The District 38 battle is joined

It took a few weeks, but the Maryland GOP has finally begun countering the barrage of full-color mailers that the Democratic Senate Caucus Committee has sent to my house (and presumably those of other 4x Republican voters) trying to portray Jim Mathias as the willing follower of Larry Hogan and Mary Beth Carozza as the pawn of special interests – basically accusing the enemy of what they themselves were doing.

Yet on the Republican response there are a whole slew of votes cited. Finally, perhaps, someone has picked up on the reason I have done the monoblogue Accountability Project for all these years. In this case, the race is a direct compare and contrast since both have voted in the Maryland General Assembly since 2015 – however, the mAP spans the entirety of Mathias’s legislative career, which began in 2006 when he was appointed to finish the brief unexpired term of the late Delegate Bennett Bozman and won the office outright in the election that November as the top vote-getter. Four years later Mathias ran to succeed the retiring Senator Lowell Stoltzfus and won his current post.

So I can tell you that, looking at the record from my conservative, limited government perspective, over his legislative career Mathias has made 71 “correct” votes out of 336 cast. If it were a batting average .211 might keep you around if you were a defensive superstar and would be really good for a pitcher who has to hit in the National League, but getting 21.1% of the votes right for the interests of the district isn’t so good.

On the other hand, out of 100 votes cast by Mary Beth Carozza she has been correct on 62 – not the greatest of records, but a vast step in the right direction. The difference is even more apparent when you compare her total to 18 Mathias got right in that same span (and only 8 in the last three years, when he was supposedly helping out Larry Hogan.) Those 44 votes cast differently are going to be the focus of a series of posts I’ll do leading up to the beginning of early voting October 25.

I’ve already noted Jim’s subservience to special interest PACs across the state, so it will become more clear when you see what he votes for compared to Mary Beth.

Fun with numbers, part two

A few days ago I put up a post with some possible Election 2018 scenarios based on turnout and the results of some recent polls. Well, armed with a couple of very recent polls and fresh voter registration numbers from September, here are a couple more shots at an alternative universe for a patented Friday afternoon data dump:

2014 2010 2008
Gonzales 10-10 Hogan 1,100,393 58.7% 1,233,450 57.6% 1,748,905 56.4%
Jealous 722,161 38.5% 847,923 39.6% 1,258,739 40.6%
Quinn 35,151 1.9% 40,243 1.9% 62,202 2.0%
Schlakman 17,948 1.0% 20,815 1.0% 33,136 1.1%
Wash. Post 10-09 Hogan 1,127,428 60.1% 1,254,747 59.0% 1,801,299 58.1%
Jealous 701,675 37.4% 819,119 38.5% 1,225,116 39.5%
Quinn 28,532 1.5% 31,586 1.5% 45,383 1.5%
Schlakman 17,712 0.9% 20,408 1.0% 30,664 1.0%

 

2006 worst case
Gonzales 10-10 Hogan 1,299,198 56.8% 1,377,472 52.8%
Jealous 919,731 40.2% 1,158,084 44.4%
Quinn 43,831 1.9% 46,381 1.8%
Schlakman 23,216 1.0% 26,325 1.0%
Wash. Post 10-09 Hogan 1,322,971 58.3% 1,392,322 53.7%
Jealous 888,970 39.2% 1,142,257 44.0%
Quinn 33,299 1.5% 32,111 1.2%
Schlakman 22,367 1.0% 26,879 1.0%

 

Because Larry Hogan is in the mid-30’s insofar as percentage of Democrat support is concerned, there is no possible turnout scenario among those depicted that places Ben Jealous within 8.4 points of Larry Hogan. Even if you had the most optimistic Democrat scenario of a presidential election turnout with the lowest recent GOP turnout as depicted in “worst case” above plus the Gonzales results for the GOP and independents – which are slightly friendlier to Jealous – Jealous still has to drive Hogan down to 31% among Democrats. But in a more likely scenario Jealous needs to get Hogan down to 23% to win with the 2006 or 2008 models, to 21% to win with a 2010 model, and to 19% to win in a 2014 universe – one where neither candidate draws a million votes.

I did some quick and dirty math: in order to drive Hogan down to 31% support among Democrats in an instance such as a 2008-style election (assuming that the number of Hogan-supporting Democrats stays static) Ben Jealous has to find about 375,000 more Democrat voters that support him. Sorry, but Larry Hogan is not going to underachieve that much nor are there enough rocks in Maryland to look under.

It basically leaves Ben Jealous with no path to victory. And the Kavanaugh saga really didn’t do Ben any favors because it will probably goose GOP turnout up enough to keep things relatively even insofar as turnout percentage is concerned. The closest parallel to that sort of an election would be a 2006 turnout, where Democrats ran just three points shy of Republicans (as opposed to 7.61% in 2010 and a whopping 11.9% in 2014.) In 2008, the Democrats, buoyed by Barack Obama, actually had better turnout by 0.54%, which for all intents and purposes is even.

One other tidbit from this information – armed with more exact Gonzales numbers, this election also becomes a race to maintain ballot access for both the Libertarian and Green parties. The Greens are cutting it close in some scenarios, and the Libertarians don’t have a lot of room for error either. With such a high margin, the temptation may be there for people on both sides to help out the minor parties – “lost cause” progressives vote for the Green Party, disaffected conservatives vote for the Libertarian. There’s a lot that can happen.

I may have to rework my chart in a couple days with polling info on the Senate and AG races. Stay tuned.

Odds and ends number 88

As you might guess, the mailbox groans with new items when it’s election time. So this is a fresh edition of stuff I can deal with in a sentence to a few paragraphs.

I regret not bringing one of these items up a few months back when it came out, but as we get ready for state elections there are two key pieces from the Maryland Public Policy Institute that voters should not miss.

First of all, you all know that I have done the monoblogue Accountability Project for several years, with this year’s intention to wrap up that work.** While it doesn’t evaluate individual voters or bills like my evaluation does, their 2018 Annapolis Report is a useful, broad look at the overall picture and where it can stand some improvement in the next term, It’s nice work by Carol Park and our own Marc Kilmer.

It seems like a new Democrat strategy (besides cutting and running to Virginia) to combat Larry Hogan’s effective campaign is to talk down the state’s economy, but Park puts the lie to that in a more recent piece. Notes Park:

(I)t may be more helpful to look at Maryland’s future economic prospects than to focus on the historical figures to assess the validity of Jealous’s claim. After all, 2015–2017 was a period of strong growth nationally, so it may not be fair to attribute every aspect of improvement of Maryland’s economy to Hogan, nor may it be fair to criticize him for perceived shortcomings relative to other states.

There are a number of indicators that macroeconomists consider important for predicting a region’s long-term economic growth prospects: wage, entrepreneurship, innovation, and income inequality. We can look at these figures one-by-one to assess whether Maryland is in fact faring poorly compared with other states in the Mid-Atlantic region under Gov. Hogan.

It turns out Maryland isn’t doing so bad after all according to the selected figures. Now I know the whole deal about lies, damned lies, and statistics, but if you ask almost any Marylander whether he or she is better off than they were four years ago, the answer would likely be yes – unless you work for the federal government, in which case times may be a bit difficult. If – and this is a really, really big if considering we are over two years out – the Republicans can maintain their grip on Congress for the next two cycles and President Trump is re-elected – we may see a significant rightsizing of government that will likely put Maryland into recessionary status given our addiction to the federal crack pipe of taxpayer money and government jobs. (I’ve said it before – if not for the federal government, Maryland would be *pick your chronically high unemployment state.*) It will be painful, but it is necessary.

The MPPI also pointed out that small businesses will be able to take advantage of a modest tax break made necessary by the adoption of paid sick leave. (I say modest because it’s a pool of $5 million – as originally envisioned, the pool was far larger and assisted more employers. Both those provisions were killed or watered down in committee.)

Sliding over to another campaign, Dr. Ben Carson called him “a true patriot who has served our nation and made personal sacrifices for its well being.” But before he debated his two most prominent foes for the U.S. Senate seat on Sunday (more on that in a few paragraphs) Tony Campbell had one simple request: Pray.

This campaign is David vs. Goliath.  As a dear friend of mine told me this week, our job is to be in position to take advantage of God’s providential miracle.  Your prayers are crucial for our campaign’s success.

Now before the anti-“thoughts and prayers” crowd has a cow, they need to explain to me what harm comes from prayer. If it’s in the Lord’s plan to give Maryland a far more sane representative than that which we have now, why not give encouragement that thy will be done?

From calling on the Lord to calling out larceny: that’s the segue I make for the next item.

One minor topic that takes up a couple pages in my forthcoming book on the TEA Party is a look at the “scam PACs” that started up in the wake of Citizens United, conning well-meaning small donors into supporting the lavish consulting fees of companies related to the overall PAC rather than the candidates or causes they purported to support. A three-part series from the Capital Research Center called Caveat Donator delves into that topic as well, and is worth the read.

Back to that Senate debate. I have found my way onto Neal Simon’s mailing list, and his spin doctors were ready:

Throughout the one-hour debate, Simon focused much of his criticism on Cardin’s lack of leadership in moving forward legislation that focuses on Maryland’s interests. Simon went on the offensive right out of the gate, painting a picture of a career-focused politician focused on placating the party leadership and cow-towing to establishment donors in order to keep his job. Cardin’s voting record is the most partisan of all current sitting senators as he has voted with Chuck Schumer more than 97 percent of the time.

When referring to the numerous internal threats and dangers facing America today, Simon said, “I’m not sure which is most dangerous, Trump’s Twitter feed or Ben Cardin’s rubber stamp.”

As I watched the debate, I noticed it was Simon who was the more aggressive toward Cardin, which is to be expected because he really has to swing for the fences now. There’s a month to close what’s a 40-plus point deficit between him and “our friend Ben” (who’s no friend of common-sense voters.) To that end, Simon is emphasizing Cardin’s fealty to Democrat leadership based on voting record.

But we need to pray for Tony to get another bite of the apple because his debate performance was “meh…” Whoever prepped him needs to step up his or her game because there were a couple “deer in the headlights” moments for Tony – on the other hand, while Simon seemed scripted he was very personable. Cardin was his normal low-key self, almost like “okay, I have to do this debate, let’s get it over with.” But he was more or less prepared for what he would get.

The best possible scenario for this race involves Republicans staying loyal while slyly inviting their Democrat friends to send a message to Cardin by voting Simon – after all, what Republican ever wins in Maryland? I don’t care if it’s one of those 35-33-32 deals: as long as our guy has the 35, he has 6 years to build up the next campaign.

