The hearing began as badly for our side as the one last week in which the sponsor, Delegate Costa, was allowed as much time as he needed to explain why he supports the bill and answer questions. Delegation chair and candidate for county executive Steve Schuh refused to allow opponents of the bill to speak last week and he stuck to that position this week. He did, however, allow a representative of DNR to speak in support of the bill for quite some time. The cards seemed stacked against us. We were itching to respond to what we viewed as a biased and unrealistic portrayal of life in rural Anne Arundel County. Past county delegation chairs allowed citizen input and other county delegations welcome it.
Delegates Frush, McMillan, and Vitale all had heard our testimony the day before in the Environmental Matters Committee and all asked questions or made points demonstrating that they understood our position. When Speaker Busch spoke up we had no idea what he would say. We knew he had received scores of calls and emails but we had not actually spoken to him.
Mike Busch remembered every point made by the sponsor of the bill the previous week and was particularly disturbed by the fact that the original presentation suggested that the bill simply allowed DNR to add a couple of Sundays for deer-hunting, when in fact the bill allows DNR to open all Sundays from early October into January.
Busch is a Democrat and the majority of the county delegation is Republican. Republicans do not generally support bills that allow the O'Malley administration (which includes DNR) broad authority to make decisions. Busch shared that concern with respect to allowing DNR to decide if we should have fifteen Sundays of hunting in our county. He proposed that the sponsor come back with the bill that he first described, which is to allow only two additional Sundays. "No" would have been a difficult response for anybody in the room at that point. Busch's proposal quickly became the will of the delegation. Well played. Who saw that coming?
The Anne Arundel Horse Council will stick to its position that any and all Sunday hunting is a problem. Safe Sundays are simple to remember and they split the weekend between hunters and outdoor recreation. Whether a fight for just two Sundays of hunting is worth the cost is a question that Delegate Costa will have to answer. He has been a very reasonable and fair-minded advocate for his position and we hope that he withdraws the bill for this year to allow landowners and farmers time to follow through on a commitment to developing alternative means to reduce the deer population.
If the bill resurfaces, we will let you know. In the meantime, please put your email address in the box in the right column so that you get these notices! And feel free to comment below. This is an open forum!
Here is the article on our efforts that ran on the front page of the Annapolis Capital Friday afternoon.
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