Law on Md. Mortuaries Has Guardian Angel at State House

The day that mortician quit, Brown had no way to quickly hire a replacement. He sent Eric to the Kepharts to deliver the grim news and offer to drive the body to another undertaker.

Jack Kephart remembers the doorbell ringing, and Eric taking a seat among mourners at the dining room table.

"He just told us, he was so very sorry, but they couldn't handle the arrangements because they didn't have the license, and the state board wouldn't give them one," Kephart said. "We just looked at each other. What a thing to happen. We were sad enough as it was."

Optimistic at First

At first, Brown had reason to be optimistic that the law would change.

In 1996, he took his cause to a state task force examining the funeral industry and quickly gained support. The attorney general's antitrust division advised that the cap was anti-competitive; the task force concluded that it wasn't needed.

His proposal was drawn up with other task force recommendations into bills. All passed in the legislature except for one: Brown's.

His delegate, John P. Donoghue (D-Washington), tried to reassure him, saying there are lots of reasons bills die. Of the 2,430 bills proposed that year, only 899 passed.

The next year, though, it died again. And the next. Five years in a row, the measure failed on committee votes.

In 2003, Del. Joanne C. Benson (D-Prince George's) took up the cause, emboldened after her sister was blocked from turning over her funeral home to a nephew. Benson asked the Federal Trade Commission to review the situation. She pointed to a legislative review showing that the number of funeral homes in Maryland had dropped from 288 in 1990 to 263 in 2000, meaning an even less competitive industry. She said the FTC confirmed her suspicions, writing that "such limitations can harm consumer welfare by stifling innovation and allowing existing firms to charge higher prices."

Benson then called Donoghue to ask why the bill kept dying. "He told me he went through hell," Benson said. "No matter what he tried, he said he ran into a brick wall." And the brick wall, Donoghue told her, was named Hattie Harrison.

It has become custom in Annapolis that every bill regulating the funeral industry must first cross Harrison's desk.

Harrison, who lives alone in a tidy East Baltimore rowhouse, joined the House in 1973 after founding the Eastside Democratic Organization, which grew into one of the city's most powerful political machines. Although she has been hobbled by ailments and now navigates the halls with a walker, Harrison remains a formidable presence.