Md. lawmakers say appointments to handgun permit board won’t save it

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Sponsors of vetoed legislation abolishing the Handgun Permit Review Board praised the qualifications of three new appointments to that panel but say it’s unlikely the board will survive.

Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican in his second term, announced five candidates to the five-member panel created in 1972. Sen. Pam Beidle and Del. Vanessa Atterbeary, sponsors of identical bills eliminating the controversial board, said they both expect that Hogan’s veto will be overridden by lawmakers in 2020 if not sooner.

“It’s a waste of their time,” said Atterbeary, a Howard County Democrat and vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Hogan this week announced three nominees to the panel: Retired federal Judge Frederic Smalkin; Nicholas Paros, a former major with the Maryland State Police and deputy superintendent of the Maryland Natural Resources Police; James Ballard, former director of law enforcement for the Pentagon; Jacques Cowan, a Montgomery County Police Department detective who served on a task force with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms; and Daniel Crowley, an attorney who works in Washington.

“These are certainly professional appointments as opposed to card-carrying members of the NRA,” said Beidle, an Anne Arundel County Democrat who is also vice chair of the Senate Executive Nominations Committee.

Atterbeary said Hogan’s move on the heels of the veto is meant to send a message to advocates for broader gun rights and concealed carry laws.

“He’s trying to make a point publicly with the types of people he is appointing,” said Atterbeary.

Michael Ricci, a Hogan spokesman, said Friday that the governor was not trying to send a message.

“The governor made the decision to veto the bill and appoint the new members concurrently,” Ricci said. “He felt that to not do so would be to make a political statement rather than a commitment to a process that we believe in.”

The executive nominations panel would be responsible for vetting the appointments — an action that is unlikely as both Beidle and Atterbeary said they expect the legislature will take up an override vote. That vote is expected in January, when the legislature is scheduled to reconvene.

Should the legislature be called back to special session before then, the override vote would have to be considered at that time.

The legislature might have to come back this summer if the Supreme Court orders a redrawing of congressional districts. A court ruling is expected by the end of June.

Three of the appointments to the handgun board fill vacancies created when the Senate declined to confirm three other nominees — Brian Fischer, Carol Loveless and John Michel — during the 2019 session.

Beidle and other lawmakers expressed concerns that the board was overturning decisions made by the Maryland State Police on applications for handgun permits.

Lawmakers expressed concern about the board’s frequent votes to alter a state police decision, which included 145 changes to modifications or restrictions and 77 reversals of a state police decision in a recent 12-month period, according to figures released by the permit review board during the legislative session.

Members of the handgun panel told lawmakers that the vast majority of those alterations were made to restrictions placed on permits that were either contradictory or made the use of the permit so confusing as to make it difficult for permit holders to use them.

In response, the legislature passed Beidle’s legislation and an identical House bill sponsored by Atterbeary, that abolished the board created in 1972. Instead, appeals of decisions on conceal-carry permits would be handled by administrative law judges. The changes came one year after the General Assembly added an appeals process allowing the state police or applicants to appeal decisions of the review board to an administrative law judge and then a court review.

Hogan vetoed the legislation, saying it did nothing to take handguns out of the hands of criminals or address violent crime in jurisdictions such as Baltimore.

“The governor believed that the current process has worked well for 45 years under Democratic and Republican governors,” Ricci said. “Why is the legislature changing it now before the reforms from last year could take effect?”

Currently there are about 400 appeals that are part of a backlog that could be addressed by the board before the legislature returns to Annapolis. The new members can begin immediately to hear and decide those cases until either Hogan’s veto is overridden or the legislature confirms or rejects the appointments.

“We’d like to see the legislature reconsider this law and work with us to keep the board functioning,” said Ricci.

Beidle said she hopes that when the board reports to the legislature on its decisions on appeals for the last year, the newly constituted board will overrule the state police less frequently. Even so, Beidle said, she expects Hogan’s veto will be overriden and the board ultimately abolished.

“It seems the boards always end up siding with the sitting governor,” said Beidle. “It’s probably time to take the politics out of this. It’s time has come.”