monoblogue Accountability Project – Page 5

Year two being planned

In 2013 I participated in a group which was a natural fit for me. Since I do the monoblogue Accountability Project on an annual basis, the fact that a group of volunteers took on the task of studying every bill which eminated from the “90 Days of Terror” – my pet name for the Maryland General Assembly session – was a task I felt right at home working on for Maryland Legislative Watch. I think I studied and commented on about 10 or 15 bills, although several volunteers did a lot more.

Well, I’m pleased to receive word from Elizabeth Myers that year two is in the works for 2014:

Thank you for everything you did in the 2013 legislative session. It takes a tireless, irate minority to keep an eye on the Maryland legislature – good government requires the People’s oversight.

Looking at the website statistics, we have tens of thousands of views to date. That means there is a lot of interest in the work we’re doing!

I hope you will be able to come back to volunteer again in the 2014 session. We’re more organized and more determined.

This project was put together in a short span of time for the 2013 session. We learned a lot and made some changes. For 2014, one change is more robust information storage.

In 2014, bills will be assigned via email. The request to read each bill will include:

Link to the bill

Title of the bill

Brief synopsis

Number of pages

Link to form with 3-4 questions to answer (plus any additional comments you wish to add)

You’ll be asked to let us know if you cannot read the bill (if you can, we ask that you read it within a few days). The whole process should take 5 – 10 minutes per bill and we ask that you commit to reading at least 15 bills during the session.

No Google account will be required. No more searching a Google doc for your name.

In the 2013 session, we found that 1,500 bills were introduced in 2 weeks – this is a function of the calendar and will happen in 2014, too. They turn on the fire hose and we will try our best to miss fewer bad bills.

We are presenting the project to groups in Washington, Harford, Cecil, Carroll, Howard, and Baltimore Counties, in an effort to get Maryland Legislative Watch a wider readership. We’re gaining more followers on social media and lots of subscribers to MDLegWatch.com. Please tell your friends and family about the project!

What we learned in 2013:

Once a bill gets out of committee, it passes. Bills must be fought IN committee.

It takes relatively few people to make an impact on a committee – 15 or so.

There is little opposition to bills once they get to the floor – in the House, 75% passed unanimously.

We will not win on big bills, we can have an impact only on small bills and build.

Please let us know if you can volunteer again in 2014. We’ll be thrilled to have you back!

Questions/comments – please let me know.

By my count, there were 2,619 bills introduced in the Maryland General Assembly last year; however, in reality the number of separate measures is somewhat smaller because a percentage of the bills are crossfiled between bodies. Those bills are introduced as identical copies in both the House and the Senate, and are assigned bill numbers in each which rarely match. (For example, the gun bill was Senate Bill 281 and its companion House bill was introduced as House Bill 294.) This shaves the number down to a large extent, although not in half as one may gather.

One other thing I seem to recall being done as part of the triage from the deluge of bills was ignoring the “creation of a state debt” bond bills. That also makes up a significant fraction of the proposed legislation, although by themselves the bills are rarely acted upon. Normally these are just considered as requests for funding in the portion of the budget reserved for such bills.

When you boil all these out you are talking about perhaps 1,200 to 1,500 bills of significance. If each person commits to reading 15, that means we need 80 to 100 volunteers. (This would be most useful around the early part of the session in January, when much of the legislation is introduced in the hopes of getting hearings scheduled fairly early on.) In fact, a number of bills are pre-filed for introduction on the opening day of the session and, according to the General Assembly website, these will be available in late December – so some can get a jump.

The frenetic pace of the session in the early going sometimes seems to be the hiding place for bills which are destined to be controversial – seemingly sponsors figure it’s like Obamacare and if it can just be passed we will find out what’s in it once it takes effect. Maryland Legislative Watch intends to shine a light on the process and keep bad bills from becoming law.

Additional reading: last April, just after the 2013 session concluded, I interviewed Elizabeth on the group and its intentions. I’m looking forward to adding my perspective this coming year as well. You can check out their website as well, or contact Elizabeth.

