Maryland's delegation completely split on Patriot Act renewal. Voting FOR reauthorization: Chris van Hollen (D), Andy Harris (R),Dutch Ruppersberger (D), and Steny Hoyer (D). Voting AGAINST reauthorization: Jon Sarbanes (D), Donna Edwards (D)
Elijah Cummings (D), Roscoe Bartlett (R).
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Congress. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Patriot Act Split
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Farewell, Congressman Obey
By Marc Korman.
Last week, Wisconsin Congressman David Obey decided to pack it in and retire. Although not a Marylander, Obey is one of my favorite Members of Congress and should be praised for a lifetime of progressive leadership.
I was first exposed to Congressman Obey as a Congressional staffer when he was the Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee. The Ranking Member is the top person on the committee from the minority party. They have a tricky job. They need to fight for their priorities, but if they have any institutional pride they also need to make sure legislation proceeds. As Ranking Member, Obey would lead the fight against reckless Republican funding bills which did not support priorities such as healthcare, education, and the environment. Particularly with regards to education, Obey fought to ensure that Congressional Republicans met the promise President Bush made to increase federal funding for education in exchange for the testing requirements of No Child Left Behind.
Too often, Obey lost those important battles when good amendments to subpar bills did not pass. He was then left with a choice of opposing the funding bills entirely or holding his nose to make sure Congress kept working. In most cases, barring a truly outrageous act by the Republicans, Obey would support the legislation to keep the process going and prevent the possibility of a government shutdown. When Democrats took the majority in 2007 and Obey returned to the chairmanship, I think he was shocked to find that the now minority Republicans did not act the same way he had. They were perfectly happy to stop the appropriations process in its tracks, despite funding the government being Congress’ most fundamental purpose.
But Obey’s career stretches far beyond his leadership on the Appropriations Committee. Although he is now considered a Congressional old bull, he was viewed as a young progressive reformer for most of his career, first in the Wisconsin state house and then as a Congressman (he won the special election to replace Melvin Laird, who was appointed Defense Secretary by President Nixon). He actually did not rise to his committee leadership role through the old fashioned method of seniority, but leapfrogged over longer serving members with the help of other progressives, such as then rank and file Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.
After entering Congress in 1969, Obey became a leader in the Democratic Study Group (DSG). Today, Congress seems dominated by the conservative (I know, this is redundant) Republican Study Group, the conservative Blue Dog Democrats, and the moderate New Democrats. But from the 60s through the 80s the DSG was a progressive rallying point for House Democrats seeking to counter not just Republicans, but the conservative Southerners who dominated the Democratic Party. Through the DSG and his perch on Appropriations, Obey fought for progressive priorities. The role was particularly important during the Reagan years where Obey helped provide some of the analytical rebuttal to Reagan’s domestic spending budget cuts.
Obey has also been more important than many people realize to our own community. Without Obey, the Metro system may have never been built. In the early 1970s, senior Appropriations Committee member Bill Natcher of Kentucky withheld the federal share of Metro construction funds pending the completion of an additional bridge from Arlington to Georgetown. There was massive resistance to the bridge including from the DC government, but Natcher wanted it and threatened to kill Metro to get it. Obey helped organize other junior Appropriations Committee members in support of the Metro, succeeding in amending legislation on the House floor to include Metro funds and getting it included in the eventual conference report. With the federal funds starting to flow, Metro construction began.
Republicans seem eager to vilify Obey for his temper and his role in the 2009 stimulus bill. I think history will record these as positives for Obey. His temper flares, that’s for sure, but always for a just cause. The stimulus bill, in my view, has done much to not only keep our economy from collapse but in filling some of the deep holes left by Bush’s budgets, which were large but did not set appropriate priorities when it came to healthcare, education, and the environment.
I will miss Congressman Obey and hope that whoever succeeds him both as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee and in the 7th Congressional District of Wisconsin lives up to his leadership example.
