November 2014 – Page 2

Common Core subject of TEA Party meeting

On Thursday night an interesting meeting is slated in Ocean Pines.

Jillian Patterson, VP of Policy for Education Freedom Committee will speak about fighting Common Core at the state and local levels and strategies for defeating it. Ms. Patterson will include some basic information about what Common Core is and why parents should be concerned with its current implementation, followed by Q&A.

County Commissioners and School Board members will be invited.

The Worcester County TEA Party is the sponsor of the event, which will be held at the Ocean Pines Community Center.

Most interesting to me is the last line, because some will judge the worthiness of the newly-elected (or re-elected) county commissioners and school board members on whether they show up and listen attentively to this speaker. Fortunately for Worcester County. any school board member who doesn’t wish to enlist in this (admittedly uphill) battle can be ousted in the next election. It’s something we here in Wicomico County cannot boast about yet, although I’m confident our new leadership team will begin the long-overdue process of addressing this inequity.

But Maryland is likely going to be one of the last states to reconsider the Common Core standards, which have gotten such a bad rap nationally that the state dubbed them the “College and Career-Ready” standards, eschewing the “Common Core” moniker. So it will be interesting to see what the report which is due from that bill will say, and whether any mention of the states which are dropping Common Core is made. This despite the fact that Governor-elect Larry Hogan has said we “need to hit the ‘pause’ button on Common Core and to give control back to teachers and parents.”

The chances are fairly good that a Common Core repeal could be introduced in the General Assembly this year, although likely not at the behest of Hogan. The question is how many Democrats will cross the MSEA teachers’ union and help pass the bill out of committee if it even gets a vote. That’s where we come in, with the “encouragement” to make sure such a bill escapes the committee chair’s drawer.

The local effects of amnesty

In 2012, Maryland voters foolishly rejected a bid to overturn in-state tuition for illegal aliens despite the fact thousands of voters signed a petition to bring it to referendum. Its passage further cemented Maryland’s reputation as a “sanctuary state,” where illegal aliens already had an easy time getting drivers’ licenses and (allegedly) illegally voting in elections.

So it’s not too comforting reading a report from the Center for Immigration Studies detailing a few abuses of birthright citizenship or finding from the same source that immigrant families account for 42% of Medicaid growth since 2011. Naturally, the CIS is biased against unfettered immigration, so one would expect these types of reports from them.

Yet if you look and listen around this area and see all the Spanish-language entities – whether storefronts, media, or just conversations on the street – there’s no question any change is simply locking the barn door after the horse got out. This was something of a culture shock to me moving down here, knowing I was a thousand miles from the southern border. But the local labor market, with its heavy emphasis on agriculture and poultry processing, provides the low-wage jobs immigrants flocked here to take. And as they came, their influence expanded outward into the construction industry and other areas where day labor is valued.

And while this area of Maryland and Delaware is actually below-average insofar as Hispanic population goes on a national scale, there are some enclaves like Georgetown where a high number of Hispanics have settled. Moreover, Census data is a little bit of a trailing indicator as local school districts have somewhat higher Hispanic kindergarten enrollment than the census population may indicate.

But the problem isn’t necessarily one of those who are here, but those who are promised to come if amnesty becomes the law (or lack thereof) for the land. There are only so many low-skill, low-wage jobs available in the region, jobs which can’t support a reasonable lifestyle. If the families of those who are already here get extended by the addition of other relatives, though, the support will have to come from somewhere. Someone has to pay for the additional schools, services, and assistance these newcomers will require. Unfortunately, most local and state budgets are already strained.

If the idea is to create a perpetual underclass that’s dependent on government, full amnesty is the way to go. But I’d rather reward those who do things the right way than the ones who game the system and catch a lucky break when we turn a blind eye. If we are to be a nation of laws, we need to do immigration reform in such a way that those who came illegally don’t use it to their advantage. Crime is not supposed to pay.

On running the state

One concern I see and hear after the surprise Larry Hogan victory is that we don’t want all of the Ehrlich retreads running the state government now that the GOP is back in charge. As it turns out, Hogan – the Secretary of Appointments for Ehrlich – selected another Ehrlich official, Secretary of General Services Boyd Rutherford, as his lieutenant governor and has tabbed James T. Brady and Robert Neill as integral parts of the transition team. Brady worked as a member of the Parris Glendenning administration and Neill is a Republican-turned-Democrat who served in the Maryland General Assembly for 18 years, sandwiching a term as Anne Arundel County Executive. Reports are that outgoing Harford County Executive David Craig, who also sought the GOP nomination for governor, is also being considered for a role.