You may remember in the last Presidential go-round that the most centrist of Democrat candidates was onetime Reagan administration official Jim Webb of Virginia. While his campaign didn’t gain much in the way of traction, Jim landed on his feet nonetheless: he now draws a paycheck from the American Petroleum Institute and advocates for offshore energy exploration, to wit:

The United States can increase these advantages (in energy exploration) through renewed emphasis on safe and technologically advanced offshore exploration, which is increasingly in use throughout the world. Ninety-four percent of federal offshore acreage is currently off limits to energy development. The Trump administration’s National Offshore Leasing Program for 2019-2024 would change that by opening key areas off the Atlantic Coast and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Recent advances in safety solutions, plus improvements in business practices and tighter government standards, guarantee that offshore exploration can be safe, targeted and productive.

Maybe that’s why Ben Jealous had the commonwealth on his mind the other day. But that’s the place I’ll use to bring this post home, and I have an old friend of mine to credit. My old “Rebeldome” cohort Bob Densic spied this in the Daily Signal and knew I’d be interested – it’s a piece on the current state of the TEA Party in Virginia.

So that will (almost) be a wrap for now. I might get enough to do another one before Election Day, but we will see.

**I’m thinking of getting the band back together, as it were, for a limited engagement. To me, it may be a useful exercise to maintain the Maryland edition of the mAP, but restrict it to the three districts (36, 37, and 38) on the Eastern Shore. Anyone else can do their own research on their members of the General Assembly.

Debunking another myth

It’s the fourth of what promises to be a continuing series of diatribes to my snail mail box, but instead of extolling the (so-called) virtues of my incumbent State Senator Jim Mathias, it makes a series of claims about his challenger, Delegate Mary Beth Carozza.

So you want to talk about whose money Mary Beth Carozza is taking? I suspect you are REALLY afraid of looking in the mirror then.

This was a very easy (if somewhat time-consuming) one to address, given that Jim Mathias has taken oh-so-much PAC money over the years. So much so, as a matter of fact, that the majority of PAC donation money that goes to Mary Beth – the same groups also give to Mathias.

And the funny thing about the bill that is cited on this particular mailing (a bill that supposedly stabilizes the health care market by continuing a fee put in place under Obamacare for the federal level as a state-supporting fund) is that Jim Mathias was one of those who voted for a bill that CareFirst essentially admitted to writing, (See the testimony for SB387, which starts at about the 1:30:00 mark here.) And wouldn’t you know it – over the last four years Mathias has had four donations (8/13/15, 12/30/15, 12/15/16, and 4/30/18) totaling $2,000 from a CareFirst PAC. That same PAC did not donate to Carozza.

In fact, there are a total of 18 PACs which have donated to both candidates over the last four years that the pair were in office:

  1. ABC Metro Washington PAC (construction) – $2,850 to Mathias (6 occasions), $1,250 to Carozza (4 occasions)
  2. ABC of Chesapeake Shores PAC (construction) – $3,750 to Mathias (6 occasions), $2,500 to Carozza (6 occasions)
  3. Association of Maryland Pilots PAC – $1,750 to Mathias (7 occasions), $700 to Carozza (3 occasions)
  4. Bankers PAC – $3,250 to Mathias (8 occasions), $350 to Carozza (2 occasions)
  5. Banking Services Corporation – $2,000 to Mathias (2 occasions), $100 to Carozza (1 occasion)
  6. Comcast Corporation – $1,750 to Mathias (5 occasions), $250 to Carozza (1 occasion)
  7. EpicPharm PAC – $4,000 to Mathias (9 occasions), $750 to Carozza (3 occasions)
  8. Farm Bureau PAC – $2,500 to Mathias (1 occasion), $900 to Carozza (1 occasion)
  9. Health Policy Leadership Alliance – $500 to Mathias, $150 to Carozza (1 occasion apiece)
  10. HFAM Maryland Nursing Home PAC – $4,750 to Mathias (9 occasions), $350 to Carozza (2 occasions)
  11. Hospital Association PAC Maryland – $4,200 to Mathias (8 occasions), $150 to Carozza (2 occasions)
  12. Medical PAC Maryland – $900 to Mathias, $550 to Carozza (4 occasions apiece)
  13. Motor Truck Association PAC (MMTA PAC) – $1,250 to Mathias (5 occasions), $250 to Carozza (1 occasion)
  14. Poultry PAC – $7,000 to Mathias (10 occasions), $1,650 to Carozza (4 occasions)
  15. Realtors PAC – $3,340 to Mathias (13 occasions), $1,428 to Carozza (6 occasions)
  16. Retail Merchants Association PAC – $500 to Mathias (3 occasions), $500 to Carozza (2 occasions)
  17. Southern Maryland Electric/Choptank Electric PAC (and direct donations) – $1,625 to Mathias (8 occasions), $300 to Carozza (4 occasions)
  18. Wicomico County FOP Lodge 111 PAC (police) – $500 apiece in one donation

As you can see, in a head-to-head comparison Mathias is the king of special interest PAC money. Also, if you are keeping score, since Mary Beth’s November 2017 announcement that she would be seeking Jim’s seat, only the ABC of Chesapeake Shores, EpicPharm PAC (to both), Medical PAC (to both), Poultry PAC (to both, but mainly to Mathias), and Retail Merchants Association PAC have contributed to Mary Beth’s coffers. They know who sides with their interests over those of the people being represented.

In fact, there are only a small handful of PACs and large corporations which have donated only to Carozza, and all of these were prior to the announcement of her Senate run:

  • AmerisourceBergen (drug distributor) – $250 in May 2014 (Note: I didn’t check Mathias back that far.)
  • Anheuser Busch (Big Beer) – $1000 in two donations, July 2014 and July 2015
  • IFAPAC – Maryland (insurance and financial advisers) – $500 in two donations, January 2016 and May 2017
  • Marathon Petroleum Corporation – $250 in May 2014
  • Maryland Standardbred PAC (horse industry) – $250 in January 2017

Perhaps the most interesting donation to Carozza is The Presidential Coalition, LLC – a $6,000 contribution from the group behind Citizens United that’s relatively recent.

On the other hand, I don’t have space to list all the 150-plus special interest groups who have given Mathias money over the last four years – it’s a smorgasbord of unions, Baltimore-centered interests (don’t they have enough representation on the General Assembly already?), firefighters (think the lobby that supports costly residential sprinklers on new construction), those connected to the renewable energy boondoggle, and… Big Insurance.

So let me quote from the photo below:

Drug and insurance companies have all given lavish campaign contributions to back Carozza’s campaigns.

After benefiting from all that money, she voted their way again and again – against Governor Hogan’s efforts to stabilize health care costs for premiums, co-pays, and prescription drugs.

Between PACs and companies, Big Insurance has put well over $10,000 into the Mathias coffers over the last four years – and that doesn’t count local insurance companies. And if you consider AH Pharma, Amgen. Astellas Pharma, Caremark Rx, Eli Lilly, Genentech, LifeSpan, Pfizer, and Walgreens as part of Big Pharma, you’ll be interested to know their “lavish” campaign contributions are nearly tenfold ($9,850) the $1,000 total Mary Beth received from those interests in that timespan.

So whose vote seems to be up for sale in this case? And who is really contributing to keeping health care in Maryland a mess?

Admitting the health care system is a mess is a start, but the efforts of Mary Beth Carozza aren’t making it any more of a mess. Hopefully the next term will begin to really fix up the system.

So let’s talk about “voting their way.” In terms of the bill that Mary Beth (as well as most other Republicans) voted against – but was signed by Governor Hogan anyway – I would contend that she didn’t vote the way of the insurance companies (who, as I noted above, basically wrote the bill for other reasons.)

Not only did it maintain a tax of sorts on insurers and other entities, the bill went against an effort to open up the market for “association health plans” and expanded the role of an existing commission to consider the following:

(i) the components of one or more waivers under § 9-1332 of the Affordable Care Act to ensure market stability that may be submitted by the state; (This was a waiver they indeed received, until 2023.)

(ii) whether to pursue a standard plan design that limits cost sharing;

(iii) whether to merge the individual and small group health insurance markets in the state for rating purposes;

(iv) whether to pursue a basic health program;

(v) whether to pursue a Medicaid buy–in program for the individual market;

(vi) whether to provide subsidies that supplement premium tax credits or cost–sharing reductions described in § 1402(c) of the Affordable Care Act; and;

(vii) whether to adopt a state–based individual health insurance mandate and how to use payments collected from individuals who do not maintain minimum essential coverage, including use of the payments to assist individuals in purchasing health insurance.

This was a monoblogue Accountability Project vote, and Mary Beth voted the correct way, Unlike the assertion on the flyer, this bill is bad for families and senior citizens. But we’re stuck with both this “temporary” fee (which became superfluous when the Section 1332 waiver was granted by the federal government in August) and the mandate of the committee that will certainly recommend expanded government influence rather than common-sense solutions to open up the insurance market and allow those who need insurance to tailor it more closely to their needs. And who doesn’t think that this fee will become more than “temporary?”

The only one making a mess of health care is the member of the party best known for doing just that with Obamacare. Sp what untruths and distortions are coming up next?

And as I’ve often said: if you want to start getting into the weeds on floor votes, I have plenty of them – trust me.

Fun with numbers

I love it when I get to foreshadow – even if it’s not in this particular venue. The other day, on a social media post about voter turnout, I noted:

But I’ve been looking at turnout lately too. Might be a little sumthin’ sumthin’ on that subject from monoblogue in the next few days.

Here is that sumthin’ sumthin’.

Most of what you hear about polls are the topline results: i.e. “Larry Hogan leads the latest Mason-Dixon Poll by fifteen points.” Yet that may or may not reflect the reality of what is really going on because, in order to have the most accurate poll, you need the most accurate sample. The reason Larry Hogan more or less snuck up on us to become governor was that Democrat turnout in 2014 was abysmal to a point where no one predicted it would be that bad – and many of those Democrats who showed up voted for Hogan. Pollsters didn’t have that sort of turnout model in their realm of possibility, although that year’s last Gonzales Poll was closest (and closest to the result among “non-partisan” pollsters.)

As a warning up front, this post will have a LOT of numbers. But what I did was take all three recent major polls (Gonzales, Goucher College, and Mason-Dixon) and, based on their interpolated selections by party, came up with numbers that equaled 100 percent, with a small percentage added for Libertarian and Green Party candidates based on best guess of mine since they’re not polled. (That’s why their numbers don’t change much despite the varying scenarios – I used the same mix for both minor-party candidates.)

