THURSDAy, MARCH 19 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU B5
to have,” Del. maggie mcIntosh
(D-Baltimore City), the chairman
of House Appropriations Com-
mittee, said during the debate.
The abrupt end to the session
also meant the end — for now —
of a plan to give casinos, race-
tracks and Washington redskins
owner Daniel Snyder the right to
build a sports-betting industry
here. Although voters will be
asked to legalize sports betting in
November, the detailed frame-
work to set up the industry was
stripped from the bill.
“We tried our best,” Senate
President Bill ferguson (D-Balti-
more City) said as the measure
came up for a vote.
“What does the bill do?” anoth-
er senator asked.
“Not much,” ferguson re-
sponded.
Snyder began lobbying for a
license shortly after the 90-day
session began in January, meet-
ing privately with state and local
leaders to push for a license and
pitching the idea to build a stadi-
um in maryland. Sen. Craig J.
Zucker (D-montgomery), the bill
sponsor, said late interest to in-
clude the Baltimore ravens and
orioles made it impossible to sort
it out quickly.
“I think it just became a timing
issue,” he said. “We just didn’t
have enough time.”
republicans in the House of
Delegates strongly objected to
the constitutional amendment
about the budget, which if ap-
proved by voters would grant
lawmakers power to move money
around in the budget rather than
simply cut it. They said was it a
move to strip authority from Ho-
gan, who currently can use his
budgeting power as a bargaining
chip.
The proposal has been floated
around Annapolis for more than
a decade, offered by lawmakers in
both parties.
for some lawmakers, the trun-
cated session meant shelving
their priorities on many constitu-
ent issues and concerns.
“The beauty of our democracy,”
Sen. Guy J. Guzzone (D-Howard)
told his colleagues, “is there’s
always next year.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]ble for lawmakers to continue to
push a costly public school over-
haul during economic uncertain-
ty.
The Senate added an economic
stopgap if the state cannot afford
to fund the programs, which in-
clude expanding prekindergar-
ten; increasing funding to
schools with a high percentage of
poor, special-education or limit-
ed-English students; raising
teacher pay and standards; and
adding offerings to ensure that
students are prepared for college
and careers.
Under another amendment,
the effort would be halted if
certain academic thresholds are
not met.
“This bill now has all the safe-
guards that everybody wanted itabout youth smoking, this is
where it starts.”
The top priority of Democrats
did cross the finish line. Lawmak-
ers approved an education over-
haul that would pump as much as
$4 billion annually into public
schools by 2030 and prescribe
policies designed to make mary-
land schools among the best in
the nation.
N ational education policy ex-
perts say no other state has
passed such a major overhaul on
education policy since massachu-
setts — regarded as the nation’s
gold standard for public educa-
tion — revamped its system al-
most 30 years ago.
Several republicans opposed
the measure, saying it was
i ll-advised and fiscally irresponsi-parency bills, and a ban on the
sale of all flavored nicotine prod-
ucts, including vaping and men-
thol cigarettes.
Leaving Annapolis without
finding a way to guarantee pay-
ment to exonerees especially
stung, said Sen. William C. Smith
Jr. (D-montgomery), chairman of
the Senate Judicial Proceedings
Committee.
“Like so many good pieces of
legislation this year, we had the
votes. We just didn’t have the
time,” he said.
Sponsors of the anti-vaping
and plastic-bag-ban bills pledged
to reintroduce them next year.
“The numbers speak for them-
selves,” said D el. Dereck E. Davis
(D-Prince George’s). “If we are
really going to do somethingporters to observe them, the rest
of the public had limited options
to see their government in action.
Constituents, activists and lobby-
ists were forced to listen to an
often spotty feed of committee
hearings, voting sessions and
floor debates. Several republican
lawmakers, in particular, said the
crisis has demonstrated how the
General Assembly has failed to
fully embrace technology to pro-
vide the utmost transparency to
the public.
Casualties of the abbreviated
session included some marquee
proposals pushed by leadership
this year: a policy for compensat-
ing innocent people who were
wrongly incarcerated, a state-
wide ban on the use of plastic
bags, a collection of police trans-ing the state and four historically
black colleges and universities
over disparities in funding and
programs.
The legislation calls for the
state to pay the universities
$577 million over the next
10 years.
