Paid for by Citizens for Colburn Committee. Authority John W. Phillips, Jr., Treasurer

Guest Comment by Sen. Richard Colburn
Why can't Marylanders have a 2-party system?
By SEN. RICHARD COLBURN
Guest Comment - Star Democrat
May 16, 2006

It is obvious that two-party democracy is not working in this state.

On Monday, April 24, the governor signed several bills the General Assembly passed that will toughen the punishment and monitoring of sex offenders. The new laws, taking effect July 1, will increase the mandatory sentences for those found guilty of sex crimes against children younger than 13. For both first-time and repeat sex offenders, the mandatory minimum sentence will be 25 years in prison, up from five years.

Unfortunately I am not talking about Maryland. These bills were recently passed in Virginia. Virginia’s 12 bills on sentencing and monitoring followed the example of Florida, which last year passed some of the nation’s toughest legislation, known as Jessica’s Law, in memory of Jessica Lunsford, 9, who last year was kidnapped and slain by a convicted sex offender.

The Democrats in the 2006 General Assembly defeated Maryland’s sex offender bill. Jessica’s Law never made it out of committee.

Over the past four sessions, an extremely dangerous poison has been leaking into the Maryland General Assembly, especially the 2006 session. Everything has been viewed through the prism of poisonous partisan politics. Democrats have done just about everything possible to embarrass the governor and deny an Ehrlich re-election. Some may say, “What exactly are the problems, and what damage has been done?” One bill after another was passed, vetoed, and overridden, mostly at the expense of the people’s best interest.

The session began with Democrats overriding the governor’s veto of a bill that arbitrarily singled out Wal-Mart to pay for the state’s escalating health care costs. This bill, unfortunately, may work its way down to smaller businesses and require them to pay a large portion towards the health care of individuals employed by them.

Later in the session, Democrats voted for allowing early voting at specific polling stations, none on the Eastern Shore, and most of them in heavily Democratic areas of the state, areas that were selected without Republican input. People would even be allowed to vote without proper identification. This creates a lopsided advantage for the Democratic Party.

Probably one of the most damaging pieces of legislation passed, vetoed by the governor but overridden, will allow Baltimore City schools to continue graduating students who can barely read, write, and be proficient in math. In fact 99 percent of students failed the state’s math test.

Ehrlich’s administration was blocked from transferring control off 11 failing Baltimore City schools to new management that would be able to save those schools’ students. Instead, Democrats deflected attention from the condition of the schools, thus, making even this a political issue. Consequently, Democrats protected the dysfunctional school system, and there is a potential loss of $171 million in federal funds.

If this happens, where will these schools want to obtain the funds? What it really amounted to was saving the image of Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley from the embarrassment of a failed city school system. He said the takeover was politically motivated. Since all public schools have had to play by the same rules, what does this now say to them? Would they, too, be given a second, third, fourth, fifth chance at educating our children or will they also be bailed out by selfish politicians? Who loses in this battle? The children, the poor children in Baltimore City.

The Democrat-controlled assembly also expressed hostility toward the business community by taking steps to destroy the state’s largest electric company’s merger attempt while doing nothing to stop a 72 percent increase in electric bills for 1.2 million households.

What transpired in this past session went far beyond the political one-upmandship. Democratic legislators not only intruded into executive-branch functions, they seized power, all aimed at embarrassing the governor, and in one case to protect Mayor O’Malley.

To avoid constant veto overrides, Maryland Republicans need to capture more seats in the State House. Republicans are now challenging more than a dozen Democratic delegates and five senators in conservative districts. If Republicans can hold onto their current 14 Senate seats and gain 5 more, the State Senate would be veto-proof. Marylanders would then have a two-party Senate and better government.