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The Washington Times No new gun bills seen as likely this session April 2, 2004 ANNAPOLIS (AP)
— State lawmakers will likely pass no new gun legislation this
year with less than two weeks remaining in the 2004 General Assembly
session. Mr. Giannetti,
Anne Arundel and Prince George's Democrat, is considered the swing vote
on the Senate's 11-member Judicial Proceedings Committee that is scheduled
to decide today whether to impose a ban on assault weapons in Maryland. "We're at
loggerheads," Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Calvert
and Prince George's Democrat, said yesterday . Most of the important
work of legislative sessions is usually completed in the final week
or two of the annual 90-day meeting. But this year, legislative leaders
acknowledge there are no solutions in sight to their differences over
such key issues as taxes, slot machines, health care and the environment. Typically at this
point in the session, a conference committee of Senate and House fiscal
leaders would be negotiating an agreement on the state budget. But Mr. Miller
has not appointed Senate members of the budget conference committee.
He is waiting for House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat,
to schedule a vote on Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s slot machine bill,
which the Senate passed more than a month ago. Mr. Busch has not said
when the slots vote will take place. Neither side anticipates
major problems over the budget when negotiations begin, but there are
disagreements among the House, the Senate and the governor about a separate
bill that provides revenue to balance the budget. The House proposed
$670 million in new fees and taxes that includes increasing the sales
tax rate from 5 percent to 6 percent and a temporary increase in the
income tax rate for affluent Marylanders, but it has not voted on Mr.
Ehrlich's slot machine bill. The Senate approved
a more modest revenue package of about $100 million. Mr. Ehrlich is
willing to accept some fees and perhaps some taxes, but is adamantly
opposed to the House tax package. Mr. Ehrlich said he would not agree
to increases in the sales and income taxes to win legislative approval
of his bill to authorize 15,500 slot machines at as many as six locations. At a hearing on
the slot machine legislation Tuesday, the governor and his budget secretary,
James DiPaula, said if the slots bill does not pass, Medicaid and local
aid will be targets for the big spending cuts that will be required
to balance the fiscal 2006 budget that they will present to the legislature
next January. The meetings ended
last night with Mr. Ehrlich saying nothing had been resolved. None of Mr. Ehrlich's
legislative proposals have been passed; most have been killed or are
languishing somewhere in the legislative process. The most promising
outlook is for Mr. Ehrlich's plan to increase fees to raise money for
transportation. The governor had asked for $300 million, but a scaled-back
plan of $220 million has passed the House and is scheduled for a vote
today in the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. Sen. Ulysses Currie,
committee chairman and Prince George's Democrat, expects the committee
to accept the House bill with perhaps some minor changes. Mr. Ehrlich's proposal
to impose a fee of $30 a year on sewer bills to help pay for $1 billion
worth of sewage treatment plant upgrades is buried in a Senate committee
because of a disagreement about whether fees also should be assessed
on septic tank owners to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay. The governor's
anticrime bill that would allow juries and judges to impose a death
sentence for intimidation of witnesses in criminal trials was quashed
in a House committee. Mr. Ehrlich and
lobbyists for the health care industry began the session with a push
for legislation to reduce the cost of medical malpractice insurance.
The only bill still alive would set up a task force to examine the problem. All site contents copyright © 2004 News World Communications, Inc. |
