Heated Debate On Political Scholarships

Bryan Simonaire

By Bryan Simonaire
State Senator, District 31

Attempting to take away honey from a bear can quickly turn a docile bear into an agitated and unpredictable creature.

Well, I guess I rattled the figurative bear this session by challenging the status quo. I led the effort to take away a longstanding perk for senators and delegates.

Given their reaction, you would have thought I was asking to take away their salary.

Simply put: I believe politicians should not use taxpayer dollars to personally award scholarships to their constituents. The current policy is a brazen form of incumbency protectionism. I believe in the scholarship program, but the awards should be given from the state, not directly from a politician.

What happened next was shocking but not surprising. Let me set the stage first.

House Bill 118 proposed to expand lawmakers’ authority to award their legislative scholarships to people illegally in our country. The selection process has no priority for citizens, and in fact, the legislature outright rejected that idea despite having finite funds available.

The effect on citizens will be fewer individuals selected for an award or less dollars given to all those selected.

This shift in policy is a growing trend among the majority leadership. That being said, I also have a fundamental disagreement with the underlying policy that legislators should be directly giving out state scholarships.

It is a dinosaur policy that every other state in America has long since abolished, except for Maryland.

Maryland’s policy allows legislators to hand out millions of dollars in scholarships and take credit for it. Anyone who thinks about it for a minute realizes that this curries favor with their voting constituents and their families.

From a policy standpoint, why should politicians get this incumbency advantage when the scholarships can be given out by the higher education agency in the state? This is the current law.

That sets the drama for when I offered an unwanted floor amendment to House Bill 119. It would have removed politicians from personally giving out the award, while continuing the program so our students still receive the money. I simply changed who awarded the scholarships. My amendment gave the award responsibility and credit to Maryland Higher Education Commission, just as they do with all other state scholarships.

I offered the amendment because I thought it was right policy for Maryland.

Then something happened that had never happened in my time in Annapolis. They used an antiquated rule to prohibit a public vote on my amendment. Both Democrats and Republicans hide in a day of transparency. They did not take a vote on this issue, because they did not want their vote to be made public.

They wanted to keep their nice little perk.

Immediately afterward, I stood up and boldly criticized the Senate body by saying it was a sad day on the Senate floor when senators did not have the guts to vote on a serious amendment.

Harsh? Maybe, but truthful. Sometimes you just have to call it like you see it.

Lastly, I will say that I did not enter politics just to stay in office or promote political perks. I went to Annapolis to restore the voice of the people, and do what was right to the best of my ability and judgment.

If I can be of any assistance or if you would like to comment on this article, contact me at bryan.simonaire@senate.state.md.us or call my office at 410-841-3658.