Then I came up with several alternate voter turnout universes based on the latest voter registration numbers and turnout figures provided by the state Board of Elections. The voter turnout universes I came up with were a 2014 universe (which is probably a best-case scenario for the GOP), a 2010 universe (this was the TEA Party wave), a 2006 universe (bad year for the GOP, both nationally and in Maryland), and a 2008 universe that applies the more Democrat-friendly Presidential numbers to a state election.

The fifth and final scenario was the absolute worst-case one I could think of for Larry Hogan – massive Democrat turnout on the order of 2008 combined with soft GOP and independent turnout. It’s an Indivisible dream – but does the #bluewave pan out?

This is the first time I have tried to drop a table into a post, so hopefully it’s legible. This is direct from the spreadsheet I figured out the calculations on.

2014 2010 2008
Gonzales Hogan 1,076,589 57.7% 1,205,595 56.5% 1,709,578 55.4%
Jealous 744,174 39.9% 874,778 41.0% 1,302,241 42.2%
Quinn 28,362 1.5% 31,395 1.5% 45,089 1.5%
Schlakman 17,625 0.9% 20,307 1.0% 30,508 1.0%
Goucher Hogan 1,175,708 62.8% 1,312,495 61.8% 1,880,884 60.8%
Jealous 650,997 34.8% 758,190 35.7% 1,138,942 36.8%
Quinn 28,362 1.5% 31,395 1.5% 45,089 1.5%
Schlakman 17,625 0.9% 20,307 1.0% 30,508 1.0%
Mason Dixon Hogan 1,083,769 58.1% 1,205,688 57.0% 1,708,522 55.8%
Jealous 736,994 39.5% 858,675 40.6% 1,276,753 41.7%
Quinn 28,362 1.5% 31,395 1.5% 45,089 1.5%
Schlakman 17,625 0.9% 20,307 1.0% 30,508 1.0%

 

2006 worst case
Gonzales Hogan 1,269,353 55.8% 1,336,851 51.5%
Jealous 950,092 41.8% 1,200,296 46.2%
Quinn 33,093 1.5% 31,924 1.2%
Schlakman 22,257 1.0% 26,751 1.0%
Goucher Hogan 1,385,124 61.2% 1,488,953 57.5%
Jealous 822,919 36.4% 1,040,141 40.2%
Quinn 33,093 1.5% 31,924 1.2%
Schlakman 22,257 1.0% 26,751 1.0%
Mason Dixon Hogan 1,269,456 56.2% 1,343,601 52.0%
Jealous 932,234 41.3% 1,179,552 45.7%
Quinn 33,093 1.5% 31,924 1.2%
Schlakman 22,257 1.0% 26,751 1.0%

 

Obviously the various scenarios are all there, with the worst-case being the far right-hand in the bottom page – try as I might I couldn’t get all five sets to fit in one line. In order from top to bottom, the numbers come from the Gonzales Poll (topline: Hogan +16), the Goucher College Poll (Hogan +22) and Mason-Dixon (Hogan +15).

Given these turnout scenarios, the lone path to victory for Jealous would be getting only hardcore D’s out to the polls that aren’t accounted for in these turnout models because he has to bring his numbers among Democrats to the point where they were in 2014 (Anthony Brown was in the low- to mid-70’s among D’s.) In the three polls, extrapolating numbers on a 50-50 basis from a 100% total, Hogan’s Democrat support ranges from 35 to nearly 45 percent. Unless Jealous can pull off a turnout that’s the absolute nightmare scenario (to the GOP), he’s a loser if Hogan gets even 25 percent of the Democrat vote – and Hogan’s polling beyond that even with taking away the currently undecideds. Moreover, the Kavanaugh scandal is primed to drive GOP turnout and there’s almost zero split among GOP loyalists so a nightmare scenario becomes less likely.

But more Republicans to the polls can assist in downticket races, such as the uphill battles being faced statewide by U.S. Senate hopeful Tony Campbell and Attorney General aspirant Craig Wolf as well as the “drive for five” new GOP State Senators to allow Hogan vetoes to be sustained. We’ll have to see how that goes as time goes on, but this was a fun exercise and it’s a pretty handy spreadsheet for me to keep around.

Is it really that hard to file paperwork?

As I promised in last night’s post, I looked up some of the many campaign finance accounts that were opened for this year’s election, including older accounts that have been around for years. My focus was on those who are on the November ballot in Wicomico County, although I also looked at candidates who failed to advance beyond the June 26 primary.

This post was inspired by the long-standing deficiency of Kirkland Hall, who went several months overdue without filing the required campaign finance paperwork with the state Board of Elections. However, as I found out in looking at the 64 candidates who are/were on the Wicomico County ballot, it must be a mean feat for some people to do this.

(Hall and opponent Delegate Charles Otto are not actually on the Wicomico County ballot, but they are part of our District 38 nonetheless. Otto was first elected in part with Wicomico County votes in 2010, before District 38A was gerrymandered to place Otto and former Delegate Mike McDermott in the same district by shifting it eastward into the southern end of Worcester County.)

I’m going to reach back into my memory bank for this, because one needed change for 2018 was a revision to campaign finance laws to make them easier on party office candidates (as I was.) Prior to that, I ran for office three times in 2006, 2010, and 2014.

The first time I had a treasurer who took care of the modest amount of paperwork for what they called a Personal Treasurer Account (PTA), with the biggest (only) contribution I had being the $100 I donated to my campaign, the in-kind donation that I was advised to consider my website as, and the two expenditures my filing fee and the $58 or so I used to buy palm cards to distribute among my close neighborhoods. At that time, you could have a non-continuing account so after that campaign it went away, with the proceeds donated to our Central Committee.

But the second time in 2010, they eliminated the PTA option so I had to keep my account open for the four years between the 2010 and 2014 elections, which meant I had to file all the 2010 reports, the annuals for 2011-14, and all the 2014 reports until after my primary when I formally closed the account since I didn’t intend to run again. During that time, my treasurer/(then) fiance and I missed the 2013 Annual Report by five days, so we had to pay a $20 fine. Honestly, I don’t remember seeing the little green reminder card so I think it went to our previous address – the 2012 one came right at the end of our forwarding order. But I should have known it was time.

So I have some empathy for those who miss the deadline by a few days, especially in a small-scale campaign like most of those at the county level. However, it turns out that group was the minority as out of 64 candidates I checked – the majority were in complete compliance:

  • 36 of 64 had no violations.
  • 15 of the remaining 28 had just one violation, with fines ranging from $10 to $250 – these two gentlemen on the extremes both missed the 2012 Annual Report, but Senator Jim Mathias was a day late and County Executive Bob Culver was almost a year late. Neither have missed another deadline in the last six years, though.
  • 4 of the remaining 13 had two violations: County Council at-large candidates Julie Brewington and Jamaad Gould, Senator (but at the time of the violations, Delegate) Addie Eckardt, and perennial primary and write-in candidate Ed Tinus. All have racked up over $200 apiece in fines.

And then you have the serious scofflaws. All of these nine have three or more violations; however, since Christopher Adams has only generated $40 in fines for three offenses, his reports are only a day or two late at most. It’s the rest who seem to have some issues. This is done in order of fine, smallest to largest:

  1. Delegate Christopher Adams, District 37B: 2014 Pre-General 1, 2017 Annual, 2018 Annual – $40 in fines
  2. William Turner, candidate, Wicomico County BOE District 3: 2018 Spring, 2018 Pre-Primary 2, 2018 Pre-General 1 – $90 in fines
  3. Michelle Bradley, candidate, Wicomico County BOE District 1: 2018 Spring, 2018 Pre-Primary 2, 2018 Pre-General 1 – $220 in fines
  4. Larry Dodd, Wicomico County Councilman (District 3): 2016 Annual, 2018 Annual, 2018 Pre-Primary 2, 2018 Pre-General 1 – $490 in fines
  5. Kirkland Hall, candidate, District 38A Delegate: 2018 Annual, 2018 Pre-Primary 2, 2018 Pre-General 1 – $1,340 in fines
  6. Mimi Gedamu, candidate, District 37B Delegate: 2018 Pre-Primary 1, 2018 Pre-Primary 2, 2018 Pre-General 1 – $1,390 in fines
  7. Ernest Davis, Wicomico County Councilman (District 1): 4 in 2010, 2011 Annual, 2015 Annual – $1,530 in fines
  8. Marvin Ames, candidate, Wicomico County Council (District 1): no filings since inception in February 2018 – $1,890 in fines
  9. Jim Shaffer, candidate, District 38C Delegate: no filings since inception in February 2018 – $1,890 in fines

Yes, Ames and Shaffer have never filed a single report. Since both lost in the primary, their campaigns are finished but they cannot close their accounts until the fines are waived or (more likely) paid. Honestly, I think they have more in fines than they raised for the campaigns!

In case you wanted to use this as evidence that one party or the other is worse about the situation, be advised that of the highest nine there are two in a non-partisan race, four Republicans, and three Democrats. Ironically, none of the top 4 face a November race as Ames, Shaffer, and Gedamu lost in the primary and Davis (who, admittedly, seems to have put these issues in the past since he’s been “clean” for almost three years) is unopposed.

I may take a look at the situation again when the last pre-general reports come out later this month but I suspect most of the campaigns will be careful to file coming into the election. No need for an October surprise on that front.

Wicomico County races: a closer look at finances

Earlier this month I took a look at the financial situation of the various state candidates in Districts 37 and 38, so now I’m going to narrow the focus down to Wicomico County, which has a number of interesting contested races going on – although only a few have much money involved to speak of. No six-figure war chests here.

I’ll begin at the top with the County Executive race, where Bob Culver has an interesting split going on:

  • 49 donations from individuals in county for $5,910
  • 9 donations from individuals outside of county for $1,175
  • 13 donations from businesses in area for $2,300
  • 4 donations from businesses outside of area for $6,700
  • 2 donations from PACs and other committees for $600
  • Average donation: $216.69
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $15,398.33

Because of the 2 large donations from Comcast (considered a business outside the area) totaling $4,000, Bob’s numbers are skewed: 49.2% of his money came from inside the area, with a hefty 47.2% coming from outside the area and just 3.6% from PACs and other committees. Out of the 96.4% coming from individuals and businesses, 42.5% was out of individual pockets and 53.9% was from businesses – again, the Comcast donations make up almost 1/4 of Bob’s total take.

