JUICE: Miller for Pot, Sierra Club for Frosh, Ulman for NSA, LCV Endorses, Wage Hike Roll Call, Ervin Contenders & MORE!

PLUS: Battles in D17, D22 & D26, Roscoe Bartlett Update, Paid Paternal Leave and the Nutcracker

Below Maryland Juice provides an extensive round-up of news bits of interest to politicos:

JUICE #1: SENATE PRESIDENT MIKE MILLER ENDORSES MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION IN MARYLAND  - The Washington Post reported this week that Senate President Mike Miller has endorsed marijuana legalization in Maryland. Indeed, after helping clear the way for marriage equality and death penalty repeal (positions he disagrees with), it seems clear that Miller tries to keep an accurate gauge of Democratic policy trajectories on hot-button issues (excerpt below):

WASHINGTON POST: The move to legalize marijuana in Maryland has a powerful ally: Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. Miller (D-Calvert), who has presided over his chamber for more than a quarter century, said in an interview Friday that he would support legislation allowing the regulated sale of marijuana, similar to what is now taking place in Colorado.

“I favor the legalization and taxation of marijuana, with restrictions,” Miller said, adding that he thinks his position will only grow in popularity in coming years. “I know where people are going to be a generation or two from now....”

While he said a legalization bill would stand a good chance in the Senate, he thinks the odds are much longer in the House and said that Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) — who rose to prominence as a tough-on-crime mayor of Baltimore — is “always slow on issues like this....”

In a separate interview later Friday, House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) said he believes the state should wait to see how things play out in Colorado before seriously considering expanding the legal availability of marijuana in Maryland....

JUICE #2: SENATOR BRIAN FROSH RECEIVES ENDORSEMENTS FROM SIERRA CLUB & FORMER GOV. HARRY HUGHES FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL - This month, State Senator Brian Frosh of Montgomery County received endorsements from the Sierra Club and former Governor Harry Hughes in his quest to replace Doug Gansler as Attorney General. The Sierra Club provided the following endorsement statement:

SIERRA CLUB: Today the Sierra Club's Maryland Chapter bestowed upon Senator Brian Frosh its endorsement for Attorney General of Maryland. “Brian Frosh has been an environmental champion in the state legislature for as long as he has served and we are proud to endorse him,” said Betsy Johnson, Political Chair of the Maryland Chapter. Frosh, Senator from Montgomery County’s District 16, has authored such laws as the Maryland Recycling Act, the ban on drilling for oil or gas in the Chesapeake Bay, and the Maryland Brownfields Redevelopment Act, as well as numerous energy conservation laws, Clean Cars legislation and more. He is well respected on both sides of the aisle because he knows how to build bipartisan support without damaging relationships or subverting his own passion for environmental protection. “These are the qualities that will help make him an outstanding Attorney General,” Johnson said. “We look forward to a fruitful relationship with our next Attorney General, Brian Frosh.”

Meanwhile, The Star Democrat reported on Frosh's endorsement by Gov. Harry Hughes (excerpt below):

STAR DEMOCRAT: Former Maryland governor and Caroline County resident Harry R. Hughes last week announced his support ofstate Sen. Brian Frosh’s run for attorney general. “He’s a good public servant. He has been one for several years and he has the right sense of values,” Hughes said. Hughes, a Democrat, was Maryland’s governor from 1979 to 1987....

Senate President Mike Miller had some very candid commentary about the Attorney General race in remarks he provided The Washington Post this week (excerpt below):

WASHINGTON POST: Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), who is supporting Frosh for attorney general, said he expects few of Cardin’s bills to become law.

“Jon has never had any real success getting bills passed before,” Miller said. “I don’t know why it would be different this session. … He comes from a nice family, but the blood has obviously gotten weaker along the way.”

Andrew Carton, Cardin’s campaign manager, said “such comments are to be expected when you are willing to challenge the Annapolis political establishment. While parents, community leaders and law-enforcement officers from across the state have embraced Jon’s legislative agenda of new and innovative ideas … there will always be some longtime Annapolis politicians who just don’t deal very well with change....”

