The McDermott notes: week 4
Here’s the weekly summary of local Delegate Mike McDermott’s ‘Field Notes‘ with my insight for good measure.
We are closing in on the 1/3 point of the annual “90 Days of Terror” which we conservatives call the Maryland General Assembly session. As of Friday, Senate bills introduced afterward have to go through the Rules Committee, with the similar deadline for House bills this coming Friday. Currently there are over 1,250 bills under some sort of consideration whether it’s first reading, committee votes, or select floor votes.
Much of what Mike writes about this week regards committee hearings and other bills being considered by his Judiciary Committee. Testimony was heard on everything from flash mobs to background checks to bison.
The McDermott notes: week 2
If you missed it two weeks ago, my intention is to spend time on Sunday evening reviewing local Delegate Mike McDermott’s weekly field notes. I find them a fascinating look into the workings of the Maryland General Assembly.
I skipped last week, but this edition of the General Assembly session seems to be settling into a familiar routine: a few bill introductions and hearings, with Mike sitting in on the Judiciary Committee hearings. Tonight I’ll do a review of week 2 based on Mike’s observations and tomorrow afternoon I’ll catch up with week 3.
To begin week 2, Mike commented on the celebration of Martin Luther King Day and remarks from former football player and Delegate Jay Walker, but concluded by reminding readers that MLK was a Republican and the civil rights movement seems to have both forgotten this and the fact Republicans helped get civil rights legislation passed despite the efforts of southern Democrats.
On Tuesday of that week, Mike helped to pass the very first bill to make it through the whole legislative process this year. SB46, which changed Somerset County’s legislative districts, passed as an emergency bill with the only dissenting vote cast by Anne Arundel County Delegate Don Dwyer.
But there’s an interesting sidelight to this particular bill. SB46, sponsored by Democrat Senator Jim Mathias of Worcester County, was passed through the legislative process. The crossfiled bill in the House, HB50, was sponsored by Republican Delegate Charles Otto of Somerset County but didn’t proceed past first reading. So who do you think will get credit and who will be cast as not doing his job?
The remaining time that Tuesday was spent reviewing bills on elder abuse, increasing penalties for malicious destruction of property by graffiti, and the release of mental patients found not criminally responsible. Obviously this can make you an expert on a lot of mundane, picayune items. But the Judiciary Committee only hears its portion of the bills before the entire General Assembly so one has to assume Mike does a lot of talking with fellow Republicans on other committees to hear their take on other bills which will be voted on later this session.
On Wednesday Mike spent the day in a hearing on out-of-court settlements, which brings me to the point above. It’s not clear whether this is germane to a bill already in the hopper or one being considered.
Thursday brought the Israeli Ambassador to the United States before the General Assembly as well as hearings on bills mandating the members of the Baltimore County Orphans’ Court be members of the Maryland Bar, abolishing some of the immunity enjoyed by members of the General Assembly, and expanding the harassment statute to add in items like text messaging and social media.
I suspect the Baltimore County bill is a trial balloon by the Maryland Bar Association to eliminate the possible competition for Orphans Court judge around the state. It’s the only judicial position a lay person can hold, and reducing the pool of people who can run allows attorneys a crack at another cushy judgeship.
Week 2 ended on Friday with the meeting of the Eastern Shore Delegation. Mike describes the speakers they heard from: Department of the Environment Secretary Robert Summers, Susquehanna River Basin Commission Director Paul Swartz (no relation), and the nine school superintendents on the Shore. Obviously he had many more questions than they could answer, but Mike brought up salient points regarding all three.
I happen to agree with Mike that the Eastern Shore takes an inordinate share of the blame for the Bay’s problems. We only contribute a small amount of the nitrogen that finds its way into the Chesapeake, but our farmers have to jump through hoops regardless. Soon they’ll be joined by those who will see the “flush tax” doubled if Governor O’Malley and Annapolis liberals have their way. Meanwhile, we can’t do much about the pollution which comes to the bay via the Susquehanna River – Mike uses the analogy of having a swimming pool with a hose connection to the neighbor’s septic tank. Obviously that would mean Pennsylvania and New York have to help us out, but they don’t really have to deal with the problem.