Now let’s look at the “independent” challenger Jack Heath:

  • 68 donations from individuals in county for $14,825.05
  • 10 donations from individuals outside of county for $1,950
  • 8 donations from businesses in area for $1,771.76
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • No donations from PACs and other committees
  • Average donation: $215.66
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $8,897.41

For Jack, 89.5% of his money came from inside the area and 10.5% from outside. Similarly, the heavy preponderance of contributions are from individuals: 90.4% compared to 9.6% from businesses. Heath has raised more money than Culver but his burn rate is faster, too.

Democratic County Executive candidate John Hamilton has filed only ALCEs since opening his campaign, meaning he has raised and/or spent less than $1,000. He’s the first of many candidates who can claim that route, as you’ll see moving forward.

Regarding the quotes around “independent” for Heath: that lack of movement from the elected Democrat has prompted at least one recently-elected member of their Central Committee (who’s also the president of the Wicomico Democratic Club) to resign from the DCC so he and the club could back Heath, while others on the Wicomico DCC (who presumably are club members, too) are more tacit in their support for Jack.

It’s much simpler when it comes to other county-wide races. I’ll hold off on the County Council and school board for the moment to look at the two single-victor races for State’s Attorney and Clerk of the Circuit Court. The two other countywide positions (Register of Wills Karen Lemon and Sheriff Mike Lewis) feature unopposed candidates who have regularly filed ALCEs – Lemon’s streak goes back to 2010.

The State’s Attorney race has the current appointee, Republican Jamie Dykes, running for a full term. Her campaign so far:

  • 80 donations from individuals in county for $13,388.25
  • 6 donations from an individual outside of county for $1,000
  • 11 donations from businesses in area for $4,065.47
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • No donations from PACs and other committees
  • Average donation: $189.63
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $6,087.33

Jamie received 94.6% of her money from inside the county and 5.4% from outside. Individuals also chipped in the most by far: 77.9% compared to 22.1% from businesses.

Conversely. Democrat Seth Mitchell, who previously ran for the post in 2010, has ceded the financial field to Dykes thus far: Mitchell has filed nothing but ALCEs in his run to date.

The fight has been joined on both sides for the Clerk of Court race, an open seat thanks to the retirement of longtime Clerk Mark Bowen.

For Republican Chris Welch:

  • 47 donations from individuals in county for $4,255
  • 10 donations from individuals outside of county for $1,030
  • 7 donations from businesses in area for $1,566
  • 2 donations from businesses outside of area for $408
  • No donations from PACs and other committees
  • Average donation: $109.98
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $4,643.05 – with a $40 loan outstanding.

For Welch, 80.2% of his money came from within Wicomico County and 19.8% from outside; meanwhile, 72.8% of donations came from individuals and 27.2% from businesses – much of that business income was in-kind donations for a raffle Welch must have had.

Turning to Democrat James “Bo” McAllister, he has a very unusual setup:

  • 25 donations from individuals in county for $2,865
  • 48 donations from individuals outside of county for $7,367.11
  • 4 donations from businesses in area for $600
  • 1 donations from a business outside of area for $500
  • No donations from PACs and other committees
  • Average donation: $100.86
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $3,268.97, but with loans for $10,190.07 outstanding.

Not only is McAllister heavily in debt, he really has one major benefactor: the Robins family in Ocean City. (Chris Robins is his treasurer.) Between standard donations and in-kind offering, the Robinses have contributed $6,333.91, or nearly 56% of everything taken in. It appears that most of Bo’s early campaigning came out of their pocket, but with a family member as treasurer that seems to be a little cozy.

Now that I have those countywide races out of the way, I’ll shift gears to County Council and begin with the two at-large seats.

As the lone incumbent Republican John Cannon is first up, but he hasn’t been very busy:

  • 2 donations from individuals in county for $350
  • No donations from individuals outside of county
  • 3 donations from businesses in area for $251.68 ($1.68 is interest on the bank account.)
  • No donations from a business outside of area
  • 1 donation from a PAC for $2,000
  • Average donation: $433.61
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $10,961.34

The huge Realtor PAC donation completely skewed Cannon’s take: 23.1% of his money came from within Wicomico County and 76.9% from the PAC; because of that bump just 13.5% of donations came from individuals and 9.7% from businesses. (The rounding doesn’t allow it to add up.)

Fellow Republican Julie Brewington is less well off:

  • 8 donations from individuals in county for $1,920.49
  • 1 donation from an individual outside of county for $300
  • No donations from businesses in area
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • No donation from PACs
  • Average donation: $246.72
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $809.30, with a $1,000 loan outstanding.

For Julie, 86.5% of her donations came from individuals inside the county and 13.5% from outside, with all of it from individuals.

On the Democrat side, former County Council member Bill McCain has the financial advantage to return:

  • 43 donations from individuals in county for $5,850
  • 1 donation from an individual outside of county for $100
  • No donations from businesses in area
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • 1 donation from a PAC for $2,000
  • Average donation: $176.67
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $4,828.89

McCain has had 73.6% of the 74.8% of his take from individuals come from within Wicomico County – the other 25.2% is the donation from the Realtor PAC (the same group that gave to Cannon.)

Lastly is the second Democrat for the at-large County Council position, Jamaad Gould:

  • 16 donations from individuals in county for $952
  • 2 donations from individuals outside of county for $110
  • 1 donation from a business in area for $10
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • No donation from a PAC
  • Average donation: $56.42
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $325.85

Jamaad is the first of two sub-$100 average donation candidates, but the only countywide one. Percentage-wise, 89.7% of Gould’s donations come from inside Wicomico County and 99.1% come from individuals. It’s a very local-source campaign.

District races are rather low-key as well. In District 1, Ernest Davis had to survive a primary so he raised money earlier in the cycle.

  • 27 donations from individuals in county for $1,085
  • 1 donation from an individual outside of county for $20
  • 1 donation from a business in area for $250
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • No donations from a PAC
  • Average donation: $46.72
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $828.00

District 2 is contested: incumbent Republican Marc Kilmer is running for a second term. His totals were very simple:

  • 2 donations from individuals in county for $450
  • No donations from individuals outside of county
  • No donations from a business in area
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • No donations from a PAC
  • Average donation: $225.00
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $2,198.39

That’s one of the healthier on-hand totals around; however, Marc does have a Democrat opponent who is also fundraising in Alexander Scott:

  • 3 donations from individuals in county for $550
  • No donations from individuals outside of county
  • 2 donations from businesses in area for $800
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • No donations from a PAC
  • Average donation: $270.00
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $550.00

Both donations from businesses were in-kind, which explains the even $550 balance on Scott’s first report – previously he had filed ALCEs and has reported no spending. (So where did the filing fee come from?) But it works out to 40.7% from individuals and 59.3% from businesses.

The District 3 race features incumbent Republican Larry Dodd, who reported just one donation of $1,000 (from the Realtors PAC) and has an outstanding loan of $100 against a balance of $1,784.91. Some of that will be eaten up by a pending fine to be paid to the state Board of Elections of $160 for late filing – the fourth time this cycle (and third this year) that his campaign has been late. After my experience with Kirkland Hall last time (see updated post here) this is a subject I’m going to get back to for a later post.

However, his Democratic opponent Michele Gregory has filed nothing but ALCEs.

Moving to District 4, which is one of the two open seats on County Council (one at-large is also open) we find Republican Suzanah Cain has these statistics:

  • 24 donations from individuals in county for $1,496.16
  • 11 donations from individuals outside of county for $625
  • No donations from businesses in area
  • 1 donation from a business outside of area for $0.28 (a setup fee for an account)
  • 2 donations from a PAC for $4,000
  • Average donation: $161.09
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $703.01

Like her fellow Republican John Cannon, the huge Realtor PAC donation completely skews Cain’s take: 24.4% of her money came from within Wicomico County, 10.2% from outside the county, and 65.3% from the PAC. All but less that 0.1% of that non-PAC cash is from individuals.

For Democrat Josh Hastings, the story is a lot different:

  • 68 donations from individuals in county for $4,940
  • 27 donations from individuals outside of county for $2,425
  • 1 donations from a business in area for $50
  • No donations from a business outside of area
  • 1 donations from a PAC or other committee for $100
  • Average donation: $77.47
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $1,512.38

Hastings had 66.4% of his donations come from within the county, 32.3% from outside, and 1.3% from the other committee. 98% was offered from individuals, with 1.3% from the one business.

Finally for County Council, you have the unopposed District 5 Republican Joe Holloway. He loaned his campaign $5,000 and still has $4,975 left after the $25 filing fee.

The other partisan office on the ballot is the Orphan’s Court. Not one of the four candidates have filed anything but an ALCE – as expected in a bottom-ballot race for which the Republicans have seldom filled the slots. (All three incumbents are Democrats; however, one lost in the primary.)

Now for the Board of Education. These non-partisan slots are being filled as follows:

  • At-large candidates: 2 from a group including Tyrone Cooper, Don Fitzgerald, Michael Murray, and Talana Watson
  • District 1: Michelle Bradley or Allen Brown
  • District 2: Gene Malone
  • District 3: David Goslee, Sr. or William Turner
  • District 4: David Plotts or Ann Suthowski
  • District 5: John Palmer

Out of that group Cooper, Murray, Malone, Turner, and Palmer reported no contributions. Malone loaned himself $100 so that’s his balance.

Fitzgerald reported $1,400 in contributions (all from the candidate and his treasurer) and has $212.12 on hand.

Watson reported $1,000 in contributions from 2 local businesses and loaned her campaign $1,000 with $909.51 available.

Bradley reported $150 in contributions, one $100 from an individual in the county and $50 from one outside. She still has the $150 left.

Brown reported $860 in contributions, all but 2 of the 13 from individuals within the county and accounting for $660 of the take. He has a balance of $25.

Goslee had the biggest stake among the district aspirants, receiving $1,650 from 4 local individuals – however, $1,100 was from his own personal funds. $586.80 is the largest war chest among the remaining district candidates.

Twelve people have given $706.96 to the Plotts campaign, which includes in-kind donations. (One who donated $25 was from outside the county.) His balance is $187.45.

Suthowski was the second-biggest beneficiary with $1,500 from 13 local individuals (including $400 of her own.) She has $376.46 to play with.

I sort of suspect the real money in the school board race is going to be revealed on the post-election report since the Wicomico County Education Association has yet to be heard from and they’ll certainly have a preferred slate.

That brings this look at finance to a close. But I have a little more research to do after seeing the Kirkland Hall and Larry Dodd debacles. Is it really that hard to do campaign finance reports on a timely basis?

