Sen. Will Smith (D-Montgomery) defends Senate Bill 977 Monday, which would help protect undocumented immigrants’ data from being distributed without a judicial warrant. (Photo by Danielle J. Brown/Maryland Matters)
House and Senate lawmakers shoveled hundreds of bills across the desk Monday, as each chamber raced to beat “crossover day,” the date by which they are to send over all the bills they want to pass for the session.
The hundreds of bills that passed Monday were winnowed down from thousands that have been introduced this session, but they still have a long way to go before this session end in three weeks, on April 7. Passage in one chamber is no guarantee, of final passage. But these bills have at least made the first cut and will live to see another day.
Among those that passed on third reader Monday in one chamber or the other — or, in rare occasions, both:
Moving to protect undocumented immigrants
Senators passed two bills aimed at providing undocumented residents with a little comfort amid threats of increased immigration enforcement from the Trump administration.
One bill would shield personal data collected by state agencies from being shared with other agencies, unless they had a warrant issued by a federal or state judge. The other aims to provide state guidelines for immigration enforcement in “sensitive places,” like churches, schools or hospitals, a direct response the the Trump administration relaxing rules on enforcement in those places.
Judicial Proceedings Chair William Smith (D-Montgomery) said Senate Bill 977 is needed to keep state data secure.
“There’s information that our government agencies hold and that information is generally subject to the Maryland Public Information Act,” Smith said. “And so, what happens is that sometimes private data brokers … will file the PIA request for certain information, they’ll package it together and then they’ll sell it to a third party.
“The goal here is to cabin that information off, essentially saying, ‘Look, if you’re looking for this information from our state agencies and entities, you’re going to need a judicial warrant if … you’re requesting for the purpose of immigration enforcement,” Smith said.
Minority Whip Justin Ready (R-Frederick and Carroll) believes the requirement for a warrant could hinder U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when it comes to serving orders for local officials to hold a migrant suspected of or charged with serious crimes.
“Things like burglaries and robberies, kidnapping, homicide,” Ready said. “How is it in the Maryland public’s best interest for public safety to not allow for a robust communication when there is an ICE detainer lodged against someone who is already here illegally?”
Smith said that requiring a warrant will not infringe on public safety and said that the Trump administration seems interested in broadening who can be deported for being in the United States without documentation, not just those who have committed violent crimes.
The Senate approved SB 977 later that evening, 33-14.
The Senate also passed Senate Bill 828, the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, which prompts the Maryland Attorney General to develop guidelines for what federal law enforcement can and cannot do in certain locations such as schools, hospitals, courthouse, among other measures. That bill passed 30-13.
There are not House versions of either bill.
No fanfare on passage of abortion grant bills
An issue that normally generates a lot of talk — abortion funding — passed with no debate on crossover day in the Senate.
The Senate voted 29-15 to pass Senate Bill 848, which creates a new state abortion grant program funded by an existing health insurance premium surcharge that was required as part of the Affordable Care Act. Passage of the Senate bill, sponsored by Budget and Taxation Committee Chair Guy Guzzone (D-Howard), followed weeks of emotional testimony and Republican pushback during both House and Senate debate on the issue.
The bill would create the Public Health Abortion Grant Program Fund, administered by state Health Department and funded through access to about $25 million in funds that were collected as part of the ACA premium requirement, but which have not been spent down.
The money comes from $1-a-month fee that insurers in the ACA marketplace are required to collect on every policy, to fund abortion services for their policyholders. The fund has increased by about $3 million a year, money that would be used to issue grants to providers, to help them cover costs of abortions for underinsured or uninsured Marylanders.
Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) opened the floor to debate, but no one took him up on the offer, approving the measure on a largely party line vote.
The House approved the companion bill, House Bill 930, on Thursday, also on party lines. But that vote came after about 40-minutes of emotional stories for and against the legislation, leaving one delegate on the brink of tears.
Parole reform passes
The House voted 100-38, along party lines and also without debate, for House Bill 1147, a parole reform bill sponsored by Del. Elizabeth Embry (D-Baltimore City).It now heads to the Senate, which does not have its own version of the bill.
