marble lobby was resplendent with flags and mobbed with well-wishers. Generations of politicians greeted one another as if at a family reunion.William Donald Schaefer made his triumphant return.In a ceremony that rivaled his past inaugurations, the 77-year-old Schaefer officially ended his retirement yesterday to become Maryland's comptroller.Striding back into the House of Delegates chamber, Schaefer was cheered by a standing-room-only crowd, and delivered a spirited, 25-minute address that was gubernatorial in tone and included several swipes at his successors as governor and mayor.

Goodbye to the reams of paper and the dusty binders stacked under the desks in the nation's oldest working State House.Welcome to the Cyber-Senate.The Maryland Senate is now wired. When they return Wednesday for the 194th legislative session, 22 of the 47 senators will go about the ancient business of lawmaking with the help of a quintessential modern convenience: laptop computers."I'm pretty computer illiterate," acknowledged Sen. Leo E. Green, 66, a Prince George's Democrat, as he started up his laptop during a training session this week in the Senate chamber.

A new state delegate who ridiculed an opponent in November for his poor attendance record missed the first two votes of his political career yesterday, saying he "just lost track of time" while talking on the telephone.Del. Richard D'Amato, a Democrat from Annapolis who was one of three District 30 candidates who defeated incumbent Republican Phillip D. Bissett, hustled up the stairs of the State House minutes after the first two votes of the session at 11: 51 a.m. and 11: 52 a.m."I just wasn't focused," said D'Amato, 56, an attorney who was chief counsel for U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia for more than a decade.

THERE'S AN ELECTION looming, and candidates are raising money aggressively across Maryland.No, not the election for mayor in Baltimore this fall or the presidential election next year. For most state and local politicians, the big dance comes in 2002.More than three years before the election, a host of candidates are intently raising money this spring and summer. Banned by law from raising money during the General Assembly session that ended in April, dozens of candidates are looking to build up an early bankroll.

A convicted drug dealer who owns more than 120 slum rental houses in East Baltimore caught officials by surprise last week by touring City Hall and State House offices to lobby against laws that could cost him his real estate empire.Strolling through the corridors of Annapolis in a business suit, George A. Dangerfield Jr. met with legislators from the Baltimore City delegation, trying to persuade them that he is a legitimate businessman whose trouble with the law is behind him.Lawmakers responded with skepticism.

In Highlandtown, he's Mayor. In Cumberland, he's Governor.And in Annapolis, as William Donald Schaefer ends his restless retirement to become Maryland's first new comptroller in 40 years, nobody knows quite how to address him."What will we call him?" puzzled House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. "Probably, at least in public, I'll refer to him as Mr. Comptroller. Most of the time, though, I'll call him Governor, which is what I've always called him. Privately, I'll call him Don."It's a dilemma that goes beyond etiquette.

Baltimorean Ben Greene stopped at the glass door entrance on West Preston Street on Friday and couldn't figure out why the state office building was locked. The lights were off, but no signs were posted to explain the closure. "Did they run out of money or something?" Greene asked, perplexed. As a matter of fact, the state is running short of cash. Gov. Martin O'Malley decided to close offices around Maryland and kept about 70,000 state employees home without pay as part of a plan to save $75 million and help close a budget gap of more than $700 million.

Wrong time to cut our military muscle If President Barack Obama ever tries to dismantle America's nuclear arsenal in the way that he suggested he might when he was in Europe, then he is the most dangerous fool this nation has ever put in the White House ("A winning defense," editorial, April 8). In the midst of a terrible world war waged against us by the world's Islamic radicals and their allies, our country can't afford to reduce the strength of our military by so much as a single bullet, let alone cut any nuclear weapons.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has one more day to wrangle legislative victories from a General Assembly session during which he fell short in his campaign to end state executions, struggled to acquire more control over electric utilities and relied on a federal government bailout to protect education and social services programs. Late Saturday, a House of Delegates committee rejected O'Malley's proposal to re-regulate the electricity market. And in a year when the governor needed to find money wherever he could, he has been rebuffed in efforts to crack down on Medicaid fraud, which could yield millions of dollars for the state's coffers and a major policy victory.

A House of Delegates study panel is moving closer to calling for continued state police control over Maryland's medevac fleet, according to a draft report obtained yesterday by The Baltimore Sun. The draft report also endorses replacing the state's aging fleet with three new $20 million aircraft a year, starting next year. House Speaker Michael E. Busch called the draft report "absolutely" premature yesterday and said it was an early step in a broad assessment of the state's emergency medical services system.

The State House is reopening after an eight-month, $10 million renovation, though planners are far from completing the wholesale redesign - and a more visitor-friendly experience - they envision for the historic building. Construction crews have repaired an aging heating and cooling system, updated a plumbing system that was in danger of rupturing and replaced unsafe electrical wiring. With that work in the final stages, moving trucks pulled around State Circle to unload boxes and furniture yesterday, and Gov. Martin O'Malley was in the building.

Gov. Martin O'Malley and dozens of others who work out of the nation's oldest operating capitol will begin moving back into the Maryland State House early next week, as a more than $10 million renovation project to the stately building ends in the days before the legislature convenes for its 426th session. "I never thought we'd move back," O'Malley joked, brandishing an oversized golden key given to him by the Department of General Services at yesterday's Board of Public Works meeting.

Maryland's State House always undergoes a drastic transformation in April, when all the adrenaline that flowed through the halls during the General Assembly session is replaced, overnight, by silence. But with the national historic landmark closed to visitors and workers until January, the mood this year is almost funerary. Moving trucks surround the centuries-old building as workers clean out their offices, exhuming a sea of paper, the detritus of frenzied lawmaking built up year after year, to be boxed up or recycled.

Snow fell on a global warming protest outside the State House yesterday, but it did not dampen the shouts of about 400 activists who urged lawmakers to pass the nation's toughest law to control greenhouse gases. As supporters waved signs, chanted and banged drums, 18 legislators walked down a symbolic green carpet to sign up as co-sponsors of a bill that would require all businesses and institutions in Maryland to cut emissions of global warming pollution by 90 percent by 2050. "We are going to pass this bill this year," said State Sen. Paul Pinsky, a Prince George's Democrat.

Tax loopholes still unfair to local firms The General Assembly did a disservice to Maryland businesses and individual taxpayers when it failed to close some corporate tax loopholes during the special session ("O'Malley's risks not over," Nov. 20). Over the past two months, 48 businesses signed on to a letter urging decision-makers to close these loopholes and level the playing field for in-state businesses. The Greater Brunswick Area Chamber of Commerce in Frederick County, for instance, supported "combined reporting" as a way to "restore fairness to business taxation in the state."

The Maryland State House, a national historic landmark and the oldest capitol still in legislative use, will close from April until the 2009 General Assembly session for major renovations to its 40-year-old internal piping system, state officials said yesterday. More than 60 state employees and elected officials will move out temporarily, including the governor, Senate president and House speaker, and preservationists will take careful steps to safeguard the artifacts and trappings that make the State House one of the most visited tourist attractions in Maryland.