And the onslaught begins…

Once is an occurrence, twice is a trend.

Over the last couple days, our mailbox began to experience the quadrennial contest of: how can we make Jim Mathias look Reaganesque this time? The second one came Wednesday and if experience is any guide I’ll bet we get eight to ten more – have to spend that quarter-million in the bank somehow, even if it is to prop up the Senate Democrats under whose auspices these were sent.

The old dining room table has the first two of these full-color four-page ads. By Election Day they will cover the table.

Bear in mind my wife and I are 4x Republicans.

On the top one I received Monday, it claims that Mathias “worked successfully with Governor Hogan to cut taxes for veterans.” (There’s that Governor Hogan guy again. Isn’t the Democrat nominee named Jealous?)

That claim is basically true: Mathias was an initial co-sponsor of a mostly Republican bill to increase the exemption of military income for taxation. This finally passed in 2015 on a unanimous Senate vote and 137-0 in the House. This was a bill introduced in several sessions in a row that finally had a receptive governor. Sometimes Mathias was a co-sponsor, oftentimes not. But he couldn’t get it passed with a Democrat General Assembly and Democrat governor.

Another claim is that he “returned thousands of dollars to taxpayers through opposing legislative pay hikes and operating office annually under budget.” I’ll take his word on the latter, but the former comes with an asterisk.

Indeed, Mathias voted for SJ5 in 2010, which rejected the recommendations of the General Assembly Compensation Commission that would have increased salaries for the 2011-14 term – as did everyone else in the House of Delegates as it passed 141-0.

But by law, this comes up every four years. So where has Mathias been in the last eight years?

In 2014, a similar bill to that which passed in 2010 (SJ9) was put up by a group of GOP legislators. Did Mathias cross the aisle and co-sponsor? Nope. And the 2018 version was enacted without a peep as no legislation was considered on that subject.

Mathias also likes to hang his hat on the fact he voted against the “rain tax” in 2012, which he indeed did. But there were some other parts of it he doesn’t like to bring up:

My other flyer talked about the idea of beginning school after Labor Day, which was actually already practiced in Worcester County. And while Mathias was already beginning to get himself tight with Hogan (based on news articles of the day) the legislation he sponsored didn’t go anywhere.

But the more interesting item came from the statement about Jim “avidly fights for seniors, affordable prescription drug prices, and our rural health care delivery.” The bill cited was from 2017, and it’s actually one I used on the monoblogue Accountability Project. The bill Jim touts? It was a Senate joint resolution called “Protection of the Federal Affordable Care Act.” I wrote this about the companion House resolution that actually passed:

Since it’s not protection FOR us FROM the ACA, this bill is less than worthless. In fact, be it RESOLVED that health care is NOT a right. Let the ACA die and start all over with a state-level, market-based system that embraces competition, patient choices in coverage levels, and encourages us to use insurance as it is supposed to be used: as a hedge against unforeseen risk like auto insurance is.

And before we get too much into the idea that Mathias in Larry Hogan’s right-hand man, let us not forget (thanks to the mAP I haven’t) that Jim voted to override 5 of the 7 key vetoes Larry Hogan tried to achieve. So in a small part thanks to Jim, we have expensive solar energy boondoggles, weaker standards for our state schools, the “travel tax,” a Board of Public Works that doesn’t get to vote on the public work of school construction (see below), and overly burdensome to businesses paid sick leave.

Now how about this funny thing: since I didn’t put this post to bed when I went to bed last night, flyer number 3 showed up today. And this is a good one, if you like a laugh.

Surprisingly, they picked out a rather good photo of Mary Beth.

But here’s what they would like you to believe Mary Beth “loves to say no” to:

A backroom-amended state budget. The Senate Democrats cite HB70 from 2015, which was the FY2016 state budget. The oddity is that the FY2016 budget originated in the House. (In practice, the budget process begins in the House on odd-numbered years and the Senate in even-numbered years – so that year’s budget was HB70.) Turns out it was Mary Beth’s committee (Appropriations) that had first crack at it and they voted the first reading version as amended in her committee out 25-0. On third reading the House passed their version 129-10, with Mary Beth voting in the affirmative.

But then the Senate got a hold of it, and made more amendments – so much so that, while their version passed the Senate 46-0 (with the lone non-voter being the absent Jim Mathias, strangely enough) neither body would blink. When both bodies refused to recede, a conference committee was formed – and here’s where it got interesting. I’m not saying that George Edwards is a “token” Republican, but out of 10 people appointed to the conference committee he was the only non-Democrat. (Two other Republicans were appointed as “advisers” out of a body of another eight.)

Thus, these great minds went to hash out the differences and, given the fact that not one person from the Eastern Shore was in that room, I’m suspecting that we got royally screwed. The vote Mathias (and let’s face it, I’m sure he’s got his fingerprints on this one) is citing is that vote to accept the report out of that stacked conference committee. Not a single Republican voted for that budget.

And since Jim Mathias wasn’t in that room, how was he to know what funny business went into that budget – a budget that Governor Hogan couldn’t veto? He wasn’t fighting too hard for us from the sidelines.

As usual, Democrats fail to tell the whole story.

Increasing access to higher education – for those with a criminal record. This bill was part of a far-left movement known as “ban the box.” In essence, the idea is to eliminate references to one’s criminal record on job and (in this case) college applications. SB543 from 2017 is the subject of the “ban the box” vote they cite. Mary Beth joined all but a handful of House Republicans in opposing the bill. In addition, she voted against the House version and also to uphold Governor Hogan’s veto at the beginning of this year’s session. She was very consistent in opposing the bill.

So let’s take a look at Jim’s record on this one. On both SB543 and HB694, Jim was happy to vote for making it easier for criminals to access your local college campus. But when he became aware that Governor Hogan vetoed the bill and Mary Beth was going to be his opposition, he suddenly decided to get tough on crime and voted twice to sustain the Hogan veto.

As is oftentimes the case, Jim stuck his finger in the breeze and decided that maybe he better get the Hogan wind at his back.

Placing school construction at the mercy of backroom deals. As originally envisioned, HB1783 from this spring was intended to make schools safer and more modern – not remove their construction from the purview of the Board of Public Works and place an appointed committee in charge of them. But an amendment (#4, here) that was added to the bill in Carozza’s Appropriations Committee was designed to punish Comptroller Peter Franchot for not being a good Democrat team player and instead often supporting Governor Hogan on the BPW.

From that point on, Carozza was consistently against the bill in the committee vote, on third reading, and to sustain the Hogan veto. Makes sense as we elect both the Governor and Comptroller, keeping 2/3 of the BPW accountable to us. (The Treasurer is appointed by the General Assembly, so it’s one step removed from our control.) And it’s not like the governor didn’t want the bill. As he explained in his veto letter:

I was looking forward to signing House Bill 1783 as originally drafted, which was intended to streamline school construction and raise annual funding to $400 million to be earmarked for school building and renovation. It also does a tremendous disservice to the citizen volunteers who worked for nearly two years on the 21st Commission to up–end their efforts to modernize school construction for purposes of political retribution.

On the other hand, Jim Mathias had little objection to backroom deals. While he voted for an amendment that would have eliminated the BPW language, its failure wasn’t enough to dissuade him from supporting the bill on third reading and overriding the Hogan veto.

Hey guys and girls on the Maryland Democratic Senate Caucus Committee, just keep pitching me votes so I can continue to make mincemeat of Jim Mathias’s voting record because, frankly, it’s completely wrong for the Eastern Shore – as I have demonstrated for the last 12 years.

Unless you want to bankrupt yourselves printing and mailing me more full-color full-page flyers to the point where I get several different ones on a daily basis, I daresay that I have more bad Jim Mathias votes than you have flyers. Don’t doubt me.

Odds and ends number 87

Returning after a nearly five-month hiatus, it’s another edition of my occasional series of items that require anything from a couple sentences to a few paragraphs. Some of it is leftover campaign stuff from this time around, but I’m going to reach back to my 2016 GOP choice to start this off.

Too often, I get an e-mail from Bobby Jindal that links to a piece behind the Wall Street Journal paywall. I like Bobby but I really don’t need to read the WSJ daily, so I miss out on being able to share. In this case, though, I was pleased to see him at National Review, which doesn’t have a paywall. And that’s good because when he points out:

Democrats point to the supposedly existential threat of climate change and the nation’s allegedly inhumane immigration system as reasons to give them control of Congress this November. Yet their failure to prioritize these issues and pass legislation when they controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House during Obama’s first two years in office belie their seriousness. Republicans are currently demonstrating a similar hypocrisy by failing to act on their supposed political priorities, including repealing Obamacare and reducing federal spending and borrowing. Even more dangerously, Republican failure to advance significant conservative solutions to the problems voters care about is setting the stage for Democratic overreach.

(…)

A majority of voters still prefer effective conservative market-based solutions to their real-world problems, but they will settle for government subsidies and dictates as a second-best solution if Republicans fail to offer an alternative. Republicans’ failure to address rising health-care costs when they were last in the majority led directly to Obamacare, and their failure to act today will result in a single-payer system. It all seems fine now, but remember this moment if and when we get single-payer.

As we are seeing in Maryland, single-payer isn’t a great selling political point – yet. But we’re also seeing the Democrats chip away at this by re-branding it as Medicare for All. One irony of entitlement reform as often proposed on both sides is that fixing Medicare will be the impetus for expanding it to a younger and younger age cohort, meaning people my age may soon get it – and entitlement-addled Millennials will soon be following suit because they’ll whine that they don’t have what their parents do, even though the parents have actually paid the Medicare tax for much of their working lives.

But if a market-based solution gains traction – perhaps making personal health insurance premium payments fully tax-deductible (as employer-based insurance payments already are paid pre-tax) would be a good interim step – the advantages of the private market would remain.

Another good step toward private enterprise might be addressing this disparity, as detailed by Hayden Ludwig at the Capital Research Center:

For a republic founded on states’ rights, the federal government owns a lot of American land. In 2017, the Department of the Interior reported federal ownership of 640 million acres—about 28 percent of the United States. Of that, only 2 percent is composed of military bases and training ranges managed by the Department of Defense. Much of the rest – a staggering 246 million acres – is concentrated under a single agency: the Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the Interior Department.

Even if you consider that there are a number of long-standing national parks in the West, the overuse of the 1906 Antiquities Act, especially by Democrat presidents, to create “no-go zones” for development, free use by agricultural interests, or energy exploration means that land isn’t being placed at its highest and best use. But they don’t seem to be resistant to using the land for the boondoggle of solar energy.