Time for Dwyer to go?

The self-induced black cloud over Delegate Don Dwyer’s head just got a little darker last night when he was pulled over on suspicion of driving under the influence. While he did not take a breathalyzer test (automatically forfeiting his license for 90 days in the process), the officer at the scene “could smell a strong odor of alcohol,” according to news reports. This comes after the boating accident for which he was blamed last year and even a citation for illegal crabbing earlier this year. Despite all this, Dwyer had announced plans for running for re-election next year, even conducting a gun raffle for a fundraiser.

But the political landscape is different than when he last won election in 2010 in a three-person District 31. That legislative district has been sliced into two subdistricts, and while I believe Dwyer lives in the larger one he was third in the last election and third won’t cut it this time. (The two-seat District 31B is also fairly narrowly Republican, as opposed to more heavily Democratic District 31A.)

And the outcry for Dwyer’s resignation is strong – particularly from fellow Anne Arundel County Delegate and gubernatorial candidate Ron George, who advised, “out of concern for others who could be harmed and for Don Dwyer himself, I call on him to resign and get help. His constituents deserve good representation.” In fact, this has been an issue during the General Assembly session as Dwyer missed almost half the votes I tallied on the monoblogue Accountability Project.

But if Dwyer wants to be in company of a group that’s generally forgiving of the largest number of human foibles, up to and including substance abuse and sexual harassment, perhaps he should follow through on something he posted on his “dispatches” earlier this year: switching parties and becoming a Democrat.

This would accomplish two things: not only does it bring Dwyer to a new political home among the most forgiving of folks, it also means Dwyer can reduce the time he needs to straighten himself out – after all, it only took Democrat and San Diego mayor Bob Filner two weeks to get well from years of sexual harassment.

But seriously, folks, Don Dwyer is a dead delegate walking. Whether he resigns or not isn’t the point, because his political career is probably over, either the day he resigns or after the 2014 primary election. (Unless somehow miraculously unopposed in the primary, he won’t win it.) The only advantage which could be gained from a Dwyer resignation would be that his successor would be the incumbent for 2014, although you can bet your bottom dollar the Baltimore Sun will, as often as possible, refer to that person as “reckless boater Don Dwyer’s successor.”

I’ve also found this evening a lot of discussion on social media about the unwritten Republican policy of endorsing incumbents. Officially, there is no such policy in the Maryland GOP but on the whole there’s that tacit understanding that the preference is that incumbents don’t receive a primary challenge. Of course, that goes out the window in Dwyer’s case but I think we all deserve a choice, even if it serves simply as a referendum on an incumbent. Looking at my potential state and local ballot, there are a number of Republicans who I believe need and/or deserve a primary challenger – but many of them will skate unscathed to the general election and perhaps a few fortunate ones will be unopposed there.

I suspect that, for those who don’t like Don Dwyer for whatever reason – whether strident political positions or not handling his obvious problems with alcohol – the third time is the charm and they won’t have him to kick around much longer. But wait and see what issues are swept under the rug (or excused, like another Delegate’s DUI offense) because the majority party engages in them – do you think this guy could stand a little anger management, or does “political thuggery” come naturally to him?

Whatever personal demons Don Dwyer has, public office is generally not the best place to deal with them. Maybe the local police make sure to check by the local watering holes to see if Dwyer’s Cadillac is there, but with scrutiny should come better behavior. Apparently not in this case.

Announcing: the 2013 monoblogue Accountability Project

For the sixth consecutive year, covering sessions since 2007, I have completed my annual guide to the voting record on key issues from the 188 members of the Maryland General Assembly.

There will also be the sidebar link I maintain for future reference.

This guide not only features the General Assembly’s voting records on specific votes in graphical form for easy comparison, but also my take on the bills they voted on this year. Some of the key votes I cover are those on the state’s budget, early voting, and offshore wind, as well as those where foes attempted to petition them to referendum – the (so-called) Firearms Safety Act of 2013, and the death penalty repeal.