JUICE #3: HOWARD COUNTY RECEIVES MONEY TO ENABLE THE NSA'S MASS SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM - The Washington Post reported this week that Howard County Executive Ken Ulman has brokered a deal to facilitate the NSA's potentially unconstitutional mass surveillance program, in exchange for $2 million a year for the HoCo government (excerpt below):

WASHINGTON POST: Howard County, Md., has agreed to supply treated wastewater to cool a computer center being built at Fort Meade by the National Security Agency.... The NSA is footing the cost of building a pump station, estimated at $40 million, and will pay the county as much as $2 million a year for treated water....

“There are so many benefits to this project,” Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said. But NSA critics see an opportunity to disrupt the agency’s controversial surveillance activities. A coalition of rights groups has targeted similar deals elsewhere — notably in Utah, where the NSA recently completed a $1.5 billion data center — lobbying state lawmakers to make it illegal for local governments to supply water and other utilities to the agency.

“Maryland is one of the most crucial states in this national campaign,” said Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in Washington. “Because Congress has been so abysmally dysfunctional and inactive in the oversight arena for the last 10 years, the municipal checks and balances are really all that we the people have had an opportunity to exercise....”

A federal judge recently declared the telephone program “almost Orwellian” and probably unconstitutional. A second federal judge later ruled that it was legal and a valuable part of the nation’s anti-terrorism efforts. Separately, a task force urged President Obama to end the operation, to reform a secret surveillance court and to impose limits on the surveillance of close allies....

“This is a great democracy,” [Ken Ulman] said. “People have the right to let their thoughts be heard, to protest. . . . But at the end of the day, we have major defense installations throughout this country that are woven into our economies, our communities, and they need the infrastructure to perform their mission....”

Indeed, it appears that war, arms dealing and mass surveillance of innocent Americans are now considered jobs programs by Maryland Democrats. You can add the enabling of NSA surveillance to other advocacy for the military industrial complex by area Democrats in recent months. These have included MoCo taxpayer giveaways to Lockheed Martin, low interest taxpayer loans to Bechtel, efforts to pass Internet surveillance legislation like CISPA, billions of taxpayer dollars spent to subsidize the boondoggle F35 fighter jet program, taxpayer bailouts of Lockheed Martin employee pensions, and perhaps most telling, a successful lobbying effort by high-profile Maryland Democrats to kill a purely symbolic anti-war resolution in Montgomery County. Yes folks, perpetuating war, dealing arms around the world, and engaging in mass surveillance of citizens are now jobs issues for Maryland Democrats. Luckily, the NSA's unconstitutional shenanigans may well end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, given recent Federal District Court rulings that are divided on the issue. UPDATE: In contrast to HoCo, California lawmakers have introduced a bill to cut NSA's utilities, ban research at state schools and impose sanctions on contractors. Believe it or not, enabling the NSA's sketchy mass surveillance of innocent Americans does not have to be seen as a given.


JUICE #4: LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS RELEASES INCUMBENT ENDORSEMENTS FOR MD LAWMAKERS - Maryland's League of Conservation Voters released its first round of incumbent endorsements for environmental lawmakers. See an excerpt from their press release below:

PRESS RELEASE

Maryland League of Conservation Voters Announces Early Endorsements for
Maryland Senators and Delegates

Candidates Have Proven Conservation Records and Demonstrated Leadership

(Annapolis, MD) Today the Maryland League of Conservation Voters (Maryland LCV) released its first round of endorsed candidates for Senate and the House of Delegates in the 2014 state primary elections. The organization said the 8 Senate and 28 House candidates have all demonstrated pro-conservation records, leadership on environmental issues, and an open-door policy when it comes to working with the environmental community.

“These candidates have consistently prioritized the environment - and their legislative track records reflect that,” said Karla Raettig, Executive Director of Maryland LCV....

Maryland LCV’s endorsement process is based on proven leadership on the environment for incumbents and a thorough evaluation of new candidate’s background and commitment to the environment....

