Maryland's newly elected General Assembly arrives in Annapolis this week to face a political world turned on its ear.
It is a world in which liberalism, big-ticket spending and government regulation are being talked about as relics from the past. The buzzwords now are conservatism, spending cuts, tax relief and more help for businesses.
The legislature's Democratic leaders -- and the state's Democratic governor-elect, Parris N. Glendening -- say they are ready to show voters they understand the message of an election that swept Republicans to power in Congress for the first time in 40 years, increased the GOP presence in Annapolis to its highest level in 75 years and nearly put a conservative Republican in Maryland's Governor's Mansion.
Where spending programs and political largess were once the coin of political power, lawmakers from both parties are now vowing to prove they can do more with less.
Mr. Glendening and House and Senate leaders already have agreed to limit state spending in the new budget and are talking about lowering business and income taxes, perhaps this year.
Democrats and Republicans alike are saying they intend to limit the scope of government, to do more to attract businesses to the state, to lower closing costs for home purchases, and to impose time limits and work requirements on welfare recipients.
To clean up the assembly's image, lawmakers are expected to impose new restrictions on legislative lobbyists, make it easier to catch those who violate campaign finance laws, and abolish the only program in the nation that allows legislators to dispense financial scholarships directly to their own constituents.
But the changes on the table are unlikely to occur overnight.
Of the 188 part-time lawmakers who will open the four-year term by taking the oath of office Wednesday, 82 will be taking their seats in the House or Senate for the first time -- a 44 percent turnover. It will take a while for many of them to learn the rhythm of the legislative process and to begin to understand the complexities of difficult issues.
"I think there is going to be a fair amount of organizational chaos," the House's new Democratic floor leader, Montgomery County Del. John Adams Hurson, predicted. "Clearly, we are going to be operating in a different environment because people are new."
Learning year
House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr., an Allegany County Democrat who begins his second year in charge of the 141-member House, has already tried to temper high expectations by saying he hopes 1995 will be mostly a learning year for new legislators and that 1996 will be a more productive session.
Mr. Hurson conceded that although the Democratic leadership "sort of runs the show, we can't dictate how it comes out."
"There are a lot of very anxious newcomers and anxious veterans who see an opportunity to do something really fundamentally different," he said. "It would be good if this legislative session was one in which we basically got used to steering the vehicle. But I'm not sure it will be that easy."
For example, he said, many of the nation's largest casino operators have hired Annapolis lobbyists to push the new legislature and new governor to legalize casino gambling this year. Mr. Glendening and House and Senate leaders say the state must go slow, but the rank and file may not want to wait, Mr. Hurson said. And the will of the majority will prevail.
What has changed is that the majority may no longer be strictly Democratic. While the Democrats retain numerical dominance in both houses, there are now 15 Republicans in the Senate and 41 in the House -- enough to alter the course of a bill, especially if the Republicans are teamed with conservative Democrats.
That means Democratic leaders can no longer have their way with issues without regard to the Republican view. It means they will have to compromise more often. (Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. has already named a Republican, Anne Arundel Sen. John A. Cade, to chair a powerful budget subcommittee, something no one can recall the party in power in Annapolis doing before.)
"We're all going to be feeling our way," said new House Minority Leader Robert H. Kittleman of Howard County. "There is no provision in the Maryland legislature for a two-party system. We'll have to create that structure and see how it operates. That's all new."
Mr. Kittleman has already served notice on Mr. Taylor that the Republicans expect to propose a significant tax cut, along with an alternative to the budget presented by the Democrats. He has asked the speaker to assure Republicans that the Assembly's budget staff will be made available to them just as it is for the Democrats, and Mr. Taylor said he has agreed to do so.
Recognition of the shift in public mood is everywhere and has put forces that were once aggressive on the defensive.
For example, Baltimore lawmakers such as Sen. John A. Pica Jr. have said that the city's main goal this session is to keep the legislature from chipping away at state funding Baltimore receives for schools and other programs.
Jane Nishida of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said environmentalists recognize that they must demonstrate a new willingness to "go to the table" with opponents of environmental regulations in search of acceptable compromises.
Conversely, business leaders sense that this post-recession legislature is likely to give their issues -- such as eliminating duplicative or unnecessary regulations or inspections, or reducing real estate settlement costs -- a fairer and more sympathetic hearing than they have received in years.