I began this project in 2008 as a continuation of the former Maryland Accountability Project, which was a similar attempt to catalogue legislators’ votes that ended with the 2006 session. (Here is a cached version of its website, which is no longer active.) Over the last seven legislative years I have focused on well over 200 votes by the General Assembly. Once committee votes became publicly accessible in 2010 I began adding those as well, giving me a total close to 400 separate tallies over the life of the mAP. This year I looked at 52 separate votes – 22 floor votes and 30 committee votes, or three from each of the ten voting committees in the General Assembly.

So what can you do with the information?

Well, while the mAP is by its nature reactive because it documents events which occurred in the recent past, we can learn from history. While I can count the number of legislators who have attained a perfect 100 percent rating in any given year’s legislative session(s) on one hand, the sad truth is that Maryland has far too many who score 10 percent or less year after year cluttering up the General Assembly. Our job is to learn who they are, find quality opponents for them, and most importantly educate the voters of that district why their legislators are voting against the interests of the people in the district. That’s why the bulk of the mAP is a summary of why I, as someone who favors liberty, would vote in the way I denote in the report.

On the other hand, there is a group I consider the Legislative All-Stars, those who score 90 percent or above or at least lead their legislative body if none reach 90 percent. (Sadly, this has happened on occasion.) If the Maryland General Assembly had those legislators as a working majority we could vastly improve our state’s lot in life.

It’s particularly important that this year’s edition came out early and was indeed a fortunate break that no Special Sessions are anticipated for the remainder of the year. There’s still a little time to get together a campaign against some of these entrenched incumbents of both parties who seem to have lost their way. Many of them will be leaving on their own, but newcomers who would be high scorers on this chart are encouraged to get involved.

Before I conclude, I want to point out that there is a relatively new accountability project which perfectly complements the idea of this one by working during the legislative session. Elizabeth Myers (who I have interviewed before for TQT) runs Maryland Legislative Watch, which works during session to determine the merits of each bill and works to keep bad ones from ever getting out of committee. With over 2,500 bills introduced last session, dozens of volunteers are needed to keep track of them all, grade them on pro-liberty merits, and keep the heat on legislators in stopping violations of liberty from proceeding.

Moreover, they actually just completed yesterday a far larger voting compilation which has every single vote – for example, my legislator’s chart runs 91 pages. It may seem like competition but we actually work together in the respect that MLW provides a lot of raw data and I give context on key issues. The Maryland Legislative Watch data is also useful for showing just how many votes are unanimous and how much of the legislature’s time is devoted to local issues; these are the ones which incumbents generally point with pride at bringing home the bacon.

You can judge for yourselves whether legislators vote the correct way on the issues I present. I simply provide this service to Marylanders as a way of being more aware of how the sausage grinding in Annapolis turned out this year.

Methinks there was something rotten in the state of Maryland, now known as the “Fee State.”

Disingenuous

As you might know, one of the traditional items I do for my readers is compile the monoblogue Accountability Project, with this year’s version likely to come out next month. (I have to do some slight tweaking to the format, which may take a little more time.) But a few days back I received an item from the Maryland Campaign for Liberty regarding speed cameras, from which I excerpt:

We had no illusions that the Statists in Annapolis would seriously consider a pro-liberty proposal like getting rid of speed cameras throughout the state.

Why would we be satisfied with just accomplishing these three goals you might ask?

Because we were able to get politicians on the record.

And boy, did we get them on record.

Between now and the next legislative session we’ll be holding politicians accountable for their votes in committee.

Our job as activists is to connect the legislative season to the electoral season.

The goals they were alluding to were to have the speed camera bill introduced, get a hearing on it, and put it to a vote, which it received in committee. All three were accomplished, but to the surprise of many (including me) neither the House bill nor a Senate companion received a single committee vote – this despite the fact three of the bill’s co-sponsors (Delegates Jay Jacobs, Wayne Norman, and then-Minority Leader Tony O’Donnell) sit on that Environmental Matters Committee. Norman was excused from the vote, but O’Donnell and Jacobs voted in line to kill the bill. The same was true for Senator Nancy Jacobs, who did nothing to back the Senate version she co-sponsored, although that vote was likely a perfunctory formality because the Senate vote document notes the bill is “Dead in House.”

