A bill to establish a commemorative month for both the Jewish and Muslim communities is headed to the governor for his signature, after lawmakers rejected calls to add a Christian month to the mix.
The Senate voted 33-10 Friday to give final approval to House Bill 661.
The bill adds two new commemorative months to the state calendar. January would be set aside as Muslim American Heritage month while Jewish American Heritage month would be celebrated in May.
The bill sparked debate on the Senate floor this week when some criticized the effort for excluding Christian religions. An attempt to add a Christian heritage month in April was blocked Tuesday.
On Friday, the Senate blocked another proposed amendment that would set aside April as a month for all religions.
Proponents of the bill defended its focus on Judaism and Islam, saying the commemorative months were needed to combat the sharp rise of hate crimes against the two groups.
Currently, the state recognizes 20 commemorative days, seven months and a week. Muslim American Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month would be the first to include a religious component.
A second No Kings
Two months after it was first approved by the House, House Bill 351 got final approval from delegates Friday, but in a slightly different form.
The bill, sponsored by House Majority Leader David Moon (D-Montgomery), originally sought to give the attorney general, a state prosecutor or a state’s attorney the ability to get information about federal officials, who are often masked or unidentified. A response to federal immigration enforcement efforts over the past year, the bill would have allowed state and local prosecutors to use cellphone or GPS data, or other standard police surveillance tactics, to identify such federal agents if someone filed a misconduct claim against the official.
It also added language from a bill sponsored by Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D-Montgomery) that would have allowed a civil claim against federal official who violated another’s constitutional rights “under color of law.”
But the Senate amended Moon’s bill to conform to Senate Bill 346 sponsored by Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), vice chair of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. The House approved SB 346 on Thursday.
House Republicans fought hard against SB 346 Thursday. When House Minority Leader Jason Buckel (R-Allegany) was told Friday that the changes to Moon’s bill had put it in the same posture as Waldstreicher’s, it was all he needed to hear, and it was easy for him to predict how his GOP colleagues would vote.
“Until the cows come home, until Sine Die’s over, we’re against it,” Buckel said.
The Republicans did vote against it, but the Democratic majority carried it on a 97-35 vote. Both HB 351 and SB 346 now head to the governor’s desk for his signature.
Taxes on captives might continue
The House nixed a proposal for a two-year pause on the collection of taxes on off-shore “captive insurance” accounts held by some nonprofit hospitals in the state.
The pause was proposed in Senate Bill 890 to give the Maryland Insurance Administration time to study the issue. Some nonprofits have been paying tax on the accounts, while others have not. But the pause in tax collections was stripped out this week by the House Ways and Means Committee, and the amended bill was given a preliminary OK by the full House Friday.
The amended bill could come up for a final vote in the House as early as Saturday and be sent back to the Senate — which would have until midnight Monday to accept the House changes, work out a compromise, or let the bill die and leave the tax situation as is.
“Captive insurance” is when a organization forms its own insurance company — a captive — to help cover claims that may not be covered by commercial insurance. For hospitals, that may be the costs of medical malpractice claims or cybersecurity risks, for example.
Maryland does not have a regulatory framework to let companies establish captives within the state. So decades ago, Maryland nonprofit hospitals set up captives in offshore locations such as the Cayman Islands. The hospitals believe those captives are not subject to a 3% state tax on out-of-state insurance premiums, but state insurance officials aren’t so sure.
The first version of SB 890 would have flat-out exempted hospitals from the tax, then it was amended to have hospitals pay the tax going forward, but not retroactively. The final Senate version included the two-year pause while MIA studied the issue.
Ways and Means stripped the tax holiday after a lively hearing between lawmakers. The current House version of the bill does not take a stance on whether hospitals are required to pay the tax on their captives, but leaves that to the MIA.
