The Eye on Annapolis Podcast returns with a look at two high-profile bills up for a Senate committee vote this week.

Alex and I are joined by The Daily Record’s Steve Lash to examine the prospects for the gun control and death penalty repeal bills. Will these tie up the General Assembly the way gay marriage and expanded gambling did?

Alex also provides the latest on Senate President Mike Miller’s transportation bill and Gov. Martin O’Malley’s offshore wind bill.

Enjoy.

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After three sessions of the General Assembly that spanned almost 100 days in 2012, the last of the 797 bills approved by state legislators and made law by Gov. Martin O’Malley this year will go into effect as the fireworks start in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.

The most famous of those laws is the Civil Marriage Protection Act, which gives gay couples the right to marry in Maryland.

In Baltimore, the first same-sex couples will be wed shortly after the stroke of midnight and will have a special guest in Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who intends to witness the marriage of seven couples at City Hall at 12:30 a.m.

Ordinarily, the Hall would be closed at that hour, and all city offices are closed on New Year’s Day. But Rawlings-Blake, who joined other state Democratic leaders in the campaign to legalize gay marriage, said this constituted a special occasion.

“New Years Day will have a new meaning for the hundreds — if not thousands — of couples who will finally have the right to marry the person they love,” Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. “It is a remarkable achievement for Maryland, and we are excited to open City Hall to host some of the first wedding ceremonies in our great state.”

Ten other laws go into effect Tuesday, too. A state law that alters the election schedule of Baltimore to bring it into line with presidential elections will become effective, but that effect won’t be felt until 2016, when Rawlings-Blake and the city council are able to stay in office for an extra year, until the calendar turns to 2017.

A similar law passed by the council was approved by voters in November, the intent being to foster greater voter turnout in the city.

Another bill, requested by the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, removes exemptions for low-volume mortgage lenders, some of whom did not previously have to be licensed by the state.

The law, originally SB 302, also allows state regulators to oversee affiliates and subsidiaries of a national bank operating within the state. The legislation was a reaction to the  federal Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which allowed states to regulate those institutions.

Other laws protect children from identity theft, potentially reduce the supervision time of a parolee based on behavior, ban the use of arsenic in chicken feed and provide tax credits for operators of thermal biomass systems — thermal energy generators powered by manure and chicken litter.

The laws go into effect just in time; the legislature will reconvene for its regular, 90-day session on Jan. 9, when members will start the process of reviewing more than 2,500 potential laws.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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