Still, one would think a sponsor would at least vote for his or her bill, so I wonder how that vote came about in committee.

I’ll cheerfully admit I don’t know the ins and outs of how these committees work when they sit down to vote, but I would venture to say I know more about the legislative process than 99% of Maryland residents because I study the votes. It’s sort of sad to consider that not all of the 2700 or so bills introduced in the 90 day session receive a committee vote, although Environmental Matters voted on about 85% of the bills they were assigned this year. Many of those were rejected in a similar manner.

And the Campaign for Liberty people make the same point:

Wouldn’t you think that at least a few Republicans would have voted the right way on such a no-brainer liberty bill?

Think again!

I make it my business to study bills and voting patterns, so I know that not all bills being considered in a committee are voted on in a unanimous manner. Take the three examples I’ll be using for the mAP from that same Environmental Matters Committee: HB44 failed on a 16-7 vote, HB106 (the Septic Bill repeal) failed 19-5, and HB252 (also sponsored by Delegate Smigiel) died in a 17-6 vote. I actually look for split votes, because unanimous votes generally show either broad support, a complete lack of guts, or a bill simply way too far out of the mainstream to even get a motion. HB251, in my opinion, fell into the second category.

So perhaps the Campaign for Liberty is correct in chastising those who didn’t vote to support the speed camera repeal, because there were several other votes where they were unafraid to stand in the minority. Hopefully next year their effort will gain steam, since the other side typical introduces bad bills several years in a row before legislators are cowed into approving them. Maybe the same is needed for good bills, too.

The lineup card

I don’t know what it is about Mia Love’s announcing she will try once again for Congress that made me think about this, but ponder and write about it I will. Perhaps it’s the fact she’s a black woman who happens to be an elected official and quite conservative. Maybe the latter is no surprise in Utah, but nevertheless I hope she wins next year.

But I’m more curious to see who will be Maryland’s answer to Mia Love. While filing for the 2014 election began last month, just 10 Republicans have filed for state positions (as opposed to 30 Democrats.) Originally the filing deadline was in April, 2014 but an ill-considered act of the General Assembly moved that up to February. It was all a political calculation designed so that incumbent members knew who would be running against them and vote accordingly on legislation. All this means is a little more pressure on my to have the 2014 monoblogue Accountability Project finished by mid-June next year so people know just which legislators should be ousted, in the primary if possible.

Here in Wicomico County, we haven’t had any local filings although a Worcester County Democrat named Mike Hindi has already filed for the new District 38C seat, which will encompass the eastern end of Wicomico County. Meanwhile, John LaFerla is trying again for Congress as I already discussed.

As a member of the Republican Central Committee, I would love to be assured that we will be filling out our lineup card thoroughly this year. I’m convinced we probably could have picked up a few more General Assembly seats last time if we could have given the thirty-odd Democrats in the House of Delegates and dozen-plus Democratic Senators who received free rides an opponent. Understandably, there are districts in this state which are less fertile for Republicans (although I cede no ground) but the idea is to engage the other side in a debate over their ideas and make them defend the indefensible. If they are tied up defending their seats they can’t help others, with the 38C race a case in point: it’s probably a fairly safe GOP district but now we will have to fight for it rather than have a pass to help other local Republicans like Mike McDermott or Charles Otto stay in office.

The same goes for county races: certainly we have some long-standing Democrats in office, but one has to wonder whether their offices can’t stand some improvement and new blood. It seems as though the State’s Attorney office received a breath of fresh air when Matt Maciarello was elected, so why not some of the other county offices where the respective tenures began in years starting with 19?

There are, I believe, 23 offices in Wicomico County, counting state legislative posts. I think we should be able to find 23 good Republicans to fill each of those ballot slots, and the Central Committee is waiting to point you in the right direction.