"I'm optimistic about it, more so than anytime since I've been in this job," said Robert O. C. Worcester, president of the conservative business group Maryland Business for Responsive Government. "But you have to be cautious: I've seen so many misfires before."
Even Mr. Glendening has begun to give his once liberal message a decidedly conservative tone. In last summer's primary campaign, he spoke of the duty of government to make large financial investments in schools and job development, and efforts to stop violent crime. He strongly advocated tougher gun control laws.
Since the election, however, he has repeatedly vowed not to raise taxes over the next four years, and he has begun to talk about granting tax relief toward the end of his term. He has backed off from his support for new gun control laws, at least this year, and has offered a crime proposal that carries very little cost.
In general, the governor-elect has moved cautiously.
It is a far cry from the landing in Annapolis eight years ago of the dynamo William Donald Schaefer. Catapulted to the State House by a huge margin, he found a treasury awaiting him flush with millions of dollars to be spread around to government projects and programs.
Those were days of proposed twin stadiums in Baltimore, huge infusions of cash for state colleges and universities and extra money for health clinics, low-income housing and welfare benefits.
Conservative, cautious
"We were on a roll at the outset of the Schaefer years," recalled Champe C. McCulloch, president of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. "Maryland was reaping the benefits of the Reagan defense expansion. There was a sense of old-fashioned liberalism, or a more optimistic view generally of what government can accomplish. There was a belief that government can do more than hindsight would suggest it really can."
The state has changed since then, he said, and so has the legislature. In addition to more Republicans, the Class of '95 includes more women and more blacks. But the biggest change, Mr. McCulloch said, is that it is more conservative and its leadership more cautious.
Mr. Glendening's first legislative agenda is likely to look emaciated by comparison with Mr. Schaefer's. It may call for the reorganization of some state agencies, some tinkering with criminal justice programs involving juveniles and proposals to speed up child support collections.
ISSUES BEFORE GENERAL ASSEMBLY
These are among the issues state lawmakers are expected to address during the 1995 legislative session, which will begin Wednesday.
BUDGET AND TAXES
Gov.-elect Parris N. Glendening and legislative leaders have agreed to keep the increase in state spending below 4.5 percent. The battles will be over which programs must be trimmed to reach that goal and whether the surplus that such a limit is likely to create should be used to grant tax relief this year.
GAMBLING
Casino operators from across the nation have hired some of the state's most prominent lobbyists to push for legislative approval of casino gambling in Maryland. Fraternal and veterans organizations also may push to expand legalized slot machine ++ gambling, now permitted on the Eastern Shore, to clubs throughout the state.
WELFARE
Republicans and Democrats want to push through a change of the state's welfare program, limiting how long recipients may receive benefits and pushing more recipients into training and jobs. The question is whether the initiative again will be mired in a controversy over Medicaid-funded abortions, which derailed a similar effort last year.
LOBBYIST REFORM
In the wake of the conviction of top Annapolis lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano and after an unusually large number of state officials became lobbyists, the assembly is expected to consider tough restrictions on lobbyists, including bans on almost all gift-giving and a "cooling off" period before public officials may become lobbyists.
SCHOLARSHIPS
After years of resistance, Senate leaders say they are finally willing to abolish the only program in the country that allows state legislators to dispense money to constituents for college scholarships. The question is whether the program will be eliminated this year or phased out over several years.
CRIME
Mr. Glendening and many lawmakers ran on platforms promising to get tough on violent crime. They are expected to produce a long list of proposals aimed at doing so, although the governor-elect says he will not push new gun control measures this year.
SPEED LIMIT
Mr. Glendening says he wants to permit speed limits of 65 mph on rural interstate highways in Maryland. The legislature
previously has passed such a change, but Gov. William Donald Schaefer has vetoed it.
AUTO INSURANCE
Mr. Glendening is expected to make good on a campaign promise to push for lower auto insurance rates in Baltimore, which the legislature has resisted.
CLOSING COSTS
In part to make Maryland more attractive to businesses seeking to relocate, lawmakers, homebuilders, real estate agents and others are expected to push for ways to lower the state's high closing costs on home purchases.
STADIUMS
Lobbyists for Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke may try to get legislative help to get the stalled Laurel stadium project moving. Meanwhile, Republicans and others who believe the state should not be in the stadium construction business may try to pull back state funds earmarked for a football stadium at Baltimore's Camden Yards.