Sine Die was the day Sen. Sarah Elfreth cracked. The 30-year-old Annapolis Democrat loved every minute of the previous 89 days of the General Assembly. But Monday was different.

It was the final day of session but was the first in decades without longtime House Speaker Mike Busch, who died last Sunday. His loss brought tearful starts to both the final House and Senate sessions. Elfreth, who campaigned with Busch and worked closely with him to file legislation, called him her mentor and friend, “the best of us.”

More than three hours later, session recessed and Elfreth headed to the lounge. She reflected more on Busch between bites of taco casserole and tortilla chips.

“It’s almost a good thing that we have work to do,” Elfreth said. “That’s the way Mike would have wanted it to be. You don’t have time to process this type of thing because the work of the people is more important than our emotions.”

Still, her eyes welled up as she ate.

“I kept thinking yesterday all day how I wish I had spent more time with him and had learned more from him,” Elfreth said. “But what he gave me and gave so many people and this chamber was his confidence. You work really hard because you want to live up to what potential he saw in you. That’s honestly what made me work so hard.”

Busch’s death sent ripples through the entire General Assembly, but for Elfreth, and fellow freshmen delegates Heather Bagnall and Sandy Bartlett his legacy will be the catalyst for the rest of their lawmaking careers.

The trio is part of the largest group ever of women lawmakers to serve the State House, with freshmen making up a third of the lawmakers in this year’s session. Elfreth, Bagnall and Bartlett all had wins and losses, but in nine months they’ll be back to do it all over again.

Nobody puts “baby senator” in a corner

At 30, Elfreth is the youngest woman to be a Maryland senator, commemorated with a “baby senator” trophy she received at her swearing-in.

She doesn’t feel like a baby anymore. Elfreth said she’s accomplished more than a baby senator might and more than she ever expected this session.

“There have been some situations where maybe it was assumed I wouldn’t catch something or wouldn’t have the courage to speak up about something,” Elfreth said. “But I caught it, spoke up and fought for the district.”

Of the nine bills she put in as a primary sponsor, eight passed.

“We thought we would have a 500 batting average, which is still great. At the end of the day we’re going to bat .888,” Elfreth said. “I underestimated myself.”

She passed bills concerning agrotourism, getting backlogged rape kits tested, providing attorney’s fees to sexual assault victims on college campuses, bringing transparency to the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents, putting more momentum in the oyster restoration process, and making June 28th “Freedom of the Press Day” in Maryland, honoring the victims of The Capital shooting.

Elfreth’s legislation also includes some of the last changes Busch would make in Maryland. He and Del. Alice Cain cross-filed a bill with Elfreth to increase the Payment in Lieu of Taxes the state pays to Annapolis for fire and police services at the State House. The policy has already been enacted.

Her only policy that didn’t pass was a mental health needs assessment study, which died in committee.

Even after 10 sessions as a lobbyist, being a senator meant seeing how the sausage of legislation is really made, and learning to be less idealistic. Her oyster bill passed with bipartisan support, but the controversy made it feel less like a win.

“This isn’t butterflies and daisies, this is really hard stuff we’re doing here and not everybody is going to be happy at the end of the day,” Elfreth said. “But we got the best public policy worked out on the table and passed.”

At the beginning of session, she strived to be the “bay senator,” pushing for environmental legislation, but now she doesn’t want to pigeon-hole herself.

She’s got a list of ideas for policy she’s ready to work on over the next nine months, including tackling seafood labeling fraud, improving critical area law for the Chesapeake Bay Commission, investing in community colleges, Annapolis campaign finance reform, investing more in department of information technology to stay competitive with the private sector and a revolving loan fund for volunteer fire departments.

She’ll have nine months to mourn before next session, but her career without Busch won’t be the same.

“I don’t think there’s going to be a day down here, whether I’m here for the next three years or the next 30 years, that I don’t think about Mike Busch,” Elfreth said.

The path to ‘yes’

How do we get to a yes?

That’s the question Bagnall has found herself coming back to this session.

She said State House staff and lawmakers struggled with honoring Busch’s legacy and celebrating Sine Die. In the Anne Arundel County hallway of the House office, the tradition is to celebrate with food. When members asked if they should still celebrate, Bagnall said yes.