Odds and ends number 66

As we approach the Christmas/New Year’s holiday week when news is slow, it may not be the best time to clean out my e-mail box of those items I could potentially stretch into short posts. But I tend to defy convention, so here goes.

Up in Cecil County the politics aren’t taking a holiday break. Two conservative groups are at odds over the Tier Map which was administratively approved by County Executive Tari Moore – the Cecil Campaign for Liberty considers any tier map as part of “the most expansive taking of private property rights in Maryland state history.” But the Cecil County Patriots are on record as supporting the least restrictive map possible, warning further that not submitting a map would place the county under the most broad restrictions. (This is one early rendition of their map – note that over half the county is in Tier IV, the most restrictive tier.)

Unfortunately, the opposition we have isn’t dumb and they write laws in such a manner that localities in Maryland are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. But I’m curious how the state would react in this instance, quoting from SB236:

IF A LOCAL JURISDICTION DOES NOT ADOPT ALL OF THE TIERS AUTHORIZED UNDER THIS SECTION, THE LOCAL JURISDICTION SHALL DOCUMENT THE REASONS THE JURISDICTION IS NOT ADOPTING A PARTICULAR TIER.

Answer: We will NOT adopt Tiers III and IV. Reason: see Amendment V, United States Constitution. The law does not provide “just compensation.”

Someone really should remind Governor O’Malley and Senators Pinsky, Frosh, Madaleno, Montgomery, and Raskin (who have a COMBINED lifetime score of 32 – total, between all five of them, so an average score of 6.4 out of 100 on the monoblogue Accountability Project and who all hail from the I-95 corridor) that their home county is free to be as restrictive as it likes but counties are not just lines on a map. We may look like hicks, but we do tend to know what we’re talking about out here.

If they have to have Tier IV, the extent of it should be that of any undeveloped property owned by any Delegate, Senator, or local representative who supported this piece of garbage. Let them live with the consequences and spare us the misery.

Otherwise, you may have this sort of result (h/t Institute for Justice): an Orlando homeowner is facing fines of up to $500 per day because he chooses to have a garden in his front yard and an absentee neighbor (who rents out his house and lives in Puerto Rico) complained. But as writer Ari Bargil notes:

You know government has grown too big when it bans growing a garden in your own yard.

Interestingly enough, the Orlando homeowner has a chicken coop in his backyard but that apparently doesn’t run afoul (or is that afowl?) of city regulations.

On the Maryland economic front, my friends at Change Maryland have had quite a bit to say of late. First, Change Maryland’s Larry Hogan panned Governor O’Malley for not appointing a new Secretary of Transportation and continuing to push for a gas tax, with Hogan remarking:

Here we go again. We were successful in stopping the gas tax increase, and the sales tax on gasoline last session, but they are still trying to ram it through. And now O’Malley expects struggling Maryland families and small businesses to pay for his mistakes. They want us to forget about the hundreds of millions of dollars he robbed from transportation funds.

After raising taxes and fees 24 times and taking an additional $2.4 billion a year out of the pockets of taxpayers, we know O’Malley prefers raising taxes over leading, O’Malley must show leadership and take some responsibility on funding transportation, or he’s going to achieve the same dismal results as before with the failed gas tax schemes.

Over the last decade, both Bob Ehrlich and Martin O’Malley have collectively seized $1.1 billion from transportation to use in balancing the books. O’Malley isn’t planning on using a gas tax increase to pay back his $700 million share, though – he wants to expand the Red Line and Purple Line in suburban Washington, D.C.

Hogan was also critical of someone O’Malley did appoint, new economic development head Dominick Murray:

I am concerned that Mr. Murray’s marketing background in the media industry signals an intent to continue to focus more on press releases, slide shows and videos that only promote the governor’s national political aspirations.

Murray has a lot of work to do, as Maryland lost an additional 9,300 jobs in October, per numbers revised by the federal BLS. Non-adjusted statistics for November also suggest another 3,100 nonfarm jobs fell by the wayside, although government jobs rebounded by 900 to come off their lowest point since 2010 in October. Since O’Malley took office, though, total government employment in Maryland is up over 28,000. It continues a long-term upward trend which began in 2005. On the other hand, the only other industry with a similar upward profile is education and health services.

