Rep. L. Mark Dudenhefer

Proposes amendments to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Compact of 1966 (the Compact). The bill allows members of the Board of Directors of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (the Authority) to be provided reasonable compensation. The bill eliminates requirements for overtime compensation and requirements that set the minimum wage equal to the prevailing wage on similar construction in the locality for all laborers and mechanics employed by contractors or subcontractors in the construction, alteration, or repair of projects, buildings, and works undertaken by the Authority or who are financially assisted by it. The bill eliminates the requirement that the Authority negotiate employees' wages, salaries, hours, working conditions, and pension or retirement provisions through labor organizations and removes employee protective arrangements under the Federal Transit Act. The bill eliminates the mandatory-binding-arbitration provision associated with union contract negotiations. The bill eliminates requirements regarding the Authority assumption of labor contracts, collective bargaining agreements, and the obligations of any transportation system acquired by it with regard to wages, salaries, hours, working conditions, sick leave, and health and welfare and pension or retirement provisions for employees of an existing transit facility acquired by the Authority. These amendments to the Compact shall not become effective until they are enacted by the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia and consented to by Congress, as provided for in the Compact.

Provides that a blind parent's blindness, as defined in the bill, shall not be the sole basis of the denial or restriction of such parent's custody or visitation rights. The bill requires a party who alleges that a parent's blindness should be a factor to be considered to not be in the best interests of the child, or should otherwise be a reason to deny or restrict such a parent's custody or visitation rights, to prove by clear and convincing evidence that the child's best interests would not be met or served due to such parent's blindness. The bill allows a blind parent to demonstrate how supportive parenting services would appropriately address any threats to the child's best interests and further allows that such services be ordered by the court. The bill requires a court to make written findings where the court denies or restricts custody or visitation of a blind parent or where supportive parenting services are not ordered. The same requirements apply to the denial of approval of a blind prospective foster parent, or removal of a child from a blind foster parent's home, and to the denial of a final order of adoption wherein the prospective adoptive parent is blind.

Creates the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (the Act). The Act prohibits an abortion after 20 weeks' gestation unless, in reasonable medical judgment, the mother has a condition that so complicates her medical condition as to necessitate the abortion to avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function. When an abortion is not prohibited post-20 weeks' gestation, and if the woman elects to have an abortion, the physician is required to terminate the pregnancy in a manner that would provide the unborn child the best opportunity to survive. The bill punishes performance of an abortion in violation of the Act as a Class 4 felony. The bill also provides for civil remedies against a physician who performs an abortion in violation of the Act.