C8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, APRIL 10 , 2022
into a fund and, similar to unem-
ployment insurance, employees
would also have to make a weekly
contribution.
Senate Minority Leader Justin
Ready (R-Carroll) said the bill
was ill-conceived and amounts to
a “payroll tax” on every worker in
the state and most businesses and
was estimated to cost as much as
$1.6 million a year.
The bill does not place a cap on
the payroll deduction or indicate
how much employees and em-
ployers would have to contribute.
It leaves that decision to the state
Department of Labor. Del. April
Rose (R-Carroll) compared the
bill to “building an airplane while
running down the runway.”
Economic Matters Committee
Chairman C.T. Wilson (D-
Charles) said lawmakers have
been “discussing this since the
early 20th century. ... It’s never a
good time. It’s never a good time.
If not now, when? ... We’re not
going to say let’s wait another
year.”
Sen. Pamela Beidle (D-Anne
Arundel), a former small-busi-
ness owner, recalled paying one
of her employees when she took
off when her father was sick and
later died, then to help her moth-
er to care for her brother who was
diagnosed with cancer. She said
the following year the worker was
in a cancer battle herself.
Beidle said she continued to
pay the worker. She said she, as
an employer, would have ben-
efited if paid leave had been in
place.
“This may have cost her $6 a
week,” Beidle said. “I think this is
good for employers. And I think
this is a very reasonable way to
take care of employees.”
The legislature also reversed
Hogan’s veto of a bill requiring
firearms dealers to implement
specific anti-theft precautions,
force faster action on commuter
railroad expansion, allow public
defenders to form a union and
require children who are being
interrogated to have access to
counsel.Republicans said they were
ashamed Maryland would use
taxpayer money to train abortion
providers and widen access to a
procedure they find morally rep-
rehensible. “I’m not proud of
Maryland becoming known as an
abortion destination,” Sen. Mary
Beth Corroza (R-Worcester) said.
But Democrats countered that
Maryland voters established the
right to abortion with a referen-
dum in 1992, and that public
servants are required to respect
that and modernize laws to re-
flect it.
“We all know that we voted
right the first time and need to
hold up the work that was done,”
Sen. Delores G. Kelley (D-Balti-
more County) said.
Democrats also united behind
creating a new paid family leave
law that would likely operate
similarly to the state’s unemploy-
ment insurance program, where
a tax on workers and employers
would fund subsidized leave.
Beginning in 2025, Maryland
workers will be able to take up to
12 weeks of paid leave to care for a
sick family member, a newborn or
a new adopted child, among oth-
er instances.
With the override of Hogan’s
veto, Maryland will become the
10th state to offer the job-protec-
tion benefit.
Paid family leave became a top
priority of the Democratic-con-
trolled legislature this year after
workers’ rights advocates mount-
ed a strong lobby highlighting the
impact the pandemic had on
workers trying to balance illness
and jobs.
“This is a social safety net
program,” said Del. Ariana Kelly
(D-Montgomery), one of the first
sponsors of the bill nearly a dec-
ade ago. “If we learned anything
during the pandemic, it is people
have depended on social safety
nets.”
In his veto message, Hogan
argued that the measure will have
a detrimental effect on small
businesses. Employers with 15 or
more workers would have to payaccess to health care when people
need it,” said Del. Emily Shetty
(D-Montgomery).
Under the new abortion law,
passed with only Democratic
votes, medical providers who al-
ready care for pregnant people —
midwives, physician’s assistants
and nurse practitioners — would
also be able to perform an abor-
tion. The state also sets aside $3.5
million a year to train medical
professionals to do the pro-
cedure, something Democrats say
is a critical continuing-education
investment and Republicans
viewed as an inappropriate use of
tax dollars.
Two-thirds of Maryland coun-
ties have no abortion providers,
the law’s advocates said. Amid the
uncertainty of whether the Su-
preme Court will uphold the
landmark Roe v. Wade decision,
advocates feared the state’s exist-
ing providers would become
overwhelmed if the procedure
was widely curtailed elsewhere
and women from outside Mary-
land began arriving for abortions.
“You could easily rename this
bill the Abortion Tourism Act of
2022 because that’s what this bill
really does,” said Del. Matthew
Morgan (R-St. Mary’s), sarcasti-
cally adding: “It basically ex-
pands it to anybody but the recep-
tionist.”