On a national level, unemployment among those with a high school education or less is “dismal,” according to a new study by the Center for Immigration Studies. They contend it won’t be helped with a policy of amnesty toward illegal aliens, which make up nearly half of a 27.7-million strong group of Americans who have but a high school education or less yet want to work. The high school graduate U-6 rate (which properly counts discouraged workers who have stopped looking) is over 18 percent; meanwhile just over 3 in 10 who have failed to complete high school are jobless by that standard.

While some of those who didn’t complete high school have extenuating circumstances, the far larger number have chosen their lot in life by not getting their diploma. Unfortunately, their bad choice is exacerbated by the illegal aliens here who are willing to work for less and/or under the table.

Bad choices have also been made by Republicans in Congress, argue two deficit hawks who contend economist Milton Friedman was right:

…the true burden of taxation is whatever government spends…Friedman would frequently remind Reagan and others during the early 1980s that reductions in marginal tax rates – which Friedman supported – were not real tax cuts if spending was not reduced.

Jonathan Bydlak and Corie Whalen, the two board members of the Coalition to Reduce Spending who wrote the piece, contend that Republicans who have not raised taxes but simultaneously failed to address overspending are violating the Taxpayer Protection Pledge made famous by Grover Norquist. And since the amount of revenue taken in by the government since the adoption of the Bush tax rates a decade ago has remained relatively constant when compared to spending, it seems the problem is on the spending side of the equation. Just restoring governmental spending to the level of the FY2008 budget would address most of the deficit.

Finally, it appears spending is on the minds of the Maryland Liberty PAC as they recently put out a call for candidates who would be compatible with their views on key areas of local, state, and national government – examples include not voting for tax increases or new fees, opposition to intrusive measures like red light cameras, abuse of eminent domain, and internet freedom, and economic issues such as right-to-work and nullification of Obamacare. Out of eight questions, I’d be willing to bet I’d honestly and truthfully answer all eight the correct way. But I think I’ll pass on the PAC money, since I run a very low-budget campaign consisting of the filing fee.

But if they don’t mind sharing the information, we could always use good Republican (and liberty-minded Democratic) candidates in these parts. I didn’t mind spreading their word, after all, even reminding Patrick McGrady that Central Committee members are elected in the June 24, 2014 primary and not on November 4 as their original note suggests.

Believe it or not, then, if memory from 2010 serves me correctly the first people to file for 2014 can do so on or about April 16, 2013. The day after tax day and less than a week after sine die ends the 90 Days of Terror known as the General Assembly session: how appropriate in Maryland.

Announcing: the 2012 monoblogue Accountability Project

It took a little longer than I figured it would, but just in time for the 2013 session which starts in just a few weeks I have completed my annual guide to the voting records of the 188 members of the Maryland General Assembly.

There was good news and bad news from this year’s session: obviously the bad news is that a LOT of bad law passed, everything from gay marriage and expanded gambling that we had to vote on in November to usurpation of local control over planning and school funding. But the good news is that, by and large, the Maryland GOP stuck together and became relatively more conservative.

Needless to say, the trick will be figuring out a way to parlay this information into gaining seats in 2014. But those who have seats in more conservative areas but vote with the Annapolis liberal gang of O’Malley, Miller, and Busch should be on notice that we know how you voted and we’re not afraid to spread the word. Moreover, the Republicans who showed a tendency to bend over for the opposition may want to start worrying about primary opponents.

So how did this work and why did it take me so long? As I have done the previous four years, I study what bills the Maryland General Assembly contemplated over the session (including the two Special Sessions this year) and see what votes were among the most contested. You’d be surprised how many bills are passed with votes like 138-0 and 46-0, or with otherwise token opposition. Knowing I would have at least one Special Session I had to hold off and leave room for key votes there so my research couldn’t even begin until the middle of summer. Then we had this little thing called an election I had to cover. I expound a little bit more on the whole process in the introduction.

