Meet Your State Editor Michael Ryan State Editor for Maryland GOPUSA Poll How should the State Legislature handle same sex couples?

Rise in sales tax is sought
Baltimore Sun

Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday that he plans to raise $730 million by increasing the state sales tax and extending it to health club memberships, property management and other services. But he said his proposed changes to the state income and property tax rates would mean that most families would still come out ahead.Sitting around a middle-class family's dining room table for the second day in a row, O'Malley acknowledged yesterday that increasing the sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent would run counter to his goal of making Maryland's tax system more progressive. But the Democratic governor said the move is necessary to balance the budget and that he designed his overall tax package to minimize the impact on working families.

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Md. lawmakers begin preparing for 2008 battle
The Baltimore Sun

Within minutes of Maryland's high court upholding a ban on same-sex marriage, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle began preparing for what is sure to be a pitched battle in the next General Assembly session over what rights -- if any -- gay couples should be afforded."I see it being a fight," said Sen. Brian E. Frosh, the Montgomery County Democrat who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. "And it's hard to predict the outcome."Conservative lawmakers promised to reintroduce a constitutional amendment that would make clear that marriage is an institution limited to heterosexual couples, an amendment that has stalled in committee in years past.Others said they intend to propose that same-sex couples be given the same state rights as their heterosexual counterparts, a concept that activists are calling civil marriage. Still others are already talking compromise, which could resemble the civil unions that exist in several other states or could look like something else altogether.What they agree on is that the court ruling gives a legislature that was already expecting a busy session another -- and likely contentious -- set of issues to sort out come January. Most legislators had been avoiding the same-sex marriage issue while waiting for the court to rule.

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