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Maryland League of Conservation Voters
2014 Endorsements – January 7, 2014

District	Name, Office
10	Adrienne Jones, House
11	Dan Morhaim, House
11	Dana Stein, House
13	Shane Pendergrass, House
13	Frank Turner, House
14	Karen Montgomery, Senate
14	Anne Kaiser, House
14	Craig Zucker, House
15	Kathleen Dumais, House
16	Ariana Kelly, House
17	Jim Gilchrist, House
18	Richard Madaleno, Senate
19	Roger Manno, Senate
19	Bonnie Cullison, House
20	Jamie Raskin, Senate
20	Tom Hucker, House
21	Jim Rosapepe, Senate
21	Ben Barnes, House
21	Barbara Frush, House
21	Joseline Peña-Melnyk, House
22	Paul Pinsky, Senate
22	Anne Healey, House
22	Tawanna Gaines, House
24	Carolyn Howard, House
28	Peter Murphy, House
30	Speaker Michael Busch, House
39	Shane Robinson, House
39	Kirill Reznik, House
40	Barbara Robinson, House
42A	Stephen Lafferty, House
43	Maggie McIntosh, House
43	Mary Washington, House
44A	Keiffer Mitchell, House
46	William Ferguson, Senate
46	Luke Clippinger, House
47	Victor Ramirez, Senate

JUICE #5: ADVOCATES RELEASE LIST OF MOCO ENDORSERS OF AN INDEXED $10.10 MINIMUM WAGE - The minimum wage hike advocates at Raise Maryland and Jews for Justice released a list of state lawmakers from Montgomery County who have endorsed their proposal for an indexed minimum wage rate of $10.10 an hour. All but three MoCo lawmakers have signed onto the proposal, though it is not necessarily clear whether the three missing names are opposing the $10.10 minimum wage or have simply not yet responded to the inquiry. The three MoCo officials who haven't yet endorsed the Raise Maryland proposal are Delegates Kumar Barve, Kathleen Dumais and Sam Arora. You can see further information in an excerpt from the Raise Maryland press release below:

PRESS RELEASE

Montgomery County delegation to the Maryland General Assembly announces support for raising the state’s minimum wage during upcoming legislative session

County delegation chairs releases list of elected supporters of higher pay for Maryland workers

KENSINGTON, MD – Calling passing a higher minimum wage a highest priority for the upcoming Maryland General Assembly, the Montgomery County delegation to the Maryland General Assembly detailed its support for raising the state’s minimum wage during a press conference today in Kensington, Md.

All eight of the county’s senators and a majority of the delegates have signed onto a letter of support circulated by Raise Maryland in support of a higher wage (see list below). Signatories call for legislation to raise the state’s lowest wage that includes three key provisions:

• Raise Maryland’s minimum wage in three steps to $10.10 by 2016;
• Index the minimum wage to the cost of living thereafter so that it doesn’t lose value over time; and
• Increase the minimum wage for tipped workers from the current 50 percent to 70 percent of the prevailing minimum wage....

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Chamber	District	Elected Official	Signed on to letter
House	18	Ana Sol Gutierrez	Yes
House	39	Kirill Reznik	Yes
House	16	C. William 'Bill' Frick	Yes
House	18	Jeffrey D. 'Jeff' Waldstreicher	Yes
House	39	A. Shane Robinson	Yes
House	14	Anne R. Kaiser	Yes
House	14	Eric G. Luedtke	Yes
House	15	Aruna Miller	Yes
House	19	Bonnie L. Cullison	Yes
House	14	Craig J. Zucker	Yes
House	17	Luiz R. S. Simmons	Yes
House	20	Sheila Ellis Hixson	Yes
House	20	Tom Hucker	Yes
House	16	Ariana B. Kelly	Yes
House	16	Susan C. Lee	Yes
House	18	Alfred Clinton 'Al' Carr Jr.	Yes
House	15	David Fraser-Hidalgo	Yes
House	19	Benjamin F. Kramer	Yes
Senate	15	Brian J. Feldman	Yes
Senate	16	Brian E. Frosh	Yes
Senate	17	Jennie M. Forehand	Yes
Senate	18	Richard S. Madaleno Jr.	Yes
Senate	20	Jamie Raskin	Yes
Senate	19	Roger Manno	Yes
Senate	39	Nancy J. King	Yes
Senate	14	Karen S. Montgomery	Yes
House	20	Heather R. Mizeur	Yes
House	17	James W. 'Jim' Gilchrist	2013 co-sponsor
House	39	Charles E. Barkley	2013 co-sponsor
House	17	Kumar P. Barve
House	15	Kathleen M. Dumais
House	19	Sam Arora