HB 1147 would require the Maryland Parole Commission to complete an annual report that includes the number of cases in which individuals were granted and denied parole, an outline of the reasons for parole denials and the number of those eligible for parole who have not been granted it. The report must be “disaggregated by race of relevant incarcerated individuals.”
The bill would also shorten the current timeframe from within 21 days to 14 days for the Parole Commission to submit a written report on parole findings and recommendations for parole or denial. It must include the reasoning and justifications for the decision from a hearing examiner to the commission.
The bill also specifies that the “Commission does not have the authority to permanently deny parole.”
“I think it brings much needed due process and transparency to a really important part of our criminal justice system,” Embry said after Monday’s vote. “I hope the Senate will engage on the bill.”
The bill was referred Monday to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.
House OKs Tenant Possession Recovery bill
Tenants facing eviction could soon be entitled to a 10-day grace period to allow them to collect their personal belongings from their prior residence. The House Monday approved House Bill 767, called the Tenant Possessions Recovery Act, which is intended to ensure former tenants can keep their belongings when facing eviction.
“When this bill becomes law, no longer will any child in Maryland have to lose their home, and then watch as strangers pick through their treasures on the side of the road,” said Del. Vaughn Stewart (D-Montgomery), the bill’s sponsor.
Despite its passage in the House on a 93-42 vote, the bill still needs to get through the Senate, where Senate Bill 442, the Senate cross-file of the bill, never got out of the Judicial Proceedings Committee. That said, it’s made more progress than last year, when the legislation stalled in both House and Senate committees.
HB 767 requires a landlord to give an evicted tenant at least a 14-day notice of the scheduled repossession date of the housing unit and grants the renter a 10-day grace period to reclaim all personal property. After that 10-day window, landlords can consider the property abandoned and dispose of it as they please.
“The thousands of children in Maryland who every year face the trauma of an eviction, this would not keep them in their homes, or their schools unfortunately,” Stewart said on the House floor Monday. “But it would mean that they would not have to deal with the indignity of their Elmo dolls and their teddy bears and their hand sewn blankets ending up on the street.”
Stewart recognizes that the bill makes “a minor inconvenience” for landlords to hold the tenant’s possession for more than a week, but most other states allow evicted tenants to have a grace period to collect their items.
Opponents said the bill puts more of a burden on the landlord who has to wait to enter property that a court has already granted them. It adds to the deck that’s already stacked landlords, especially smaller landlords who may rent out one house or unit, said Minority Whip Jessie Pippy (R-Republican).
“This body keeps making it harder and harder and harder for that landlord to rent out the place. That’s the reality,” Pippy said.
It’s – almost – chrometastic!
It took two tries, separated by several years, but it looks as if David Shore’s dream of making chromite the official state mineral of Maryland is on the verge of coming true.
The House and Senate both gave unanimous approval Monday to their versions of bills that would add an official state mineral to the 24 other state symbols, including a sport, a flower, a dinosaur, bird and drink.
Symbol bills are often introduced by schoolkids, which was the case with Shore who first introduced the chromite bill in 2017. Lawmakers don’t always look kindly on them, and the chromite bill failed then. But Sen. Craig Zucker (D-Montgomery), who sponsored the 2017, reached out to see if Shore was up for a second go.
Was he ever.
Shore, who signs correspondence with salutations like “chrometastically yours,” is a walking encyclopedia of information on chromite. It was discovered in Baltimore County in 1808 and later found elsewhere in central Maryland, and the state mined and shipped much of the world’s supply until the 1850s. It’s still used today, as a key component in stainless steel.
Shore’s infectious enthusiasm for his subject has won the help of lobbyists and other students and fans among legislators in both chambers. The bills now cross over and are expected to win final approval.
The chromite bill is just one of several state symbol bills proposed this year and one other — to designate the orange crush the official state cocktail — was approved unanimously by the House Monday. The vodka-based cocktail was first mixed in an Ocean City bar — hence the name of the bill, the “Original Maryland Orange Crush” — and become something of a cross-border spat when Delaware claimed the drink as its official drink because so many are sold in a Dewey Beach bar.
The House bill now goes to the Senate, which has no comparable bill.