Tuesday, April 14, 2009
2009 Maryland General Assembly Session Ends
The 2009 General Assembly session ended at 12 a.m. this morning. During the 90-day session the Maryland Chamber took positions on 209 of the 2,674 bills and joint resolutions introduced. You can view our bill positions here.
Here are a few items of interest from the 2009 session:
Budget: The ongoing budget gap between state spending and revenues will remain a serious problem for the next several years. The state general fund budget for fiscal year 2010 was balanced with a combination of funding shifts, temporary cuts and freezes to state aid. Over $1 billion in federal stimulus funds were used to backfill state Medicaid and education funding.
Taxes: The General Assembly resisted efforts to adopt new taxes this session. The business community worked to defeat a number of tax proposals including bills that would have: increased the corporate income tax, enacted unitary combined reporting, shifted additional property tax burdens to business real property, imposed sales tax on out-of-state vendors that advertise in Maryland, and more.
Workplace Regulation: There were a number of bills dealing with workplace regulation. Legislation passed to clarify the Flexible Leave Act that passed last year. A number of unemployment insurance bills passed, as well as legislation dealing with employee misclassification. We were able to defeat legislation that would have imposed a one size fits all shift break mandate on employers of 50 or more, changed how overtime pay is regulated, expanded Maryland employers’ obligations under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, and more.
Energy and Environment: The business community worked to reach a compromise on the standing bill, which impact any business with an environmental permit. Legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emission in the state by 2020 passed. The electricity reregulation bill was defeated, and it will be studied during the interim.
Health Care: Highlights include passage of legislation that will inject much needed market-based reforms into the small group health insurance market, and the defeat of the universal health care proposal funding largely by an employer payroll tax.
Civil Liability: Maryland businesses again were the targets of numerous bills that would have exposed them to increased liability and lawsuits. We worked to defeat legislation that would have enabled individuals to collect bounties from suing state government contractors and health care providers and legislation that would have imposed an unprecedented standard of liability on companies that previously sold lead paint bases on their market share.
To review the Maryland Chamber’s complete 2009 session recap, click here.
Budget & Taxation • Civil Liability • Environment & Energy • Health Care • Labor & Employment •