This is all well and good, I suppose, since a stated goal of the incoming Hogan administration seems to be one of bipartisanship. But my question is how much it will build the Maryland Republican party if we tab Democrats for positions they’ve already had over the last 8 and 40 of the last 44 years? Building a farm team doesn’t just come from elected officials and I’m sure that fresh eyes in a lot of positions will do a lot of good.

The Democrats lost, so let’s act like winners and put good conservatives in charge of state departments, To do otherwise leaves the potential that we will have another opportunity to build on success slip away in 2018, dooming ourselves to more years in the wilderness. In short, let’s use the electoral broom we just received to sweep these offices clean like Martin O’Malley did. It’s the least we can do to push this state in the right direction.

The same direction

It’s been a great month for Maryland Republicans, and after a few weeks to finish the counting of both our votes and our blessings on Thanksgiving, the party will meet early next month to elect its new leadership.

Unlike the last few times we have done this (I say “we” because I was a part of the process for eight years) the convention mood should be pretty joyous. Consider the situations where we’ve had this election in recent years I’ve been involved:

In 2006 we elected Jim Pelura in the wake of losing the governor’s race and taking a step backward nationally.
In 2009 Audrey Scott was picked to finish Pelura’s four-year term at a time when the party was broke, desperate, and suffered from infighting over Jim’s activist role while he was Chair.
In 2010 we lost the governor’s race again after a contested primary, missing out on the TEA Party wave which otherwise swept the country with the exception of getting back the First District Congressional seat. Alex Mooney won based on a platform of improving the party’s fiscal situation.
In early 2013, Diana Waterman ascended to the position as the previous First Vice-Chair, taking over a party riven by discord between TEA Party conservatives and more moderate members. Mooney’s promise of financial health had not come true, so the party was forced to downsize its headquarters in an effort to maintain solvency.

I did a little reading of my archives over the last few minutes in order to rehash the 2010 race (which was decided a week later than this year’s convention will be) and it’s interesting to note I spent the better part of a month talking about the race and its various players last time. Granted, we were talking about an open seat since Audrey Scott didn’t want another term, but the success of 2014 means a lot of people should be happy with the current leadership.

Moreover, there is a slightly different dynamic at play this time around – by-law changes a few years back mean the recently-concluded term of Mooney/Waterman was the final four-year term for a party Chair. As of this election, the new Chair will be in office for just two years, through the Fall Convention in 2016.

This gives the party an opportunity to split the four-year cycle into two logical halves. The first half should be devoted to something which was done fairly well in this cycle with a few exceptions – candidate recruitment and growing the party. Once we see the 2016 results and know the health of the national party, we can go to more of a re-elect Hogan mode with fundraising being the main idea. Personally, I think Diana deserves the opportunity to lead over the next two years, while the Hogan administration can have its selection for years 3 and 4. The 2018 election will be important to our side as the winner controls redistricting, so egregious gerrymanders such as the Third and Sixth Congressional Districts can be addressed once the 2020 census is complete.

Unless I hold a proxy for the convention I won’t have a direct say in the matter but I think the Maryland GOP would be well-served to avoid a divisive fight in this convention and work toward making inroads into more Democratic-controlled areas by identifying and recruiting good candidates, volunteers, and financial supporters for the 2018 cycle. I see no need to make a change if Diana Waterman wants the job for another two years.

Update: Going by her reply to my Facebook post promoting this piece, she’s in.

Keeping up the momentum toward a high tide for Maryland conservatives

The announcement came to me in the days following the election last week – luckily it’s not a completely pressing event so I could give you my observations this evening. I let MDCAN pick it up from here:

Maryland shocked the nation last week by electing a Republican governor. Not only that but Republicans picked up seats in the Statehouse and Dan Bongino only lost by a razor thin margin in a district gerrymandered specifically for a Democrat. Marylanders are showing they are ready to reject one-party control over the state.

There is still a lot of work to do to maintain the momentum though. Turning the Tides 2015 is a key part of that.

Join us to learn about what strategies worked and what helped weaken the one party monopoly in Maryland. Come to learn about how to infiltrate the pop culture and reach out to new potential voters. Perhaps most importantly, join us so we can show the state and the country a united front for making Maryland into the “Free State” once again. (Emphasis in original.)

