Tuesday was the first day candidates could file for the 2014 election, and 11 candidates took the plunge, including four Montgomery County legislators filing for reelection. Del. Shirley Nathan-Pulliam, a 20-year veteran Democrat currently representing Baltimore County District 10, filed to run for state Senate in the redrawn District 44 currently represented by Sen. Verna Jones-Rodwell.
The Maryland General Assembly’s 90-day session ends in an orderly fashion with passage of campaign finance reform, cell phone use restrictions and a study on medical marijuana; all agree – some unhappily – that the session was a victory for a a more liberal agenda in Maryland; a last minute attempt by Republicans to filibuster a “weak” Transportation Trust Fund lockbox bill fails; environmentalists see the session as a mixed bag for their causes; a compromise on pit bull legislation dies without action, disappointing animal advocates; Lockheed Martin gets its hotel tax exemption; and John LaFerla says he’ll file to run for U.S. Rep. Harris’ seat.
Voters next year will be asked to approve a constitutional amendment creating a “lockbox” to prevent raids on the Transportation Trust Fund for other purposes, but Republican opponents said the measure was a sham that would provide little protection. The measure provides that money can only be taken out of the Transportation Trust Fund after a three-fifths vote of both houses of the Maryland General Assembly once the governor has declared a state of “fiscal emergency.”
An attempt to delay implementation of stormwater clean-up fees that will cost Maryland property owners millions come July failed in the legislature’s final day. The delay died after it was attached to a bill exempting nonprofits and government agencies from the fees called “the rain tax” by critics.
After a difficult few months of fighting to pass Lynette’s Law — a bill to prohibit sexual abuse by therapists — Heather Lynette Sinclair and bill co-sponsors got less than half of what they wanted.
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