ANNAPOLIS -- The General Assembly, which opened its session this year with the opportunity to restructure Maryland's entire tax system, adjourned last night with a vote merely acknowledging that the state must do more to help Baltimore and the state's poorest counties.
It was belated recognition of the unfinished business left from this year's 90-day session -- a year in which the legislature killed or sent to summer study virtually every major initiative except for abortion and campaign finance reform.
Leaders of both houses indicated some of the issues they did not act upon might be taken up later this year when the General Assembly reconvenes in September to adopt a legislative redistricting plan.
During their final 14-hour day, the 188 delegates and senators also voted to permit the State Highway Administration to raise speed limits on rural interstate highways to 65 mph, to approve Gov. William Donald Schaefer's plan to restructure the state college scholarship program, to revise a formula to pump more money into Maryland's community colleges, to require all 5-year-olds to attend kindergarten, and to strengthen the state's open-meetings law.
The Assembly also enacted a $1 tax on each tire sold in Maryland, to help pay for the cost of recycling used tires.
The legislature's vote to send $11.4 million to the state's six poorest subdivisions in the coming fiscal year was contained in a Senate bill that drew heated opposition from suburban Montgomery, Howard and Baltimore County delegates, who fear it could result in permanent, annual grants to the six jurisdictions at their expense.
"This goes well beyond our original budget deal," complained Delegate Peter Franchot, D-Montgomery. "This is not some harmless repetition of state policy. It is a new policy . . . that says, 'A grant shall be made to offset disparities in local income tax revenues.' "
But efforts to delete or weaken the requirement were defeated by more than two-to-one margins.
"For the first time, it establishes the principle of elevating poor counties to a higher level of funding," said the sponsor, Sen. John A. Pica, D-Baltimore. "It recognizes the disparities between poorer and richer jurisdictions."
Backers said the bill merely reiterated the state's goal of helping its poorest subdivisions. They tried to calm nervous opponents by waving an attorney general's opinion that says the governor does not have to finance the grant in future budgets if he lacks the money.
Long before their midnight adjournment, delegates and senators approved a pair of campaign finance reform bills limiting political action committee contributions and attempting to move lobbyists out of the political fund-raising business.
In another bill designed to build trust in government, the legislature -- with a scant two hours left in the session -- voted overwhelmingly to strengthen Maryland's open-meetings law. The two sides struck their final compromise by agreeing to review after two years whether their decision to make gubernatorial and other advisory commissions subject to the open-meetings law has had any detrimental effect.
A bill that would have required Maryland cars to meet California's tough vehicle emissions standards went to a solitary death, denied even a committee vote by a powerful opponent, Sen. Walter M. Baker, D-Cecil, chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee.
Yesterday's actions ended a session that was indisputably the worst for Governor Schaefer since he came to office five years ago. The legislature rejected his major tax restructuring initiative from the Linowes commission, his comprehensive plan to control growth in the Chesapeake Bay region, his effort to ban the sale and possession of assault weapons, and his proposal to pump $1.5 billion into the Transportation Trust Fund over the next five years, principally by raising the tax on gasoline.
"We are all aware that putting off problems until next year only exacerbates the problems," Mr. Schaefer said in a closing letter to the presiding officers, also reminding legislators of their promises to address his unfinished proposals this summer and next session.
Those issues, said House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., D-Kent, in a post-adjournment speech, represent "a blueprint for the next three years." The tax restructuring plan, the growth management proposals and the transportation funding issues, he said, will be dealt with.
"Will we need new revenue?" the speaker asked. "Who knows? We might have to revisit the transportation funding issue gain in September," when the Assembly reconvenes to deal with congressional redistricting.
Potentially, the legislature's most enduring act came during the session's opening month, when lawmakers ended a two-year fight by approving a bill assuring a woman's right to an abortion in Maryland. But a move to petition the law to referendum in 1992 may mean even that action will not be final until voters have their say.
Legislators arrived in Annapolis Jan. 9 vowing not to raise taxes, but were thwarted by recession and war-driven deficits exceeding $700 million for this year and next.
Ultimately, they balanced this year's and next year's budget with $95 million in higher taxes on cigarettes, capital gains and certain food sales. Some of that was used for this year's assistance to Baltimore City and Allegany, Caroline, Dorchester, Garrett and Somerset.
