In Annapolis, sometimes strange bedfellows make the best bill sponsors

Del. Adrian Boafo wanted to help formerly incarcerated people find housing, and worked with an advocacy group on a bill to ban landlords from asking prospective tenants about criminal history on the application.

To give his bill the best chance in the Maryland General Assembly, Boafo knew he needed a state senator to also sponsor the bill. So he asked one of his staffers to research potential senators he might partner with.

He was surprised by one of the top names that came back: Sen. Chris West.

Boafo is a Black millennial Democrat from Prince George’s County; West is a white boomer Republican from Baltimore County. Boafo wasn’t sure his staffer’s research was correct. Could they really have common ground?

“I’m not going to lie, it was like: ‘I think you did the wrong assignment. I was asking for somebody who was focused on recidivism and criminal justice and housing’,” Boafo said. He thought, for sure, a Republican wouldn’t like the idea.

He was wrong.

West had also spoken to advocates and thought the bill was a great idea. Putting limits on when and how a landlord can use criminal history would help those who have shown they won’t endanger other residents to keep their lives on track after incarceration.

Welcome to Annapolis, where partisan divides do indeed exist, just as across the country. But it’s also a world where lawmakers can find common ground on policy despite political or personal differences.

Boafo and West are far from the only surprising cross-party team of lawmakers pushing bills in Annapolis.

Some bills are an easy sell. Republicans and Democrats alike are often quick to sign on to bills that help first responders and military veterans, for example. Targeted tax breaks also usually get long lists of co-sponsors from both parties.

Other bipartisan efforts are focused on meatier or more nuanced policies.

So far this session, there have been bipartisan teams sponsoring bills that are moving forward on issues such as streamlining the process for adopting adults, making it easier for victims of child abuse to testify from outside a courtroom, making it a crime to interfere with a legislative proceeding, and modifying an economic development grant program for wineries and vineyards.

Democratic Del. Joe Vogel and Republican Del. Chris Tomlinson paired up for a bipartisan bill that would require doctors and pharmacists to provide information about the anti-overdose drug naloxone when prescribing and dispensing opioids to patients. The bill didn’t gain traction, but they’re hopeful for a better chance in the future.

Despite being from different parties and different parts of the state — Tomlinson represents Carroll and Frederick counties, Vogel is from Montgomery — they learned that they have a common passion for attacking addiction, a problem that knows no political bounds. Vogel passed a bill last year about fentanyl testing in hospitals that the two ended up talking about.

Tomlinson said that the unique nature of Annapolis, where lawmakers from across the state are thrown together for lengthy meetings, staying in town at a handful of hotels and often going out to eat together, means that they can connect on a personal level. Talk to each other enough and you’re bound to find a connection.

“We’re all kind of strangers in a strange land, trying to get by these 90 days,” he said. “We all have wives or husbands or kids missing us or mad at us for not being there,” Tomlinson said. “We’re all kind of going through this together, regardless of our background, regardless of our party.”

And those who do the work to get elected and serve in Annapolis tend to be focused on solving problems, Vogel said.

“There is a focus on the serious issues and I would say that, overwhelmingly, folks are here to find the common-sense solutions,” Vogel said. “I find more often than not — at least I believe — there’s not one party or the other that has the monopoly on all the good ideas.”

Democrats and Republicans from multiple jurisdictions teamed together to enshrine the Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore’s name into state law. The port was named for the late Republican Congresswoman and former journalist through an executive order under then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, in 2006.

“It was the funniest lineup ever of witnesses for one of my bills,” said Del. Marc Korman, a Montgomery County Democrat who chairs the House Environment and Transportation Committee and who has a keen interest in transportation.

The panel included Ehrlich, whose latest book likely does not have bipartisan appeal: “101 Ways America Went from Sweet Land of Liberty to Weak, Woke, and Wobbly: A Reference Guide to the Biden Years.” But Ehrlich and other Republicans found common ground with Democrats in wanting to solidify the honor for Bentley.

The port renaming bill sailed through both the House of Delegates and the state Senate on unanimous votes and his headed to the desk of Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, for his review.

Boafo and West, meanwhile, have not had as much luck with their housing bill, known as the “Maryland Fair Chance in Housing Act.” After committee hearings in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate, the legislation stalled without action.

But they’ve gotten something else out of the effort: A friendship that started with their first chat about the bill and extended through the session, where they ended up staying in the same Annapolis hotel.

“I frankly did not know him really well,” Boafo said. “And we got on this call, and it was like we became best friends.”

“That’s the way it ought to work down here,” said West. “That’s the way it ought to work over in Congress, too. I keep saying you couldn’t pay me to go to Congress because that’s not the way it works in Congress. But that’s the way it still works in Annapolis.”

After all the work just to see their bill fail, Boafo and West say they’re undeterred. They plan to try again next year.

Pamela Wood

pamela.wood@thebaltimorebanner.com

Pamela Wood covers Maryland politics and government. She previously reported for The Baltimore Sun, The Capital and other Maryland newspapers. A graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, she lives in northern Anne Arundel County.

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