On the Governor’s race

Today I’m going to start on hammering out my own guide to the issues that are driving each race. First and foremost among the citizens of Maryland is the quest for the governor’s chair. There are five sets of candidates that I’m aware of, four on the ballot and one write-in.

As most of you know, the incumbent Republican is Gov. Robert Ehrlich. Ehrlich has served as the governor for the last four years; prior to that he was a Congressman in Maryland’s 2nd District for 8 years and a member of the House of Delegates for 8 years. His running mate is current head of the Maryland Department of Disabilities Kristen Cox. She succeeds the current Lieutenant Governor, Michael Steele, who is running for the United States Senate.

The Democrats elected Martin O’Malley to challenge Ehrlich for the seat. O’Malley has served as the mayor of Baltimore for the last 7 years, prior to that he was a Baltimore City Councilman for 8 years. His running mate is Anthony Brown, a Delegate in the General Assembly.

Selected by the Green Party, Ed Boyd is a recruiter for a temporary employment agency and a Navy veteran. His running mate is James Joseph Madigan, who works for the Maryland Department of Corrections.

Populist Party candidate Chris Driscoll is the party’s chairman in Maryland and has worked for various political causes over the last decade, including a stint with Ralph Nader’s 2004 Presidential campaign. His running mate is Ed Rothstein.

Finally, the write-in candidate I just became aware of is Dr. John Simmins, a PhD who works for an energy company in southern Maryland. He also serves as chairman of Charles County Right to Life. Running with Simmins is Dr. Michael Hargadon, a Baltimore dentist. Hargadon has been a regional coordinator with the Maryland Constitution Party and worked on Ellen Sauerbray’s first campaign for governor.

In looking through the vast array of issues brought up by these five candidates, there were eight that seemed to be common themes running through at least three or four of the candidate platforms. These were education, environment, health care, homeland security, jobs, public safety, tax relief, and transportation. One drawback I have is that in Ehrlich’s case, he’s running moreso on his record than a future agenda, so his items come with the caveat that past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Then again, the challengers do have the disadvantage of “pie-in-the-sky” projections which may not work in reality.

Education

Governor Ehlich claims to have given the “largest funding increase in history for K-12 education” to Maryland schools, although part of this was due to the Thornton mandate in place prior to his term. Also, under his term Maryland opened its first charter schools.

Most of Martin O’Malley’s proposals for education also involve increased funding, promising more money to fully fund the Thornton mandate, build new schools, increase teacher pensions, and increase funding to colleges and universities to lower tuition increases. Less clear is where he’ll find all of this cash.

Ed Boyd wants to “change the direction of the Maryland State Department of Education.” Some methods he’d use would be to reduce the role of the Maryland HSA tests regarding graduation, provide more equitable funding for public schools and rely less on property taxes, and advocate elected school boards. Boyd also notes that “(t)here would be plenty of money for our schools if Maryland corporations paid their fair share of taxes.”

Environment

In terms of saving Chesapeake Bay, Ehrlich points with the most pride at replenishing bay grasses and oysters as well as the Corsica River Project, an effort to remove that river from the federal impaired waters list. The Governor also enacted financial incentives for ethanol and biodiesel production, which may explain the biodiesel facility in Berlin as well as the proposed one in Princess Anne.

Among Martin O’Malley’s environmental proposals are tax credits to preserve farmland and instituting what he calls BayStat, an accountability program based on the CitiStat one he uses in Baltimore. His key initiative would be an “Environmental Bill of Rights” with five rights: breathing clean air, drinking clean water, a cleaner and healthier Chesapeake Bay, keeping children safe from lead poisoning, and the “right to enjoy parks, playgrounds, and open spaces that belong to Marylanders.”

Ed Boyd would start out by stopping the Inter-County Connector highway and diverting those funds to public transportation. He also vows to give the existing Project Open Space program “all available funds.” Also, he would rework the tax structure to discourage factory farming and preserve wilderness and open space areas.

While Chris Driscoll doesn’t directly address the environment, one of his proposals would indirectly work toward affecting its quality. His idea is to “institute a state ‘land-value tax’ (also known as ‘split-rate tax’) to encourage urban and rural renewal.” This would in theory eliminate sprawl and greenfield development.

