A prominent local activist has distributed records of many of Delegate Ben Kramer’s (D-19) votes inside the House Judiciary Committee to rival campaigns. The revelations are sure to stir up the District 4 race.
Jonathan Shurberg, a Silver Spring Democratic activist and a lawyer who is locally famous for winning Equality Maryland’s transgender bill lawsuit, has obtained House Judiciary Committee votes by Kramer on seven bills. Committee votes are not available on the Internet and must be physically gathered in Annapolis. Shurberg emailed the votes to Democratic candidates other than Kramer and that information is circulating rapidly through the county’s political community. Following is Shurberg’s email:
-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Shurberg
Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:08:07
To: [Democratic Candidate Emails]
Subject: Ben Kramer Voting Record
I am a Democratic activist who is very concerned about the potential election of Ben Kramer to the County Council. I have compiled a list of what I consider to be very problematic and politically indefensible committee votes by Delegate Kramer in 2007 and 2008. See attached. I am sending this list to all Democratic candidates because I think this information needs to be publicly disseminated and discussed prior to the primary election on April 21. All of this information is from public sources in Annapolis.
Kramer’s Judiciary Committee Votes (partial):
Anti-Consumer: HB606 2008 – Kramer voted to limit amount of money an injured person could recover when harmed through medical malpractice. Repealing a $15,000 annual increase in a specified limitation on noneconomic damages in a health care malpractice claim or action for a cause of action arising on or after January 1, 2009.
Pro-Criminal: HB619 2008 – Kramer voted to kill a bill that would’ve stopped the early release of child rapists: “Prohibiting the earning of diminution credits to reduce the term of confinement of an inmate who is serving a sentence in a State or local correctional facility for committing first degree rape, second degree rape, first degree sexual offense, or second degree sexual offense against a child under the age of 13 years; etc.”
Pro-Criminal: HB252 2008 – Kramer voted to kill a bill that would’ve stopped the early release of child sex offenders: “Prohibiting the earning of diminution credits to reduce the term of confinement of a specified offender or a child sexual offender committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Correction or sentenced to a term of imprisonment in a local correctional facility; etc.”
Pro-Criminal: HB22 2008 – Kramer voted to kill a bill that would’ve increased penalties for carrying firearms while possessing drugs: “Prohibiting a person from knowingly and intentionally possessing, carrying, or transporting a firearm while simultaneously possessing specified controlled dangerous substances; providing penalties for a violation of the Act; providing that a sentence imposed under the Act shall be consecutive and not concurrent with another sentence imposed for a crime based on the Act; establishing the violation of the Act; etc.”
Pro-Criminal: HB621 2008 – Kramer voted to kill a bill that would’ve stopped the early release of those convicted of murder, rape, or other violent crimes: “Prohibiting the earning of diminution credits to reduce the term of confinement of an inmate committed to the custody of the Commissioner of Correction or sentenced to a term of imprisonment in a local correctional facility if the inmate has been convicted of murder, rape, or a second or subsequent commission of specified crimes of violence.”
Hate-Crimes: HB80 2008 – Kramer voted to kill a bill that would’ve prohibited hate speech from those who hang nooses on the property of others, because of their race/religion, etc.: “Prohibiting a person from placing or displaying a noose on the property of another person because of the person’s race, color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or national origin, etc.”
Anti-Gun Control: HB880 2008 – Kramer voted against a bill that would’ve required gun dealers to let customers know they should notify the authorities if their gun is lost or stolen: “Requiring a dealer or other person who sells or transfers a regulated firearm to notify the purchaser or recipient at the time of purchase or transfer that the purchaser or recipient is required to report a lost of stolen regulated firearm to the local law enforcement agency; requiring the owner of a regulated firearm to report the loss or theft of the regulated firearm to the local law enforcement agency within 72 hours after the owner discovers the loss or theft; etc.”
Note from Adam:
All of these bills were defeated in the House Judiciary Committee. The Washington Post has noted “the power of the defense lawyers who dominate the committee.”
In the past, state legislators have wandered a bit in committee more than on the floor because committee votes are not listed on the General Assembly’s website. Our prediction is that in the wake of this post and our previous post on Delegate Luiz Simmons’ expungement bill, committee votes will be subject to more scrutiny in 2010.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Kramer Hit on Committee Votes
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6 comments:
Some of Mr Kramer's votes don't seem to be too unreasonable. For example, Maryland legislators have been taking a fairly odd approach to the whole issue of "hate crime". Generally speaking, the laws have been recently changed to outlaw very specific expressions of hatred. Yet it's this specificity that is worrisome.
For example, some years ago it was made a crime to deface a synagogue with graffiti of a swastika, and this was called "the hate-crime law". yet how does a law specifically outlawing only one act of anti-Semitism protect any members of other historically-harassed group?
Maryland's legislature, in general, seems to have some sort of antipathy against the so-called "reasonable person clause"; the only occurance of it of which I am aware is in the anti-stalking statute. Otherwise, there would doubtless be a law against "uttering, or making manifest, an expression or symbol that a reasonable person would believe to be intended to harass or terrorize another person or persons on the basis of the victim's race/religion/national-origin etc etc".
If Mr Kramer voted it down for being too specific, that's reasonable.
There are two benefits to specificity in criminal law:
1. We probably should limit the government's ability to prosecute based on reasonableness. If the government is going to prosecute, we want their authority to do so to be clear and precise.
