Partisan Lines Blurred in Many Successful Efforts
By Matthew Mosk and John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, April 10, 2006
As the final day of this year's General Assembly session begins today, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s legislative scorecard shows only one of the 20 bills on his agenda has passed. But that batting average does not tell the whole score.
During a weekend briefing with reporters in his State House office, the Republican governor described the past three months as a series of "very clear successes on the big stuff": passage of a $29 billion budget, funding for stem cell research, an expansion of tax credits for homeowners and veterans, and new rules limiting emissions from coal-fired power plants.
"Our priorities were protected," Ehrlich said.
Since the opening days of the legislative session, though, many of Ehrlich's priorities have sounded a lot like those of the Democrats he has vilified who control the General Assembly.
His support of the stem cell measure and the anti-pollution bill, initiatives strongly backed by Democrats, represented a significant shift from his posture just one year earlier. In fact, many advocates feared he would veto the air pollution measure. His support for a tuition freeze next fall at public universities came only after lawmakers found the money in the budget to make it possible. And his budget, which came in 8.9 percent over last year's, prompted a double take from Republican allies.
Even the governor has said that it's gotten hard to tell the difference between some of his bills and the proposals coming from across the aisle. At a bill-signing ceremony last week, Ehrlich noted the similarity between one senator's tax credit bill and a proposal he made at the outset of the session.
"It looks remarkably like the administration bill," Ehrlich said as he signed it. "It just doesn't have my name at the top."
As a result, Ehrlich and Democratic lawmakers are likely to tout many of the same legislative victories as their campaigns for reelection kick into high gear in coming months. The ensuing debate may not be so much about what was done in Annapolis as whether it was achieved because of Ehrlich -- or in spite of him.
Dominant themes from past sessions, such as slot machine gambling and medical malpractice, faded away this year as Ehrlich focused on a far more centrist agenda. Even in January, Democrats said they saw Ehrlich positioning himself for the upcoming campaign. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said that "as a conservative Republican, he needs Democratic voters to have any chance of winning reelection."
But as Ehrlich tacked to the left, it became increasingly more difficult to tell whose agenda was carrying the day.
"Ronald Reagan once said, 'It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets credit,' " said Del. Anthony J. O'Donnell (R-Calvert), citing a quotation the Republican president actually borrowed from a Democratic one, Harry S. Truman. "This session, everyone seems to be grasping for credit."
There's nothing new about politicians co-opting the ideas of their opponents. But this year, disputes over the ownership of ideas have flared all session. When the governor put out a news release in March declaring that he had "restored" $28.5 million in highway funds that "were cut by the legislature last year," it enraged lawmakers who had quietly fought the governor over that money for more than a year.
"Governor, I have one question for you: Have you no shame?" wrote Del. Peter Franchot (D-Montgomery), who chairs the committee that oversees transportation spending. "Your eagerness to take credit when you were the sole opposition is disingenuous and does nothing but erode public confidence in the veracity of our state elected officials."
At the same time, the governor's office has seen his campaign to enhance restrictions on sex offenders overtaken by a Democratic version of the bill, which remains unresolved on the final day of the session. The governor's office has argued that the Democratic leadership has hijacked virtually his entire agenda.
A list Ehrlich's staff maintains to track his agenda follows the governor's initiatives and what they call "look-alike bills."
In many cases, though, it's hard to say exactly who is the rightful owner. Passage this year of a bill authorizing state funding for stem cell research offers a case in point.
This is the second year the issue has confronted state lawmakers -- a similar proposal died on the final day of last year's session after a debate that Ehrlich essentially sat out. This year, the governor decided to make the issue a priority, inserting $20 million in his budget for the science, which researchers say holds great promise for treatment of Parkinson's disease, juvenile diabetes and other debilitating conditions.
Only Ehrlich's proposal came with a twist.
Last year's legislation would have earmarked all state funding for embryonic stem cell research, which is controversial because it involves the destruction of a human embryo. President Bush limited federal support for work on embryos in 2001, pushing the debate down to state houses.
The plan Ehrlich proposed in January would allow state grants to be awarded for embryonic research, but scientists could also apply for help with research on the less objectionable adult stem cells.
Democratic sponsors of the legislation initially balked at Ehrlich's plan, arguing that federal funding was already plentiful for research with adult cells. But the bill that finally passed this year wound up adopting Ehrlich's approach. Lawmakers agreed to compromise once they realized the bill would not survive in the more socially conservative Senate unless it was changed.
"This bill is done the right way," Ehrlich said at a signing ceremony Thursday, where he complimented lawmakers for passing "a bill that is very close to the approach I've advocated for many months."
The ceremony was attended by several people with conditions that could benefit from the research who smiled their way through the event in the ornate reception room adjacent to the governor's office. But several vented frustration as they headed downstairs, saying a bill could have been passed a year ago had Ehrlich been committed to it then.
O'Donnell said he believes that the stem cell initiative, or the measure capping emissions from power plants, or a host of other bills due to pass this year might indeed have been pushed hard by Democrats in the past. But that only got the Democrats partway to the finish line.
"Without the governor on board, these are issues that just would not have been resolved," he said.
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