ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Connie Finch doesn’t read a newspaper, but she picks up plenty each morning. At the end of her driveway in Westminster, at least one free newspaper is dropped every day. And she picks up more newspapers left by neighbors on her road.

All of them end up in the garbage.

“We’re not asking for it,” Finch said. “And it’s just littering our streets.”

Complaints from Finch and others about free home-delivery newspapers in Maryland have inspired a proposed law that, if approved, would be the first of its kind in the nation. Delegate Tanya Shewell, R-Carroll, has proposed a “do-not-deliver” registry that would work similarly to a “do-not-call” registry for telemarketers.

Shewell said that constituents are complaining that even when they call a newspaper asking for delivery to be stopped, their requests are ignored. Shewell said people can’t stop the newspapers even when they leave town, inviting burglars to their home. The newspapers are often left on curbs, littering roadsides and storm drains.

The complaints started soon after the 2006 launch of The (Baltimore) Examiner, which delivers about 230,000 of its total 250,000 circulation to Maryland homes six days a week, making it the state’s largest daily newspaper.

“I started getting calls from people who called numerous times and were promised it would stop, and it didn’t,” Shewell said. “They’re trashing up our community.”

The newspaper industry is fighting the proposed registry: Publishers say it isn’t needed.

“Nobody wants to send out papers that are wasted, that people just throw away,” said Jack Murphy, executive director of the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Association.

Shewell’s bill would give newspaper publishers seven days to comply with a request to stop an unsolicited home delivery. If the deliveries continue, publishers could be fined $100 a day. The bill would also require free newspapers to print a toll-free number in a conspicuous location for people who would like to have the newspapers stopped to call.

“I love free newspapers. We’re not trying to hurt the business of the newspapers,” Shewell said. “All we’re asking is for them to stop delivering to people who ask them to stop. People don’t know where to call. They don’t know how to stop it.”

Shewell’s bill, H.B. 357, does not specify who would maintain the do-not-deliver list, or how an aggrieved homeowner could prove they asked to stop the deliveries.

In addition to publishers, Shewell’s bill is likely to run into opposition from lawmakers in both parties who worry it could violate constitutional free-speech protections.

“I like information,” said Sen. Catherine Pugh, D-Baltimore. “If people are out of town, they can make arrangements for people to pick up materials in their yards. I just don’t think government needs to do everything. We can take some responsibility for our own lives.”

Republican Sen. Nancy Jacobs of Harford County questioned why a law is needed to clear newspapers from lawns.

“Most people have neighbors while they’re away picking them up,” Jacobs said of the free daily newspapers delivered in her neighborhood. “It’s not a major concern to me.”

It’s not clear whether the bill would violate the Constitution, but it could prove a legal morass, said T. Barton Carter, a media law expert at Boston University. Carter said it’s uncertain how valuable a do-not-call analogy is.

“Usually, when you’re talking about print media and just delivering it to the outside, that’s not seen as intrusive as calls. So, it’s not clear it would survive a similar First Amendment analysis,” Carter said.

If the law banned newspaper deliveries, it would also likely have to set up a do-not-deliver registry for pizza delivery ads and other fliers routinely delivered to homes, Carter said.

“I know of all kinds of fliers for services, so would you be eliminating all of those? If you aren’t, now you have a real problem in that you’re singling out a certain type of distribution,” said Carter, who didn’t know of any existing do-not-deliver laws.

George Wilbanks, publisher of the East County Times in Baltimore County, is among those who oppose Shewell’s bill. His weekly newspaper has a circulation of 45,000, half of which are delivered to homes.

“I don’t like it because it’s an intrusion to us,” Wilbanks said. He said newspapers already try to avoid sending papers to people who don’t read them.

“If a person calls to us and says, ‘We don’t want your cotton-pickin’ paper,’ we don’t want to be sending it to them anyway,” Wilbanks said.

“Here’s what I’m afraid of. It’s 3 o’clock, and some high school kids are walking home from school, and they pick up a paper and throw it and it lands in someone’s yard who doesn’t want it. I could be fined for that, and that’s what I have a problem with.”

Several attempts to contact The Examiner for comment were not successful. For a story Jan. 25 in The Examiner, Clarity Media Group’s Baltimore-Washington Examiner Newspaper Group CEO Michael Phelps said, “My desire for the newspaper to not go to those who don’t want it far exceeds their desire to stop getting it. ... I hate it when we annoy readers, and keeping that annoyance to a minimum is among my highest priorities.”

Murphy said publishers plan to meet with Shewell to talk about better ways to prevent newspapers from landing at homes where people don’t want them. Most people do want the papers, Murphy said.

“Free newspapers in this state are very well read. And many, many people love them and read them every day,” he said.

Finch, the frustrated Westminster homeowner, insists something should be done to stop newspaper deliveries people don’t want. Finch said many of her neighbors put signs in their yards asking for no newspaper deliveries — but even the signs don’t work.

“They literally throw the newspaper at the signs, so there’s blatant disregard for what their wants and desires are,” Finch said. The practice is frustrating for people who don’t want a newspaper.

“If we wanted to subscribe to one,” Finch said, “we would.”