There are several bills competing for the coveted title of worst bill passed in 2007.
HB 488 gave convicted felons the right to vote. During the debate of this bill, I asked if there was any indication of a problem with the current system. The proponents of the bill were unable to show there were any convicted felons who claimed to have been rehabilitated who had applied for a Governor’s pardon, but were bring denied one. It was clear that the unspoken truth behind giving convicted felons the right to vote was an effort to give the Democratic Majority a larger consistency. Letting aside the arguments against such a shameless political power grab, their bill is additionally troublesome for the public policy message it seems to be sending. While government officials at all levels are struggling to find ways to reduce crimes, the state legislature is passing legislation that eliminates one of the deterrents to committing a crime. When a person decides to breach the social contract we all have within society, (with one another), then we should expect society to with hold some of the privileges that are available to those who participate without violating the rights of others.
If someone has truly rehabilitated themselves, then there should be some hurdles that they must go through to once again obtain all the privileges of a law abiding citizen.
Do we really want to allow those who prey upon our weaknesses, those who murder, rape, rob, or molest our children to be helping in choose who our leaders will be? Do we really want to see PACS formed by convicted felons? I do not want to see a lobbyist stalking the halls of Annapolis representing Pedophiles for Parole reform.
Giving felons the right o vote would seem to be an easy winner as the 07’ legislative session’s worst bill, but not in Annapolis. The Maryland Legislature was able to pass some of the most ill-conceived, irresponsible legislation proposed in the last two-hundred years. Maryland (at least the Democratic Majority) has decided it is a good idea to pledge to give all of our Electoral College votes to whom ever wins the national popular vote.
The result of this agreement is that should the entire State of Maryland vote in favor of a candidate for President, as along as another candidate won the majority of votes outside of Maryland, then all of Maryland’s electoral votes would go to the candidate that no one in Maryland voted for. The plan is reported to be to have enough states follow Maryland (like lemmings going off the cliff of disenfranchisement) that there would be an agreement to provide a majority of Electoral votes to national popular vote winner, thus guaranteeing they would be the same person.
In order to sell this to the uninformed masses of the legislators voting on this Bill, its advocates promised that by passing this bill, we would give an incentive to the National Candidates to campaign in Maryland. Unfortunately, this argument defies reality. Think about it. If you are a candidate for President of the United States of America and you need to get an additional half million to three quarters of a million votes, do you come to Maryland to find those uncommitted votes or do you go to a state like California, Texas, or Florida with a population large enough to provide that extra half million voters? The candidate knows you can get all of Maryland’s electoral votes and never even step foot in Maryland as long as they win the Majority of votes outside of Maryland. Thus, this legislation accomplishes the exact opposite of its stated purpose.
The manor in which this important legislation was rushed through is also very disconcerting. There was no effort to bring in scholars and to encourage an intellectual debate of the merits of the proposal. Instead we had three people testify before the committee, two of those persons were from outside Maryland and so one person testified before the Committee hearing the bill, that this was a good idea.
Contract this with the collection of minds that devised the current Electoral College system for electing the President of the United States which had served us so well the last two-hundred years. Thomas Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Franklin, etc.
While participating in the debate to stop this lunacy, I could only think “Forgive them forefathers for they know not what they do.”
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