On this second update of my internship I can say I have been very pleased with the project I have been a part of and with what I have learned. I have been involved in reviewing and drafting several pieces of legislation to help our clients throughout the Maryland legislation session and have seen good results for most of them. As the legislative session has progressed and is approaching its end, most of the bills we worked on and submitted have passed one chamber and are anticipated to pass the other one to eventually become law. The very first bill I worked on has seen great results after many reworks over the past month. It involved a donation issue with our clients that had been an operating practice for decades until recently the State decided it needed to be regulated. Our initial writing to eliminate our clients from the regulation was considered too broad by the State agency involved with the issue. So, after changes and several discussions with representatives from the agency, my supervisor was able to secure an agreement on the final language of the bill. The final bill with amendments has made it through Maryland’s Senate and has seen good results in the House leading us to anticipate its passage into law. Other bills I have worked on have seen similar results with a few exceptions. As the legislative session proceeds further and comes to an end I will provide more information on them and their outcomes.
Along with working on legislation at
the state level, I was also asked to become involved in a zoning issue at the
county level involving agri-tourism. Grow & Fortify represents clients from
the craft alcohol industries, but also farmers or essentially those involved in
value-added farming. Upon beginning the assignment, the agri-tourism issue
turned out to be more complicated than anticipated. This lead some of us
reviewing the zoning issue to believe a rewrite of existing law was required
rather than changing zoning regulations. Thinking this might be necessary, I
was asked by my supervisor to do research on agri-tourism laws and if there are
other states or counties with similar legislation that we can analyze and base
a rewrite of the law off of. My research showed agri-tourism turned out to be
more established in other areas of the country with a few states having laws on
it. However, reviewing them showed their language did not solve our problem, as
their legislation was not too different from the existing law in Maryland.
After coming together and discussing the issue again it became apparent that
all of us recognized the same problems but could not determine the appropriate
way to find a solution. It was agreed that with the limited amount of time
left, what at least needed to be done was addressing the issue at the
regulation level to see if something of benefit could be achieved. This issue
will grow over the years and become more complicated. Unfortunately, I will not
be there to play a part in how it turns out but learned a lot during the
experience. I have been able to learn very much about state laws, how they are
written and than implemented. All of this relates to my thesis with the
development and administration of legislation. Seeing the back and forth in
real life of a law being passed, then administered and found to have issues, has
been very informative and interesting due to its relation to my research. I
have also been very fortunate to be trusted with my research skills and able use
it to serve a significant purpose throughout my internship.
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