“When somebody passes you honor their memory by celebrating the legacy they created and talking about that legacy. So now have a hallway full of comfort food,” she said.

Though all three of the bills she primarily sponsored passed, her happiest moments this session came in watching others compromise.

She’s another freshman who came in with high expectations. After defeating Tony McConkey in November, the Arnold Democrat flipped a seat that had been Republican for 20 years.

Her bills will bar medical examinations on anesthetized or unconscious patients, close a loophole in a law passed last year for nonprofit grant funding and improve public access to physical therapy services.

But it was a bill she co-sponsored that brought her proudest moment this session. The Requirements for the Practice of Optometry bill had been seven years in the making, finally passing this session.

“This was the year that everyone found compromise,” Bagnall said.

“When it got to the floor we were holding our breath. To even be a part of that process to see everyone come together and work so hard to find a compromise… to get it done was pretty satisfying.”

Bagnall has mentors in senior members like Glen Burnie Democrat Del. Mark Chang and Howard County Democrat Del. Vanessa Atterbeary. Their advice in seeking compromise has been the most effective — and painful — for Bagnall.

“Never fall in love with your bill,” she’s learned.

“It’s a hard lesson to swallow … I think in some ways you have to be a little in love with your bills because you’re going to be advocating passionately for them. If you’re not in a place where you’re ready to do that, you probably shouldn’t be championing that bill. But you can kill a really good bill by wanting to hold on to one piece that is making it not work.”

Going into the interim, she wants constituents to know she hasn’t given up on issues that didn’t get resolved this session. She’s still looking for the path to “yes.”

“Sometimes people think, ‘Well it didn’t happen so it’s done.’ There are pieces of legislation that didn’t make it this year, but we’re already working on them,” Bagnall said. “I can tell you as someone who won an election 10 days after it was over that just because it didn’t go the way you wanted doesn’t mean it’s done.”

Compromising with courage

Del. Sandy Bartlett has fought hard — and lost hard — this session.

When Bartlett heard the news of Busch’s death, she wept. But she wiped her tears early Monday morning and set to comfort colleagues who knew him longer.

“I admired him before he even knew my name. He would walk in a room and the level of respect that just came because he was there ... he didn’t even have to say anything,” Bartlett said.

Her goal going into session was to help curb violence and eliminate “uni-culture,” her term for the divisive ignorance and unwillingness to compromise that has consumed much of America.

The Maryland City Democrat’s bill calling for a gun violence study could trace the origin of up to 8,000 legal guns along with the manufacturer, importer, dealer and first purchaser. The Senate version passed Monday morning, but she fought for her version of the bill into the night.

Her bill calling for reforms at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women died in committee Monday afternoon.

Her other bill, which seeks privacy protections for sexual assault victims when rape kits are sent to insurance companies for reimbursement, was still in Senate Judicial Proceedings as the sun set on Sine Die.

She also had another bill die earlier in session, which called for a Transitional Work Release Program for female inmates. It was withdrawn but lives on in pieces of other bills.

“The goal is to get the job done. I don’t care whose name is on it,” Bartlett said, although she said not fighting harder for her bill was her biggest mistake this session.

“I should have worked that bill harder. It didn’t dawn on me that it was just me and I really had to work that bill,” she said.

She also lost a battle for a bill that wasn’t hers, the Death with Dignity Act for medically assisted suicide.

Bartlett gave emotional testimony before the bill fell, talking about how she suffered as a breast cancer patient and would have taken the option of medically assisted suicide had her illness been terminal.

Will she support the bill again next session? “Heck yeah,” Bartlett said.

The divisiveness of gun and immigration bills, in particular, makes next session seem daunting for Bartlett.

“The opponents to the bills, their arguments were not sound arguments. They were arguments based on fear and some based on ignorance,” she said.

“They want to have things done their way completely their way without taking into consideration that we all exist here with each other. I don’t mean just at the General Assembly, I mean on Earth.”

While the outcome of her legislative fight wasn’t exactly what she hoped, Bartlett said she’s proud she had the courage to try to change the law.

“I did not know the whole process, but I was willing to do it,” she said. “I’m proud of myself for at least standing up and saying I would. That’s what I’m here for.”

ssanfelice@capgaznews.com