Dyson Snares $90 Million For Farmers
Last Minute Defeats for Governor's Bills As Session Ends

By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY'S TODAY

ANNAPOLIS (April 13 12:00 am) --- The legislative session is now over but just as it ended, Sen. Roy Dyson spent the closing minutes live on the air by telephone from the Senate floor with ST. MARY'S TODAY Online Edition.

It was just one half-hour until the end of the 1999 session of the Maryland General Assembly and Sen. Roy Dyson (D. St. Mary's, Calvert), reports that a cloture vote failed within minutes of the end of the session in an attempt to shut off a filibuster.

The filibuster, which has been run this evening by opponents of Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening's proposal for collective bargaining for state employees, needed to get 32 votes, or two-thirds of the 47 members of the State Senate in order to pass and allow the new labor initiative sought by the Governor. It failed by one vote.

"I voted to cut it off, it was important to the University of Maryland, it affects every college and university in the state, I supported it, but I think it was politically foolish to put it in at the last minute, there are two committee chairman who are not supporting it. It was added at the last minute to the U of Md. education bill. We thought it should have been addressed by a large bill considered by itself. Here we are at 25 minutes, they have set it aside for 10 minutes, we are running out of time. This is going to kill a lot of bills any way, we agreed to special order bills."
The vote to cut it off failed by one vote.
" Sen. Thomas Mac Middleton (D. Charles) and I got $90 million dollars for the tobacco farmers, we went to see the Governor off and on throughout the weekend until the filibuster ended on Saturday night."
Earlier today, the legislature put the final approval on the Governor's $17 billion budget and turned down the Governor's bid to extend a new class of rights to homosexuals.
Dyson was asked if he voted yes on the budget.
"Are you kidding, we got $90 million for the farmers, sure I voted for the budget," said Dyson. "It was promised to us last year and we had the votes. The farmers have not had many good things come there way lately."
"No," yelled Senator Dyson to the chair as he was in the interview over the phone for ST. MARY'S TODAY Online.
"If you can 17 to 20 people to stick with you on a vote you can kill anything," explained Dyson. " It doesn't take very long. Over the weekend, I went from having no power to having the power of the whole Assembly. I saw the Governor a while ago and he said we are still friends. I wouldn't vote to end the tobacco tax filibuster and then the Governor agreed to fund the tobacco farmers, so we compromised"..

"They just took the collective bargaining out, they are really mad now," said Dyson.

"These things are put on as riders, it is part of the legislative process, but it wasn't the way it was originally planned, our own subcommittee didn't go for it," said Sen. Dyson. "The Governor can't be happy about this. The galleries are emptying out. Sen. Miller did the right thing on this, and labor is going to be mad, but the way they went about it was wrong."

Dyson said he would support the proper process next year as he as always been a strong labor supporter.

"They are all yelling at each other now," said Dyson, observing the debate raging on the Senate floor. "For a legislative session that went really well up until Friday night, it has been really acrimonious here for the last 72 hours. Its getting pretty tense but no fisticuffs yet. There are four people on the floor and they are all trying to talk. Senate President Mike Miller is banging his gavel to gain order. Now the Republicans are special ordering everything."

"No," yelled Dyson to the podium on the floor of the Senate.

Asked what he just voted against, Dyson said the last minute special orders were being brought up.

"I voted no on the special order, we just voted on the health care practitioner, the Republicans tried to hold it up, but we just passed it. The GOP is trying to hold up a lot of them," said Dyson.

"They are putting amendments on the Potomac River bill, to prohibit Fairfax County from taking water out of the river, what they were going to do was to remove one after the new intake pipe was built, but there was a lot of misunderstandings about it, it passed here but it may not make it back to the other side (House)," said Dyson.