But it’s done, with the aforementioned introduction, the list of bills and why I would vote as I would (and too few did, for the most part,) the voting tallies, and – of course – legislative awards and admonishments. Feel free to browse the 19 pages and distribute it as you so desire; just give me the credit is all I ask. If you are a Maryland conservative, there’s no question in my mind this information should be close at hand. Spread the word!

Gay marriage one step closer to referendum

Update: The vote on HB438 is available here. As it turned out, one Republican (Delegate Robert Costa) voted in favor of the bill while five Democrats (Donoghue, Vallario, Alston, Kelly, and Valentino-Smith) voted against.

And now I see the strategy in going to two committees. Had the bill simply gone to the Judiciary Committee it would have been defeated on an 11-10 vote. It’s sort of a crock that it only passed one of the two committees yet still advances but that’s the way the rules go. Hopefully someday we can use them to our advantage.

By the way, Mike McDermott indeed voted no.

**********

Giving gay couples their own version of a Valentine’s Day gift, published reports indicate the same-sex marriage bill (HB438) passed a joint session of the House Judiciary and Health and Government Operations committees by a 25-18 vote. This move was a little unusual, as a similar bill only went through the Judiciary Committee last year and passed that committee by a 12-10 vote. Last year was the first time that a gay marriage bill, which has been introduced five sessions in a row, proceeded past the hearing stage.

There’s no question that if this bill passes we will see it placed to referendum – if the courts allow it – but there’s no guarantee it would be upheld by the voters. While a January Gonzales Poll found the electorate slightly favored gay marriage by a 49-47 margin, the ones who strongly oppose the measure outnumber the strong supporters by a 38-34 margin. The intent of this piece is to consider the effects on this year’s election.

Continue reading “Gay marriage one step closer to referendum”

Nasty infighting in the Second

So State Senator Nancy Jacobs followed through on what she said she would do and announced this week she would run for the Second Congressional District seat currently held by Dutch Ruppersberger, a politician who she claims “left for Washington (and) became Washington.” Indeed, she has some interesting endorsements already.

But there’s one Republican who’s less than thrilled. According to an article in the Towson Patch, Jacobs is being called a “puppet candidate” by Delegate Pat McDonough. Pat claims that Jacobs is only running at the behest of First District Congressman Andy Harris, saying, “(Jacobs is) a puppet for Harris.”

While McDonough is also making news by spearheading the campaign to overturn the Maryland DREAM Act, last summer he had floated the idea of seeking the Second Congressional District seat himself, even hosting a fundraiser with 2010 Delaware U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell. Just a few weeks later, he turned on a dime and flirted with the idea of instead running for the U.S. Senate. In this case, McDonough speaks like a fellow Congressional candidate, but I daresay he’s not making any friends among area Republicans by eschewing a pair of races then disparaging one of the hopefuls he has to work with in the Maryland General Assembly. Obviously we’ll know for sure next week if Pat will follow through on one of his original 2012 plans or stay with the DREAM Act fight.

But even if Delegate McDonough is right and Harris does have something to do with Nancy’s entry into the race, that’s a good job of candidate recruitment more Republicans should be following. Who has Pat McDonough brought into the fold?

Just like in the Sixth Congressional District, I don’t have a dog in this fight. But Nancy does introduce herself to new voters reasonably well:

Last year Nancy scored an impressive 92 on the monoblogue Accountability Project, earning the distinction of being a Legislative All-Star for the first time. She has a lifetime (since 2007) rating of 77, which puts her about in the middle of the GOP Senate pack. Ironically, McDonough has a lifetime rating of 78 and was a Legislative All-Star in 2009, meaning they’re fairly similar in political style.

But it’s clear which one has the bull in the china shop mentality.

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!

Continue reading “The Maryland Model (part two)”

The 2011 monoblogue Accountability Project

It is done.

