From behind closed doors to backroom

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Annapolis (Map, News) - The action of the General Assembly's special session shifts this week from behind closed doors to the backroom behind the backrooms, where a handful of lawmakers from House and Senate hash out their differences.

To be sure, everything is finalized in public as required by the state constitution and rules of the chambers. But the details of a final agreement that will reconcile different tax rates, budget cuts and slots policy will almost certainly be reached in private conferences that may or may not include Gov. Martin O'Malley's aides.

A little legislative dance will flow back and forth across the State House hall in formal messages. Each chamber will refuse to “recede” from its own amendments to the governor's plan, and will suggest the appointment of a “conference” committee. These committees, particularly on weighty budget matters, typical have five or six senators and a like number of delegates - a much smaller group of people than the 15 senators and 22 delegates that grappled with the details of the original tax and slots proposals.

This group of 10 or 12 will then produce a single conference report mediating the disputed provisions. One chamber gives a little here, the other gives a little there. The House gives a haircut, the Senate takes a little off the sides, and most taxpayers get clipped.

The key thing about a conference report is once it¹s signed, it can't be changed. Take it or leave it, vote it up or down. If there's too much a lawmaker doesn't like in it, the only option is to reject it. Most times they don't.

Watching the sausage factory

“Laws are like sausages,” says a statement attributed to 19th-century Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck. “It's better not to see them being made.” Mindful of our sensibilities, at the State House sausage factory, we don't always get to see the grinding, chopping and slicing of the pork and pork byproducts, as the labels might say.

In the Budget and Tax Committee last week, the new draft of the tax bill was shared only with the committee members and staff. Republicans weren't even handed some amendments till they demanded them. The rest of us in the room had to rely on aural descriptions of the changes.

Gone, as expected, was the O'Malley's sales tax on property management and fitness clubs - but where did the tax on computer services and landscaping come from? A list of services and the revenues they might produce, we're told. The lobbyists for the computer folks scurried around for a few days, and in the House Ways and Means Committee on Friday, we find computer services are out, but repairs on everything from cars and laptops to TVs and houses are in.

Not to worry, a day later all the taxes on news services are out. It was like amusement park game of Whack-a-mole, said lobbyist Bruce Bereano. You whacked one tax critter down and another popped up elsewhere.

Who suggested taking services out? Maybe someone in one of those closed “caucuses,” with the state troopers guarding the doors. According to several people thrown out of meetings last week, the Republican-free delegations from Baltimore City and Montgomery County, which typically meet in public, decided to turn themselves into Democratic Party caucuses that aren't open to press or public by law or custom.

llazarick@baltimoreexaminer.com

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260 days ago: Bouquet for the governor

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