If you want to learn more about Congressman Obey and Wisconsin politics (an impressive hotbed of progressive leadership that has included Senators Bob La Follette Sr. and Jr., Gaylord Nelson, Bill Proxmire, and Russ Feingold), I recommend giving Obey’s autobiography, Raising Hell for Justice, a read.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Is There A Lawyer in the House (or Senate)?
By Marc Korman.
Every year before the legislative session, the Maryland State Bar Association Legislative Preview lists the lawyers in the General Assembly. Let’s have a look.
Based on the Bar Association’s numbers, just 22% of the General Assembly is made up of attorneys. There are 10 in the State Senate, with half of that total coming from Montgomery County: Rona Kramer, Rob Garagiola, Brian Frosh, Jamie Raskin, and Mike Lenett. In the House of Delegates, there are 31 attorneys with 8 coming from Montgomery County: Kathleen Dumais, Brian Feldman, Bill Frick, Susan Lee, Luiz Simmons, Jeff Waldstreicher, Roger Manno, and Kirill Reznik. However, the Bar Association does not distinguish between attorneys who have practiced or those who just have a J.D.
According to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), Virginia’s total is much higher. 30% of Virginia legislators are attorneys. They are second among the percentage of lawyers in the state legislature only to Texas, where 33.3% of legislators are lawyers. Delaware has the lowest percentage of attorneys in their state legislature, just 3.2%. Nationwide, 15.2% of state legislators are attorneys according to NCSL (the data is from 2007 so might be slightly off due to intervening elections).
The percentage of lawyers in Congress is much higher, with 40% made up of attorneys according to the ABA. 55 Senators and 161 House Members are attorneys, including Senator Ben Cardin and all of Maryland’s Representatives except Roscoe Bartlett.
The low number of lawyers in the General Assembly is somewhat surprising. Lawyers are naturally associated with politicians in many minds. It is also a profession that, in many cases, allows the flexibility for a legislator to be in Annapolis three months of the year.
There are benefits to having lawyers in the legislature. One Maryland legislator/lawyer told me two reasons he thought having lawyers in the General Assembly was a good thing. First, he found lawyers better at honing in on the key, relevant issues in a bill and got less bogged down in extraneous issues. Second, he thought lawyers were more comfortable dealing with statutory language, making sure it is consistent with a bill’s intent, and avoiding unintended consequences of certain language.
This is not really surprising. Legislators deal with policy issues from across the spectrum, Thomas Jefferson said “there is no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.” But the way in which they interact with those issues is through statutory language.
Despite the need for attorneys who can speak, read, and understand the language of the law, at least four subcommittees in the State Senate and thirteen in the House of Delegates do not have a single attorney as a member. The House Appropriations Committee appears to have only one attorney among its 26 members. 15 of the House attorneys, a bit less than half, are stacked on the Judiciary Committee, accounting for the vast majority of its 22 members. The Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee has 4 attorneys among its 11 members.
That said, there are also great benefits to diversity in the legislature of all kinds, including professional. According to the NCSL data, 10.6% of Maryland’s legislators are business owners, 4.8% are in the medical field, and 3.7% are K-12 educators. 11.7% were listed as full-time legislators, though there may be some overlap between this number and the 4.8% identified as retired. Nationally, 16.4% were identified as full-time legislators, 11.7% as retired, 3.9% as K-12 educators, and 3.6% as medical professionals.
More attorneys might be useful for the General Assembly. But even without that, they could also be distributed a bit more evenly among the committees. Lawyers have skills that apply across the committees, not just those most closely aligned with their profession.
Disclosure: With any luck, I will be graduating law school in May and taking the Maryland Bar Exam in July.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
What O'Malley is Asking of Congress
In the following press release from yesterday, Governor O'Malley announced six priorities for federal aid: transportation, environment, homeland security, health care, education and BRAC funding.
