| Emily contacted:
Court Information Office
Angelita Plemmer, Court Information Officer
2009-D Commerce Park Drive
Annapolis, MD 21401
(410)260-1488
Fax: (410) 841-9850
e-mail: cio@mdcourts.gov
They were able to get a message to Judge Coolahan who called the Archives later that day. He provided the following information about his involvement in the submotion process as a Senator in the 1970s which was emailed to Sen. Gladden.
Judge Coolahan stated that in 1977-8 with respect to his substitute motion involving the lottery. Joe Curran was head of the committee that handled lottery issues. He said the Curran's committee killed the bill that he (Coolahan) was supporting. There were about to issue an unfavorable report, which meant that the bill would not get to the Senate floor.
At this point, Coolahan made a motion to Curran to move a substitute bill to the Senate floor in lieu of the unfavorable report. Coolahan said, because Curran was a gentleman, he granted the motion. He said that the substitute motion takes the cooperation of the committee chair. Due to Curran's cooperation, the substitute lottery bill made it to the floor, and there was a debate. Then there was a vote. If there was a positive vote, than the substitute bill remains on the floor and can move forward (rather than being killed by the unfavorable report). So, in addition to cooperation by the chair of the committee, it also takes the votes on the floor to move forward.
He said that there is another way, if you do not have the cooperation of the committee chair. You could force the bill to the floor by making a motion that the Senate President instruct the committee chair to substitute the bill forthwith. Coolahan said that the timing of "forthwith" could be a problem since it is open to interpretation.
Coolahan said that Joe Curran could also give us information from his perspective, if we needed more. He also said that it really is a very simple process if you have cooperation, because the rules really allow any motion. If you do not have cooperation, than you may need to resort to forcing things and that may have an impact on your reputation.
Additional note, not sent on to Sen. Gladden:
Ed,
Per Leslie's request, to be clear, when I spoke to Judge Coolahan, he said "Lottery" was the issue that he brought a submotion about. He did not say anything about Death Penalty or Capital Punishment. Although, the information Christine found indicates it was about capital punishment.
I had said that we had received a request about the process of substitute motions, with respect to the current death penalty issue in the General Assembly. I did not give any names or indicate who/where the request was from. I told him that we were looking for more specific information than the Journals could supply about the process.
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