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From the Daily Record2008 Legislative Preview: Gay marriage, felons' rights on the agenda
Death penalty opponents, buoyed by recent events, hope to extend moratorium into permanent repeal
by Liz Farmer
Thursday, January 3, 2008
When the Court of Appeals issued its 244-page opinion in September finding that same-sex marriage was not a fundamental right, one thing for the 2008 legislative session seemed for certain: gay-rights groups would be turning to state lawmakers.
Legislation that would establish legal benefits for same-sex couples has been proposed before with minimal success. But now that the state's highest court has weighed in on the issue, this year marks the first year the legislature will be considering a bill to outright legalize civil marriages.
Cynthia Boersma, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said the language in the bill will address concerns that a church's definition of marriage could be threatened. She said the proposed legislation will make the distinction between the state's legal recognition of a marriage and a religion's right to sanctify one.
"It makes it clear that nothing about changing Maryland's civil law will interfere with the freedom of religious denominations to perform religious practices in a marriage ceremony," she said.
A counter bill that proposes a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman has been introduced yearly in the General Assembly since 2004, and has already been promised for 2008. The prior bills died in committee each year.
Boersma said that the ACLU is again supporting a legislation package that would still grant other civil and legal rights to the gay and transgender community, should the gay marriage bill fail.
Advocates for inmates and ex-convicts are also hoping to expand on their win in 2007, in which the legislature re-established voting rights for felons who have served their sentences and parole.
This year, proponents hope to eliminate what they say are other "disabilities to re-entry." The state's Office of the Public Defender is helping to draft a bill that will allow a parole board or judge, on a case-by-case basis, to lift licensing or hiring restrictions that keep a convicted felon out of certain types of employment.
"The idea is we've got to give people choices other than crime and the best way to do that is to get a place to live and a job," said Laurel Albin, the office's director of legislative affairs.
The public defender is also supporting legislation that aims to use an intervention program on schools that have a high truancy rate and a bill that will restructure the sentencing guidelines for low-level drug dealers.
The death penalty repeal -- which failed to clear committee by one vote last session, even after Gov. Martin O'Malley’s endorsement -- will also be one of the most closely watched bills with a few twists this year.
While the people on the 11-member Judicial Proceedings Committee haven't changed, supporters of a permanent repeal say they've been speaking to legislators in the off-season and feel they have the political momentum.
The state's current moratorium on capital punishment, which was less than a month old when the 2007 session began, has now been in place more than a year. It dates to December 2006, when the Court of Appeals invalidated the state's execution protocols because they had not been adopted in compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act.
Unless the governor acts to adopt new protocols following the stringent APA requirements -- a move he has resisted -- or the legislature successfully amends the APA to exempt execution protocols, the moratorium will stand.
Adding to the mix is New Jersey's banning of capital punishment last month, and a nationwide de facto moratorium that came in September when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge that lethal injections violate the Eighth Amendment's ban against cruel and unusual punishment.