Co-Sponsor Holds Up Maryland Marriage Bill for Other Issues

March 02, 2011

UPDATE 3:30 PM: Delegate Carter said today, "I was always ready to vote for the bill. There were some things that I wanted to have discussed and I knew if we took the vote first, they wouldn't be discussed. They were discussed [yesterday]. I was happy. I'm content and ready to vote for the bill."

A single Maryland House member who claims that she supports the freedom to marry is singlehandedly blocking the bill in the Judiciary Committee.

There was supposed to vote yesterday on the marriage bill passed last week by the Senate, but two members, Jill Carter and Tiffany Alston, didn't show up. It soon became clear that their absence was not some kind of scheduling error – they had another agenda. Both Delegates are co-sponsors of the very bill they held up, and both are needed for the 12 votes required to send the bill to the House floor. Alston has since apparently come back around to her previous position of support (more on that below), but Carter has not.

Del. Carter said that she is withholding her vote to draw attention to two other issues – restoring funding cuts to Baltimore schools and a child custody bill that she has introduced. While those are both important issues, they are no excuse for blocking the marriage bill, which she says she still supports in principle. Carter said she wants to "send a message to leadership" that those issues are also important – but the message she is actually sending about her own leadership is far different, as pointed out in a harsh editorial by The Baltimore Sun:

… What she did brings disrepute not just on herself but on the entire effort to enact this legislation… That self-aggrandizing action shows a deluded sense of her importance that will do her no favors in her efforts to support other causes or in her future campaigns for office.

But more damagingly, it reduces legislation about fundamental human rights -- legislation she co-sponsored -- to petty horse trading. What had been ennobling about the debate over this issue so far had been the sincerity of arguments advanced on both sides, but Ms. Carter has chosen to put political expediency ahead of the interests of thousands of Marylanders and her own avowed beliefs, and she is acting as if that is a virtue. She cheapens the honest and difficult decisions her fellow legislators have made.

… It may give her a fleeting moment of power, but it will do nothing to advance the goals she articulated today and will instead relegate her forever to political infamy.

As for Del. Alston, yesterday she said that she needed more "time to think" about the bill. Then late last night she issued a statement suggesting that she would vote for it (although she did not say that outright):

From the beginning of my campaign I have told the people that elected me that I personally supported the same sex couple’s right to marry. I believe all people should be treated equally regardless of their sexual orientation. ... I have resolved that if and when the chairman calls the vote I will be ready to vote based on what I believe to be right.

The committee vote is still imminent, and the challenge of ensuring we have enough votes remains. Freedom to Marry staffers are in Maryland working hard to build support for this bill to improve the lives of thousands of families. If you're a Marylander (and especially if you live in Baltimore), you can email your representative about the importance of this bill by clicking here.