And as for the third meeting with the superintendents, it seems to me that any time Memo Diriker is brought into the conversation taxpayers need to watch their wallets. Somehow he always seems to advocate the most expensive solution, and I’d love to see the calculations that Diriker uses to claim each dollar spent on public education creates $1.90 in return. If that’s true, building Bennett Middle School should make next year’s Wicomico County budget a snap.
I’m not holding my breath.
Also on Friday of week 2, Mike introduced bills dealing with the criminal justice system, HB112 and HB119. Both will have a hearing Tuesday afternoon. Compared with some of the other bills I’ve read, these are very simple changes in the law. I’m not sure what fate HB112 will have, since I’m betting the ACLU and other similar groups will press hard against the measure, but HB119 has a fighting chance for success: it allows law enforcement officers in the field greater latitude to use their judgement on whether a misdemeanor offense deserves a simple citation or more intrusive action and has a small but bipartisan roster of co-sponsors.
During week 2 Mike also penned his thoughts on Martin O’Malley’s budget, where he chastises the governor who “lifts his eyes to Pennsylvania Avenue.” I agree with Mike: the 2016 campaign is already underway for Martin O’Malley, and my guess is that state Democrats have already been given their marching orders to try and make that happen.
I’ll look at Week 3 tomorrow, and try to get back to a Sunday evening routine afterward.
The Maryland Model (part two)
In part one I related the Maryland Model in its current state to the 2012 campaign, particularly when considering the battle to repeal the in-state tuition for illegal aliens passed last year by the General Assembly. The bill was petitioned to referendum as opponents turned the trick for the first time in over twenty years in Maryland.
As you should recall, I distilled the idea behind the Colorado Model liberal Democrats used to take over that state into four simpler M words: money, message, media, and mobilization. In this part I assess the overall shape conservatives here in Maryland exist in regarding these four issues – and we definitely need to do some work!
The Maryland Model (part one)
Over the holidays I did a little bit of light reading, and while I was doing so it occurred to me that the General Assembly session is sneaking up on us rather quickly. In 2011 that session set the scene for what turned out to be one of our side’s rare successes in Maryland, the petition drive to bring the in-state tuition law for illegal aliens to referendum later this year. It appears that will be on the ballot since CASA de Maryland and other pro-illegal groups are dropping the challenge to the petition signatures and narrowing their focus to whether the referendum itself is legal while simultaneously fundraising to sustain the law at the ballot box.
That fundraising: $10 million. What that means: carpet-bombing the media with images of poor, purportedly law-abiding and successful immigrant families being denied a chance at the American Dream due to racist TEA Partiers who hate all those who look different than they do. Don’t believe me? Just watch.
And this nicely leads me into my main points of this post, which will be the first of a multipart series on what I’m calling the Maryland Model. You see, part of my reading over the holidays was this RedState article on what is called the Colorado Model, which led me to read the original post on this strategy from the Weekly Standard back in 2008. Read those articles (I’ll wait for you) then take a look at how the CASA de Maryland folks are fighting the will of the people here in the Free State.
While they have seven pieces to the puzzle in the RedState article, I’ve consolidated these to what I can call the 4 M’s: money, message, media, and mobilization.
Maryland’s reborn spectator sport: how many General Assembly members will run for Congress?
We don’t have a representative from all eight districts quite yet, but the news that Minority Leader Tony O’Donnell is going to challenge entrenched Fifth District Congressman Steny Hoyer brings up the question of who will be minding the store?
Let’s look at it district by district:
- Obviously the First District has been made more safely Republican, as former State Senator Andy Harris won the seat in 2010 and hasn’t seen any significant Democratic opposition yet. At one time State Senator Jim Mathias was thought to be interested in running, but that may not be in the cards due to a increase in the GOP base there.
