Effective Leadership, Hard Work Earn Consensus, Progress

Governor, Senate & House Work Together - Putting People before Politics

GOP Boycott Dissolves, Proving Bipartisan Cooperation Can Work

Annapolis, MD – A difficult and often exhausting three weeks of hammering out bold and daring initiatives has set the stage for progress in Maryland with a future of fiscal stability we have not known for a long time. Governor Martin O’Malley, Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch defied the critics, proving what hard work and skillful leadership can accomplish when you respect differences and labor for compromise. The 2007 Special Session of the Maryland General Assembly has instituted reforms that:

• Protect our investments in education
• Keep college affordable
• Advance restoration of the Chesapeake Bay
• Make health care more affordable for small business and more accessible for all
• Address transportation needs and attack traffic congestion
• Promote a fairer tax system for working families
• Resolve a decade-old legislative debate over how to rescue Maryland’s struggling horse racing industry.  

“This is what great leaders can do by working together to address the priorities important to Maryland’s children, families and businesses,” said Michael Cryor, Chair of the Maryland Democratic Party. “This Special Session was contentious but in the end men and women of good will on all sides of the debate proved that democracy, while not easy, does work and solutions to our most serious issues can be found.”

A planned Republican boycott of the special session dissolved as those who stood in opposition to the reform proposals engaged the process with vigor and at times joined with their colleagues to advance the cause of Maryland’s future.

“Three weeks of serious and respectful hearings and floor debate have accomplished a great deal of progress for all Marylanders,” said Cryor. “Now we can move forward focused on those priorities that will make Maryland an even greater state in which to live, learn and earn a living.”