MDGA Crossover Date was 3/22

Doctortoxic said:

Again, yes. I understand that. What I was looking for is a little more transparency from MDGA on where these pending bills are.

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They’ve had hearings. That’s it. There isn’t anything further to report nor more to update on the MGA website. The website has the history of each bill on it. IIRC it is updated within 24hrs of anything occurring. Usually within 24hrs of that any document updates also but the website.

So if it was voted on with (or without) amendments in committee the committee vote tally and the bull language as amended will be posted up in 24-48hrs depending on what you are looking for related to the bill.

Bills usually do not get brought up for vote if the committee chair believes it will not pass. Or obviously if they decide they don’t want it to advance for a variety of reasons.

To the best of my knowledge none of the bills were withdrawn (which would show).

MJD438 said:

235959 on 12APR2021

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

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Always fun to tune in and listen to the last hour or two.

lazarus said:

They’ve had hearings. That’s it. There isn’t anything further to report nor more to update on the MGA website. The website has the history of each bill on it. IIRC it is updated within 24hrs of anything occurring. Usually within 24hrs of that any document updates also but the website.

So if it was voted on with (or without) amendments in committee the committee vote tally and the bull language as amended will be posted up in 24-48hrs depending on what you are looking for related to the bill.

Bills usually do not get brought up for vote if the committee chair believes it will not pass. Or obviously if they decide they don’t want it to advance for a variety of reasons.

To the best of my knowledge none of the bills were withdrawn (which would show).

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I guess my point is, there should be a $hit or get off the pot model with these bills. If they want to hang these over our heads for 3 months a year, it should be mandatory to withdraw the bills if they are not going to make it out of committee by the reporting date or if they don’t intend to cross them over, we should be informed of that on the cross over deadline.

But a little courtesy would be asking too much of the geniuses at the MDGA I suppose.

Just my two cents.

The Annapolis Capital editorial today was calling for Sen. Smith to release Jaelynn's Bill, the "Safe Storage" bill. Hell, no.

Doctortoxic said:

I guess my point is, there should be a $hit or get off the pot model with these bills. If they want to hang these over our heads for 3 months a year, it should be mandatory to withdraw the bills if they are not going to make it out of committee by the reporting date or if they don’t intend to cross them over, we should be informed of that on the cross over deadline.

But a little courtesy would be asking too much of the geniuses at the MDGA I suppose.

Just my two cents.

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Then submit a change to the State Constitution.

It's rare for any Bill to be withdrawn . The two usual reasons are if the chief Sponsor realizes it's so flawed to be embarassing to them , or as a gesture to throw support to another Bill on the same subject . But in that latter instance , support for competing Bills are informal behind-the-scenes .

Not just on topics of interest to " us" , but overall dozens , if not hundreds times more Bills are introduced than ever leaving a Committee . Introducing Bills is how Senators and Delegates signal to their constituents that " We're listening to you and Doing Something " . Cynically , most Bills are intended as guestures rather than seriously expected to pass .

Ideally in theory , Committee Chairs function as a filter to weed out the stupid and the trivial .

Not withstanding Rules Committee sausage making , Maryland's short Sessions of only 90 days compresses the timelines compared to most State Legislatures .

Biggfoot44 said:

It's rare for any Bill to be withdrawn . The two usual reasons are if the chief Sponsor realizes it's so flawed to be embarassing to them , or as a gesture to throw support to another Bill on the same subject . But in that latter instance , support for competing Bills are informal behind-the-scenes .

Not just on topics of interest to " us" , but overall dozens , if not hundreds times more Bills are introduced than ever leaving a Committee . Introducing Bills is how Senators and Delegates signal to their constituents that " We're listening to you and Doing Something " . Cynically , most Bills are intended as guestures rather than seriously expected to pass .

Ideally in theory , Committee Chairs function as a filter to weed out the stupid and the trivial .

Not withstanding Rules Committee sausage making , Maryland's short Sessions of only 90 days compresses the timelines compared to most State Legislatures .

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Absolutely all of this. For all of the edicts MGA or any legislature issues every year, it is a tiny fraction of the number introduced. I forget MD's typical total, but it is in the 1500 bill range. Off the top of my head, if there are 30 committees (not actually sure how many) and if EVERY member of the committee was unique (they aren't, many sit on several committees) and there was an equal number of bills per committee. That is 50 bills. Some bills never even GET a hearing if they are just that unserious and a delegate or senator just wanted something on the record that they are doing something.

Generally a bill will get a hearing and most minor, uncontroversial bills might not get more than 3-5 minutes of testimony between the bill sponsor and maybe a couple of shills coming to say how much they loved making some street in Annapolis a historic road or something.

You get a bill with half an hour or an hour of debate just in committee, let alone discussions and negotiations behind the scenes, 50 x 3hrs a bill is a LOT of time. And a really serious bill is probably 5x that when you are including all of the negotiating, lobbying, etc. behind the scenes. And most delegates and senators are really on multiple committees. Plus floor time. There just isn't enough time to seriously consider most bills.

If there was a common sense rule for all legislatures that said you couldn't introduce a bill unless you intended it to pass, you'd probably drop a third of the bills. If you had another common sense rule that said the bill stood a vague chance of passing and you were going to devote serious time and energy in to getting it passed, that would probably drop 2/3rds of the remaining bills (and not just many of the minority party bills. Some of those do still pass keep in mind).

Every Bill recieves a hearing . If it's not high profile or controversial , it will be a brief introduction by the chief Sponser , and maybe a couple pro forma questions from the Committee , 5 minutes and done . Most Bills have Zero outside witnesses . If they do either the Sponser brings along a constituiant representing a key constituent group , or the pro Lobbyist who actually wrote the Bill . " Our " Bills with lots of unaffiliated members of the public interested in testifying are the exception . ( plus Marijuana and abortion ).

Not every Bill recieves any Debate in Committee beyond the initial introduction .

There are 13 main committees that bills are assigned to in the legislature, 7 in the House, and 6 in the Senate. There is 1 Special Committee and 3 special committees, but they get no bills assigned to them, they are basically research committees on issues. You then have the various committees (in the Senate) and caucuses in the House for the various counties.

This session there have been 1183 bills originated in the Senate and 1588 bills originated in the House, for a total of 2771 bills for the 2021 session. Thus far only 4 have been enacted into law, not withstanding the veto overrides.

All of this information is available on the MD Legislative website.

dblas said:

Then submit a change to the State Constitution.

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Maybe I will.

Doctortoxic said:

Maybe I will.

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Seems to me that would take power away from the MGA leadership, who likes to flex its muscle from time to time. If a lobby speaks loud enough ($$$), they might be able to buy the flex. Governor in the same party can push for a favorite that is stuck in committee in influential ways as well.

There's still a chance, sort of like Jim Carrey said in Dumb & Dumber.

Doctortoxic said:

Maybe I will.

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You do realize that the only way for that to happen is for the Legislature to pass a bill, and then the citizens of Maryland vote on it?

dblas said:

You do realize that the only way for that to happen is for the Legislature to pass a bill, and then the citizens of Maryland vote on it?

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With the language of the referendum written by the legislature to make it appear as they wish it to appear.

Mark75H said:

With the language of the referendum written by the legislature to make it appear as they wish it to appear.

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The language is proposed by the legislature in the bill, it is actually written by the Secretary of State.