I did not make it to the 2014 version, which had an ambitious agenda but didn’t quite have the star power of the 2013 event I attended. That earlier event had the notoriety of Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, authors and columnists Diana West and Stanley Kurtz. and Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, among others. The 2015 agenda includes such topics as Pop Culture, Black Conservatives, Common Core, border security, video journalism, Maryland’s new administration, and what they call the Real War on Women. We just don’t know all the speakers and panelists yet.

If the funds are there, I would like to be in the house (or more specifically, the DoubleTree.) Last time I went they had a blogger’s row which really helped. But if you want to go, the tickets are discounted until November 28 and surely they make a nice stocking stuffer.

A bad deal all around

There are actually a couple things I want to tie together in this piece – they may seem disparate at first, but I think there’s a common thread in something I write about on a frequent basis.

For a guy whose party took a good old-fashioned ass-kicking in the midterms, Barack Obama sure is governing like he didn’t hear any of the voters, whether they showed up or not. We may like these gasoline prices which are the lowest they have been through his time in office, but he’s still determined to decimate our economy in the name of combating global warming. It was a point Peter Ingemi (aka DaTechGuy) made with some hashtag and messaging suggestions today.

In order for our economy to grow, we need to use energy. Like it or not, the vast majority of energy sources for our needs in the near-term future will be fossil fuels – thanks to advances in technology, oil and natural gas prices are reasonably cheap and supplies are plentiful.

And even if you say that cutting our greenhouse gas emissions is a worthy goal, we still are allowing China – you know, that country which seems to send us every product under the sun that’s not made here anymore because manufacturers bailed on America a couple decades back – to continue to increase its emissions. They say they would like their emissions to “peak” around 2030 – of course, that’s no iron-clad guarantee and since when have communists ever told the truth or lived up to an agreement? It’s a ‘get out of jail free’ card for the Chinese and it lasts for 15 years – meanwhile, we cripple what little industry hasn’t abandoned us yet due to shortsighted government policies and the obvious feeling that corporations are cash cows for exploitation to increase spending.

So, just like Obamacare has become the descriptive term for bad health care policy, “Obama China deal” and “Obama EPA regulations” should become part of the political lexicon. Admittedly, it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well as Obamacare but all three are detrimental to our economy.

EPA regulations restricting the use of fossil fuels would interrupt what’s been a promising rebirth of an American energy industry many thought was dying just a few short years ago. Instead, they are at a point where the need for workers is great as the industry continues to expand, and writer Marita Noon hit upon a great marriage of supply and demand just in time for Veterans Day. As she notes:

The U.S. oil-and-gas industry has added millions of jobs in the past few years and expects to add more and more—especially with the new energy-friendly Republican-controlled Congress. Just the Keystone pipeline — which is now likely to be built — will employ thousands. Increased access to reserves on federal lands will demand more personnel. But finding potential hires that fit the needs of the energy industry in the general labor pool is difficult, as they lack discipline, the ability to work in a team and, often, can’t pass a drug test.

Obviously our veterans have these qualities in spades thanks to their military experience, (Similarly, veterans have been integrated into a successful local construction firm led by one of their own.)

The question of climate change isn’t one of whether it occurs, as our planet has veered between ice age and warm periods ever since its creation untold eons ago. It’s always been one of responsibility and corrective action – my view is that the sun is the prime driver of the climate and we can’t do a whole lot about that fact. Just the fact that global temperature has held near-steady over the last 18 years and not constantly risen with the amount of carbon emissions punches a hole in a lot of the global warming theory, and is a prime reason they’ve gone to the term “climate disruption.” If we ceased using energy tomorrow it wouldn’t make a dime’s worth of difference to the climate but millions would starve.

Fortunately, what Obama has proposed with China isn’t binding until the Senate says so and a climate deal is probably dead on arrival in a GOP-controlled Senate. But the EPA and other regulators can provide a backhanded way of putting our end of the China deal in effect without lawmakers having a say.

The lack of trust

It’s already hard not to be cynical in this day and age, when politicians make used car salesmen look like Sunday School teachers by comparison, but the recent hullabaloo about remarks made by Obamacare (and Romneycare) architect Jonathan Gruber would be enough to shake even the most trusting of people. Maybe it’s not to the level of finding out your spouse of fifty years has had an affair for 49.8 of them, but this revelation does serve to erode the public’s trust in institutions even more.