- In the Second District, where Dutch Ruppersberger has been in office for several terms, the name originally linked to a run was Delegate Pat McDonough. But he’s been waffling over the last months over whether to run for that seat or a statewide U.S. Senate seat; meanwhile former Senate Minority Leader Nancy Jacobs stepped down from that post in order to explore a Second District run.
- In the Third and Fourth Districts – John Sarbanes and Donna Edwards, respectively – no member of the General Assembly has stepped forward to make a challenge. In those cases, we’ll probably have to wait until they retire.
- As noted above, Tony O’Donnell is challenging Steny Hoyer in the Fifth District.
- The Sixth District is a bipartisan circus as Democrats gerrymandered the district into being much more Democrat-friendly than the previous rendition, presumably as a favor to State Senator Rob “Gas Tax” Garagiola to run. But the GOP has its share of politicians doing battle, with current State Senator David Brinkley being joined by recently-deposed former Senator Alex Mooney in the fray – a challenge which also leaves the state GOP scrambling for a Chair during an election year. All of them will have to deal with longtime incumbent Roscoe Bartlett.
- So far the Seventh and Eighth Districts, represented by Elijah Cummings and Chris Van Hollen, have also been quiet.
- Along with the possibility of Delegate McDonough seeking a Senate seat against incumbent Ben Cardin, some have also spoke about a primary challenge from State Senator C. Anthony Muse of Prince George’s County.
Obviously some of these running will survive the primary, but it will be an interesting exercise in time management to see how they juggle the prospect of a primary battle with the demands placed on them by the “90 Days of Terror” known as the annual General Assembly session. It so happens the filing deadline is also the opening day of the 2012 session and the primary itself will occur just a few days before sine die. Particularly in the Sixth District, this fact may handicap those serving in the Maryland legislature who face opponents which can devote more time to the race.
There’s no question that serving in legislative office at a local level is considered the best training for higher office: many of those who serve in a local Council or Commission graduate to become Delegates or Senators, and in turn they gain the experience voters seek in electing Congressmen and Senators. Fully half of Maryland’s Congressional delegation once served in the Maryland General Assembly.
Obviously those who are seeking election this time, with the cover of incumbency to protect them if they should lose, hope to add to that total.
Harris draws first challenger
There won’t be a Kratovil-Harris round 3, but the First District race won’t be a walkover, either.
Instead, a Baltimore County business owner and “arts advocate” has entered the race for the First District seat Andy Harris won in 2010. It appears Wendy Rosen’s main planks will be a “Buy American” push and a claim to “GOP values.”
But Wendy is having a tough go of it so far. While it’s a young campaign, the fact that she has only 44 likes on her campaign’s Facebook page and, more telling, a total of $550 donated so far (on a $100,000 goal) may suggest that her struggle will be quite the uphill battle.
Obviously there’s not a lot to go on since Wendy is in the Congressional arena for the first time. And while her business ownership would be an asset insofar as appealing to moderate voters goes, she can’t lay claim to the “Eastern Shore values” mantle Frank Kratovil rode to success in 2008 – in fact, she may not survive a primary challenge if a politician well-known on this side of the Bay jumps into the race. There has been the rumor floating around that Jim Mathias may take a shot at it because it’s the middle of the state’s four-year cycle; of course that hasn’t been uttered as much lately because the new First District lines make the district lean quite a bit more Republican.
It would appear that Wendy’s best chance would be to have no primary opponents so she can concentrate on the November, 2012 race. But that’s probably not going to happen as the last 10 election cycles have only seen two races where a Democratic nominee was unopposed from the First District: 2010, where Kratovil was the incumbent, and 2002. Including those two races, an average of 3.4 aspirants have sought the Democratic nod.
And the other wild card is having new territory added to the district, as it now stretches farther westward than in previous years. Unfortunately for Democrats, that new area is pretty solidly Republican – yet it’s possible a Democratic candidate could emerge from those new areas.
Obviously I’ll keep an eye on developments in this race – and anything can happen over the next 11 months – but for the time being it appears Andy Harris doesn’t have a lot to worry about.
