Duane Keenan talked to Speaker of the House Mike Busch and different members of the legislature about the abrupt ending of this year's legislative session and what may come next. [...more]
After a long afternoon of negotiations behind closed doors, a new version of a bill that could bring a sixth slots casino to Prince George’s County and table games to all of the state’s casinos could have made its way to the floor of the House of Delegates hours before the end of the legislative session. [...more]
As members of the General Assembly began their last day of the 2012 session on Monday, they reflected on the session, what has been accomplished, and what is still left undone. Duane Keenan filed this podcast. [...more]
Floor debate in the House over the administration’s signature land preservation bill invoked common themes from Republicans about growing state control over rural and agricultural land, but the bill passed with a vote of 93-45. [...more]
The O’Malley administration affirmed its support on Wednesday for a controversial public-private partnership bill that threatens pending litigation against the State Center development in downtown Baltimore. [...more]
A controversial septic bill that passed the Senate late last month was approved by the House Environmental Matters Committee on Wednesday by a vote of 17-7, mostly along party lines. [...more]
Tensions ran high in the Senate Wednesday when Sen. Paul Pinsky, D- Prince George's, questioned a decision by Senate President Mike Miller to delay final vote on a bill to ban arsenic in chicken feed until the end of the day’s session. [...more]
As the U.S. Supreme Court heard its third and final day of arguments Wednesday on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health care law, Maryland plunged ahead in preparing the state for the law’s implementation. Despite concerns that the 2010 Affordable Care Act could be overturned by the Supreme Court, both chambers of the General Assembly have approved bills backed by Gov. Martin O’Malley that lay the groundwork for the execution of the federal law on the state level. [...more]
Tally sheets from roll call votes in the House of Delegates have not been quickly posted on the General Assembly’s website, with clerks citing technical difficulties and an end-of-session pile up of votes. The clerk’s office and the IT staff apparently caught up with the backlog by Wednesday evening, with all but votes from Wednesday morning’s brief session now posted. MarylandReporter.com had asked about the absence of online roll calls votes earlier in the day. [...more]
The House of Delegates approved a controversial bill backed by Gov. Martin O’Malley that would better define the state’s policy on public-private partnerships for major construction projects after a spirited debate on Monday. [...more]