There’s an old maxim that “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” and nowhere does it seem to be better displayed than in our all-encompassing federal government. No better proof exists than the Gruber example: here is an un-elected bureaucrat, appointed on behest of the state, who admits to writing a law that no one really read (remember, we had to pass it to know what was in it) in such a deceptive manner that it couldn’t be scored by the Congressional Budget Office, all the while considering those of us who pay the salaries of these governmental hangers-on and grifters as rubes worthy only of contempt.

Surely this is only the tip of the iceberg, though. In less than 250 years we have taken this republic – a republic, we were warned, would exist only as long as we could keep it – and turned it into some murky composite of the worst features of democracy and dictatorship. We are at a point where there are just about as many adults not working or working for the government as there are private-sector employees. While it’s a dramatic oversimplification to state that those who work in the private sector are the “makers” and the rest are the “takers,” the one-to-one ratio is very worrisome.

The problem is that perception is becoming reality before our eyes. Take, for example a proposed land deal which would have benefited a backer of Martin O’Malley – that is, until the public caught wind of it and made the state change its plans slightly. Just ask yourself: how many other crony capitalist deals come down before the public finds out, when it’s too late to back away? The road to wealth in 2014 America doesn’t seem to be that of hard work and inspiration anymore; instead, it seems to be finding the right sleazy politician to donate a few thousand dollars to and wait for the no-bid contract or grant to roll your way.

I guess the two things I consider missing from government today are honesty and a moral compass. Of course there are honest, decent people in government but too many seem to believe they are entitled to all the spoils they can get. And this is why I have always come down on the side of what I call “rightsizing” government, figuring if the pot of money becomes smaller it won’t be as worthwhile to use your greedy hands to scoop up ill-gotten cash.

We didn’t need to pass Obamacare because there was already an admittedly imperfect but reasonably successful system in place – the problem was that the “wrong” people benefited from it and that had to change as far as proponents like Jonathan Gruber were concerned. Now we’re at a point where there will be a small but extremely vocal minority which would speak out if Obamacare were eliminated. And as we’ve seen time and time again in recent America, there isn’t a group too small to be heard if they want more government or a breakdown of our moral fabric.

It’s the rest of us “too stupid to understand” people who have to work harder just to keep pace.

Bagging the plastic

In a proposal that’s wrong on so many levels, the Baltimore City Council passed a surprise measure to ban plastic grocery bags beginning next April, according to the Baltimore Sun and their reporters Yvonne Wenger and Luke Broadwater. Perhaps most interesting to me was the fact they were originally going to slap a nickel fee on each bag but changed their mind based on election results:

Baltimore Councilman James B. Kraft, the bill’s sponsor, said he backed off the idea of charging a fee for plastic bags after last week’s election. He noted the victory of Gov.-elect Larry Hogan, a Republican who frequently criticized Democrats for passing too many taxes and fees.

“Last week’s election around the country showed us two things: People care about progressive issues; and they do not want to pay any more taxes or fees. We got the message,” Kraft said.

Naturally, the ban would induce an additional cost on businesses because paper bags are more expensive than plastic ones.

I actually heard about this a week or so ago. I’m on the mailing list of a company called Edelman Digital Public Affairs, and one of their clients is a plastic bag manufacturer, Novolex. They’re a little behind the times with this page, but apparently the proposed ban caught a lot of people off guard.

Yet a bag tax isn’t unprecedented in the region. Washington, D.C. put a nickel-per-bag tax out in 2010, and Maryland legislators considered this same measure shortly afterward. There wasn’t a push to ban them outright until now, though.

Can plastic grocery bags cause unsightly litter? Yes. But on balance they are far more useful than paper bags and more sanitary than reusable bags that have to be washed occasionally. (Frugal people like us haven’t bought a liner for our little wastepaper baskets in years because plastic grocery bags work just fine, so we are recycling.)

To me, it’s just another intrusion of the nanny state, and an indication that Baltimore City Council has its priorities wrong: with joblessness, crime, and failing schools plaguing the city, you’re worried about plastic bags? Yet with its margin of passage in this reading, even an expected mayoral veto would do no good.

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail next week, but I’m not holding my breath.