Jones had called the protracted
lawsuit a “stain on the national
reputation of maryland’s higher
education system.”
General Assembly leaders
vowed to return for a special
session at the end of may, when
they hope the threat of the virus
will have passed.
Lawmakers voted to put two
proposed constitutional amend-
ments on the November ballot:
one to legalize sports betting, and
a second that would give the
legislature additional authority
in writing the budget. The latter
would reduce one of the gover-
nor’s most potent powers.
As lawmakers hurtled toward
adjournment, they passed a
$47.5 billion budget with little
debate and steered about
$100 million toward combating
the public health crisis and eco-
nomic fallout from the pandemic.
They passed job protections
for people who are quarantined
and unemployment benefits for
people who lose paychecks be-
cause economic activity has
stopped. They also expanded ac-
cess to telehealth services, and
passed a bill designed to reduce
costs for testing for the virus and
prohibit price gouging.
The day was unlike any other
final day of the session. The
public had been banned from the
State House complex the previ-
ous week because of the virus.
There were no high school pages
handing out paper amendments,
no visitors gawking from the gal-
lery above the vaulted chambers.
With restaurants closed and lob-
byists barred, there were no re-
ceptions or revelry along main
Street or State Circle.
As they sped through bills,
“adjourning” and reconvening to
leapfrog procedural rules, a pair
of senators chatted in the bath-
room about disinfection routines.
While lawmakers were seques-
tered with just a handful of re-
mArylAnd from B1
Md. legislature moves through decidedly di≠erent last day
KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST
maryland Gov. larry Hogan (r) delivers his State of the State address last month. Hogan, who had urged lawmakers to finish quickly, has
been critical of some of their plans. His spokesman declined to say whether the governor would veto the bills or allow them to become law.BY DANIELLE
DOUGLAS-GABRIELmaryland is poised to become
the first state to limit the revenue
for-profit colleges can receive
from enrolling veterans.
on Tuesday, the maryland
House of Delegates unanimously
passed legislation to close a loop-
hole in the 90/10 rule, which bars
for-profit colleges from getting
more than 90 percent of their op-
erating revenue from federal stu-
dent aid. military and veterans’
education benefits do not count
toward that threshold despite be-
ing federal aid, an exception that
some veterans groups say invites
aggressive recruitment from un-
scrupulous for-profit schools.
The vote a rrives w eeks after the
state Senate approved the mea-
sure, which now heads to Gov.
Larry Hogan ( r) for s igning.
michael ricci, a spokesman for
the governor, said Hogan will
“give the legislation thoughtful
consideration when it reaches his
desk.” If Hogan were to veto the
bill, lawmakers could override
him.
“Because of this loophole, for-
profit colleges targeted our veter-
ans,” s aid marceline White, e xecu-
tive director of the maryland C on-
sumer r ights C oalition, w hich ad-
vocated for the legislation. “We
hope that maryland is the f irst in a
number of states to eliminate the
90/10 l oophole.”
Under the legislation, all feder-
al funding that for-profit colleges
operating in maryland receive
would count toward the 9 0/10
rule. maryland’s r egulation would
also apply to for-profit schools
based in other states that enroll
residents in online education pro-
grams — a restriction that could
encounter p roblems.
maryland is a member of the
State Authorization reciprocity
Agreement, a compact that makes
it easier f or colleges to offer o nline
education throughout the coun-
try. The agreement establishes a
common regulatory framework
th at b ars m embers from i mposing
their own rules on out-of-state
schools offering programs within
their borders.
“A s currently written, mary-
land’s 90/10 loophole bill would
force the state out of compliance
with its membership agreement,”said Lori Williams, president and
CEo of the National Council for
State Authorization reciprocity
Agreements, the o rganization t hat
governs the reciprocity agree-
ment. “ This m eans [State Authori-
zation r eciprocity Agreement] i n-
stitutions in maryland who wish
to offer online programming to
out-of-state students would need
to gain authorization from each
state where it is required.”
There are a host of s teps, i nclud-
ing hearings, n eeded before mary-
land could lose i ts membership.
The maryland Attorney Gener-
al’s office has already rebutted
claims that the 90/10 legislation
endangers the state’s participa-
tion in t he agreement.