Odds and ends number 36
Let’s begin with an item that only gets a couple paragraphs because of the circumstances. While I’m not at liberty to share the names of those who applied, I think I can safely say that we have no shortage of applicants to send four qualified prospects up to County Council in order to fill the District 4 seat made vacant by Bob Caldwell’s passing. Offoceseekers are both male and female, represent a broad spectrum of ages, and should be very interesting to screen. So that seat will be in good hands.
Now I could have had a great scoop in releasing the names but I respect the wishes of my Chair and the process too much to let any undue influence sway the decision, a circumstance which would certainly occur if the names were made public. Remember, this is not a typical political campaign because we as a Central Committee only make recommendations. The time for voting will be later and it will be done by County Council, not our committee.
All right, now for something a lot different.
Where the action was
I’d love to have said I was there, but family has to come first and my parents came from many miles away.
But I was cheered to see the lineup for the Turning the Tides Conference presented by the Maryland Conservative Action Network, as it included a number of luminaries as well as breakout discussions on a number of subjects near and dear to the hearts of conservatives in Maryland and everywhere else, for that matter. Not only that, the event drew over 200 activists from across Maryland and received coverage from both the old and new media outlets. They even had their very own counterprotest from a liberal former member of the House of Delegates.
So it sounds like we had a nice event. But now the question is ‘where do we go from here?’
Much ado about little
Our Special Session ended yesterday, and all of the bluster was, well, just talk.
In sum, there were three bills passed. Of course, the new Congressional gerrymandering was just one of the three, with the other two being changes to board of education districts in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
And as I predicted without knowing the results until today, the local Democrats don’t mind gerrymandering as long as it’s not applied to them. The trio of Rudy Cane, Norm “Five Dollar” Conway, and Jim Mathias all dutifully supported the governor’s plan. On the other hand, while the Republicans were united against the bill I salute Delegate McDermott (and 11 others) for even voting against the suspension of the rules to allow two readings in one day – heel dragging as necessary.
So we had three days of peace and love or however the old song goes, but no huge jobs bill or tax increases yet. We had quite the buildup on this session, didn’t we? But in the end there wasn’t much to it.
What this also means is that I can complete my monoblogue Accountability Project for 2011 and simply add the redistricting vote into the mix. In theory I could add some of the floor amendments but those votes were by and large reasonably the same. Look for that in the coming weeks.
And since an opportunity has presented itself for a couple days off, I’m going to take advantage. It’s not often that I spend time away from my site, but this weekend will be one such time. I may moderate comments but don’t count on it.
Come Monday it will be back into the fray. Now that the Special Session has reached sine die, we can expect a few political moves from would-be Congressional candidates I’m sure. As predicted, Rob Garagiola wasted no time getting into the Sixth District race now that he has a friendlier voter composition. Don’t you love ambition?
Stuck, unless a judge bails us out
I’ll let Maryland Republican Party Chair Alex Mooney get the first word in:
Earlier today, the House of Delegates passed Governor O’Malley’s gerrymandered Congressional District Plan.
After only a short debate, the House voted to pass it 91-46. It needed 85 votes for passage. We were 7 votes away from stalling the Governor’s plan. 7 votes. And last night, we were only 3 votes away from stopping it in the Senate. (Emphasis in original.)
Well, you already know how I feel about the situation, but I have two other observations to add before I call it a night.
First of all, there probably is or will shortly be a party at State Senator Rob Garagiola’s house because the governor did his level best to put him in Congress – never mind he has nothing at all in common with the residents of the “traditional” Sixth District.
Second, my hunch is pretty strong that we have one more Republican Senate entrant, and his name will not be Eric Wargotz. I think Pat McDonough sees the writing on the Congressional wall and will go for a statewide race. Of course, there is one caveat – he would have to do a lot of campaigning during the regular General Assembly session. But we know he’s running for something and it’s more likely now that a statewide race will be his preference.
