House having a gang fight
Over on the House side we have a bit of a gang rumble over the Maryland Gang Prosecution Act of 2010. It looks like an attempt by some of the more liberal members of the chamber to go after the bill with amendments, throwing it out of synch with the Senate and effectively killing it.
Previous amendments were decisively defeated, The current one by Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez is probably headed the same way. The delegate is giving a prolonged explanation of her amendment, which she calls "friendly" but which is anything but.
It goes down 106-25.
There's a motion to suspend the rules and let it go to final passage.
The bill goes to the governor: 117-24.
This was one of the most wrangled-over bills of the session, but the state's prosecutors supported it strongly.
Comments
Among other things, Del Gutierrez knows that this bill puts Gustavo Torres in the crosshairs as a Gang Organizer. His long history and panoply of conspiracy in contravention of Federal immigration law, suborning of malfeasance of law-enforcement authority, and organization of flat out Gang Stalkings and occasionally violent harassent of Immigration Reform ("Attrition Through Enforcement") Activists is well known and has barely skirted the law, aided and abetted by his staff of attorneys at CASA de Maryland.
Seriously: in Montgomery County, the power of the Spanish-Speaking "Genteel Gangs" is out of control and needs to be reined-in. It's not just them, it's just that all of the less competent and more-criminal gangsters all model their organizations on the highly successful model of CASA. Maybe we won't get CASA, but we will find and jail the perpetrators of these imitators for 20 years or more.
And about time, too.
And yes, I'm one of the folks chanting NOVEMBER IS COMING. We'll see in November how aggressively the politicians have demanded that the police enforce laws going into effect on October 1. No gang leader going to jail? It's a coin toss as to who gets votes. Gang leaders falling right and left? Re-election assured.
That is all, thanks.
Posted by: Thomas Hardman | April 12, 2010 11:24 PM