Daily Record columnist and WYPR Senior News Analyst C. Fraser Smith joins me once again on a super-sized podcast to review the big news from Friday: the House of Delegates passing same-sex marriage legislation and the Senate unanimously voting to censure Sen. Ulysses Currie.

Fraser provides some big-picture perspective on both events and recalls the last day the General Assembly made so much historic news in one day. (Hint: It was in 1984.)

We also look at Gov. Martin O’Malley’s role in the gay marriage bill and how involved he might be in legislation throughout the rest of the session. Enjoy.

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For most of the nation, presidential campaign politics are playing out in far-away places like Michigan, Florida, New Hampshire and Iowa as Republican candidates take turns eviscerating one another and swapping leads in the polls.

But do not despair, residents of the Free State. We have a sideshow of our very own, which is taking shape daily in Annapolis. It’s about the 2016 presidential race and Gov. Martin O’Malley’s apparent ambitions in that regard.

For some time now, the governor’s attempts to burnish his national profile while serving as head of the Democratic Governors Association have been the topic of conversations over coffee and cocktails in state political circles.

A popular pastime has been speculating what cabinet post the governor might go for — Homeland Security seems to rank high among the speculators – if President Obama wins a second term.

But now that speculation is spilling into public view, often accompanied by barbed rhetoric.

After Comptroller Peter Franchot assailed O’Malley’s proposal to raises taxes on gasoline as “an absolute punch to the gut of the middle class,” the governor responded by calling fellow Democrat Franchot “kind of our version of Mitt Romney.”

Franchot retorted, ”I’m sorry if I’m getting in the way of his presidential efforts, but I’m doing my job as comptroller.” (Interesting words from a man who is presumed to be running his own campaign for governor of Maryland.)

O’Malley was also pummeled with the p-word when he testified before two House committees in favor of his same-sex marriage bill, a popular issue with Democrats nationally.

The Washington Post reported that Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr., D-Baltimore County, a leading opponent of the bill, “suggested that O’Malley must want to match New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat who helped pass a same-sex marriage bill last year and who, like O’Malley, has been talked about for national office in 2016.”

“I would love to see our governor as president of the United States, but not on the backs of his own people,” Burns said. Ouch.

So there you have it — presidential politics, Maryland style. And it’s just beginning.

Daily Record columnist and WYPR Senior News Analyst C. Fraser Smith joins me on the podcast to review the week that was in Annapolis. Among the topics we discuss is the long-running rivalry between Gov. Martin O’Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot that flared up when O’Malley referred to Franchot as “Maryland’s Mitt Romney.”

We also take a look at what punishment Sen. Ulysses Currie could face from a legislative ethics panel and what it might mean for business as usual in Annapolis. And we get into why Smith thinks the “tone” of this legislative session is different than in years’ past.

(And when I say “we,” I really mean “Fraser Smith.” Few people can offer perspective on Annapolis the way he can.)

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The O’Malley Administration is enlisting support for the governor’s offshore wind energy bill from people in all walks of life.

Emails went flying out to the media last Friday. First came word that 30 religious leaders from Prince George’s County would deliver letters Monday supporting the bill to P.G. delegates and senators on the committees that will handle the legislation.

Then we heard that on Tuesday, about two dozen Maryland health professionals – wearing lab coats and scrubs no less — would join business leaders Tuesday morning on Lawyer’s Mall near the State House to express their support for the bill, which they claim would save more than 400 lives and nearly $2.5 billion in health costs while creating more than 1,000 jobs.

And at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Gov. Martin O’Malley himself will testify in favor of the bill before the Senate Finance Committee.

And so, the legislative theater season is in full swing. Sit back and enjoy the show.

The State of the State address is behind us as we enter the fourth full week of the 2012 legislative session.

Lawmakers are already tackling the same-sex marriage issue and are waiting to see Gov. Martin O’Malley’’s gas tax proposal. They know he will call for the 6 percent sales tax to be applied to gasoline, but a key piece of the legislation remains unknown — how O’Malley wants to protect the Transportation Trust Fund from budget-balancing raids. Ethics reform and gambling are also on the docket this week. Listen up.

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Some 180,000 people could buy health insurance through a state-run exchange in 2014 and that figure could double the following year, Maryland health officials told a Senate committee Thursday.

Gov. Martin O’Malley’s administration is backing legislation to firm up more aspects of the exchange mandated by President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Determining the way the state will pay for the exchange, however, will wait until next year, the officials said.

Rebecca Pearce, executive director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, said initial estimates indicate the exchange would cost $30 to $40 million to run in the first year and between $45 million and $60 million in the second.