The rookie class

I tell you, it’s the mundane things I do…

Last night I was setting up the 2015 monoblogue Accountability Project charts, to save me a little work come next spring. (One key change: I’m going to alphabetical order to make it so, so much easier to compile votes since the state legislative chart lists tallies alphabetically.) Something I note on the mAP is the “years of service” and there are a lot of people who will have “1” next to their name.

In the House of Delegates, there will be a whopping 58 rookie legislators, while the Senate will boast three rookies. Out of those 61, which make up almost a third of the General Assembly as 29 are Republicans and 32 are Democrats, it’s worth noting that all three Senate rookies come from the GOP, which has changed over half its 12 members that were elected in 2010 in expanding back to the 14 they had from 2006-10.

While the GOP House caucus is at a modern high of 50 members, over half of them will be new to the General Assembly. Just on a local level, the District 38 delegation has two rookies while District 37 has three. Between the primary and general elections, the three local politicians who have 20 or more years in the General Assembly were whittled to one (newly-minted Senator Addie Eckardt.) Next in seniority is Senator Jim Mathias, who was first appointed to the House in 2006, then Delegate Charles Otto, who won re-election last week for a second term.

The learning curve for all these newbies will be steep, but it will be fascinating to see if they come up with new and better bills than the old veterans have done over the last eight years. Another interesting angle will be the bills sponsored by the Speaker and Senate President – since the governor cannot introduce a bill, it’s normally introduced by the Speaker or President “by request” of the administration – here’s one example. Imagine a tax cut bill being introduced by a Democrat – but that will be the case as Governor-elect Hogan outlines a legislative agenda.

(Another thing to watch is whether Martin O’Malley will leave some sponsored bills as parting gifts walking out the door, since the General Assembly reconvenes a couple weeks before the inauguration of Larry Hogan. Honestly, I doubt it.)

This will be an exciting time to watch the General Assembly.

The first of many

Back in August, I noted that Ben Carson had formed his own political action committee and predicted that he was going to take the next step:

I believe this step is the prelude to setting up the exploratory committee, regardless of how the fall elections go. No one wants to get in the ring this soon because many of those who are considering a 2016 bid have to make it through this year’s election first. Once the election and holidays pass us by, I would expect Carson to make a go of it.

Looks like Ben’s only waited for the election, as he’s airing a paid documentary in a number of media markets (including Baltimore and Washington) this weekend. Here’s a teaser from producer Armstrong Williams.

I didn’t watch the documentary (since no local station carried it and it’s not up on Youtube yet) but odds are the show will be long on sizzle and short on substance. That’s typical of the early stages in any political campaign, and the election begins sooner than you might think: in 14 to 15 months we’ll be anxiously awaiting the results of the Iowa caucuses on both sides to start weeding out the contenders who have made it that far by raising sufficient campaign funds to compete.

Obviously the question is whether Carson can compete, both financially and in the arena of ideas. I look at the Ben Carson campaign similarly to the Herman Cain effort in 2010-11, but there’s a key difference in that Cain had what I thought was a viable economic proposal in his 9-9-9 plan while Dr. Carson seems to have his support based on the fact he’s a God-fearing outsider. I don’t find anything wrong with that, but the lack of political experience is quite the hurdle to overcome – particularly given the fact our current failure of a president never served in an executive post unlike four of his immediate five predecessors, with the other serving as vice-president for eight years.

There are a number of current and soon-to-be-former Republican governors thought to be 2016 candidates who have a track record to run on, and more importantly have most of their skeletons out of the closet. Rumors of an extramarital affair did Cain in, and the Democrats already have latched onto a number of statements Carson has made in an effort to doom his nascent campaign.

Perhaps, though, Carson’s very early apparent entrance into the race is necessary to maintain momentum, and he will need a big early push to make it through a field from both parties salivating for an open seat and the chance to either undo Barack Obama’s damage or finish off the nation a little bit more.

A doable goal?

Yesterday we received word that the unemployment rate dropped again, with another month of job growth in the 200,000 range. It’s not the Reagan recovery of the 1980s – when we had 15 straight months of job growth in 1983-84 that would put this latest number to shame, including a whopping 1,115,000 jobs created in September 1983 – but it is a reasonably decent run.

Yet just as manufacturing didn’t share in the Reagan-era gains as much as other sectors did (in fact, it lost some ground), the second Obama term has also fallen well short of manufacturing growth goals. I’ve discussed this group and its job tally before both here and on my former American Certified site, but the Alliance for American Manufacturing tracks progress toward the one million manufacturing jobs Barack Obama promised in his second term.

