How Legislation is Decided

Here's a little tidbit illustrating how legislation really gets decided in Annapolis!

The bit concerns Delegate Saqib Ali's (D-39) local bill preventing landlords of rental housing from running credit checks on applicants who receive assistance from the county for the purpose of screening them out. The bill set off a raging scrum inside the delegation when they considered it. One of our spies (who is not Ali!) sent us a blow-by-blow account:

Frick asked why we need it. Then Ali schools Frick, then Simmons schools Ali, then Kaiser schools Simmons, then Dumais schools Ali, then [MoCo legislative analyst] Sheila Sprague schools everyone (takes Ali's back), then Rice schools the committee counsel (Elisa Ford), then Kaiser schools Rice, then Reznik schools Ali, then Dumais offers amendment to amended bill, then Kaiser agrees, then Ali schools Dumais (total smack down), then Simmons schools Ali but gets totally schooled by Ali in response (OUCH), then Barkley moves the previous question to go to a vote on the Dumais amendment, then Ali schools Dumais by killing the amendment on a vote of 18 nos, then Ali schools all by passing the bill!

The spy closed with:

It was wild -- and I've never seen ANYONE school Lou before this. SMUUUUUUUUU-ACK!

Never, never again will your author allow his apolitical family members to declare that politics is boring. Why watch this?


When you can have this?