House Government Opera-
tions Chairwoman Shane Pender-
grass (D-Howard) helped push
the law to passage during her
28th and final legislative session.
On Saturday, she told her col-
leagues they ought to respect
each other and to respect women
enough to vote for the law.
“Your conscience is a personal
thing,” she said. “Your conscience
and your religion is not my con-
science and my religion. We are
allowing women the autonomy —
to use their brains and their
conscience — to make decisions
about their lives.”
A handful of Democrats joined
Republicans in opposing it,
though none spoke about the
issue.pregnant people do not face long
waits or financial barriers once
they’ve decided to get an abor-
tion.
“It is not “radical” to ensureOVERRIDE FROM C1Abortion l aw puts Md.
at vanguard for access
such low wages. You can go home
and stay there until I send for
you.”
On Feb. 14, 1921, Sen. Nathaniel
Dial (D-S.C.) called Landis’s com-
ment “the most Bolshevik doc-
trine I ever heard.” On the same
day, Welty introduced his im-
peachment resolution. Dial
backed impeachment, mocking
Landis as a “freak” and a “crank.”
“If his mind is on baseball, he
cannot perform the duties of a
judge,” Dial said. “It is beneath the
dignity of the court. It brings the
courts into disrepute.”
The impeachment resolution
implied that holding both jobs
could present a conflict of inter-
est, since “the impression will
prevail that gambling and other
illegal acts in baseball will not be
punished in the open forum as in
other cases.”
Landis took the attacks in
stride.
“Let the boys lather themselves
good,” he said, insisting he wasn’t
worried about the impeachment
effort. “Why, I’m no more interest-
ed in this than I am in the ap-
pointment of the bellhop in that
hotel across the street.”
The House Judiciary Commit-
tee dropped the impeachment ef-
fort in April, but a few months
later, in September 1921, the ABA
adopted a resolution concluding
that Landis’s decision to accept
private employment as a judge
“meets with our unqualified con-
demnation as conduct unworthy
of the office of judge, derogatory
to the dignity of the bench and
undermining public confidence
in the independence of the judici-
ary.”
Landis continued to dig in. “I
may quit, but I won’t quit under
fire,” he said.
Finally, on Feb. 18, 1922, Landis
announced he was resigning from
the bench, effective March 1.
“There aren’t enough hours in
the day for me to handle the
courtroom and the various other
jobs I have taken on,” he told
reporters. “I am going to devote
my attention in the future entirely
to baseball.” He complained
about having to get up at 5 a.m.
every day and often skipping
lunch.
“His resignation takes from the
federal bench one of the most
feared and at the same time one of
the most respected judges in the
country,” the Times concluded.
Prompted by the Landis case,
the ABA in 1922 appointed a com-
mission on judicial ethics,
chaired by Chief Justice William
Howard Taft, the former presi-
dent, to draft a code of judicial
conduct. In 1924, the ABA adopt-
ed its first such code, instructing
judges not to hold positions that
would interfere with their judi-
cial duties.
Although Landis had to give up
his coveted spot on the federal
bench, he never lost the title.
Until his death in 1944, headline
writers in newspapers across the
nation often called him “Judge
Landis,” in keeping with his un-
yielding style as commissioner.BY FREDERIC J. FROMMERMajor League Baseball’s first
commissioner, Kenesaw Moun-
tain Landis, started off with a
mountain of a workload.
When team owners tapped him
to lead the sport in 1920, Landis
was a federal judge in Chicago. He
decided to accept the new posi-
tion without stepping down from
the bench, leading to an impeach-
ment effort in Congress and a
censure from the American Bar
Association.
“What is to prevent [baseball
owners] from going into the Su-
preme Court now and hiring ev-
ery member on the bench?”
fumed Rep. Benjamin Welty (D-
Ohio) at a House Judiciary Com-
mittee hearing in 1921. “I think it
affects the very soul of this gov-
ernment.”
Among other claims, Welty’s
impeachment resolution charged
Landis with neglecting his official
duties for outside gainful employ-
ment. Welty pushed forward with
the impeachment effort even
though Attorney General A.
Mitchell Palmer had concluded,
in an opinion requested by Welty,
that Landis was within the law in
holding both posts.
