ANNAPOLIS — Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. is telling chamber leaders to prepare for a special General Assembly session by next month to resolve a state budget crisis, charging ahead with plans regardless of House leadership opposition and further widening the rift between the state’s “Two Mikes.”
Mr. Miller, Southern Maryland Democrat, has told Senate budget committee members that they will meet through the month to prepare for a special session at the end of October, said Senate Minority Leader David R. Brinkley, a Frederick Republican on the chamber’s Budget and Taxation Committee.
“What Miller is doing is trying to cast light on the indecisiveness,” Mr. Brinkley said yesterday. “He wants to see some movement one way or the other.”
House Speaker Michael E. Busch’s response to Mr. Miller’s plans underscored their discord.
“The Senate has had a lot to say, but they really haven’t shown any specific direction,” said Mr. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat. “We were the last [chamber] to pass a revenue package. They have never passed a revenue package. We put the cuts in the first year of the Ehrlich administration. We passed the cuts. We passed them a slots bill. It didn’t satisfy them.”
Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, also has floated the idea of a special session to resolve the state’s $1.5 billion budget shortfall. But he will also need to bring Mr. Miller and Mr. Busch closer before a compromise can be reached.
Senate Budget Chairman Ulysses Currie acknowledged only that committee members will meet in preparation for budget debates.
“We’re getting ready,” said Mr. Currie, Prince George’s Democrat. “We need to have done the groundwork. If you go in without having done all the groundwork, you get bogged down.”
An O’Malley spokesman said a special session would be called only if a consensus was reached.
“The governor continues to work with the Senate president and the speaker to build consensus,” said O’Malley press secretary Rick Abbruzzese. “At the appropriate time, [the governor] would call a special session if one is merited. If, on the other hand, that consensus is not reached, the governor has said he will not call a special session.”
Mr. Miller was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Mr. Miller and Mr. O’Malley want the special session in part to clear the table for other issues in the 2008 session and to find ways to infuse the state with more cash before the fiscal 2009 budget begins in July.
They have supported legalizing slot machines in Maryland to generate revenue while Mr. Busch has opposed a special session and legalized slots gambling.
The debate on whether to have a special session has supplanted the larger debate about how to close the shortfall, which lawmakers expect to do through a mix of increased taxes and spending cuts.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, called two special sessions during his four-year term, but the Democrat-controlled General Assembly rebuked him both times, overturning his vetoes of bills to reform medical malpractice insurance and stagger energy rate increases.
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