But it’s those seven damn votes in the House of Delegates and three in the Senate which may haunt us for the next ten years. Even more so is the thought we were thisclose to keeping two Senate seats, and if we were only one vote short perhaps one other Democrat besides Senator Muse would have turned. (Knowing that, we also know that Jim Mathias voted for the plan. I also looked up the committee vote, and sure enough Delegate Norm “Five Dollar” Conway voted it out of committee. Why am I not shocked?)
So we fight on. In 2014 it’s time to remember this because they can’t get rid of all the conservatives. If we turn out 100 percent we still win.
Is redistricting a done deal?
Well, perhaps, and that’s how my sentiments lean when it comes to the question of redistricting in Maryland.
But Saturday around 30 interested observers sat in the brand-new Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University to listen to eight observers testify before the three members of the Redistricting Advisory Committee who could be present – while Chair Jeannie Hitchcock, President of the Maryland Senate Mike Miller, and board member Richard Stewart were there, board members James King and Speaker of the House of Delegates Michael Busch were unable to attend. The size of the room made the crowd look smaller, too. While Hitchcock said the group was “here to listen, primarily” I noticed some of the members seemed a bit disinterested at times.
Out of eight speakers, five of them represented Democratic interests while the other three (including myself) were Republicans. However, there was one piece of common ground expressed by both sides, that being the issue of resident Delegates. As you’ll read, though, the ideas on how to achieve this were somewhat different.
Blessing of the Combines in pictures and text
Today my significant other and I wandered down to Snow Hill for the 13th Annual Blessing of the Combines. In its short history the event appears to have placed the otherwise sleepy town of Snow Hill on the map.
(Just so you know, some of the photos I’m featuring come from my girlfriend, and if you can’t figure it out from the enhanced quality of her photography compared to mine I’ll have to clue you in. The one to start this post is by Kim Corkran.)
The event begins with a parade, and seeing a row of combines coming down the road can be impressive.
Some of the combines had politicians on them. Andy Harris joked that it was one of the few times he was on the left, but Norm Conway and Jim Mathias were at home there.
I did get the chance to bend Andy’s ear a little later. The lady in the center is former Delegate candidate and Worcester County Republican Chair Marty Pusey. (Photo by Kim Corkran.)
Now that they’ve wrapped up the budget, I want Andy to work on reducing those government mandates!
Both political parties were represented there, although the Republicans were a little more open about it.
Meanwhile, two tables down the Democrats were trying to register voters as well.
But there was something I noticed about their table – not one item I saw mentioned President Obama. Odd, don’t you think? Maybe the local Democrats are running away from him?
Interestingly enough, the featured speaker was Nelson Brice. He serves the federal government as the District Conservationist for the USDA, and he pointed out how farmers were helping the environment.
Still, most of the people there weren’t interested in politics. The actual blessing was handled by the Rev. Rick Edmund, a former Snow Hill pastor who now serves a church in the village of Ewell out on Smith Island.
For the kids, there was plenty to do – crafts, face painting, a bounce house, a petting zoo, and the chance to play in a bed of soybeans, all tucked away on Pearl Street.
If their parents wandered around the block the kids could have a pony ride as well.
This feathered friend awaited across the way (photo by Kim Corkran.)
And kids of all ages who like to eat had plenty to choose from. I took this while standing in line waiting for some pit beef.
While standing in that line, Kim took this unique crowd shot. (So did I but hers came out better.)
While we were eating, the band began to play. Mike Short, Jr. and Statewide were the featured performers, playing a mix of country and rock originals and covers.
The second photo of Mike is by Kim Corkran.
After listening to his band for a spell, we worked our way down to one of my favorite parts of the event, the Wheels That Heal car show.
Here’s a pair of Pontiac Firebirds from a bygone era.
My dad used to have a truck like this but it was in nowhere near this good of shape.
For those who wanted to really relive a bygone era, there was the opportunity to ride a horse-drawn carriage.
It also was a chance to meet friends old and new. Kim took this last picture of this couple, who have been married 55 years. Surely they saw a lot of people they knew and probably recalled a lot who are no longer with us.
If you weren’t there, you missed a chance to celebrate our rural heritage with a family-friendly event. Come the first Saturday in August 2012 you just might find us there again!
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