Did you know that for each megawatt of solar power created, the subsidy is over $40? That’s not me talking, but a University of Texas study cited by my old friends at Americans for Limited Government. Speaking on solar energy, author Richard McCarty writes:

After years of generous, taxpayer-funded subsidies, solar energy is still unable to compete on a level playing field with coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. Regrettably, solar energy’s higher costs have a human impact making it tougher for less affluent people to stay cool in summer and warm in winter. With so many affordable, reliable energy resources in this country, there is just no excuse for the government to be mandating and subsidizing green energy production.

Of course, if you’ve read my work regularly over the last 12-plus years, you have likely figured out I’m dubious about solar energy being a viable option in many areas of the nation. Obviously it could work off-grid and there’s no doubt the sun is an effective source of warmth in arid areas that enjoy abundant sunshine, such as the deserts in our Southwest, but in most other areas we’re hit-or-miss when it comes to solar power. (Case in point, today’s rainy day with a declining amount of daily sunshine not helping matters.) So while we still have the abundant fossil fuel resources, why not use them?

We don’t know whether Election Day will turn out sunny or cloudy weather-wise, but one thing I do know is that statist advocates like Joe Biden are backing candidates who they think will make their task easier. This is a snippet from a recent e-mail from the Biden-created American Possibilities:

(In June), in the latest threat to our right to vote, the Supreme Court gave the state of Ohio permission to kick thousands of voters off their rolls this fall based on how frequently they’d voted in the past. And now, you better believe that other states around the country are going to be emboldened to try the same thing.

Michael, if there’s anything we’ve learned this past year, it’s that we can’t always predict the future – but we can shape it.

And right now one of the very best ways we can help save voting rights in the United States is by electing strong Secretaries of State, the folks responsible for overseeing elections, all across the country.

So today, I’m endorsing four of these folks – each of them someone who understands that democracy is about making it easier, not harder, for every single one of us to have our say.

What Ohio was doing wasn’t terribly strict – I’ll let CNN explain:

Ohio law allows the state to send address confirmation notices to voters who have not engaged in voter activity for two years. If a voter returns the notice through prepaid mail, or responds online, the information is updated. If the notice is ignored and the voter fails to update a registration over the next four years, the registration is canceled. (Emphasis mine.)

So this purge of the rolls is after SIX years of inactivity to me isn’t all that hardline – particularly in a state like Ohio, which not only has balloting every year (primary and general for federal, state, and county offices in even-numbered years, primary and general for municipal and township offices and school boards in odd-numbered years, plus special elections for tax levies as needed) but also makes it fairly easy to get an absentee ballot and has a generous early voting schedule that actually makes Maryland look like pikers. If you’re not interested in participating after at least 12 (and probably closer to 15 to 20) opportunities to vote, it’s pretty likely you won’t.

And I think that law is good protection – I didn’t want someone claiming to be me to vote in my stead when I left the state. I seem to remember contacting my old Board of Elections once I registered here after the 2004 election to make sure they took me off the rolls. (Despite being here, that year I voted absentee in Ohio because I arrived after Maryland’s registration deadline in mid-October. If it weren’t a Presidential election, I probably would have skipped it.) Biden wants Secretaries of State that will not take the time to prune lists of ineligible voters and allow for same-day registration.

That’s straight out of the Democrat playbook, as expressed by DNC Chair Tom Perez:

Democrats are doing all we can to make sure that every eligible voter can exercise their constitutional right at the ballot box. That’s why we’re encouraging all states to offer same-day voter registration and the ability to register as a Democrat to vote in Democratic primaries. (Emphasis in original.)

Can you say Operation Chaos 2020?

Remember, it’s not the votes that count but who counts the votes. Ask Norm Coleman.

Since I brought up Ohio, it’s also the base for a pro-life advocacy group called Created Equal. Something they’re doing as their ministry is taking the pro-life message to the streets, as they detail in a video series they’re promoting called Preborn Defenders 101. It may be a good reference for others who share the pro-life philosophy – as they note, “our training is not theoretical. It is tested and tried in the fires of the public forum.”

(Public service announcement in that vein: the annual fundraising dinner of the Eastern Shore Pregnancy Center comes up next month.)

Hopefully that dinner won’t conflict with the second scheduled Senatorial debate, which I found out about by accident: the Neal Simon campaign was announcing their second television spot – obviously they can afford it. As they describe the commercial:

The ad presents Simon as a strong, independent voice who will work for all Marylanders in Washington, and criticizes the two political parties and its leaders for playing partisan games that are dividing Americans and blocking progress.

I don’t know about either strong or independent, given the composition of those who donated to him, but they sure had to spin the recent Goucher Poll (slightly edited for spacing purposes):

———-

If you are writing something about the Goucher poll today or this week, the Neal Simon, unaffiliated candidate for the US Senate, campaign can provide a comment/quote, if you like.

Key components here are the following in our mind:

  • Momentum is a powerful force and it is beginning to swing our way:
    • In campaigns, nothing is more powerful than momentum and we feel like it is on our side and we are just getting going.
    • In 2 weeks, we expect to see another statewide poll, and we believe our numbers will prove that we are gaining momentum
  • During a campaign, support for candidates either rises or falls: we are rising, our opponents are falling:
    • Our message resonates with voters, and as a result of our campaign, the Republican and Democratic candidates have seen their support decline.
    • We have gone from 0% to 8% – Neal had no name ID when this started – the media is not covering our news, we have to buy exposure (that is an entire other topic).
    • If you look at other state-wide races like AG, the Republican is polling at the rate of registered R voters. Campbell is polling way lower than that.
    • Neither Cardin nor Campbell has enthusiasm – we went up 8 points, they went down. Neal is the only candidate with any kind of momentum.
    • Cardin has 56%, but 60% of people polled are registered democrats
    • Campbell polled at 17%, with 26% registered republican voters in the state.
    • As more voters see our ads, hear our message, and meet Neal on the campaign trail, support for major party candidates will continue to decline. Neal looks forward to the debate on October 7 to speak directly to the people of Maryland.

———-

What this shows to me is that Republicans (most of whom did not vote in the primary) may be operating under the belief that Neal is the endorsed Republican candidate. Normally the two dominant parties are on television, but in this case Campbell’s fundraising has been anemic (in all likelihood because donors believe he has no chance; alas, a self-fulfilling prophecy) while Simon lent his campaign more money than all the Maryland Republicans in federal races – except Andy Harris – have on hand combined.

So the bite out of the GOP total is coming from having a candidate that voters may well believe is the GOP nominee, running as a populist outsider in the vein of Larry Hogan. If anything, though, Simon should be taking from the Democrat’s total because his political philosophy is more aligned with them. That’s the only way he’s going to win, anyway. But Neal does need some percentage of independents and unaware Republicans to win.

By the same token, Tony Campbell’s extremely narrow path to victory comes down to this: Simon draws enough Democrat and independent support from Ben Cardin to split their vote, with common-sense independents and a strong GOP turnout backing Campbell. Maybe it’s time for Larry Hogan to work for the Republican team that consists of himself, Craig Wolf for Attorney General, Tony Campbell for Senate, and whatever local candidates are there for his stops – the only reason Larry and crew needs to be on the Eastern Shore is to back Mary Beth Carozza over the guy who voted to overturn Hogan’s veto 5 times in 7 key votes over the last three years.

It may make conservatives sick to their stomach to run the kind of campaign that gloms onto the moderate Hogan’s popularity, but the time for conservative principles comes when they actually govern, not on the campaign trail in a state that doesn’t know better (yet. I can only push back the frontiers of ignorance just so quickly.)

Now that my mailbox is empty, I suppose I can put this post to bed. It’s been fun putting this one together.

District 38: a closer look at finances

Having looked at the races in District 37 yesterday, I know you’re waiting with bated breath for the really important one here in District 38 which will come at the end. (Always leave them wanting more.)

As opposed to the competition going on in its western neighbor, many District 38 denizens have their Delegates already all but selected. Barring a successful write-in campaign, both Delegate Carl Anderton, Jr. and Wayne Hartman will be representing their districts in January.

So let me review the parameters: I have pored over the campaign finance reports from each candidate submitted to the state Board of Elections beginning with the 2017 annual that covers from January of 2016. From there I subdivided contributions into five loose categories:

  • Donations from individuals within the area. For this exercise, the “area” is defined for both local districts as an address with a 216xx or 218xx zip code. Yes, the 216xx zip area is well outside the 38th District but it allows me apples-to-apples comparison with District 37 hopefuls – and there really aren’t a significant number of them, anyway.
  • Donations from individuals outside the 216xx and 218xx zip code area.
  • Donations from businesses within the area. Included in the definition of businesses are LLCs, LPs, and PAs.
  • Donations from businesses outside the area.
  • Donations from PACs. As a way of simplifying this, this also includes transfers from other campaign accounts, and (at my discretion) certain entities that were recognizable as similar to a political action committee, including larger businesses, unions, and governmental entities.

Having these all categorized and built into a spreadsheet, I can figure out several things: proportion of donations coming from each group, proportion of donations inside/outside the area, and an average donation. In many cases, I can compare and contrast candidates – but not always. Read on and you’ll find out why.

House District 38A:

Incumbent Republican (since 2010) Charles Otto vs. Democrat Kirkland Hall, Sr.

For Charles Otto:

  • 2 donations from individuals in area for $525
  • 1 donation from an individual outside of area for $250
  • 2 donations from businesses in area for $450
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • 6 donations from PACs and other committees for $4,600
  • Average donation: $529.55
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $15,361.57

Because of one huge PAC donation of $2,500 skewing the results, just 16.7% of Otto’s money came from inside the area, with only 4.3% coming from outside the area and a whopping 79% from PACs and other committees. Out of the 21% coming from individuals and businesses, 13.3% was out of individual pockets and 7.7% was from local businesses.

Since 2010 Charles has had an outstanding loan to his campaign for $22,500. But as you can see, Otto doesn’t make a great effort to supplement his campaign with fundraising – it’s almost like an accident when someone sends him a check given that he’s only had 11 in over 2 1/2 years. Being his treasurer is almost as easy as being mine was.

Having said that, though, Otto is far more circumspect than his opponent.

This is what I found for Kirkland Hall. The first link is a screenshot taken of his most current campaign finance entity, taken yesterday on the Maryland SBE site. The second link is a different screenshot of another open – but considered inactive – campaign finance account for Kirkland Hall. This would appear to be a successful run for the Somerset County Democrat Central Committee. Unlike what I did for my three runs, apparently the account was never officially closed.