It was a session initially overshadowed by the Persian Gulf war and consumed for its first month by the debate over abortion.
Mutual distrust and quirky behavior from the governor permeated the session.
Mr. Schaefer found himself on the defensive, fighting not only senators and delegates who devastated his legislative initiatives, but ordinary citizens who criticized his style.
Mr. Schaefer offered a solution to the state's economic ills: a massive plan to restructure the state's entire tax system, the product of a gubernatorial commission headed by Montgomery County lawyer R. Robert Linowes.
But most legislators arrived at the State House in January with the firm belief that voters wanted "no new taxes." Few, outside of those from money-starved Baltimore, wanted anything to do with a bill that would have raised more than $800 million in new taxes in the first year alone, and would have had far-reaching consequences no one could accurately predict.
Instead, they balanced spending plans for next year by raiding virtually every reserve pot of money in state government. When transfers and budget cuts together proved insufficient, they reluctantly voted to raise taxes, with part of the extra money going to Baltimore.
At the governor's urging, the lawmakers had already agreed to ** let the state take over the costly City Jail, and to assume operating costs for the Baltimore Zoo.
The House's Republican minority complained that the Democratic-controlled legislature had missed its opportunity to
cut the size of government.
Legislators similarly complained that neither they nor local officials had a hand in shaping the recommendations from the governor's "2020 Commission" to control growth in the Chesapeake Bay region, but were merely expected to approve them as presented. Coming so soon after Maryland adopted landmark laws to control development along the bay's shoreline and to protect wetlands, it was perhaps too much to expect the legislature to sign off so quickly on yet another sweeping land-use control law.
"The governor is very quick to place blame for the failure of his legislation, but when you cut through the rhetoric, the blame has to be placed at the governor's doorstep," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Prince George's.
Mr. Schaefer's gas tax proposal was different: The legislature has been told for four years that an increase would be necessary this year to replenish the depleted Transportation Trust Fund. But, after being forced to raise other taxes to balance the budget and distrustful of Transportation Department statistics, lawmakers decided to postpone any decision until at least the special session on congressional reapportionment this fall.
In all three cases -- Linowes, 2020, and gas tax -- the decisions were more deferrals than rejections, with Assembly leaders pledging serious summer study and definite action by next year's session on all three fronts.
"He effectively put three major issues on the table, only one of which would have been there otherwise," said Delegate Rosapepe.
Added Delegate Samuel I. Rosenberg, D-Baltimore: "This session won't be over until our summer studies are over."
But the always impatient Mr. Schaefer took the three defeats as personal affronts, refusing the opportunity to proclaim victory, albeit a delayed one.
And from the beginning of the session he wore his antipathies on his sleeve. Still smarting from his rejection last fall by Eastern Shore voters, Mr. Schaefer made a joking but off-color remark comparing the Shore with an outhouse.
The comment angered the House speaker, an Eastern Shoreman, alienated the Eastern Shore delegation, prompted critics to circle the State House with trucks bearing outhouses, and earned the governor the kind of national publicity no politician wants. Finally, after a week of battering, he went before the House to apologize.
By then, it was too late. His behavior had replaced his programs as the main topic of conversation in the legislative corridors. On radio talk shows, callers unabashedly questioned whether the governor was playing with a full deck. "My mind's as clear as it's ever been," the governor remarked.
Suddenly legislators who had acceded to most of what Mr. Schaefer wanted during his first four years in office began questioning his judgment. They complained he flip-flopped on cuts to balance the budget and Cabinet reorganization plans.
Late in the session, he sent down a supplemental budget filled with politically appealing social programs. Legislative leaders refused to even consider it. They then agreed to raise taxes and appropriated some of the proceeds for programs of their own liking.
"I think what you're going to have [for the next three years] is legislative government," predicted Delegate Timothy F. Maloney, D-Prince George's.
The governor tried in vain to leverage out his programs, but even personal appeals failed. Attempts to push his bills to passage, such as by linking one important bill with another, were ignored.
" 'My way or the highway' carries no weight anymore," boasted one House leader.
The session also was marked by estrangement between the governor and Lt. Gov. Melvin A. Steinberg.
C. Fraser Smith, Peter Jensen, Dion Thompson and David Conn of The Sun's Annapolis Bureau contributed to this article.