This year's General Assembly session wasn't the most exciting, but it had its moments. Here are 10 bad things that happened in this year's session. What would you add or delete from the list? (See also our list of 10 good things that happened.)
1. Education reform. Governor O'Malley didn't go nearly far enough in pushing education reforms, such as a strengthening of Maryland's charter school law. The reform that did pass, a lengthening of the time it takes teachers to earn tenure and a linking of student test scores with teacher evaluations, is helpful, but compromises in the legislature weakened its effect.
2. Drunken driving. Despite the terrible death of a Johns Hopkins University sophomore in a hit-and-run accident in which a serial drunken driver has been charged, the legislature failed at the last minute to move forward with a requirement that those convicted of driving under the influence be forced to install an ignition interlock device on their cars.
3. The long-term budget. The spending plan the legislature approved for the coming fiscal year isn't the problem. It's the next few years that are the issue, thanks to ballooning pension, health care and education costs. Credit goes to the Republicans for highlighting the problem and providing suggestions for how to address it, but the legislature did too little about it.
4. Direct wine shipment. Once again, the legislature refused to end Maryland's ban on direct wine shipments to residents' homes out of deference to the political clout of the state's liquor industry, which complained that it would upset the Prohibition-era regulatory structure of alcohol sales in the state. That hurts both consumers and Maryland wineries, who find themselves unable to ship wine to customers from other states that demand reciprocity for direct-to-consumer sales.
5. The alcohol tax. Speaking of the political clout of the liquor industry, despite a well publicized push by advocates who argue — passionately and convincingly — that state services for the developmentally disabled are woefully underfunded, the legislature failed to even seriously consider raising the taxes on beer and wine, which haven't changed since the 1970s, or liquor, which has stayed the same since the 1950s.
6. Auto insurance. At the behest of the trial lawyers lobby, the legislature increased the mandatory minimum auto insurance requirements, which will increase rates for thousands of low-income drivers and will likely lead many of them to drop their coverage altogether. This, in spite of the fact that average claims are still well below Maryland's current minimums.
7. Medical marijuana. The Senate approved a measure that would allow people suffering from certain illnesses to get prescriptions for marijuana to relieve their symptoms, but it went nowhere in the House of Delegates.
8. Debt settlement services. The legislature punted on Attorney General Gansler's effort to regulate the debt settlement industry, a for-profit business that too often leaves consumers deeper in debt and with worse credit than when they started. The issue was sentenced to the dreaded summer study and will likely come up again next year.
9. Academic freedom. The House and Senate both threatened to withhold money from the University of Maryland School of Law in reaction to a suit filed by students as part of that school's highly regarded law clinic program because it targeted Perdue for the waste produced on the farms that raise its chickens. After an outcry, the legislature backed down, but lawmakers' actions and rhetoric are sure to have a chilling effect.
10. Retirement. Easy as it is to be cynical about our elected representatives, we’re losing a couple of good ones to retirement. Del. Murray Levy, a Democrat from Charles County, earned a reputation as a pragmatic budget hawk, and Sen. J. Lowell Stoltzfus, a Republican from the lower Eastern Shore, was a conservative who stood on principle, not partisanship. Senator Stoltzfus also has a terrific singing voice; Delegate Levy, not so much. Both will be missed.