In a letter sent monday to
House Appropriations Committee
Chair maggie mcIntosh (D-Balti-
more City), C hristopher J. madaio,
assistant attorney general, ex-
plained the r eciprocity agreement
does not prevent the state from
enacting its own consumer pro-
tection laws. The state would sim-
ply refrain from applying those
laws to out-of-state schools that
are covered by the agreement.
At the federal level, efforts to
treat military education benefits
the same as federal student aid
under the revenue rule have
stalled. republicans have largelyremained on the sidelines, even
though veterans’ issues usually gar-
ner bipartisan s upport in Congress.
many have questioned the fairness
of the 90/10 rule because it applies
only to for-profit colleges. But last
year, a powerful republican law-
maker started to come around.
In N ovember, S enate Education
Committee Chairman Lamar Al-
exander (r-Te nn.) threw his sup-
port behind a bipartisan bill —
introduced by Sens. Thomas r.
Carper (D-Del.), James Lankford
(r-okla.), Bill Cassidy (r-La.) and
Jon Te ster (D-mont.) — t o close t he
loophole. The legislation, dubbed
the Protect VETS Act, would end
the exemption and impose penal-
ties for violating the revenue rule.
While the bill stalled in commit-
tee, higher education experts ex-
pect it will make its way into
broader legislation to reauthorize
the Higher Education Act.
Congress first capped the
amount of taxpayer dollars for-
profit colleges could receive at 85
percent in 1992 to crack down on
fly-by-night schools making mon-
ey f rom student a id p rograms. The
for-profit industry f ought the rule,
which was relaxed six years later
as the cap w as raised to 90 p ercent,
and military education benefits
were exempted.
dan [email protected]MARYLAND
Legislators move to tighten for-profit college rules
Measure seeking to limit
federal aid funding from
veterans goes to HoganBY TOM JACKMANA fairfax County sheriff’s dep-
uty who was previously involved
in two high-profile deaths while
on duty was arrested Tuesday
after he allegedly sexually as-
saulted a prisoner he was trans-
porting through fairfax City on
monday, the city police said Tues-
day evening.
Police said they believe an as-
sault happened in a fairfax sher-
iff’s vehicle, in a parking lot in the
11000 block of fairfax Boulevard,
near Jermantown road. The vic-
tim was being transported to the
Loudoun County jail and report-
ed an assault when she arrived in
Leesburg around noon monday,
Sgt. matthew Lasowitz of the
fairfax City police said.
Loudoun sheriff’s deputies be-
gan an investigation, then re-
ferred the case to fairfax County
police, who determined that an
assault occurred in fairfax City,
Lasowitz said.
on Tuesday afternoon, p olice
arrested fairfax Sheriff’s Deputy
Patrick D. mcPartlin, 45, of War-
renton, and obtained two charges
of object sexual penetration. He
was ordered held without bond.
mcPartlin was taken to the Alex-
andria city jail, fairfax City police
said.
mcPartlin had been a fairfax
deputy for 21 years. After being
served termination papers Tues-day, he re-
signed, accord-
ing to Casey m.
Lingan, the
general coun-
sel to Sheriff
Stacey Kincaid.
Lingan said
mcPartlin was
taken to the Al-
exandria jail
because of a
fairfax policy that former em-
ployees are not held in the fairfax
jail.
In february 2015, mcPartlin
was among a team of deputies
who tried to remove Natasha
mcKenna from her cell in the
fairfax jail to transport her to the
Alexandria jail. The 37-year-old
woman, who had schizophrenia
and other disorders, wrestled
with the deputies and wasVIRGINIA
shocked four times with a stun
gun to bring her under control
while she was shackled. She
stopped breathing for a short
time and died several days later at
a hospital.
The fairfax County prosecutor
ruled that the deputies involved
in mcKenna’s death did not com-
mit a crime. In 2018, the fairfax
sheriff’s office paid her family a
$750,000 settlement.
Then in August 2016, mcPart-
lin opened fire on a mentally ill
man who ran at him while s wing-
ing a metal post outside Inova
fairfax Hospital. Jovany Amaya
Gomez had just been released
from the hospital, where police
had brought him because he said
he was suicidal. mcPartlin was
cleared of criminal wrongdoing
in that incident as well.
[email protected]Sex-assault charges for ex-Fairfax County sheri≠’s deputy
Alleged attack as he was
transporting a prisoner
leads to resignationP atrick d.
mcPartlinVisit
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