Meanwhile, Politico released an article this week calling a $10.10 minimum wage the centerpiece of the Democrats' election platform this year and detailing the roots of the movement in Baltimore (excerpt below):

POLITICO: ...the Obama administration plans to make raising the federal minimum wage, from its current $7.25 an hour to $10.10, a centerpiece of Democrats’ 2014 midterm election efforts.... Barack Obama’s sudden embrace of a minimum wage boost is very likely a shrewd political move. To start, it has the potential to make life difficult for Republican politicians, who will have to decide whether to oppose a minimum wage hike, angering the 64 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans who according to a recent poll support it, or get behind it themselves and anger their backers in the business community who overwhelmingly oppose it....

The living wage movement began in the early 1990s, when pastors in Baltimore started to notice something curious happening. An increasing number of the people showing up for food or lodging at the city’s church-affiliated soup kitchens and homeless shelters had full-time jobs; they just weren’t making enough money from them to provide for themselves or their families. Working with local unions, the pastors—most of whom were affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation, a national community organizing group that does much of its work through churches—successfully pressured Baltimore’s city council in 1994 to require any company receiving public money for service contracts to pay its workers at least $6.10 an hour rather than the federal minimum wage of $4.25.

The $6.10 figure was called “a living wage”—a term that dates back to the labor unrest of the late 19th century but more recently came to be defined as hourly earnings that would keep a family of three or four above the poverty line—and the Baltimore campaign soon begat similar successful living wage movements in cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York....

JUICE #6: NINE TEN CANDIDATES FOR APPOINTMENT TO VALERIE ERVIN'S MOCO COUNCIL SEAT // PLUS: OTHER CONTESTED MOCO COUNCIL SEATS  - Tomorrow is the deadline for Democrats residing in MoCo Council District 5 to apply for an interim appointment to Valerie Ervin's vacant seat. The Washington Post's Bill Turque reports that so far there are nine applicants (excerpt below):

WASHINGTON POST: ...The filing deadline is Wednesday, and at least nine candidates have applied so far. They are Alan Bowser, a former deputy assistant secretary of commerce; Cherri Branson, chief oversight counsel for the Democratic staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security; Jeanette Dixon, former principal of Paint Branch High School; Ronald Galvin Jr., executive director of Impact Silver Spring, a community action group; Arthur Jackson Jr., a retired D.C. police captain; Andrew Kleine, former acting chief financial officer for the Corporation for National and Community Service; Timothy Male, a Takoma Park City Council member; Harold McDougall, a Howard University law professor; and Daniel Wilhelm, an East County activist and engineer for Mitre.

NOTE: Just before publishing this piece, Maryland Juice received word from Montgomery County officials that a tenth candidate has applied for the D5 vacancy: Silver Spring Democratic activist Mark Woodard.

In any case, Turque's piece also contains interesting commentary from candidates in the contested County Council races in Districts 2 and 3 (excerpt below):

WASHINGTON POST: It was business, not politics, that Gaithersburg Mayor Sid Katz said drew him into the June 2014 Democratic primary for the District 3 Montgomery County Council seat.... Katz’s candidacy is unwelcome news for Gaithersburg City Council member Ryan Spiegel, 35, who had hoped to go into the primary without the sudden entry of a well-known competitor.