2. Reasonableness standards also limit judicial discretion in some important ways. Reasonableness standards, despite their objective intent, often lead to subjective conclusions. What I mean is one judge's definition of reasonableness will vary from another judge's, even if they strive to apply the same standard. You may disagree, but I don't want a judge to say that spray painting a swastika on a synagogue is not a crime because it was reasonable for whatever creative reason the defense attorney comes up with.
That said, I did not find in my brief research a MD law regarding the use of "graffiti of a swastika" to "deface a synagogue." There is a much broader law (MD ANN CODE CRIM LAW 10-302) regarding the defacing, damaging, or destroying of property owned, leased, or used by a religious entity. So the law has a nice middle ground between specificity and generality.
-Marc Korman
As a former candidate I am always sensitive to assertions made in the heat of a campaign. I know that in many instances half- truths gain a life of their own.
I have no endorsements in this race.
That said - I do wish Jonathan had given the full story here and I - as any candidate would - wish for more information on these topics and perhaps less framing of the message.
Were any of these bills ever released from committee for a full vote?
If so, what was the result?
Was there a competing bill that was more definitive or more expansive - or as Marc Korman has noted, was there another law in place that would make this bill redundant?
Not every bill is ready for prime time and sometimes committee votes indicate that.
Mr Korman,
I will try to return later to your condemnation of the concept of "reasonable". At this point in time, words fail me. To condemn the concept of reason is to condemn sanity. To what end, then, do we have law? Perhaps it's to provide a guide to the unreasonable. I suppose that if people are incapable of discerning right from wrong, then they may be given a list of what is permitted and what is proscribed. I suppose I have inadvertently brought up the thorny matter of where lies the line between philosophy and law, but I will leave outside of the discussion which should proceed from which. Again, words fail me.
As to the statute to which I referred, though the wording isn't exact and is only to the standard of "as best I can recall", that would have been a reference to something that entered COMAR in perhaps 1996 or shortly thereafter as Maryland's first "hate crimes" law. Please understand that law evolves, and that the current law is rather more comprehensive; I was providing a snapshot from memory as best my poor recollection may serve, not of extant law, but of a previous state in the evolution of the statutes we now enjoy.
skd: Mr Shurberg seems to have felt the need to drop off a package of "don't vote for Ben Kramer" at our doorstep. s you suggest, a voting record doesn't give the "back story". It's like saying "that SOB killed his own pet cat" without mentioning that the pet cat had terminal cancer and that giving it the shot was far more mercy than murder. Though of course the cat might disagree were it still alive, and capable of articulating an argument. Which, in my opinion, wasn't the case for some of these proposed laws.
For example, the whole idea of banning possession etc of a handgun while in possession of certain drugs... well, as long as he's taking his medication, there goes Doug Duncan's concealed-carry permit. Whether or not he's "mental" is utterly irrelevant to his Supreme Court approved individual right to keep and bear arms under the Constitution of the United States, which shall not be infringed... and whether or not he's taking Oxycontin for his intractible back pain likewise is irrelevant to his right to defend himself and his family in his home.
That particular law is one that needed to get killed in committee and I and any decent Marylander stands behind that law being tabled as crap.
Mr. Hardman,
My point was that you don't want reasonableness to be the sole determinant of criminal prosecution and specific provisions have an important role.
The problem standalone reasonableness clause can create is quite obvious. For example, I usually find your responses on MPW unreasonable. I'm sure you disagree. Even though reasonableness should be objective, it is often not.
The point of specific statutory provisions is to give guideposts to judges and juries as to what society at large, through the legislative process, has found to be unacceptable behavior. Reasonableness, alone, gives far too much leeway to law enforcement and prosecutors.
Reasonableness is a far more dominant concept in civil law, for example in torts. In those cases, you are not applying the prosecutorial power of the state against the people so the societal risk of allowing questionable determinations of the reasonableness question are less of a problem. There can still be troubling personal risk, but society, as a whole, is less concerned with individual mistakes if they are not a result of systematic problems.
The law is not just designed to give unreasonable people a list of what they can and cannot do. It is also to give the state, theoretically channeling society, a tool to condemn, punish, and hopefully rehabilitate those who step outside of the list. Without the list, you would be prosecuting based on expose facto determinations. The use of reasonableness, as opposed to some specifics, increases the likelihood of that problem.
-Marc Korman
Marc Korman writes, in-part:
The problem standalone reasonableness clause can create is quite obvious. For example, I usually find your responses on MPW unreasonable. I'm sure you disagree. Even though reasonableness should be objective, it is often not.
Perhaps that's why we allow for trial by a jury of 6 or 12 people? You know, to take a poll, as it were, of what is considered reasonable? Not by one, but my many? All of whom could be challenged by either the defense or prosecution as to whether or not they were reasonable in the opinion of both the defense and the prosecution?
Seems reasonable to me...
Thus, in the case of the law against stalking, rather than relying on the opinion of one judge who might or might not decide that there had been a violation of law, 6 or 12 jurors get to unanimously declare someone to be Stalker Boy. One might reasonably presume that such unanimity would tend to show the reasonableness of the prosecution and the unreasonableness of the defendant's behavior. Of course, all of this is subject to a reasonable debate.
And you'll find that however much you might dislike my positions, outlook, or statements, the fact that I am discussing them reasonably would tend to indicate that I am in fact reasonable, and the fact that I am willing to discuss them at endless length might be thought -- by reasonable people -- that I'm not merely reasonable, I am very reasonable. Cogito Ergo Sum, dontcha know.
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