Hall has sent in ALCEs for 2 of the reporting periods, so we don’t have financial details of his campaign. But here’s the important issue – Hall is now overdue on his campaign finance reports for two consecutive reporting periods, the latest expiring in August. Enough days have elapsed since the first one was due to incur the maximum $500 fine, and he’s $180 and counting for this most recent period.

This is a screenshot of Kirkland Hall’s present campaign committee. Note the fines for lack of reporting at the bottom.

Note he was also a scofflaw on the 2018 Annual Report before fimally filing, with another $500 fine that was paid. And it’s not like he wasn’t warned about the May report. Yet the Hall campaign has been actively seeking financing during the time they were delinquent:

And as I can attest, his opponent doesn’t have “big money” flowing into his campaign – unless you count one $2,500 donation that came from the Maryland Farm Bureau PAC. But we don’t know how much Kirkland has because they’re not being forthcoming with their information. Could this be an intentional oversight as this is his campaign’s third offense?

On the other hand, the situation is much calmer in the other two District 38 subdistricts.

House District 38B:

Incumbent Republican Carl Anderton, Jr (since 2014) is unopposed.

For Carl Anderton:

  • 98 donations from individuals inside the area for $9,318
  • 12 donations from individuals outside the area for $2,350
  • 13 donations from businesses in area for $3,750
  • 4 donations from businesses outside the area for $1,500
  • 15 donations from PACs and other committees for $5,250
  • Average donation: $156.11
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $21,048.02

58.9% of his money came from inside the area, with 17.4% coming from outside the area and 23.7% from PACs and other committees. Out of the 76.3% coming from individuals and businesses, 52.6% was out of individual pockets and 23.7% came from businesses.

However, once it became obvious that Carl would not have an opponent his fundraising has all but ceased – since the 2018 report came due in January he’s only picked up a total of $1,850.

House District 38C:

Incumbent Republican Mary Beth Carozza opted to run for Senate, leaving an open seat. Wayne Hartman won the June 26 primary and is only opposed in the General Election by write-in candidate Ed Tinus – one of those Hartman defeated in the primary.

For Wayne Hartman:

  • 83 donations from individuals inside the area for $31,255
  • 16 donations from individuals outside the area for $5,920
  • 45 donations from businesses in area for $29,208
  • 5 donations from businesses outside the area for $2,329
  • 1 donation from PACs and other committees for $1,000
  • Average donation: $464.75
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $3,477.58

86.7% of Wayne’s money came from inside the area, with 11.8% coming from outside the region and 1.4% coming from a different committee. Out of the non-PAC money, 53.3% of his funding came from individuals and 45.2% from businesses. (Those numbers again fall short of rounding correctly.)

Much like Carl Anderton, Wayne all but ceased active fundraising after the primary. Unlike Carl, though, he still got some big checks – only 7 donations netted Hartman $5,550 – which has kept him in the black for his future plans.

Write-in Ed Tinus has mainly filed ALCEs since he began his campaign account in 2014; however, Ed stepped up his game to file a formal Pre-Primary 2 report that showed he contributed $40 to himself but spent $2,605 to leave himself a negative balance of $2,565.

So the undercard is complete – now comes what you’ve all been waiting for:

Senate District 38:

Republican Delegate Mary Beth Carozza (since 2014) is challenging Democrat Senator (since 2010, Delegate from 2006-2010) Jim Mathias.

For Mary Beth Carozza:

  • 518 donations from individuals inside the area for $112,287
  • 122 donations from individuals outside the area for $23,366.06
  • 79 donations from businesses in area for $44,589.38
  • 18 donations from businesses outside the area for $11,305
  • 45 donations from PACs and other committees for $30,288
  • Average donation: $251.51
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $140,987.98

For Mary Beth, 70.7% of her money came from inside the area, with 15.6% coming from outside the area and 13.7% from PACs and other committees. Out of the 86.3% coming from individuals and businesses, 61.2% was out of individual pockets and 25.2% came from businesses. (It rounds off wrong again.)

This is a sea change from her initial campaign, which saw Mary Beth receive a great deal of money from outside the district from her erstwhile cohorts in Washington, D.C. In the 2014 campaign I wrote:

In her first report that covered the inception of her campaign to the initial days of 2014, over 70% of her funding came from out-of-state, mainly from the Washington, D.C. area and Ohio. Those Ohio connections, as well as work for Maine Sen. Susan Collins, proved valuable in the category of federal committees, as Mary Beth received money from the Buckeye Patriot PAC, Dirigo PAC, and Promoting Our Republican Team PAC, as well as the campaigns of Mike DeWine, Steve Stivers, and Pat Tiberi. DeWine is a former Senator from Ohio who is now the state’s Attorney General, while Stivers and Tiberi currently serve in Congress representing parts of the state.

It appears that Mary Beth has since established the local connections to compete in this race against perhaps the most well-funded incumbent in this portion of the state.

For Jim Mathias:

  • 469 donations from individuals inside the area for $91,115
  • 178 donations from individuals outside the area for $43,127
  • 157 donations from businesses in area for $82,339
  • 106 donations from businesses outside the area for $34,914
  • 301 donations from PACs and other committees for $124,610
  • Average donation: $310.57
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $273,873.43

Jim collected 46.1% of his money from inside the area and 20.7% of his funding from outside this region. More importantly, Mathias collected 33.1% of his donation total from PACs and other committees, including a number of his General Assembly cohorts. (Rounding is off again.) Out of the non-PAC money, Mathias picked up 35.7% from individuals and 31.2% from businesses. It’s perhaps the most well-rounded report of any I’ve done in terms of equality of sources between individuals, businesses, and PACs.

With the exception of the brief Pre-Primary 2 period, though, Carozza has outraised Mathias among local individuals in each reporting period. On the other hand, among individual donors from outside the district Mathias has outgunned Mary Beth almost 2-to-1 with a significant amount from connections from the area surrounding his hometown of Baltimore.

From a business standpoint, Carozza has ate into Jim’s longstanding advantage and outraised him among local businesses in the last reporting period. She’s also negated his advantage among out-of-district businesses over the last three periods.

The biggest fundraising advantage Mathias enjoys, then, is the many thousands of dollars he has received from PACs over the last 2 1/2 years. It’s not that Carozza hasn’t received PAC money, but dozens of PACs in and out of the state have been handing over checks to Jim for several years, building up an intimidating war chest. (One interesting donation: ask the progressives if they appreciate Jim getting a check from the NRA. He did – $500 on January 3, 2018. Or ask the NRA if they really want to give money to someone with Jim’s overall voting record.) But Carozza, unlike Jim’s previous opponent Mike McDermott, has the money to compete in what may be the most-watched race in this part of the state.

Considering that Mathias has more in his bank account than the total of all the other candidates in both District 37 and 38 outside the 38th Senate race, and Carozza isn’t far behind (you would have to exclude Johnny Mautz and his $96k war chest to make it about even) and you can see where the focus will be.

Update 9-28-2018: This week Kirkland Hall – after I gave a gentle reminder to some of his supporters – finally filed a portion of his campaign finance:

For the period from August 30, 2017 to June 10, 2018 (the Pre-Primary 2 report) this is what Hall reported:

  • 9 donations from individuals in area for $737
  • 2 donations from individuals outside of county for $300
  • No donations from a business in area
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • 1 donations from a PAC or other committee for $500
  • Average donation: $128.08
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $291.56

Hall has already filed his ALCEs for the two Pre-General cycles; however, there is still a balance of $840 in fines as of this date.

District 37: a closer look at finances

If money is the mother’s milk of politics – at least so it is said – then it’s probably good to know who has the biggest bottles and where the wet nurses are. So I’m beginning a two-part series on the local political races with some observations on the races in District 37.

This year there are three races in District 37 involving seven contenders. Unlike the situation in 2014, the first election involving the current districts, the Republicans found a challenger for District 37A (a majority-minority district) but the Democrats could only find one contender for the two seats available in District 37B. This also presents an interesting possibility: if the order for that two-seat district came in Republican Chris Adams in first, Democrat Dan O’Hare second, and Republican Johnny Mautz third, then Adams and Mautz would still win another term because the two winners in that district cannot represent the same county.

But I’m going to open this with the first race in District 37A. However, before I begin allow me to set the parameters here.

Over the last few days, I have pored over the campaign finance reports from each candidate submitted to the state Board of Elections beginning with the 2017 annual that covers from January of 2016. What I was most interested in, obviously, were the contributions, which I subdivided into five loose categories:

  • Donations from individuals within the area. For this exercise, the “area” is defined for both local districts as an address with a 216xx or 218xx zip code. I know in reality that expands the area into the 36th District, but it makes life much easier when you have hundreds and hundreds of line items to contend with.
  • Donations from individuals outside the 216xx and 218xx zip code area.
  • Donations from businesses within the area. Included in the definition of businesses are LLCs, LPs, and PAs.
  • Donations from businesses outside the area.
  • Donations from PACs. As a way of simplifying this, this also includes transfers from other campaign accounts, and (at my discretion) certain entities that were recognizable as similar to a political action committee, including larger businesses, unions, and governmental entities.

Having these all categorized and built into a spreadsheet, I can figure out several things: proportion of donations coming from each group, proportion of donations inside/outside the area, and an average donation. In many cases, I can compare and contrast candidates – but not always. Read on and you’ll find out why.

House District 37A:

Republican Frank Cooke vs. incumbent Democrat (since 2014) Sheree Sample-Hughes.

For Frank Cooke:

  • 1 donation from an individual in area for $100
  • No donations from individuals outside of area
  • No donations from businesses in area
  • No donations from businesses outside of area
  • No donations from PACs and other committees
  • Average donation: $100.00
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $2,504.69

100% of money comes from individuals, 100% comes from inside the area.

According to Frank’s last report, which supplants the ALCEs he previously filed (it covers from February to August), Cooke has a bank account balance over $2,000 yet there’s no indication how it got there. (Unless he raised it after the previous Pre-Primary 2 filing deadline, he should not have filed an ALCE for previous reports because he had raised more than $1,000.) He also has an outstanding obligation to his campaign of $574.54 that is noted as being from a predecessor campaign, presumably for the city of Cambridge.

It’s not a district where you need a ton of money to win but this raises a lot more questions than it answers about the Cooke campaign, especially this one: why such a late start to get serious about fundraising?