Landis continued the double
duty for about 14 months before
resigning as judge under political
pressure in 1922. The saga led
directly to the first-ever judicial
code of conduct, which continues
to govern judges’ professional be-
havior to this day.
A century later, some members
of Congress are once again look-
ing to fortify judicial ethics — this
time urging Chief Justice John G.
Roberts Jr. to commit to a “bind-
ing Code of Conduct” for the Su-
preme Court. The campaign
stems from The Washington
Post’s reporting on efforts by con-
servative activist Virginia “Ginni”
Thomas, wife of Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas, to pres-
sure White House Chief of Staff
Mark Meadows to try to overturn
the 2020 election.
With a shock of white hair,
Landis stood just 5 feet 6 inches
and weighed 130 pounds. But “he
was a towering figure on the fed-
eral bench,” Shirley Povich wrote
in a 1940 Post profile, “the most
spectacular legal light in the land,
his integrity unquestioned, his
burning Americanism unchal-
lenged.”
Nominated by President Theo-
dore Roosevelt in 1905, Landis
was a Republican trustbuster in
Roosevelt’s mold. In 1907, the
judge fined John D. Rockefeller’s
Standard Oil Co. $29.2 million for
taking illegal rebates from the
Chicago & Alton Railroad — the
largest corporate fine in history at
that time. The ruling was over-
turned on appeal.
But when the Federal League, a
short-lived baseball league that
sought to challenge MLB, sued
the major leagues for monopoliz-
ing baseball in 1914 and the case
wound up in front of Landis — six
years before he became commis-
sioner — the judge sounded reluc-
tant to extend his antitrust zeal to
baseball. He said from the bench
that “any blows at ... baseball
would be regarded by this court as
a blow to a national institution.”
The case was settled before Lan-
dis could issue a ruling.
In November 1920, a group of
baseball owners entered Landis’s
Chicago courtroom during a brib-
ery trial, with the intention of
offering him the sport’s top job.
The judge stared at them and
banged his gavel down. “There
will be less noise in this court-
room!” he barked.
When the judge learned the
purpose of their visit, he had the
owners escorted to his chambers,
where he kept them waiting for 45
minutes.
Landis’s impertinence didn’t
cost him the gig. Baseball owners
offered him $50,000 a year —
about $735,000 in today’s dollars.
At Landis’s request, they reduced
that salary by the $7,500 he made
as a judge.The big leagues turned to Lan-
dis because they were desperate
for an iron-fisted leader to clean
up the sport following the 1919
“Black Sox” scandal, in which
White Sox players were accused of
throwing the World Series in ex-
change for bribes. Landis woundup banning eight players for life,
including Shoeless Joe Jackson,
even though they had just been
acquitted in a Chicago trial.
“Landis named dictator,” the
New York Times blared in a front-
page headline on Nov. 13, 1920.
After Landis initially expressedreluctance to quit his judgeship,
the owners suggested he do both
jobs — meaning “the eminent
jurist will also continue to strike
terror into the hearts of criminals
by retaining his position as a
federal judge,” the Times report-
ed.
He told his friend Clark Grif-
fith, owner of the Washington
Senators, “Grif, we’ve got to keep
baseball on a high standard for
the sake of the youngsters — that’s
why I took the job, because I want
to help.”
But some on Capitol Hill didn’t
view Landis’s motives quite as
purely, and his moonlighting for
MLB wasn’t their only objection.
His handling of a 1921 case involv-
ing a 19-year-old bank teller who
had stolen $96,000 from his em-
ployer, just months after becom-
ing commissioner, also provoked
their ire.
In that case, Landis — who was
known to pepper witnesses with
questions — asked the young
scofflaw, Francis Carey, what his
salary had been. Ninety dollars a
month, Carey replied.
“That’s a shame,” Landis said.
“I don’t know how directors of a
bank expect their employees to
stay honest when they pay themRETROPOLIS
Nervy jurist tapped as first MLB commissioner
K enesaw Mountain Landis stayed a federal judge when was picked for baseball’s top job in 1920, leading to an impeachment effort and
censure from the American Bar Association. He quit the bench in 1922 but remained “Judge Landis” in headlines until his 1944 death.PHOTOS FROM LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
A news story d escribed the 5-foot-6 Landis, seen demonstrating
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