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ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O'Malley emerged Tuesday from a much-anticipated meeting with the state’s two leading lawmakers and revealed that he is not only leaning toward calling a special session, but he might even call two of them. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, said he hopes to bring the General Assembly back into session by mid-May so legislators can pass a set of tax and revenue increases to erase $512 million in cuts that were put into place when the assembly adjourned April 9. The governor said he wants to focus strictly on finances and hold off on debating a gambling...

ANNAPOLIS — Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. is pushing for broader income-tax increases and a last-ditch attempt at expanding gambling as lawmakers look toward a possible special session, but the House appears reluctant to embrace either proposal. Mr. Miller will meet Tuesday with Gov. Martin O'Malley and House Speaker Michael E. Busch to discuss the scope of a potential special session, during which the General Assembly likely would pass several tax and revenue increases to cancel out $512 million in cuts resulting from their failure to pass the increases at the regular session’s close. Mr. Miller is waging...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said Thursday he wants to call a special session for lawmakers to raise taxes and reverse $500 million in planned budget cuts but is waiting on House and Senate leaders to meet beforehand and work out a unified plan. During a day in which he conducted several radio and television interviews, the Democratic governor said he would call legislators back to Annapolis “a half-hour from now” but needs assurances that a special session will not include the bickering and gamesmanship that caused a revenue package to fall through Monday on the General Assembly’s last day, triggering...

Although negotiations over a package of tax increases and a proposed casino collapsed Monday night, the Maryland General Assembly passed a lot of bills this session — 791, to be exact. Of those, 96 percent were passed in the last week, including hundreds in the hours and minutes before midnight on Monday. Here are some highlights from the 90-day session’s last day: STORMWATER FEE The Senate spent much of the session’s waning hours fiercely debating a stormwater fee bill that was on few people’s radar earlier in the session. The bill requires localities to fund projects to reduce polluted runoff...

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday that the General Assembly’s failure to pass a set of tax increases and revenue enhancements considered a cornerstone of this year’s budget marked “the low point” of his five years in office. Lawmakers ran out of time on the measures when the session expired at midnight Monday, causing a so-called “doomsday budget” to go into effect. The state is facing some $512 million in cuts starting July 1 unless the governor calls a special session before then to generate more revenue and reverse budget cuts, which he seems likely to do. But...

ANNAPOLIS — The General Assembly adjourned Monday night after a chaotic closing session in which members failed to pass a set of proposed tax increases or a bill to expand gambling in the state. Lawmakers passed a balanced budget and hoped to pass accompanying bills raising income taxes and shifting teacher-pension costs onto counties, but they ran out of time before the assembly’s required midnight adjournment. The House attempted to extend the session by passing a resolution shortly before midnight, but the Senate did not address the measure in time. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said he was...

Gov. Martin O'Malley says he still hopes to convince the legislature to raise money for highway and transit projects — possibly by adding another penny to Maryland's six-percent sales tax and dedicating the extra revenue to transportation. In an interview with The Baltimore Sun, O'Malley conceded that his initial proposal to apply the sales tax to gasoline is dead in the General Assembly. But he said an alternative would be a delayed implementation of that proposal, with the sales tax not being applied until gas prices fell to a certain level. A second option, he said, would be to raise...

ANNAPOLIS — With just a week left in the 2012 General Assembly session, lawmakers have hundreds of bills left to consider. But only a handful of proposals will get most of their attention. The House and Senate still must approve a joint version of the state budget, which they are required to do before adjourning Monday. Legislators also will consider bills that would implement offshore-wind energy and set up a referendum on whether to allow table games and a new casino in Prince George’s County. A conference committee of House and Senate representatives got to work Monday on hashing out...

The House passed the administration’s offshore wind power bill Friday amid accusations Gov. Martin O’Malley secured votes on the House Economic Matters Committee with disparity grants to committee members’ districts. “Those of you who have been here longer than two weeks know there’s a lot of complicated pressures that go into making a bill pass or fail,” said House Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell. “Sometimes it takes a little nudge, sometimes it takes a carrot, and sometimes it takes a stick.” The disparity grant program in Maryland provides subsidies to jurisdictions with income tax receipts that fall below 75% of the...

ANNAPOLIS — The Maryland Senate passed a $35.9 billion budget package Thursday that would increase income-tax rates on nearly all earners and impose a flat income tax on residents making more than $500,000 a year. The spending plan would boost the state’s income-tax brackets by as much as 0.25 percentage point — a move expected to generate more than $500 million next fiscal year. The budget bill passed after senators narrowly approved an amendment Wednesday night that would allow the state to tax “half-millionaires,” who make more than $500,000 annually, at the maximum 5.75 percent rate for every dollar they...

ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O'Malley told House and Senate lawmakers Wednesday that failing to raise Maryland’s gas tax could lead to crumbling roads and bridges in the future, and that they should pass his proposal despite its lack of popularity with residents. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, touted his proposed 6 percent sales tax on gas while testifying before the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee and at a joint hearing of the House Ways and Means and Environmental Matters committees. Legislators have said a gas-tax hike appears unlikely during this year’s General Assembly session because of rising gas prices, public outcry...

ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O'Malley will go before House and Senate committees Wednesday and ask them to raise the state’s gas tax, but he might get drowned out by the talk from constituents back in lawmakers’ home districts. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, has clung to the proposal in recent weeks even as skepticism of the plan has mounted in the face of rising gas prices and persistent objections from the public. The governor says the tax increase is a necessary investment in the state’s congested, too-long-ignored road and transit infrastructure. But with gas prices climbing toward $4 a gallon, leading...

ANNAPOLIS — State budget analysts Tuesday suggested nearly $800 million in potential cuts as part of a “doomsday” budget that Senate leaders have vowed to consider if lawmakers cannot agree on a mix of cuts and revenue increases in this year’s spending plan. The analysts briefed the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on the reductions, which include cuts to education and health services, elimination of 500 state jobs and more than $300 million in cuts of local aid to counties. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said lawmakers are determined to make more aggressive cuts than those in Gov....

ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O'Malley signed the state’s same-sex marriage bill into law Thursday, making Maryland the eighth state along with the District to legalize gay marriage. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, signed the bill during a brief ceremony at the Statehouse which was attended by hundreds of supporters and lawmakers. He was joined by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and House Speaker Michael E. Busch, who also put their signatures to the bill. “All of us at the end of the day want the same thing for our children,” said Mr. O’Malley, who was the legislation’s lead sponsor....

ANNAPOLIS —Gov. Martin O'Malley’s proposal to increase the state’s gasoline tax is looking more and more far-fetched because of rising gas prices and persistent public outcry, say state lawmakers from both parties. The Democratic governor’s bill to phase in a 6 percent sales tax on gas has been met with skepticism from Republicans and moderate Democrats in the General Assembly. Now with gas prices climbing toward $4 a gallon and lawmakers focused on fine-tuning a state budget that could include several other tax increases, some legislators say they are running low on time and political will to tack on a...

Calling pro-family citizens "rabid," the Maryland Attorney General told a homosexual rally in September that if "the right-wing myopic folks" win a vote to overturn the new "gay marriage" law, then the Governor's newly appointed judges will strike down the current one-man-one-woman marriage law as unconstitutional — "so we will win." That's what Douglas Gansler, Maryland's aggressively pro-homosexual Attorney General, told a rally of homosexual group Equality Maryland back on Sept. 7, 2011. As Gansler has acknowledged, "gay marriage" has been universally rejected across the country, by the will of the people. It's only been instituted by judges or legislatures,...

ANNAPOLIS — The House voted Friday night to approve Gov. Martin O'Malley’s same-sex marriage bill, sending the legislation to the Senate and clearing what was likely its most formidable legislative hurdle. The chamber voted 72-67 in favor of the bill, which would make Maryland the eighth state along with the District to pass legislation allowing gay marriage. The vote drew cheers from many visitors in the House chamber balcony and touched off a celebration among the bill’s supporters, many of whom exchanged hugs and shed tears after leaving the chamber. “It’s an amazing day here in Maryland,” said Delegate Heather...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley may be more skilled at implementing President Obama’s agenda than the White House itself. The Democratic governor is bringing the same big-spending, high-tax and class-warfare policies to the Free State. It’s going to cost residents a bundle. Tough economic times have forced ordinary Americans to cut back in order to get by. Not so Mr. O’Malley, who spends $35.9 billion in the budget released last month. That’s up from $34.2 billion last year and $32 billion the year before that. As Maryland Business for Responsive Government points out, the general fund budget fattened 11.4 percent last...

WASHINGTON - A day after the governor of Maryland said he would like to institute a percentage tax on gasoline, the chief executive of Virginia said he would not seek any additional taxes during a recession, particularly on gas, despite a significant demand for more transit projects. Both states have looked to sales tax to resolve their transportation funding woes. On Monday, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said he would like to do away with a ban on sales tax for gasoline, to add to its existing 23-cent flat tax. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has a different approach. "I will not...

IN THE MAELSTROM of tax increases proposed by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), it’s easy to lose track of which are most critical. For a start, it’s useful to identify which needs have been most and longest neglected — and near the top of that list is transportation. It’s been 20 years since Maryland raised its gasoline tax, the largest source of transportation funding. As construction costs have risen, the revenue it yields has plummeted in real terms. At this point, Marylanders (like Virginians, who last saw a gas tax increase when Ronald Reagan was president) are not paying for...