The House of Delegates on Friday passed legislation that will bar drivers in Maryland from using hand-held cell phones.

The bill, which was already passed in the same form by the Senate, now heads to Gov. Martin O’Malley’s desk for his signature. It would make talking on a hand-held cell phone a secondary offense, meaning it would have to accompany a more serious offense in order to be enforced. It would carry a $40 fine on the first offense, and $100 on the second.

“Three of 10 crashes in our state and every state come as a result of distracted driving and all of those come with a cost,” said Del. Bill Bronrott, D-Montgomery.

Bronrott, coincidentally, announced his upcoming retirement from the General Assembly yesterday to take a new job in Washington, as deputy administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The House voted 125-14 on the measure, which squeaked through the Senate last month, 24-23.

The bill faced a series of eight amendments Friday, all of them offered by Del. Michael D. Smiegel, R-Upper Shore, and all of them defeated.

Smiegel’s proposals ranged from allowing state snow plow drivers to use their phones, to diluting the bill to a public awareness campaign on the dangers of distracted driving.

He called the bill “overreaching and unnecessary.”

“They do all kinds of crazy things in a car,” Smiegel said after recounting a story about passing a driver who was eating a crab while behind the wheel. “We’re not outlawing all that.”

But the bill’s supporters, who hailed from both parties, applauded the ban as an important safety measure as cell phones grow more complex with more features to tempt their owners.

“We all know people are multitasking. They’re not just making phone calls. They’re multitasking as they drive down the road and our kids are doing it, too,” said Del. Maggie McIntosh, D-Baltimore City.

Lawmakers took their foot off the throat of the University of Maryland’s environmental law clinic last night, but that doesn’t mean we’ve heard the last of this issue.

After law students filed a suit against a chicken farm on the Eastern shore and the poultry giant Perdue, lawmakers amended the state operating budget to tie funding for the clinic to a requirement that the clinic disclose its client list.

The Senate wanted to withhold $250,000; the House, $500,000. The House amended its budget on the floor last week to take out the funding’s link to the reporting requirement. And Tuesday night, at a conference committee meeting on the budget, the Senate agreed to go with the House.

“We thought that was a fair approach that achieved our goals without the confusion of the initial Senate proposal,” said Sen. Richard Madaleno Jr., a Montgomery County Democrat and a member of the Senate’s negotiating team.

Madaleno said the Senate wanted to “understand what the law clinics are doing, to appreciate what their role is.”

Del. Norman Conway, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and an Eastern Shore Democrat, said the law clinics actions were “prosecutorial.”

“My goal was purely to say the clinic is an instructional tool,” he said. “Any kind of case they take should provide students with experience on all sides of it. I think what they did with the environmental law clinic was one-sided.”

Asked if he thought the law school had gotten the message, Conway said yes.

But, he added sternly: “We’ll be watching.”

Compare that with what law school Dean Phoebe A. Haddon said last month: “The moment you attach a requirement of reporting to money, you’re saying, ‘We’ll be watching you.’ ”

She’s right. The lawmakers will be watching.

The Senate gave preliminary approval to a bill that would require retailers to give their employees shift breaks.

The House has already passed their version of the bill, so despite how deep the legislature is in its 90-day session, the bills shouldn’t have much trouble getting to the governor’s desk.

Business groups softened their opposition to the bill as the session wore on and exemptions were added for small businesses and franchisees.

Final Senate action could come this week.

Every year, Maryland’s lawmakers are buried in legislation during their 90-day sprint of a lawmaking session.

There are typically more than 2,000 bills introduced. Some are big-time initiatives that bring out hours upon hours of testimony for and against and ride a very public roller coaster toward passage or defeat. Many aren’t paid much attention at all. Some are regular pet projects introduced by delegates or senators year after year.

And some catch us all by surprise.

Such is the case with HB 1021, which is titled “Family law – Prohibited Marriages – First Cousins.” Liam Farrell, of The Capital, spotted it first.

The bill synopsis does indeed appear to ban such marriages, but goes on to detail certain circumstances under which first cousins could wed – if the would-be bride and groom are both over 65, for example, or if one can show that he or she is infertile.

The bill was introduced by Dels. Henry B. Heller and Joseph F. Vallario Jr.