“It’s a free country, but I would have hoped and preferred to get some advance notice, given that he was well aware of my plans for a while,” said Spiegel, a Bethesda lawyer in his second term. He said he wants to see Montgomery get more of its money back from Annapolis and that he is better suited to the task than Katz, who has held the largely ceremonial, nonvoting mayor’s post....

In northern Montgomery’s District 2, first-time candidate Neda Bolourian will challenge the incumbent council president, Craig Rice (D-Upcounty). Bolourian, 32, a Bethesda lawyer, is critical of the substantial pay raise, effective after the election, that council members approved last year. She said she is “dismayed” by Rice’s lack of leadership on environmental issues, especially the debate over the future of the Ten Mile Creek watershed near Clarksburg.... “I’m running because I think it is time to shake things up,” Bo­lourian said.

JUICE #7: STATE SENATOR JENNIE FOREHAND ANNOUNCES HER RETIREMENT // CHERYL KAGAN & DEL. LUIZ SIMMONS BEGIN BATTLING - The Baltimore Sun's Mike Dresser reported this week that District 17 State Senator Jennie Forehand has announced her retirement after this term (excerpt below):

BALTIMORE SUN: State Sen. Jennie M. Forehand, a veteran liberal Democrat from Montgomery County, has announced she will retire from the General Assembly after her current term -- avoiding a certain primary fight.... This year she would have faced competition from both Kagan and Del. Luiz R. S. Simmons in the June 24 primary.

Former Delegate Cheryl Kagan released the following statement in response to the news (excerpt below):

CHERYL KAGAN: Dear Juice, I wanted to make sure you heard the news.  Senator Jennie Forehand called me last night to say that she will not be seeking reelection. After 36 years of dedicated service to our state, and especially to residents of mid-Montgomery County, I salute Jennie for her remarkable career in public office and congratulate her on her many accomplishments.  Jennie is a true trailblazer, and we owe her our gratitude.  

On so many important issues, Jennie has been a legislative pioneer ahead of her time. Whether it has been standing up for women's reproductive rights, protecting victims of domestic violence, supporting the ICC to alleviate our transportation problems, or working to outlaw genetic discrimination, she has been a consistent advocate for the interests of women, families, and Montgomery County residents....

Interestingly, Kagan also posted the following message on her Facebook page highlighting commentary from rival candidate Del. Luiz Simmons on Forehand's retirement:

CHERYL KAGAN: I am posting my opponent's statement about Senator Forehand's career with no edits or comments for your information.

Senator Jennie Forehand announced today that she will be retiring at the end of her term. Claire and I applaud her years of service and wish her and Bill health and happiness in the future.

If Jennie Forehand has left any permanent legacy it has been her commitment to honest and positive campaigns, free from mudslinging.

- Luiz

JUICE #8: DISTRICT 22 SLATE FORMS WITH SEN. PAUL PINSKY, AND DELEGATES TAWANNA GAINES, ANNE HEALEY AND ALONZO WASHINGTON - Maryland Juice received the following press release from Delegate Anne Healey announcing that she has formed a slate with incumbent lawmakers Sen. Paul Pinsky and Del. Tawanna Gaines, alongside newly appointed Delegate Alonzo Washington. Notably, Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker's son (Rushern Baker IV) is also seeking a D22 Delegate seat. You can read an excerpt from Delegate Healey's press release below:

PRESS RELEASE

Delegates Tawanna Gaines and Anne Healey File for Re-Election in Maryland House of Delegates

ANNAPOLIS -- Delegate Tawanna Gaines and Delegate Anne Healey filed together to run for re-election to their seats in the Maryland House of Delegates on Thursday at the Maryland State Board of Elections. They represent District 22 in Prince George’s County....

District 22 includes the municipalities of Berwyn Heights, Edmonston, Greenbelt, Hyattsville, New Carrollton, Riverdale Park and University Park, as well as unincorporated areas in Lanham-Seabrook, Glenn Dale, Whitfield Chapel, Dodge Park and Palmer Park.