AAM’s president Scott Paul isn’t all that pleased about it, either.

The good news is that manufacturing jobs have grown over the past few months. The bad news is that they haven’t grown fast enough. I’m very concerned that a surge of imports from China and a paucity of public investment in infrastructure will continue to hamper the great potential of the productive sector of our economy.

Hopes of achieving the White House goal of 1 million new jobs in the Administration’s final term are fading fast. Without some progress on the trade deficit and a long-term infrastructure plan, I don’t see that changing. No doubt the economic anxiety that many Americans still feel is compounded by stagnant wage growth and diminished opportunities for middle class careers.

Two of the key issues AAM harps on are, indeed, currency manipulation and infrastructure investment, although they also took time recently to praise Obama’s manufacturing initiatives and chastise Walmart for their ‘buy American’ effort because much of it comes in the form of produce and groceries. Around these parts, we don’t really mind that emphasis because we produce a lot of American-grown poultry so if Walmart is willing to invest in us we’re happy to provide. (Then again, that promised distribution center would be nice too.) Of course, AAM is backed in part by the steelworkers’ union so one can reasonably assume their view is the center-left’s perspective.

Even so, the group is useful because it makes some valid points. And I think we should have some focus on creating manufacturing jobs in Maryland, as the defunct gubernatorial campaign of outgoing Delegate Ron George tried to do.

Thus, I think the incoming Hogan/Rutherford administration should make it a goal to create 50,000 new manufacturing jobs in Maryland over his first four-year term – if he succeeds, you better believe he deserves a second. According to BLS figures, as of September an estimated 103,000 people are employed in manufacturing in Maryland. But if you look at past data, it’s not unprecedented to have 150,000 (as late as November 2002) or even 200,000 (as late as June 1990) working in the field. And when you take the confluence of a state that is supposedly #1 in education and combine it with the proximity to both major markets and inexpensive energy sources, there’s no reason we should have lost 30,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector under Martin O’Malley – or 16,000 under Bob Ehrlich, for that matter.

But how do you turn things around in four years? Maryland has to make people notice they are open for business, and there are some radical proposals I have to help with that turnaround.

First of all, rather than tweak around the edges with lowering the corporate tax rate, why not just eliminate it altogether? The revenue to the state from that toll is $1.011 billion in FY2015, which is far less than the annual budgetary increase has been. Would that not send a message that we are serious about job growth and immediately improve our status as a business-friendly state?

The next proposals are somewhat more controversial. To the extent we are allowed by the federal government and its environmental regulations, those who choose to invest in the state and create jobs should have an easier path to getting environmental permits and zoning approvals. Even if a moratorium is temporary, making it easier to deal with MDE regulations would encourage job creation. Most of Maryland’s towns and cities already have industrial sites available, but we shouldn’t discourage construction in rural areas if a job creator needs more space.

We’ve also heard about the construction of the Purple Line in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and the Red Line in Baltimore – combined, the two are expected to fetch a price tag of $5.33 billion. For that sum, it seems to me we could build a lot of interstate highway – even if this $4 million per mile figure is low (and it would be 1,267 miles of highway based on the combined cost of the Red Line and Purple Line) we could do a lot to assist in moving goods through and from Maryland, whether by finishing the originally envisioned I-97 through to the Potomac (and with Virginia’s assistance, to I-95 near Richmond) or enlisting Virginia and Delaware’s help in improving the U.S. 13/58 corridor to interstate standards to provide a secondary route around Richmond, Washington, and Baltimore.

Once we eliminate the onerous restrictions proposed for fracking and begin to open up the western end of the state for exploration, and (dare I say it?) work on making Maryland a right-to-work state like Virginia – or even creating right-to-work zones in certain rural counties like the Eastern Shore and Maryland’s western panhandle – the potential is there to indeed create those 50,000 manufacturing jobs – and a lot more! It just takes a leader with foresight and the cajones to appeal to the Democrats in the General Assembly as well as a Republican Party unafraid to take it to the streets in the districts of recalcitrant members of Maryland’s obstructionist majority party.

