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Teare must go

We are far from learning all the facts about Anne Arundel County Police Chief Col. James E. Teare Sr.'s involvement, if any, in the alleged misconduct described in the indictment against County Executive John Leopold. But we do know enough to have serious questions about what he knew and when, and...

Romney's tipping point

Maryland's Republican voters, long marginalized in the selection of the president, may have contributed to the tipping point in the long and unpredictable GOP nominating process. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the Old Line State easily, along with neighboring Washington, D.C. That was...

The Senate's casino giveaway

A bill allowing table games at Maryland's five casino sites and creating a sixth in Prince George's Countypassed the Senate last week and arrived in the House of Delegates with some momentum in advance of a hearing today. It has the backing of Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker —...

State v. local government

There is a certain reliable pattern to each Maryland General Assembly session: The House and Senate will be at odds, 90 days worth of legislating will be condensed to about three weeks, and most bills of substance will be deferred or delayed. It's also predictable that at some point, local...

The right help for low-income students

The Maryland General Assembly is currently considering legislation that would require school districts across the state to spend millions of dollars a year on private tutors for students in their lowest-performing schools — regardless of whether the tutoring actually helps kids achieve more in...

A better wind bill

For all its risks and potential costs, Gov. Martin O'Malley's unsuccessful 2011 bill to facilitate the construction of offshore wind turbines near Ocean City would have benefited the state — and its electricity customers — through...

Head start on health care

Even as the Supreme Court considers the fate of the federal health care reform act, Maryland lawmakers should press ahead on legislation aimed at setting up a state health care exchange. Such an exchange would make it easier for consumers to find affordable insurance plans and extend coverage to...

For Romney

For all the difficult problems the nation faces, from high unemployment to mounting national debt to the vexing war in Afghanistan, the contest for the Republican presidential nomination process has produced far more distractions than solutions. Primary voters and caucus-goers have elevated and...

Power of the petition

The drive to throw out Maryland's new congressional district maps by petitioning them to referendum is, in all likelihood, something of a futile gesture. Even if the opponents can muster the necessary signatures — battling in the process referendum fatigue from parallel efforts on same-sex...

The case for Obamacare

After three days of arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, the case for the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, better known as "Obamacare," remains strong. Four members of the court, including the justice expected to be the key swing vote on the issue, asked tough questions of the...

New superintendents, old challenges

It's not often one sees two appointments to top school posts in Maryland occur at virtually the same time. Yet by a curious stroke of serendipity that is what happened this week with the appointments of Renee A. Foose and S. Dallas Dance as superintendents, respectively, of the Howard County and...

Crying wolf in the State Center suit

Litigants in the case against the State Center development in Baltimore are decrying a bill that passed the House of Delegates setting out new rules for public-private partnerships in Maryland. At issue is a provision that allows a party in such a suit to appeal a circuit court judge's denial of a...

Assad's killing fields

The announcement Sunday that the U.S. will join Turkey in providing "nonlethal" humanitarian aid to Syrian opposition groups is a clear sign of the Obama administration's growing frustration with the failure of diplomatic efforts to halt Syrian President Bashar Assad's bloody crackdown on dissent....

State budget: Heading in the right direction

The House of Delegates' rewrite of next year's state budget takes some important steps toward making Maryland's finances sustainable without dipping quite so deeply into taxpayers' pockets as the Senate's plan. It's not perfect, and some details will still need to be ironed out in negotiations...

Landmarks for sale

News that Baltimore officials are considering selling or leasing as many as 16 of the city's historic landmarks — including the iconic Shot Tower and the War Memorial Building — has sparked alarm and outrage among people who fear allowing them to fall into private hands could lead to the...

Rent-to-own: Soaking the poor

Here's a deal few would jump on: A chance to pay $2,000 for a $600 laptop computer, $1,200 for a $400 TV set, and nearly $2,700 for a used washing machine and dryer that only cost $935 when new.

Tax sale timeout

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young came to an important accomodation Friday in their standoff about tax sales over unpaid water bills. The mayor was probably right that the two-year moratorium on tax sales Mr. Young had proposed endangered...

Teare must answer questions or step aside

When the Anne Arundel County Council first subpoenaed Police Chief James E. Teare Sr. to answer questions about police involvement in the allegations described in the indictment of County Executive John Leopold, the chief refused. His grounds were, in part, that the subpoena was not issued after...

Merzbacher must not be freed

The U.S. Supreme Court made an important ruling for the cause of fairness when it decided this week that the right to effective counsel extends to plea bargains and not just trials. As Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion in the 5-4 case, 97 percent of federal convictions are the...

Trayvon Martin case: Florida's license to kill

Nearly a month after an unarmed black teenager was shot to death by a neighborhood watch captain, police in Sanford, Fla., have yet to make an arrest. Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin was returning from a convenience store near the house of his father's fiancee in a gated community Feb. 26 when...

Rawlings-Blake's budget: Solid, if uninspired

Baltimore MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake's preliminary budget proposal for the next fiscal year displays some encouraging signs that, after three rocky years, city finances are stabilizing. Income tax revenues are ticking slightly upward in conjunction with an improved jobs picture in the city, and...

The right time for city elections

Baltimore City senators are backing a bill to change the dates of municipal elections in a way that benefits them more than the people they are supposed to serve. Legislation that was originally intended to transition city elections to the same year that voters elect the governor and members of...

Paul Ryan's song and dance

If Republicans are getting ready to turn an election-year corner, settle on a presidential nominee and begin broadening their political message beyond the reality-challenged segments of the GOP base, Rep. Paul Ryan clearly didn't get the message.

The people's skybox

If there was a shocker in the recent accounting of the spending on food at the governor's and mayor's skyboxes at M&T; Bank Stadium, it wasn't that taxpayers are footing the bill for public officials to chow down on beef tenderloin and crabcakes. The surprise was just how little such gourmet...

Budget belt-tightening

The millions of dollars of unused vacation and sick leave pay Baltimore shells out annually to its teachers are a sign the school system is still struggling to control its costs. At a time when budgets are tight and benefits have been cut by private employers and many local governments, Baltimore'...