John Simmins has a unique approach. He writes, “The top ten sources of pollution of the bay will be ranked according to their impact on the environment and the cost of clean-up. The results will be presented to the voters of the State of Maryland who will vote on three sources of pollution to remedy. Each time a source of pollution has been eliminated, the process will continue. This way the voters of Maryland get to choose what is important to them on the environment and how much they are willing to pay to fix it.”

Health Care

Among Governor Ehrlich’s record of accomplishments is adding 80,000 Marylanders to Medicare through $4.7 billion in investment and increasing the Senior Prescription Drug Program by $14.5 million. He’s also created a Stem Cell Research Fund with a $15 million initial funding. He’s also touting the first cabinet-level Department of Disabilities (which running mate Kristen Cox currently leads) and implemented a Medicaid buy-in program so those with disabilities may remain in the program yet work.

Key amongst Martin O’Malley’s ideas for health care is creating a health insurance pool for small businesses. He’s also an advocate of expanding the SCHIP program (children’s health insurance) and claims to have a solution for making prescription drugs more affordable for seniors (through reimportation). Martin also favors increased funding for minority and rural health care access, as well as assisted living programs.

In the words of Chris Driscoll, “The best single thing we could do to improve our security would be to get rid of the terribly expensive and inefficient health payment system based on private waste, private profit and immense public costs, that is, based on private insurance companies. These profiteering monopolies are the greatest threat to public safety and security in America today… We simply can’t afford to keep paying for the monopoly insurance companies’ lavish lifestyles while many hardworking Americans and Marylanders go without healthcare.”

Four of the five basic issues that write-in candidate John Simmins has on his platform deal at least peripherally with health care. Simmins advocates a complete ban on abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, and human cloning, citing various religious tenets as justification. Obviously his main focus is right-to-life issues. However, he also has a three-fold approach to “affordable” health care. First would be to expand the requirement for auto insurance to obtain a driver’s license to also having health insurance. The requirement would also extend to securing employment – a prospective employee would have to have proof of health insurance. The Simmins plan would make each party (employee and employer) equally responsible for the cost (a 50-50 split.) Part of this cost would be defrayed by a tax credit to be determined by the Comptroller. Then those remaining unemployed and unlicensed folks would be placed in a pool of participants who recieve a minimal health insurance policy from a private insurer, with costs and benefit package determined by negotiations between the insurers and the state. Part of the employee/employer premiums would pay for this service.

Homeland Security

According to his website, Ehrlich “established the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security to better prepare Maryland for emergencies and provided local governments with state-of-the-art communications technology and emergency response vehicles.”

Martin O’Malley wants most to have the federal government step up its support, citing an “across-the-board” cut in federal funding in 2005. He also holds them responsible for the lack of container inspections. O’Malley vows to route funding to first responders rather than “bureaucracy” and says he’ll secure Maryland’s bridges, ports, tunnels, and rail, blaming the feds for not doing so currently.

Ed Boyd would bring back Maryland National Guard personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan and deny any future deployment orders.

Twice citing the “illegal war” in Iraq, Chris Driscoll also proposes to bring back MNG troops, claiming that their ability to cope with a natural disaster here is “severely compromised” by having troops overseas.

Jobs

While the number of jobs has increased under Governor Ehrlich’s watch, I think the best attribute of his record there is the biotechnology and Research and Development tax credits he enacted. Much of the rest of the growth is reflective of the solid national economy. However, someone created my job during the Governor’s term so I’m glad it was here in Maryland.

Highest among Martin O’Malley’s job creation ideas is creating what he terms as “weapons of mass salvation”, a push in research and employment in those fields dealing with curing disease. O’Malley also seeks to invest in workforce development, reduce paperwork for small businesses, protect manufacturing in the state, and promote eco-tourism, among other items.

Ed Boyd advocates four main planks in his “labor” platform: a “living wage”, unionization of the service industry, collective bargaining for state employees, and promoting apprentice programs in the schools.

As an advocate for employee-owned companies, Chris Driscoll wants to “level the playing field” between large and small businesses, and increase the ranks of Maryland business owners. This would be achieved by utilizing new and existing laws regarding Employee Stock Ownership Plans, turning them into a incubator for business.