The two women are running on a slate with the two other incumbents from District 22,  Sen. Paul Pinsky and Delegate Alonzo Washington.

###

JUICE #9: D26 DELEGATE VERONICA TURNER FILES CANDIDACY TO CHALLENGE STATE SENATOR ANTHONY MUSE - District 26 State Senator Anthony Muse of Prince George's County is now facing two challengers in the June 2014 Democratic Primary, Delegate Veronica Turner and Brian Woolfolk:

JUICE #10: STATE SENATOR VICTOR RAMIREZ'S CHIEF OF STAFF DENI TAVERAS ANNOUNCES CAMPAIGN FOR PG COUNCIL AGAINST DELEGATE DOYLE NIEMANN - State Senator Victor Ramirez's Chief of Staff Deni Taveras has announced a campaign for the Prince George's County Council seat being vacated by Will Campos. Taveras will face off against Delegate Doyle Niemann for the District 2 Council seat, and you can read an excerpt from her announcement below:

DENI TAVERAS: Hi Juice -- Happy New Year!  I want you to be among the first to know some exciting news: I'm running for Prince George's County Council....

I believe that government is here to provide the basic services people need: properly paved roads, rapid responses to constituents' requests, and quality schools where children can learn.

Yet when I talk with people in the community they tell me about dozens of concerns still unmet and codes not enforced. They wonder how we will take care of our seniors and whether safety will improve. Most of all, they worry about the quality of our public schools, especially the overcrowding.  

The fact is that Northern Prince George's County has not gotten its fair share of the County or State's resources. But I believe that with hard work we can overcome that. We can fix more roads, respond faster to constituent concerns, help our seniors stay in their homes, bring in the purple line, and build more schools....

I don’t know whether I’ve told you, but I have spent two years as State Senator Victor Ramirez’s Chief of Staff, helping to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals, reducing domestic violence, protecting asbestos workers, removing corrupt officials from office, and passing the DREAM Act. However, nothing that I have ever done—either in Annapolis or anywhere else—has been more personally rewarding for me than volunteering and serving as my Condominium Association’s president....

JUICE #11: DELEGATE CURT ANDERSON AMAZED AT HOW MANY MEXICANS WORKING IN BALTIMORE SCHOOLS - Delegate Curt Anderson, a Baltimore Democrat is under fire for comments he made at a recent League of Women Voters event. The Daily Record reported on the controversy (excerpt below):

DAILY RECORD: Del. Curt Anderson is coming under fire by a conservative blogger for comments made about the race of workers at a city school he recently toured.

Anderson, a Baltimore City Democrat who chairs the city delegation in the House of Delegates, can be heard discussing the issue of school construction in the city at a League of Women Voters legislative breakfast....

During that discussion, Anderson tells the audience about touring a school that is scheduled to open on January 6. “I was amazed at how many Mexicans they have working on that school,” Anderson said. “Should be more African-American and minority contractors but still....”

[Dennis McIver, the politico who recorded the comments] said he was surprised by what he called “an off the cuff statement” by Anderson. He said the comments received little reaction from the audience. “There was no reaction at all,” McIver said. “It was crazy....”

JUICE #12: FORMER REP. ROSCOE BARTLETT LIVING IN A CABIN, PREPPING FOR DOOMSDAY - Politico Magazine published a fascinating (and very long) profile of former CD6 Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, discussing that Bartlett now "lives in a remote cabin in the woods, prepping for doomsday" (excerpt from the intro below):

POLITICO: When Roscoe Bartlett was in Congress, he latched onto a particularly apocalyptic issue, one almost no one else ever seemed to talk about: America’s dangerously vulnerable power grid. In speech after late-night speech on the House floor, Bartlett hectored the nearly empty chamber: If the United States doesn’t do something to protect the grid, and soon, a terrorist or an act of nature will put an end to life as we know it. Bartlett loved to conjure doomsday visions....