Rather than make it a page, I made this year’s edition part of a widget. On the right-hand sidebar you’ll find what could be called the concise conservative voting guide to the Maryland General Assembly – 22 pages of ratings, notes, and a few legislative awards. For several evenings over the last month I’ve put this together as a service to Maryland voters who need to know the truth: the majority in our General Assembly really doesn’t have the state’s best interests in mind. Instead, they wish to enforce more and more power over the people of the formerly Free State.

Aside from that the guide is reasonably self-explanatory, although I added a few paragraphs to describe the method to my madness.

So dig into the data, and bear in mind the next General Assembly session (aka “90 days of terror”) is just about six weeks away. Knowledge is power.

Thoughts and updates

I was thinking a little bit about the Presidential race this evening, and it started when I moderated a comment on my last post from Phil Collins (who I presume is not “the” Phil Collins, just like the Maryland GOP ranks have a Dick Cheney who isn’t the former VP.) He claims that he spoke personally to Buddy Roemer last Thursday and “he’ll run.”

If you believe the conventional wisdom, a guy like Roemer has no shot against a cadre of candidates who have money and name recognition. You know the names: Romney, Palin, perhaps Huntsman and Pawlenty as well. According to those “in the know” the rest may as well stay home for various reasons: they’re running horrible campaigns (Newt Gingrich), too extreme for the American public (Ron Paul, Rick Santorum), or no one knows who they are (the rest.) Funny, but I seem to recall back in 2007 the 2008 election was going to be that 2000 New York U.S. Senate race pundits were salivating over (but never occurred): Rudy Giuliani vs. Hillary Clinton.

Almost anyone who runs for President thinks they’ll win, although there is that segment of society who has the ego trip of placing their name on the ballot line. (It’s why there are 156 – and counting – who have filed with the FEC to run. Most won’t even qualify for the ballot in Maryland.) The serious candidates, though, are the ones who are planning their message and the means to get it out there.

Yet even in this age of new media punditry, conventional wisdom makes the rules. Why else would a candidate who had not announced be invited to a GOP contender debate when others who were already in the race get snubbed? It’s understandable that a stage with over 150 contenders would make for useless debate, but someone like Gary Johnson belonged on the stage in New Hampshire. (Similarly, Buddy Roemer was snubbed for both New Hampshire and an earlier debate in South Carolina.) I think the 11 contestants I list on the GOP side are the most legitimate because they have some political experience and have a viable campaign. Others I would include on that list if they chose to run would be Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and Rudy Giuliani. That’s not to say those are the only three, just the most likely.

It’s for those candidates who have announced that I’m slowly but surely working on the series of posts which will establish the Presidential hopeful I’ll stand behind this primary season.

Now some would say my track record is not good, as I supported Duncan Hunter in 2008 and preferred Steve Forbes when he ran in 1996 and 2000, but that’s only because the rest of the nation hasn’t caught up with me yet. (I say that only half-joking. Imagine what our country would be like with a flat tax system and a tougher foreign and trade policy like Hunter prescribed. I daresay our economic circumstances would be much improved.) Obviously I have a broad mix of conservative and libertarian views on issues, but it’s very complex. Someone said that the ideal candidate would take a little bit from everyone in the race, and I think almost every GOP candidate will have areas they shine in.

But since I want to use column space for this important issue, something has to give and I think I’m going to wait until later this fall to complete the monoblogue Accountability Project. After all, we have a Special Session so there’s no point in compiling legislative awards for the year until that’s over. The good news is that I have the most of the list of votes I’m using handy so the rest is just compilation. (I only need to find three good floor amendment votes to finish the list of 25 key votes for the session. The hard part will be limiting it to three, I’m sure.) I was also going to do it by county but since districts will be changing before the next election I’ll hold on to the old format until closer to 2014. It makes my life a little easier!

That’s one update. A second piece of news is that I should have a new advertiser soon, bringing my list to three. Yes, it’s a modest number compared to other websites but all have paid me in advance. They see value in maintaining a quality website which brings a mix of content on a daily basis. (You can too.)

So look for the posts on picking the Presidential candidates, along with other good stuff coming your way.