The exchange’s board of trustees recommended the state examine both “broad-based” health industry fees and transaction-based “user fees” to pay for the exchange.

Maryland officials expect to receive federal dollars to run the exchange in 2014. The system must be self-sustaining in 2015.

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Gov. Martin O’Malley outlined his transportation funding initiative Monday, and Tuesday he began tying his proposal to specific road, bridge and transit projects around the state.

Throughout the day, administration officials revealed through email blasts — every half hour, starting at noon — and posts on the governor’s blog “projects that could be impacted” in all 24 local jurisdictions.

They also mounted posters showing schematics, renderings and photos of the projects between the galleries above the Senate and House of Delegates, in the hallway through which dignitaries will travel on their way to Wednesday’s State of the State address.

The projects include the Red Line in Baltimore City, development around the Martin State MARC station in Baltimore County, widening Route 32 in Carroll, a MARC line extension through Cecil and improvements to an intersection in Anne Arundel.

The promise of funding for local projects will likely be key to winning votes for O’Malley’s proposal.

For the last two years, House Speaker Michael E. Busch, D-Anne Arundel, said the support of local political leaders in vote-rich Howard, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Baltimore City will be critical.

“If you believe they’re going to vote for it and not expect to get projects, you still believe in Santa Claus,” the speaker told a Maryland Economic Development Association conference earlier this month. “That’s the way it works.”

Senate President Mike Miller said Tuesday the sales tax on gasoline will be “a tough sell.”

The proposal would phase in over three years, adding about 6 cents to a gallon of gas a year, based on Tuesday’s statewide average of $3.50.

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A bipartisan group of Senate leaders is backing legislation that would exempt family farms from Maryland’s estate tax.

“When someone who owns a farm passes, so often the farm is lost to congestion, to sprawl,” said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Calvert and Prince George’s.

The Senate’s bill will exempt up to $5 million in agricultural property passed to a “qualified recipient” who will use the property for farming purposes.

If the property is sold and not used as a farm within a decade, the estate tax would then have to be repaid.

Senators said too often, family members who inherit farms are forced to sell off pieces of their land to pay the estate tax bill.

“I hear this from a number in the industry, that they’re land rich but cash poor,” said Senate Majority Leader Rob Garagiola, D-Montgomery.

Garagiola, who is running for the 6th Congressional District seat in Western Maryland, was joined in promoting the bill by Sen. David R. Brinkley, a Republican who has also thrown his hat into that race.

“The best farm preservation tool we have is anything that makes farming profitable,” said Brinkley, R-Carroll and Frederick.

Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, has said he will propose a similar measure to defer estate taxes on family farms until they are subdivided or developed.

The bill was not part of the legislative agenda the governor rolled out on Monday, but his administration has said it will be coming soon.

Two proposals that consistently rankle business interests big and small in Annapolis resurfaced Wednesday for their annual appearance in the State House.

They are, of course, the millionaire’s tax and combined reporting. (S.B. 249 and S.B. 269, respectively, if you’re keeping score at home.)

Both are viewed by liberal lawmakers as untapped revenue streams that could be used to ease the state’s persistent fiscal woes.

The millionaire’s tax would raise the individual income tax to 6.25 percent for people who make more than $1 million a year. Business leaders argue that the tax rate – it was passed in 2008 and expired in 2010 – make the state unfriendly to top earners and is unfair to small businesses that file tax returns as individuals.

Combined reporting is a way of assessing corporate taxes based on an apportioned share of company’s revenue nationwide. The goal is to stop companies from stashing revenue in states with lower tax burdens.

Both bills have made frequent appearances in Annapolis in recent years and have failed to gain traction as business groups have fought to keep them from emerging from tax committees in both chambers.

There does not appear to be any more interest in the proposals this year, but with a $1.1 billion budget gap looming and a host of already unpopular balancing measures pushed by Gov. Martin O’Malley, the bills are worth keeping an eye on.

Gov. Martin O’Malley held his first “Tweetup” Monday morning, fielding a handful of questions from 16 Twitter followers who met in person to discuss issues in the state.

“We have an opportunity in these times to be better connected than ever before,” O’Malley said, kicking the event off.

The questions ranged from softballs — “What book are you reading now?” was the first one — to specific policy questions, like whether libraries would also have to shoulder a share of pension costs along with the counties.

O’Malley said that issue, along with how school funding requirements would be affected by the proposed pension shift, are yet to be decided.

The governor said the state has a “tremendous opportunity” this year to bring in tourist dollars associated with the bicentennial of the War of 1812, an event that could also help clean up Baltimore’s image.

“You have to talk about the good things happening in the city,” O’Malley said. “It’s not a good way to sell newspapers, but it’s a good way to sell the city.”

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