Everybody in the General Assembly likes to get their names on bills, so the legislature will often pass two identical versions -- a House bill and a Senate bill.
We're seeing a lot of that happening here on the Senate now -- bills going through that have already passed earlier today.
There is a practical reason for this duplication. If the governor has it in for the sponsor of a bill, he can veto the legislation with the target legislator's name on it and sign the other chamber's version. It still becomes law, but the governor gets his little dig in. Gov. Parris N. Glendening was known to use the veto power to spank lawmakers who got on his bad side. He was good at it too. When he vetoed something, it stayed vetoed.