After the final bill in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee\u2019s police reform package passed out of the chamber Thursday, Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) collected himself after a standing ovation on the chamber floor.<\/p>\n
Speaking to his colleagues, Smith reflected on moments of stillness in his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst, when I wake up in the morning, I like to shave,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIt\u2019s the first thing I do, and it\u2019s because it\u2019s the only moment of my day that I get a chance to kind of be with myself\u201d \u2015 quiet, contemplative and alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd, invariably, at least once a week I\u2019ll start looking at myself and thinking, \u2018Where, where did this come from? Where\u2019s my hair from? My skin? My eyes?\u2019 And \u2026 I think about my ancestry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith told the chamber that his great-great-great-grandmother, a slave, was raped.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s exactly why I look the way I look today: That slave owner\u2019s blood pulses through my veins,\u201d he said. \u201cAlthough the African American experience is \u2026 not monolithic \u2015 we all come from different places \u2015 but we do have that shared heritage in the United States and that informs everything we do, the way we move about society.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that is what sparked this debate.\u201d<\/p>\n
After months of ongoing, emotional discussion, dozens of amendments and nearly 30 hours of voting, the Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021 has moved on to the House on largely bipartisan terms.<\/p>\n
Like Smith, other senators marveled at the historic moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Judicial Proceedings Committee is the oldest standing committee in this body. It was formed in 1832, and many of its members owned slaves,\u201d committee Vice Chair Jeffrey D. Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery) said. \u201cToday, the committee is led by a descendant of those slaves, the first African American to serve as chairman. And under his leadership, Maryland just passed the strongest police reform of all 50 states. And the most transformative changes to policing in Maryland in 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere he could have chosen ease, he chose courage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. Mary L. Washington (D-Baltimore City) honored longstanding police reform advocate Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City) for her tireless efforts to pass the package with Smith and Sen. Charles E. Sydnor III (D-Baltimore County) and for having the \u201ccourage it takes to remain in a system that at many times tells you you have no value.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all should thank her for her relentless determination and belief in the system,\u201d Washington said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were nine total bills,\u201d said Senate Minority Whip Michael J. Hough (R-Frederick) \u201c\u2026 and I think it\u2019s it\u2019s worth noting \u2015 given the emotions, the complexities, the difficulty of this topic \u2015 that five of these came out of committee unanimously, and all but one had at least one Republican that voted for it. And I\u2019ll say, that that\u2019s not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
While several of the bills passed through the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on a fairly bipartisan basis, there were moments where\u00a0clear party lines were drawn.<\/p>\n
At one point, Hough said during a voting session that the committee had let the \u201crancorous, bitterest politics\u201d get in front \u201cof what is good policy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sen. Robert G. Cassilly (R-Harford) questioned the veracity of the Senate\u2019s cooperative nature, comparing it to domestic abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I feel like it\u2019s a situation of the serial spousal abuser who\u2019s saying, \u2018See how cooperative we are? Look at the relationship we have.\u2019 And it\u2019s not a healthy environment,\u201d Cassilly said.<\/p>\n
In spite of the committee\u2019s tougher moments, Hough conceded Wednesday that the senators were able to compromise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started off very far apart,\u201d he explained, \u201cBut I\u2019m very proud to see that JPR continued the strong tradition that we\u2019ve had of tackling the toughest issues \u2015 toughest politically, some of the most complicated \u2015 and putting out quality bipartisan legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe end product of this should serve as a model to the public to show that on the most heated topic of today \u2015 probably the most heated emotionally \u2015 that the Maryland Senate was able to come together and find a bipartisan solution,\u201d Hough said.<\/p>\n
While the majority of the bills passed out of the Senate chamber with ease, some of Carter\u2019s measures were met with greater opposition.<\/p>\n
Following\u00a0failed attempts\u00a0Tuesday to amend a\u00a0bill\u00a0that would make certain officer misconduct and disciplinary records available for public view, multiple Republicans voted against the bill Wednesday, saying that it goes too far.<\/p>\n
The bill passed 30-17.<\/p>\n
Carter\u2019s bill to establish a\u00a0statewide use of force statute\u00a0caught heat not just from Republicans, but from Sydnor, the lone Democrat to vote against it.<\/p>\n
Sydnor said that he doesn\u2019t object to the legislation in full, but is\u00a0still uncomfortable\u00a0about its definition of \u201cuse of force.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have some work to do on that definition,\u201d Sydnor asserted, \u201cand I believe my colleagues when they say that this is just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill passed 35-12.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most contentious policing bill in the Senate is Carter\u2019s attempt at\u00a0repealing and replacing the Law Enforcement Officers\u2019 Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n
Sen. Justin Ready (R-Carroll) argued that it \u201cmisses the mark\u201d in spite of a series of\u00a0amendments\u00a0that pumped\u00a0portions of the existing law back into the legislation\u00a0that sought to repeal it.<\/p>\n
Ready said that everyone recognizes that there have been mistakes made in policing by bad actors, \u201cbut what troubles me is there is really not any attempt at a two-way conversation about trust issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s never been an acceptance from the groups and the people that are pushing for this,\u201d he asserted. \u201cThere\u2019s never been any sort of allusion or acceptance that there is a responsibility in communities that have had problems to say \u2018we understand there\u2019s problems on both sides \u2015 there\u2019s been problems in communities that it made it hard for law enforcement to adequately police.\u2019 There\u2019s no acceptance of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the blame is put on the side of police officers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sydnor stood in support of Carter\u2019s legislation, noting that, while not perfect, it moves Maryland in the right direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs one of our colleagues who talked last week about this package said: This isn\u2019t a monarchy, it\u2019s not a dictatorship, we\u2019re not always going to get everything that we want in this session,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I look at this as a down payment on making things right in terms of how policing is affecting this community.<\/p>\n
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