Contributor Opinion By Richard Arkin: Forehand The More Successful Legislator

This Contributor Opinion is by Richard Arkin.

Both incumbent District 17 State Senator Jennie Forehand and challenger Cheryl Kagan are known quantities. They both have records that can be examined. To see who has the better record, all we have to do is look at the record. It’s all on the web and is easily accessible to anybody who is interested.

Research demonstrates that Jennie Forehand has been the more successful legislator than Cheryl Kagan by a very significant margin.

The clearest indicator of legislative success is the number of bills each legislator sponsors that are passed by both houses of the General Assembly and signed into law by the Governor (i.e., legislative enactments).

The total of career legislative enactments for Sen. Forehand is, of course, considerably higher than the career total for Del. Kagan. But it’s not just the totals — in each year in which both were in office, Jennie outscored Cheryl.

Check it out and find out for yourself.

To examine and compare legislative records, point your mouse to the Maryland Legislative Information Service website at LINK. That URL brings up the MLIS bill index page, where the reader can click on Bill Indexes and Sponsors to see the bills for which the legislator was the primary sponsor or a co-sponsor, a description of each bill, and the bill’s disposition (pass or fail). If the bill failed, the entry points the exact stage of the enactment process at which the bill failed. If the bill passed, the entry shows the chapter number at which the bill was entered into the Laws of Maryland.

A simple click of the mouse shows a complete history for each bill and all votes (including the ayes, nays, and abstentions). Further mouse-clicks will bring up the exact text of a bill when it was filed, the text of each amendment, interim texts, the final text of each adopted bill, and more.

A symbol at the right side of the entry shows if a bill passed or failed, and if passed, if it became law. Be careful here — a bill veto does NOT necessarily mean that the vetoed bill did not become law. If the heading states that a bill was vetoed because a “cross-filed bill was signed,” it means that the other house of the General Assembly passed a bill whose final text was identical to the bill you’re looking at, but the Governor signed the other house’s bill and therefore had to veto the bill before you to avoid having two identical or duplicate enacted bills on the books. Thus, a count of successful bills is both the number of bills signed into law by the Governor and the number of bills shown as vetoed by the Governor because he signed an identical cross-filed bill which originated in the other house.

If you look at Sen. Forehand’s record for 2010 at LINK, you will find that she sponsored or co-sponsored 171 bills, of which 85 passed both houses of the General Assembly and were signed into law. That’s a pretty impressive score in just about anybody’s book.

But to compare the relative effectiveness of Sen. Forehand and former Del. Kagan (or any two legislators, for that matter), go to the index page and click on Prior Session Information, then pick out a year in which both legislators were in office, and then do the counts.

The last year that both Jennie and Cheryl were in the General Assembly was 2002. In the 2002 session, Sen. Forehand sponsored or co-sponsored 92 bills, of which 39 were successful (either signed or the cross-filed bill was signed. In the same session, Del. Kagan sponsored or co-sponsored only 62 bills, of which only 25 were successful.

The results are similar for the eight years in which both were in office.

Whatever else can be said about the candidates, researching the legislative records shows a real difference. Jennie Forehand’s record of success as a legislator is better than the legislative record of Cheryl Kagan by a significant margin, both in the total of bills sponsored and enacted and in the year-by-year comparisons.

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to [email protected]. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

Please also note that Rockville Central does not endorse candidates in election campaigns. Supporters of all candidates are encouraged to submit opinion pieces for consideration.

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