rise in Assembly

ANNAPOLIS -- Sen. Brian E. Frosh drove home to Bethesda last Friday feeling confident that he had rounded up enough votes to sidetrack Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s nominee to head the Department of the Environment.

By the time Lynn Y. Buhl's confirmation hearing began 72 hours later, the governor's aides figured they had turned the tables, thanks to lobbying by Ehrlich (R) over the weekend.

But that was before Frosh (D-Dist. 16) began grilling Buhl, a former Chrysler Corp. attorney and mid-level official at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

In a series of calculated questions, Frosh, a veteran trial lawyer and leading environmentalist, painted Buhl as an unqualified bureaucrat from an environmentally unfriendly agency who seemed befuddled about specific issues such as sulfur dioxide emissions.

"Ms. Buhl doesn't know what is going on nationally or in the state with respect to clean air," Frosh told his colleagues.

Republican senators were furious, countering that Buhl was an experienced administrator whose reputation had been unfairly trashed by environmental groups.

"My good friend from Montgomery County is a very capable attorney," Minority Leader J. Lowell Stoltzfus (R-Dist. 38) of Marion Station said of Frosh, not meaning to be complimentary. "I have never seen anyone questioned as he did [to Buhl] tonight."

The Executive Nominations Committee had never rejected a governor's nominee. But that night it did, by a vote of 10-9, urging the full Senate to vote down Buhl's nomination when it comes up on the floor today.

As stunned Republican lawmakers filed from the hearing room and an Ehrlich aide dashed across the street to the governor's mansion to deliver the bad news, it was clear that Frosh had joined House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis as a thorn in the governor's side.

Sen. Philip C. Jimeno (D-Dist. 31) of Brooklyn Park, chairman of the nominations committee, said most of the senators had decided on Buhl before the hearing began. But Frosh's skilled questioning "reinforced some of the opposition," he said.

"I think he is going to be one of the stars of this new leadership team," Jimeno said.

A change of pace

At first glance, the 56-year-old Frosh can appear downright boring. He is courteous and self-deprecating, with a soft voice, bushy mustache and a partiality to blue shirts. He skips the social scene in Annapolis, returning home most nights to his wife and two daughters. He rarely seeks publicity and has not issued a press release in years.

"He's not a showoff, he's not here for the publicity," said Sen. Jennie M. Forehand (D-Dist. 17) of Rockville, who has served with Frosh since he arrived in Annapolis as a delegate in 1987.

But behind the modesty is a tough legal mind with a mastery of facts, which he can recite during debates while other senators stick to generalities. Those abilities make him a good fit for the Judicial Proceedings Committee, which he joined this year -- as chairman.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach said he called Frosh last summer when it became clear that several committee chairmen would be retiring or facing tough re-election races.

"I told him he was going to be in the front row, somehow," Miller said. "I knew he would be very fair and objective on the issues."

"I might not agree with him on most of them," the Senate president added, referring to Frosh's liberal stands on social issues. "He'll bring them to the floor and I'll vote 'no.'"

Frosh's impact on Judicial Proceedings already has been dramatic.

Last Friday, the committee voted 6-5 to approve a bill supported by Frosh that would impose a moratorium on the death penalty until mid-2005. An attempt to kill the bill on the Senate floor failed by one vote yesterday, setting up an epic battle next week.

During the Senate debate Thursday, Frosh argued that he wasn't morally opposed to the death penalty, but was concerned that the state could execute an innocent person.

"I don't think we've executed somebody who hasn't been guilty in the last 25 years," he said, referring to Maryland's three executions since 1978. "I think if we keep it up, we probably will."

Frosh said winning passage of the moratorium in the General Assembly would not be easy and noted that there are not enough votes to override a promised veto by Ehrlich. But the bill already has gone a lot further than it would have under Frosh's predecessor, former Sen. Walker M. Baker (D), a crusty veteran who supported the death penalty, opposed gun restrictions and was socially conservative. Baker usually enjoyed a 6-5 advantage in favor of conservatives and delighted in killing bills. "There's always next year," was his refrain.

Baker ran the committee with an iron fist, curtly dismissing witnesses who didn't quickly summarize their views. He once gave Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. one minute to testify.

"Walter used to cut people off," said Sen. Nancy Jacobs (Dist. 34), a conservative Republican from Abingdon who has battled Frosh over the death penalty. "Brian is very fair about giving people their say, whether they agree with his views or not."

But that openness also has a downside -- longer hearings.

Two weeks ago, the committee's spacious hearing room was jammed to capacity at the start of an emotionally charged hearing on death penalty bills.

Nearly six hours later, weary senators stared out into a nearly empty room and stole glances at the clock on the wall, which was approaching 7 p.m. Frosh, who was talking about legal standards in Utah as he debated fine points of the death penalty statute with an assistant state's attorney, didn't seem to notice.

Committee members say Frosh is steering the panel of eight Democrats and three Republicans on a more liberal course, creating a counterweight to the House Judiciary Committee and its more conservative chairman, Del. Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Dist. 27A) of Upper Marlboro. For example, Frosh backs bills to further tighten the state's gun control laws, while Vallario maintains there are enough gun laws on the books.

But Frosh downplayed his impact.

"It's certainly not going to be a lurch to the left," he said.

New battlegrounds

If you enjoy going to baseball games at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the nationally acclaimed stadium in Baltimore that became a model for a new generation of retro ballparks, don't thank Frosh. He voted against state funding for it.

"I voted against the football stadium, too," he said, explaining his opposition to "corporate welfare."

Frosh was not being partisan against Baltimore. He also opposed lucrative economic incentive packages for Marriott and Discovery Communications, two of Montgomery County's prominent corporations.

On the Judicial Proceedings Committee, look for Frosh to fight against mandatory sentencing proposals that limit the latitude of judges -- including Ehrlich's Project Exile legislation, which would punish criminals who use guns.

"You can't fix bad judges with 'one size fits all' justice," he said.

But the issue Frosh has been most identified with during his first four terms in the General Assembly -- two in the House of Delegates and two in the Senate -- is environmental protection.

Frosh took on powerful business interests and then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer (D) to force counties to implement recycling programs. He scuttled efforts by oil companies to drill in Chesapeake Bay. He battled newspaper companies to force them to use more recycled content. And he helped lead the fight for former Gov. Parris N. Glendening's (D) Smart Growth initiative.

"He's always in the forefront of pretty much every [environmental] issue in the state," said Susan C. Brown, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, which gives Frosh a perfect 100 percent rating on its legislative scorecard.

Frosh has emerged as the leading skeptic of Ehrlich's environmental policies, attacking the governor's "rhetoric" that the Department of the Environment is anti-business.

Last month, he delayed a Senate vote on the nomination of C. Ronald Franks, Ehrlich's nominee for secretary of the Department of Natural Resources. Frosh dropped his opposition a few days later, but only after extracting a pledge from Franks to uphold a tri-state agreement aimed at protecting the Chesapeake Bay.

Ehrlich, whose spokesman declined to comment on Frosh for this article, has vowed to press ahead with Buhl's nomination. If the governor doesn't back down, a battle is expected on the Senate floor next week, putting Frosh in the spotlight once again.

Ehrlich aides said yesterday that they had a "comfortable margin" of votes to confirm Buhl, but Frosh predicted the rejection would stand.

"She seems like a nice person," he said of Buhl. "But there are a lot of nice people around Annapolis. None of them are secretary of the Environment."