But even if we only create 40,000 or 25,000 manufacturing jobs through these policies, the state would be better-positioned to compete for a lot of other jobs as well, and the need is great. For too long this state has put its economic eggs in the federal government’s basket and there’s a changing mood about the need for an expansive presence inside the Beltway. Rightsizing the federal government means Maryland has to come up with another plan, and this one has proven to be a success time and time again across the nation.

Early voting is not the magic bullet

Do you remember when we debated early voting and how it was going to increase turnout?

This election cycle gave us the first opportunity to compare two cycles and see what the trends have become. I’m sure supporters of early voting were hoping to see the slow slide in turnout come to an end this cycle, but it appears the problem wasn’t solved by adding several days of balloting.

Here was the turnout, by county, in 2010. I decided to go highest to lowest.

Queen Anne’s – 67.43%
Kent – 66.79%
Talbot – 65.20%
Harford – 63.82%
Anne Arundel – 61.71%
Worcester – 61.10%
Carroll – 60.99%
Howard – 60.88%
Dorchester – 60.71%
Somerset – 59.34%
Baltimore Co. – 58.92%
Calvert – 57.37%
Caroline – 56.35%
Frederick – 55.34%
Wicomico – 55.34%
St. Mary’s – 54.05%
Garrett – 53.49%
Allegany – 52.99%
Charles – 52.57%
Montgomery – 51.38%
Cecil – 50.76%
Washington – 49.20%
Prince George’s – 45.17%
Baltimore City – 45.02%

Statewide average was 54.02%.

I’m assuming that this year’s count has returned absentees included; if not it may bump up an extra percent. But 2014 turnout is abysmal.

Kent – 58.91% (off 7.88%)
Queen Anne’s – 57.01% (off 10.42%)
Talbot – 56.70% (off 8.50%)
Carroll – 55.44% (off 5.55%)
Harford – 53.93% (off 9.89%)
Calvert – 53.07% (off 4.30%)
Howard – 52.16% (off 8.72%)
Frederick – 51.36% (off 3.98%)
Worcester – 51.13% (off 9.97%)
Dorchester – 49.16% (off 11.55%)
Anne Arundel – 49.15% (off 12.56%)
Somerset – 49.02% (off 10.32%)
Baltimore Co. – 48.87% (off 10.05%)
St. Mary’s – 48.76% (off 5.29%)
Caroline – 48.57% (off 7.78%)
Allegany – 46.95% (off 6.04%)
Garrett – 46.25% (off 7.24%)
Charles – 45.66% (off 6.91%)
Wicomico – 43.76% (off 11.58%)
Cecil – 42.19% (off 8.57%)
Washington – 41.64% (off 7.56%)
Montgomery – 38.92% (off 12.46%)
Prince George’s – 38.03% (off 7.14%)
Baltimore City – 35.57% (off 9.45%)

So the best performer “only” dropped 3.98% thanks to a hot County Executive race while the worst fell 12.46%. Overall, the statewide turnout was an abysmal 44.72%.

And when Anthony Brown could only win four counties, including the three worst performers for overall turnout (plus Charles County, which wasn’t a hotbed either), you knew his campaign was in trouble. The far left is already blaming him for running a bad campaign, but Larry Hogan found a better message and I’ll bet when the party breakdown comes out the GOP turnout numbers will only be off 5 points or less from 2010. Part of that, as it turns out, was their utilization of early voting – but the top counties for early voting were generally the top ones for overall turnout anyway.

But back to the main subject. It’s now been demonstrated through three election cycles that all early voting is doing is spreading out fewer and fewer voters over more days. And while we haven’t seen the fraud I thought would happen so far, all bets are off once same-day registration becomes possible next time. Even so, I don’t think early voting is helping turnout, so if turnout in 2016 turns out lower once again it may be time to scrap the idea in time for 2018. Just don’t fund early voting for that election and pass the legislation necessary to place a repeal of Article I, Section 3(b) on the 2018 ballot.

Ironically, my fiance and I voted early this year. I didn’t like to have to do it, but I found it was easier than getting an absentee ballot. But as we walked right in and noticed there were a half-dozen people and ten or so voting machines sitting idle, I wondered what this convenience was costing me as a taxpayer. There were 4,945 early voters in my county at a polling place which was open for a total of 80 extra hours – by my public school math, that’s a little over 1 voter per minute. Is that really worth the cost? (Even worse, Somerset County had just 1,263 early voters so they only had perhaps 15 per hour.)

Perhaps what’s really needed are better candidates, but there’s not always much we can do about that.