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Md. Hospital Deal Advances
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. considers the hospital takeover crucial.
(Rob Carr - AP)
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The House had approved such a ban 132 to 4. But in the weeks since, the Senate version was severely weakened in the Finance Committee with amendments proposed by lobbyists for the toy-manufacturing industry.
After several senators delivered impassioned speeches yesterday, the Senate was persuaded to toughen the bill, voting 30 to 16 to adopt amendments that would align it with the House version.
Leading the floor fight, Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County) held up his daughter's plastic basketball hoop, made in China, and said such products could harm children.
"It is incomprehensible to me why we would water down such an important piece of legislation," Zirkin said.
The Toy Industry Association said in a statement that the Zirkin amendments could ban "toys Maryland children have played with safely for years."
Arguing against Zirkin, Sen. Delores G. Kelley (D-Baltimore County) said the Finance Committee tried to "strike a reasonable balance" to make the bill "workable."
"This is not an attempt to water down anything," Kelley said. "We want what we do to be enforceable."
In other action yesterday, the House voted 89 to 45 to give same-sex partners the same rights as married spouses to make hospital and nursing home visits, end-of-life choices and other medical decisions. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Robert J. Garagiola (D-Montgomery), heads to the governor's desk.
Republicans who opposed the bill said gay couples already have these rights if they give each other power of attorney. But supporters said visitation rights are a source of confusion at many hospitals, and gay partners often are pushed away.
The House property bill would exempt gay couples from paying recordation taxes and state and county transfer taxes when they transfer property to their partner or the partner's family member.
The bills are incremental measures that fall far short of a legalization of same-sex marriage that gay rights advocates had sought. The General Assembly remains deeply divided on gay rights issues, as was clear yesterday in the House, where opponents of the medical decisions bill called it a thinly veiled attempt at marriage rights.
"We all know marriage is what this is partially about," said House Minority Whip Christopher B. Shank (R-Washington).
