ANNAPOLIS – With 13 of the original 33 sponsors withdrawing their support, a constitutional amendment to give additional budgetary power to the General Assembly failed to win the 29 votes it needed to pass the Senate Tuesday.
Although the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Patrick J. Hogan, D-Montgomery, told his fellow legislators that the change will only improve the budgetary process, the amendment seemed to lose steam and could not garner the three- fifths majority needed to pass. It failed 25-21.
The bill would have given the General Assembly the power to add or rearrange funds in the governor’s proposed budget. Maryland is the only state in which the Legislature does not have this power, making the governor the most fiscally powerful governor in the country.
Sen. Barbara Hoffman, D-Baltimore, Budget and Taxation Committee chairwoman, was dismayed by the defection of bill sponsors and her committee members.
“Change is difficult. Even if their head tells them it’s the right thing to do, they get nervous,” she said.
However, the fact that many of them didn’t take their names off the bill was “bad form,” she said.
Gov. Parris N. Glendening was behind at least some of the defections, Hoffman said.
“The governor was really busy picking people off, offering them things, projects,” she said.
Glendening, who did not support the bill or testify against it, did not exert any pressure on lawmakers or threaten to withdraw funds for projects in their districts, said Raquel Guillory, his spokeswoman.
“He didn’t use any undue influence with regard to this bill,” Guillory said.
Typically the governor’s office would not confirm the use of political pressure in such situations.
Sen. Jennie Forehand, D-Montgomery, one of the bill’s original sponsors, decided to vote against the bill after considering the current system.
“I quite frankly don’t think the system is broken,” she said.
The budget process as it is now gives the governor, as a statewide elected official, a “big picture” view of the state, she said, while legislators are elected to represent only a small area of the state.
However, the state does have pressing financial needs that should be addressed, Forehand said.
Sen. Delores Kelley, D-Baltimore County, also withdrew her support and called for additional study on the function of any such amendment.
Rules, committee structure and protocol for handling the budget all need to be addressed before an amendment is voted into law, said Kelley.
“We need a prenuptial agreement, and we need it now,” she said.
Sen. Paula Hollinger, D-Baltimore County, also voted against the bill, despite her initial sponsorship. She compared the amendment to a “box lot” at an auction; no one is ever quite sure what is in the box until it’s purchased.
Sen. Walter Baker, D-Cecil, also an original sponsor, abstained.
Proponents tried to fight the exodus by saying worthy programs needed funding and didn’t receive it from the governor. Several senators, including Sen. Thomas Bromwell, D-Baltimore County, said the state needed to find more money to fund an adequate pharmaceutical program and the amendment could allow the Legislature to do that.
Robert Neall, D-Anne Arundel, a sponsor and one of the amendment’s most vocal supporters, also voted for the bill, but he admitted, “Maybe this is an instance of a good bill in a bad year.”
Sen. Clarence Blount, D-Baltimore, called for a task force or committee to study the ramifications. He warned the state needed a definite solution before making any changes.
“We don’t have to do this now,” he said. “We have time.”
Maryland is already a fiscally responsible state with excellent bond ratings and does not need to alter the system, Blount said.
“Sometimes, when you’re ahead, you need to just walk away from the gambling table,” he said. “If it works well for Maryland, that’s all we need to worry about.”
This defeat isn’t the end of the effort, Hoffman said.
“We’re going to keep doing this until it passes,” she said. “We’ll bring it back next year. The time will come. It really is the right way.”
-30- CNS-02-27-01