From the Baltimore Sun:
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller is criticizing the Maryland State House Trust for voting by email to remove the statue of Roger B. Taney from the State House lawn in Annapolis.
Miller says a public meeting should have been held instead.
Miller is a Democrat. Maryland’s governor is a Republican.
As far as this Maryland open meetings advocate can determine, there was no legal need for a public meeting. The statute setting up the “State House Trust” dates to 1957 and tells its members they are responsible for overseeing the renovation of the building, landscaping, etc.
The members are the Gov or his designee, the state senate president, the speaker of the house and someone representing the Maryland Historical Trust. They are obligated to hire an architect as a consultant for any changes or renovations to the building.
It appears that voting by email, normally a red flag for a possible violation of the state’s Open Meetings Act, concerned an “administrative” topic. It’s administrative since it is action that follows something laid out by law or regulation. There are other topics, such as policy discussions or contract discussions, which don’t fall into an administrative bag.
The state law exempts “administrative” topics from the open meetings law.
The Maryland General Assembly has failed, for more than ten years, to address the issue of what might be administrative by adding a more specific definition to the law. The issue has bedeviled the state AG’s office for decades.
Whether a topic was truly “administrative” figures in many of the citizen complaints filed with the Open Meetings Compliance Board. And many times, city councils or county councils are found to have pushed the envelope in order to discuss something outside public view.
The State House Trust, essentially, just oversees the state house physical plant.
The State House Trust rarely meets in person, often casting votes by email for matters such as approving new plantings on the grounds or giving the go-ahead for performances in the building.
On Wednesday, State House Trust members were polled by email and three members voted for the Taney statue’s removal: Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford, who represents Hogan on the trust; House Speaker Michael E. Busch; and Charles L. Edson, who represents the Maryland Historical Trust. Miller did not vote.
Miller’s argument is that the author of the Dred Scott ruling (slaves have no rights, essentially) was also a good attorney, served in the Jackson administration, was in the state House of Delegates, so that whole Dred Scott thing isn’t that important.
And besides, a statue of Thurgood Marshall on the other side of the state house balances things out, he said.
The problem with that argument is this: Taney wrote a cornerstone ruling by the Supreme Court that exacerbated the American slavery problem by its very immorality.
Oh, and by being a Jacksonian anti-central banker, he helped usher in a serious depression.
No one remembers the depression in the 1830s or Taney’s no doubt stellar service in the long-running carnival known as the Maryland General Assembly, but, folks, the Dred Scott opinion is engraved on America’s political soul. It’s what matters 150+ years later and it’s what Taney himself symbolizes. That’s what his statue speaks of.
So it’s unclear why Roger Taney would be such a fine example of a great Marylander compared to, say, Joshua Barney or Stephen Decatur or Lambert Wickes (patriotic sea captains; the largely unknown Wickes delivered Ben Franklin to France during the Revolution).
In the “whose ox just got gored” department, Miller is an odd one to cavil. He is well-known for secretive deals in the legislature, and moreover, the General Assembly had to amend the law in 2013 (or so) because it was determined after a journalist filed a complaint that legislative committees were holding illegal secret meetings, since they never produced minutes of their sessions and didn’t necessarily provide written notice … something the law requires.
So now, streamed AV and video or audio archives of meetings are considered “minutes” — paper minutes written by a staffer need not be produced (a voting tally sheet must be created).
This works for the General Assembly, but seems to be nothing more than a opportunity for trouble for other public bodies around the state.
One unanswered question: if a board or committee goes entirely to audio or video records, how does that accommodate anyone who is hearing-impaired? That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Marylanders can learn more about the law here:
Home page — www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/…
“Manual” for the Open Meetings Act: www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/…
Searchable Opinions (PDFs): www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/…
Opinion on Gen’l Assy committees: www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/...