E.J. Pipkin Not Ready for Prime Time.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of sitting on the floor of the Maryland Senate--a wonderfully historic chamber in our beautiful State Capitol. Thanks to Scott Tsikerdanos who loaned me his coat and tie so that I was presentable enough to enjoy the honor! I was both embarrassed and pleased that Sen. Rich Madaleno (D-18) introduced me to the Senate during the "introduction of guests" period, though he should not be held responsible for my views here.

The main matter of business was a debate over new restrictions on the legislative scholarship program. As some of you may know, Maryland has this outrageous program by which members of the Senate and the House of Delegates can give scholarship money to whomever they choose. A new and utterly sensible step on the way towards abolishing this political boondoggle has been to give legislators the option of giving the money to the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) to administer impartially on their behalf.

A second step has been for MHEC to deny scholarships to people with familial ties to the legislator. E.J. Pipkin (R-Eastern Shore) offered a couple of amendments to the bill and generally showed a basic lack of common sense or ethics. He is deeply offended by the bill and sees no difference between a relative receiving a scholarship directly from a legislator and from an impartial state-administered screening process. Pipkin failed in his bid to gain a promotion to the U.S. Senate when incumbent Barbara Mikulski whipped him 65-34% in 2004.

Pipkin basically gutted the bill's teeth by first getting the Senate to make it illegal to "knowingly" award scholarships to people with familial ties. Good luck proving knowingly in a court. Second, Pipkin got the Senate to hold over the bill until a later date by arguing that the definition of family is revised down. Pipkin wants to exclude mother-in-laws, foster kids, and a number of other relations from the definition.

Sen. Delores Kelly of (D-Baltimore City) argued in favor of excluding foster kids as we should reward legislators who take on this responsibility. This seemed a fair point. I was less impressed by Pipkin's argument that the bill provided an unfair burden by requiring him to know the relations of his delegates since he cannot give the money to their relatives either. Of course, as another swifter senator pointed out, he had nothing to fear since he would only encounter a problem if he did this "knowingly" thanks to his first amendment. Moreover, a simple question on the scholarship application could take care of this problem.

As Sen. Madaleno observed on an earlier occasion, domestic partners are not mentioned in the legislation, so Maryland is finally on the verge of genuinely passing a law that grants gays and lesbians "special rights". After all, if he had not already given the money to MHEC, he could use the money to fund his partner's education. Senate President Mike Miller offered that the legislation showed the difficulty of legislating "common sense." Especially with E.J. Pipkin in the Senate.