GOVERNOR O’MALLEY OUTLINES FISCAL YEAR 2010 FEDERAL PRIORITIES BEFORE MARYLAND’S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION
Governor urges delegation to deliver American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to President Obama
WASHINGTON, DC (February 11, 2009) – Governor Martin O’Malley, joined by Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown and members of Maryland’s Cabinet, today formally presented Maryland’s FY2010 federal priorities to the State’s Congressional delegation in Washington, DC. The Maryland priorities include transportation and infrastructure projects, funding to protect Maryland’s environment and water quality, homeland security and public safety funding, healthcare and education projects, and stimulating the State’s economy through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.
“With yesterday’s passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan in the Senate, it is our hope that the final conference report allows Maryland to restore critical cuts to healthcare, education, and public safety and to fund important school construction projects throughout our State,” said Governor O’Malley to the delegation. “The funding that would flow to Maryland from this plan will create jobs, expand the safety net for our working families, and help our State come through this national recession quickly.”
Governor O’Malley was joined by members of his Cabinet during the hour-long presentation to the delegation, an audience that included Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, House Majority Leader Congressman Steny H. Hoyer, and others.
“Governor O’Malley and I applaud Senator Mikulski, Leader Hoyer and the rest of Team Maryland for fighting on our behalf,” Lt. Governor Brown said. “During these tough times, we are strengthened by the partnerships we've forged with our federal representatives.”
Governor O’Malley outlined specific priority areas for Maryland:
Transportation Infrastructure
Governor O’Malley highlighted several infrastructure projects for federal funding, including a new rail tunnel alignment in Baltimore, Intelligent Closed Circuit Television integration, and funding under the Interstate Maintenance program for I-70 and I-68 as well as under the Public Lands Highway program for BRAC related improvements in Harford, Anne Arundel, Montgomery, and Prince George’s counties. Funding under the Transportation Community and System Preservation program includes bridge rehabilitation and replacement, system preservation, safety, and storm water management. Transportation infrastructure project requests total $328 million.
Environment & Water Quality
To protect the health of Maryland’s children, Governor O’Malley requested funding for a number of projects to improve and protect the environment and water quality, including an upgrade of major waste water treatment facilities, restoration of the Patuxent River, modernization of the Cooperative Oxford Lab to facility biomolecular research, and the continued success of the lead poisoning prevention program. Project requests for environmental and water quality protection total $1.1 million.
Homeland Security & Public Safety
To protect Marylanders and their quality of life, Governor O’Malley outlined ways federal funding would initiate and continue homeland security and public safety projects including the recapitalizing and development of the Prince George’s Hospital Center, communications interoperability among State and local law enforcement agencies, broadband access connecting key public safety operations centers, automated equipment for Maryland’s Bomb Squad, enhanced fingerprint technology for booking facilities and State police, and an extension of the in-car camera project to include all patrol vehicles. In addition, Governor O’Malley requested funding to expand the State’s successful Violence Prevention Initiative, create a pre-apprenticeship workforce development program, expand summer job programs for at-risk youth, and create a mentorship program for at-risk youth across the State. Homeland security and public safety project requests total $212 million.
Healthcare
Governor O’Malley outlined healthcare priorities aimed at protecting indigent communities and educating Marylanders to effectuate preventive service. These include passing a moratorium on seven Medicaid regulations, six of which already exist in the House version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, establishing a statewide health IT exchange, creating a statewide unified oral health education message initiative, and providing behavioral health care services to our veterans. Healthcare project requests total $4.5 million.
Education
Governor O’Malley asked the delegation’s help in developing the Judith P. Hoyer Center for Early Childhood Learning and Innovation at the Children’s Museum at National Harbor, which will be a world-class cultural and educational center dedicated to engaging children and empowering them to make a difference and become the leaders of tomorrow. This project request totals $5 million.