The octogenarian Republican from western Maryland—more than once labeled “the oddest congressman”—found himself gerrymandered out of office a year ago and promptly decided to take action on the warnings others wouldn’t heed, retreating to a remote property in the mountains of West Virginia where he lives with no phone service, no connection to outside power and no municipal plumbing. Having failed to safeguard the power grid for the rest of the country, Bartlett has taken himself completely off the grid. He has finally done what he pleaded in vain for others to do: “to become,” as he put it in a 2009 documentary, “independent of the system.”

I visited Bartlett this past fall, following a set of maze-like directions—take a series of different forks in the road and look for the one paved driveway that turns off a narrow, rocky dirt road—as I climbed to nearly 4,000 feet, one of the highest U.S. elevations east of the Rocky Mountains....

When I arrived, Bartlett greeted me in faded denim overalls and an unruly white beard and asked if anything had happened since he was last in Maryland, about a week earlier. I told him that the National Security Agency had just been caught tapping into the connections between data centers run by Google and Yahoo. He looked nonplussed....

JUICE #13: D20 SENATOR JAMIE RASKIN AND DELEGATE SHEILA HIXSON IN THE NUTCRACKER - A Maryland Juice reader sent us the following photos of D20 lawmakers Jamie Raskin in Sheila Hixson in Nutcracker garb. Here's the explanation accompanying the photos: "Senator Raskin and Delegate Hixson made appearances in the Maryland Youth Ballet's annual Nutcracker ballet, performing as guests in the First Act, party scene.  Delegate Hixson showed off her ballroom dancing while Senator Raskin helped greet guests."

JUICE #14: SPOTLIGHT ON THE MOVEMENT FOR PAID PATERNAL LEAVE & GENDER EQUITY IN THE WORKFORCE - Maryland Juice caught a fascinating article in The Atlantic discussing the effects of paid paternal leave policies in helping balance gender inequities at home and in the workplace. The article also notes that doomsday predictions of negative impacts on employers are unfounded (excerpt below):

ATLANTIC: ...As usual, California is at the vanguard of this shift.... in 2002 California became the first U.S. state to guarantee six weeks of paid leave for mothers and fathers alike, financed by a small payroll-tax contribution from eligible workers. Since then, Rhode Island and New Jersey have followed suit with four and six paid weeks, respectively, while other states are taking steps toward similar policies....

But here’s what men may not realize: While paid paternity leave may feel like an unexpected gift, the biggest beneficiaries aren’t men, or even babies. In the long run, the true beneficiaries of paternity leave are women, and the companies and nations that benefit when women advance. In October, the World Economic Forum released its latest global gender-gap report, showing that countries with the strongest economies are those that have found ways to further women’s careers, close the gender pay gap, and keep women—who in most nations are now better educated than men—tethered to the workforce after they become mothers....

While most mothers in the United States now work, many women still see their careers suffer after they became parents, in part because they end up shouldering the bulk of the domestic load—a phenomenon the sociologist Arlie Hochschild has dubbed the “second shift.” A 2007 study found that 60 percent of professional women who stopped working reported that they were largely motivated by their husbands’ unavailability to share housework and child-care duties....

In their pursuit of an egalitarian workplace (and higher fertility rates), countries like Sweden and Germany have at times offered women more than a year of maternity leave—sometimes quite a bit more—a strategy that can fortify the glass ceiling rather than shatter it. Anticipating that women will disappear for long periods of time, managers become reluctant to hire them into senior positions, and female workers are shunted (or shunt themselves) into lower-paying sectors. Among labor economists, overly long maternity leaves are now recognized as creating a barrier to pay equity....

Since California instituted its program, the percentage of “bonding leaves” claimed by men has risen from 18.7 in 2005 and 2006 to 31.3 in 2012 and 2013. A study by the economist Eileen Appelbaum and the sociologist Ruth Milkman showed that initial concerns that the California law would be a “job killer” were unfounded, and that workplaces have figured out effective and creative ways to cover for leave-taking parents. The biggest hurdle seems to be getting the word out, particularly among lower-income families that could benefit enormously from the program. (Part of the beauty of the California policy is that it extends leave to men in non-white-collar jobs.)