Public Safety

Governor Ehrlich has focused a lot of time and attention on the juvenile end of the criminal justice system. Probably the centerpiece of this effort was Project RESTART, which provides education and substance abuse treatment to nonviolent juvenile offenders. Additionally, he doubled penalties for juvenile drunk drivers and managed to get “Jessica’s Law” passed, a mandatory sentencing measure for sexual predators.

In a lot of ways, Martin O’Malley would continue and in his view enhance the policies begun by Ehrlich. Two items that seem to deviate from this are a pledge to double assistance to Maryland’s counties if they adopt what he terms “performance-oriented policing” and a proposal to strengthen pre-release programs for criminals about to finish their time. O’Malley also vows to “crack down” on gang violence “by defining criminal gang membership and prohibit(ing) it in the State of Maryland.” As part of that, it’ll be up to the Maryland State Police to begin a registry of gang members.

Ed Boyd sees drug addiction as a public health issue and not a crime issue, thus he would replace incarceration for drug abuse with rehabilitation. Additionally, Boyd would abolish the death penalty.

Transportation

Governor Ehrlich ended what had been a slowdown in road construction under the previous administration and under his watch several road projects were placed in motion, including the Inter-County Connector between Baltimore and DC and widening of I-95 in northern Maryland. Closer to home, work is ongoing on expanding Route 404. Ehrlich has also seen to transit line contruction in the Baltimore and DC metro areas.

Martin O’Malley would rather shift focus from roads to rail, at least in Maryland’s metropolitan areas. Also on his agenda is encouraging businesses to use telecommuting as a tool to reduce traffic.

As stated above, highest on Ed Boyd’s transportation agenda is stopping the Inter-County Connector highway. The funds freed up would be spent on enhancing public transportation.

John Simmins would not only keep the ICC construction going, he would extend it to become the “middle ring” of DC beltways, along with other highway work in the DC/Baltimore metro area. Also, high speed rail would be introduced in much of the Western Shore.

Tax Relief

Governor Ehrlich points to a claimed $7.5 billion in tax savings over his first term as revenue enhancements proposed by the Democrats died after reaching his desk. This year he was also able to reduce the property tax rates 15% as the state went from deficit to surplus during his term.

Homeowners would see a tax break under an O’Malley administration as they would be allowed to increase their housing deductions.

Ed Boyd would increase the progressivity of our tax system, as he feels that “those who take most advantage of government services and protections (the super-wealthy, and large corporations) should pay their fair share (of taxes).” Meanwhile, he would target tax relief to maintain family farms and encourage more open space.

Chris Driscoll would make several changes to the existing tax system, including abolishing property taxes on homes under $400,000 value, closing corporate taxation “loopholes”, repeal state sales taxes on all but “luxury” items, tax corporations that “take the wealth Marylanders create out of the state and the country”, and enact a wealth tax on large estates.

******************************

These are but a few of the main issues in the governor’s race. There are two things that need to be said as I finish. Number one, I link to all five websites so further exploration by interested voters is encouraged. Secondly, I’m going to send a notice to all five campaigns regarding this site and encouraging feedback from them as they can supplement the information. This is just some of the items I saw as most important and common in this race, the campaigns may want to stress other items. In other words, this is like a Wikipedia stub and I’m looking for supplemental information.

Because time is growing short, I’m going to cover other races a little differently. In many cases, over the preprimary period I sent out what I call the Ten Questions. These covered both the U.S. Senate and House races, along with a different set for General Assembly hopefuls. For the U.S. Senate and House races I’ll frame the debate in how I think these candidates would answer the questions (only Green Party candidate Kevin Zeese actually answered them). The General Assembly answers can be reposted as well, plus I have supplemental information on a number of these candidates from at least one forum which I can add to the mix. The same will go for county candidates, the information will be summarized as Election Day draws near.

Again, the input of candidates (or their representatives) will be encouraged. In most cases I have dogs in this hunt but my goal is an informed electorate who can make decisions based on facts and statements, not slick marketing.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

3 thoughts on “On the Governor’s race”

  1. Actually, Driscoll’s idea of Land Value Taxation is not so pie-in-the-sky. For years, Martin O’Malley was pushing the idea for Balitmore, but the Annapolis crowd blocked it.

    There’s a web page http://www.marylandlandtax.org that lets people see how the land value tax would work at the state, county and local level.

    Your blog is a good public service, thank you.
    Josh

Comments are closed.