Rob Garagiola – Page 2

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.

Continue reading “The Maryland Model (part one)”

The Sixth District donnybrook

Since I live on the opposite end of the state, I really don’t have a dog in the Sixth District slugfest that now involves an incumbent Congressman in a revamped district taking on three members of the General Assembly and a cast seemingly of thousands. Most of my readers recall the battle royal which took place in the First District four years ago when two sitting members of the Maryland Senate fought each other and the incumbent in a nasty primary skirmish eventually won by Andy Harris. It took him two years, but Harris finally put the seat back into the hands of the conservative electorate of the First District – a base made even stronger with redistricting.

History will eventually reveal what occurs in the Sixth District as the years pass, but there’s one piece of the puzzle I find quite interesting when it comes to two of the contestants. Despite two of the Republicans having ties to the Maryland Senate – Alex Mooney was a Senator from 1998-2010 while David Brinkley has served since 2002 – nearly every Republican member of the Maryland General Assembly hailing from that part of the state supports Brinkley. This despite the fact Mooney is the (outgoing) Chair of the Maryland Republican Party.

Certainly Mooney seems to be the more conservative of the two (a lifetime monoblogue Accountability Project rating of 88 vs. Brinkley’s lifetime 75 rating) but in either case – or if incumbent Roscoe Bartlett wins the primary – most of the “traditional” Sixth would certainly be more in line with their prospective Congressional voting record than the miserable mAP lifetime rating of 10 compiled by Senator Rob “Gas Tax” Garagiola or the probability that any of the other Democrats would be similarly terrible for the district. My question is how Mooney could have burnt so many bridges, and is this a reason why he’s not been the successful fundraiser for the Maryland Republican Party he intended to be?

The chances are pretty good that the Sixth District race will be the most interesting one to follow in Maryland since we won’t have Kratovil vs. Harris round three here in the First. April 4th will be a crazy morning after.

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.

The Maryland Republican Party as a career ladder?

You know, I think this was a reason some were concerned about Alex Mooney becoming chair.

But late on Tuesday the Maryland Republican Party Chair announced he was forming an exploratory committee for the Sixth District seat now held by Roscoe Bartlett, who is beginning to look more and more like a lame duck candidate – case in point, the strong suspicion that his (now former) chief of staff, Bud Otis, may be making a bid for the GOP nomination. Bear in mind there were already several candidates in the race for the Sixth District before all this intrigue began, making the statewide Senate race look cut-and-dried by comparison.

Continue reading “The Maryland Republican Party as a career ladder?”

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.