State Senator Jim Mathias was understandably annoyed by the Worcester County Commissioners’ position and comments on his legislation about the Department of Liquor Control. I like it when politicians speak bluntly and there has been a lot of that lately on this issue of executing a plan to dissolve the Department of Liquor Control.
Mathias was essentially raked over the proverbial coals last week by a couple County Commissioners for not including a shameful 10-mile provision in legislation that’s anti-business. The House bill put forward by Delegates Mary Beth Carozza and Charles Otto includes the controversial clause.
Mathias was accused of not being “attentive” and “sympathetic” to the county by the commissioners, who voted to support the House bill. Reached this week, it’s no surprise Mathias was not thrilled about getting called out without a chance to respond to the commissioners who sounded off about him. He was given the opportunity this week.
“I’m not an obstructionist. I’m not looking for an argument. This should be about growing jobs and creating capital investment, but this 10-mile thing is prohibitive,” said Mathias. “I want the citizens to be able to walk in and buy a bottle of spirits from a store vetted by the BLC [Board of License Commissioners] that has invested in the business and hired people. That’s what everybody wants from this and we don’t want to do something to impede that.”
It really is that simple.
To call it a rift at this point would probably be premature, but clearly Senator Jim Mathias and Delegate Mary Beth Carozza appear to be marching to different beats in the current General Assembly session. There appears to be little to no communication between the legislators and that’s not how it should be.
There is nothing evident to suggest a fractured relationship between Mathias, a Democrat, and Carozza, a Republican, who both represent Ocean City, Worcester County and parts of the Lower Shore and ostensibly have common goals for their constituents specifically and the state in general, but they appear to be going their separate ways in some cases.
Along with the liquor bill discussed above, Carozza is the primary sponsor on a bill that passed the House that would allow a suspect in a bomb threat to be prosecuted in the jurisdiction in which the threat was made. Currently, bomb threat suspects can be charged only in the jurisdiction in which the threat originated.
Carozza brought many local forces to bear in testimony in support of the bill including the sheriffs and state’s attorneys in Worcester and Wicomico. The bill breezed through the House Judiciary Committee and was passed by a 136-0 vote by the full House last Thursday. It has now moved over to the Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee.
Meanwhile, while Mathias did not appear in the post-testimony pictures with local law enforcement officials, and he would have no reason to for actions taking place in the House, the senator is clearly not ignoring the issue. Mathias bristled a little this week when it was suggested by our reporter he was on the outside looking in on the bomb threat bill issue and pointed out he is a co-sponsor on a bill introduced by western Maryland Senator Michael Hough (R-4) that includes precisely the same language and would achieve the same desired result. Senate Bill 287 got a favorable vote from the Judiciary Proceedings Committee on Monday and passed on second reading by the full Senate on Tuesday.
When the bills pass in their respective chambers, as expected, a final version would have to be reconciled before getting sent to the governor for approval, however, with the language virtually the same, that appears to be a slam dunk. It would seem to be more productive for the legislators to put their minds together on innocuous bills like this instead of the current approach.
I’m not sure why anyone should care what Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot has to say about likely Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump, but I did find his comments entertaining this week. He seems to echo what so many have been saying of late — how in the world is Trump cruising to the nomination? To me another question is: how is it possible that Hillary Clinton will likely be our next president?
“I honestly don’t know how we’ve come to the point where a reality TV star can parlay the most offensive personal conduct imaginable, coupled with a platform that is based solely on resentment and wholly devoid of substance, into what has been a rather successful presidential campaign to date. I’ll leave it to the pundits to figure out what it says about the condition of our political system, and his chances as this campaign drags on,” Franchot posted on his Facebook page. “But I will say that whatever this man is and whatever it is that he represents, it bears no resemblance to the Republicans that I’ve worked with and counted as friends through all of these years. And I’d like to believe that Donald Trump and his beliefs have nothing, whatsoever, in common with the values of the state of Maryland.”