Federal Procurement
As part of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, the Governor’s Office of Minority Affairs has put forth a request for assistance for Maryland’s Procurement Technical Assistance Program, which will help translate to more technical assistance to Maryland minority firms to increase capacity to compete. The total request for this project is $300,000.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
A Historical Footnote
By Marc Korman.
After my last post about Chris Van Hollen, it was suggested to me that the reason Van Hollen could not be in the elected leadership of the House Democrats was because Steny Hoyer was already there. Between the Majority Leader representing Maryland and Nancy Pelosi being born here, I was told that Maryland is already heavily represented in the House leadership.
It is true that with Steny Hoyer as Majority Leader and the native Pelosi as Speaker, Maryland seems to be doing well in the Congressional leadership ranks. Have we always had such luck?
The House
The only House of Representatives leadership position mentioned in the Constitution is the Speaker. It is the only leadership position elected by the entire House. The parties tend to unite around one candidate so that whoever wins within the majority party will become Speaker.
Maryland is one of four of the original thirteen states to never have a Speaker representing the state. It is nice that Nancy Pelosi is from Baltimore, but last I checked C-SPAN lists her as (D-CA). We are joined by Rhode Island, Delaware, and New Hampshire in the lackluster category of fighting the revolution and not having a Speaker of the House.
After the Speaker, the other members of the House leadership are elected within their own parties. The top leadership structure of the Democratic Caucus and Republican Conference are the same. Each party has a Leader, known as the Majority or Minority Leader depending on the party’s status, a Whip, a Chair, and a Vice Chair.
Maryland has not fared well in House leadership. The only Leader or Whip, positions that first came about in the late 1890s, Maryland has ever had is Steny Hoyer. There has never been anyone else in any of the top leadership posts representing Maryland. Pelosi served as Minority Leader and Whip as well, but again, she was representing California in Congress.
The Senate
We have fared only slightly better in the Senate. The posts we know of today as Majority and Minority Leader of the Senate, the top leadership posts, developed in the 1920s. No one from Maryland has ever held the position.
Party Whips, the second ranking member of each party in the Senate, actually came about a decade earlier than the leader position. Unfortunately, Maryland has never had one of those either.
Senate President Pro Tempore is the only Senate leadership position listed in the Constitution. The original purpose of the office was to preside over the Senate when the Vice President was away. In the nation’s early years, the Senate President Pro Tempore was picked each time the Vice President was away, so there could be many different Senate Presidents during a single year. In 1890, the Senate began electing Senate Presidents for an entire Congress. Since World War II, it has largely been an honorific position given to the longest serving member of the majority party.
Maryland has had a little luck with this job. John Howard held the post for six days back in November of 1800. Samuel Smith held it for thirteen days in December of 1805. Both Howard and Smith were Senators from Maryland.
Conclusion
Perhaps Chris Van Hollen’s non-Maryland colleagues in the House disagree, but when I hear that our Congressman cannot move up in the House leadership because there are too many Marylanders running the House, my Maryland pride stirs up and I say it is about time!
Friday, December 07, 2007
Roz Pelles on support for ENDA
Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in the current (110th) Congress from our friends at YouTube.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Van Hollen on Congressional War Debate
E.J. Dionne ends his Tuesday column with a quote from Rep. Van Hollen on how Democrats should approach the Iraq War debate:
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has an additional idea: Opponents of the war need to force full consideration of the original Baker-Hamilton proposals that, he said, promised to put American policy "on a trajectory to have our combat troops out of Iraq this time next year" and reflected "the center of gravity in Congress." Whatever its flaws, the Iraq Study Group report could still serve as a focal point for sharply reducing America's military role in Iraq before the 2008 election.
"The refusal of the administration to try to work with others to resolve this in a responsible manner has created a very polarized atmosphere," Van Hollen said. "They've refused to listen to anyone else."
That should be the central theme of the president's critics because it's true -- and because it offers the best rallying cry for those seeking to change a disastrous policy.
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