For Sheree Sample-Hughes:

  • 119 donations from individuals inside the area for $10,944
  • 17 donations from individuals outside the area for $1,345
  • 20 donations from businesses in area for $3,690
  • 35 donations from businesses outside the area for $8,825.36
  • 72 donations from PACs and other committees for $20,350
  • Average donation: $178.47
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $17,447.05

32.4% of her money came from inside the area, 22.5% from outside the area, and 45.1% from PACs and other committees. Out of the 54.9% from individuals and businesses, 27.2% was raised from individuals and 27.7% was from businesses.

Note that I did not pore over the reports with a fine-toothed comb to see if any money was collected during session (a no-no.) However, the amount of PAC money Sample-Hughes received seemed a little out of line with most of the others.

House District 37B:

Incumbent Republicans Christopher Adams and Johnny Mautz (both since 2014) vs. Democrat Dan O’Hare.

For Christopher Adams:

  • 82 donations from individuals inside the area for $26,474
  • 11 donations from individuals outside the area for $1,310
  • 28 donations from businesses in area for $15,585
  • 26 donations from businesses outside the area for $8,900
  • 27 donations from PACs and other committees for $10,200
  • Average donation: $359.02
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $1,470.52

67.3% of his money came from inside the area, with an almost dead even 16.3% coming from outside the area and 16.3% from PACs and other committees. Out of the 83.6% coming from individuals and businesses, 44.5% was out of individual pockets and 39.2% was businesses.  (The numbers don’t round up to 100%.)

Two interesting recent developments from the Adams camp: while the last report noted Adams had a $7,500 loan out to his campaign that dated from 2014, he had also recently repaid back $60,000 he had owed, which certainly would explain the low cash on hand despite taking in over $60,000. The campaign also has one outstanding bill for $183.70, which could be an oversight given the cash on hand.

For Johnny Mautz:

  • 293 donations from individuals inside the area for $100,550
  • 110 donations from individuals outside the area for $39,065
  • 81 donations from businesses in area for $23,660
  • 51 donations from businesses outside the area for $13,150
  • 96 donations from PACs and other committees for $31,800
  • Average donation: $329.99
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $96,408.31

59.7% of his money came from inside the area, with 25.1% coming from outside the region and 15.3% coming from PACs. Out of the non-PAC money, 67.1% of his funding came from individuals and 17.7% from businesses. (Again those numbers don’t round quite correctly.) The piece that stuck out at me regarding Mautz was just how well-heeled his donors were, but this reflects his St. Michaels base as well as his background as a Congressional staffer – a number of donations came from the capital region, presumably fellows from his days there. It’s a sharp contrast to the Adams base, which is more in the middle-class Salisbury area. (This is true despite the lower per-donation figure – Mautz has a far larger volume of contributions than Adams does.)

For Dan O’Hare:

  • 59 donations from individuals inside the area for $9,608
  • 54 donations from individuals outside the area for $5,387.42
  • 1 donation from a business in the area for $200
  • No donations from a business outside the area
  • 2 donations from PACs and other committees for $400
  • Average donation: $134.44
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $10,371.09

62.9% of his money came from inside the area, with 34.5% coming from outside the area and just 2.6% from other committees. Out of the 97.4% coming from individuals and businesses, 96.2% was out of individual pockets and 1.3% was businesses. (Yet another rounding error.)

The strangest thing about O’Hare’s pattern of receiving is that the donations outside the area are almost as numerous as the ones from inside. These come from 13 different states but seem to be clustered quite a bit around the New York City metro. (There is some member of the O’Hare family that lives there.) So it will be worth seeing in the next report whether he has more local support.

Senate District 37:

Incumbent Republican Addie Eckardt (since 2014, previously in House of Delegates 1994-2014) vs. Democrat Holly Wright.

For Addie Eckardt:

  • 264 donations from individuals inside the area for $37,935
  • 21 donations from individuals outside the area for $3,025
  • 35 donations from businesses in area for $8,570
  • 14 donations from businesses outside the area for $5,925
  • 54 donations from PACs and other committees for $20,350
  • Average donation: $193.38
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $69,126.05

61.3% of her money came from inside the area, with 11.8% coming from outside the area and 26.8% from PACs and other committees. Out of the 73.2% coming from individuals and businesses, 54% was out of individual pockets and 19.1% was businesses. (And again: the numbers don’t round up to 100%.) There’s nothing overly unusual about Addie’s report that I found – maybe a little PAC-heavy compared to the Republican Delegates but not as high as Sample-Hughes.

For Holly Wright:

  • 117 donations from individuals inside the area for $17,380
  • 10 donations from individuals outside the area for $1,050
  • No donations from businesses in area
  • No donations from businesses outside the area
  • No donations from PACs and other committees
  • Average donation: $145.12
  • Cash on hand (bank account balance) – $5,106.52

While all of her money came from individual donations, Holly’s proportion of funding from inside to outside the area was a whopping 94.3% to 5.7%. In essence, hers is the prototypical homegrown campaign – but considering she’s already behind in votes based on primary results, that’s not a good situation for Wright to pull an upset. It could work in a single-seat Delegate race, but isn’t as likely to succeed in a large district like District 37, especially with a decent-sized media market. Even the possible upside for her of having two walkover races in the adjoining district sharing the Salisbury media market (thus, perhaps cheaper media buys due to less demand) is negated by a heavyweight fight I’ll discuss in my second installment covering those District 38 races.

How much will it cost? (Part four of a multi-part series)

Since I was talking about the minimum wage in part three and the focus on the Ben Jealous “Make It In Maryland” plan was getting long in the tooth, I decided to split the piece in two and focus on the remaining items as a series of bullet points in this portion. While I wasn’t truly intending to space it that far, it does make for a good Labor Day post.

So these are the remaining topics in his MIIM plan, listed as a series of points I’ll respond to one at a time.

  • Creating a Governor’s Office of Tech Transfer
  • Better Retaining and Supporting Maryland’s Entrepreneurs
  • Reclaiming Maryland’s Position in Biotech and Life Sciences
  • Ensuring Prosperity Reaches Everyone By Tackling Chronic Unemployment
  • A Job Boosting Program For Every Marylander Who Wants To Work
  • Ending Youth Unemployment And Underemployment
  • Boosting Employment For The Formerly Incarcerated
  • Reviving Maryland’s Rural Communities
  • Making Maryland A Center Of Global Commerce
  • Connecting Workers To Jobs With A 21st Century Transportation Plan

Office of Tech Transfer: Jealous begins this section by citing a number of vague, subjective statistics, including this howler straight from the Joe Biden School of Spelling:

The top five states for cybersecurity deals in quarter 1 of 2018 were California, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas.

These states are also bigger than Maryland, and have various industries and factors which may give them a natural advantage. Regardless, while it’s unknown just how large this OTT will be or where it’s placed on the pecking order, the biggest cost might be the freedom to elude red tape, to wit:

Help to coordinate infrastructure and development policy, including multimodal and active transportation infrastructure, smart growth land use planning, mixed-use development, and gigabit internet to create the urban fabric and connections that give rise to an innovation ecosystem.

I truly have issues with that sort of mission creep and interference with both local government and the private sector. As envisioned it seems to be more than just a clearinghouse that could be useful in coordinating a limited area of policy.

Maryland’s entrepreneurs:

While Jealous paints a picture of a state that’s not inclusive enough…

Ben Jealous will create the innovation environment that will enable more locally grown companies to grow and stay in Maryland. Ben Jealous will also consider whether rules related to bonding for contractors can be eased to enable more entrepreneurs to access contract work and remove  unnecessary barriers. He will also work to make entrepreneurship more inclusive in Maryland. For example, black women are the most likely of any population group to become entrepreneurs, but they are the least likely to receive funding.

Ben Jealous will create a more level playing field to ensure this changes. As governor, Ben Jealous has also committed to raising women and minority business targets in the state to levels that better reflect equal representation. 29% is just far too low when 50% of our population are women and nearly 50% identify as minority. In order to support creation of these businesses, Ben Jealous has pledged to work with lenders who have a history of inclusive lending to support their models, identify additional strategies to capitalize businesses, and review bonding requirements for contractors that may pose unnecessary barriers.

…if you ask actual entrepreneurs they may say the problem is a little different.

For several years I was the recipient of a steady diet of updates from a company called Thumbtack.com – it’s actually a listing of entrepreneurs who provide various services. Over that period they have done a survey of business friendliness, which – even though I haven’t noticed the updates – has continued to this day and shows Maryland has been on an upward trajectory. But while Maryland has rebounded from failing grades to a B+ in Thumbtack’s 2018 survey, the one category they still receive a big fat F in is the tax code. That’s not on the Jealous agenda.

I don’t look at who owns a business, I look at the job they do – and so do most others. All affirmative action does is plant a seed in the mind of people who ask: did they get the job on their merits or because they checked a box of government approval someplace?

Oh, and one more thing:

Another critical part of changing our business culture in Maryland also is support new and emerging types of business ownership, including employee-owned businesses, worker co-ops, and other democratically-owned and operated businesses. These organization types are critical for challenging the notion that ownership of a business must concentrate profits in the hands of a few, and these organization types can open up the benefits of business ownership to many more individuals.

Whether a business is employee-owned or not – one good reasonably local example of employee ownership is the Redner’s grocery chain, which has very nice stores based on my experiences working in them a few years back in a previous career – doesn’t matter to me. But the fact Jealous opposes the “notion that ownership of a business must concentrate profits in the hands of a few” when it’s truly none of the state’s damn business is troubling.

Biotech and Life Sciences: This is mostly a series of platitudes whining about how Maryland has fallen from the top position, particularly behind Massachusetts which “made large investments in biotechnology through tax breaks, grants, and funding infrastructure.” That’s their taxpayers on the hook, so whatever.

If I were to make a suggestion for state encouragement, why not promote the area of biotech that deals with the agriculture industry? People tend to think of this as an urban phenomenon, including those at the state Department of Commerce as agribusiness is last among its “key industries.”

But maybe Jealous should read the state’s website because there’s already a program in place.

Chronic Unemployment: Aside from a vague pledge to “engage stakeholders” and conduct yet another useless study, Ben wants to throw more money at EARN Maryland (reversed as “Maryland EARN” in the Jealous plan), Operation HIRE (aimed at veterans), and the Maryland Apprenticeship and Training Program. While none would be large expenses, one has to wonder if having these disparate programs is very efficient and effective.

Job Boosting Program: To make a long story short, it’s a hiring program to create more state and state-dependent workers. Jealous cites a study done by the Department of Legislative Services that cites a chronic shortage of workers necessitated by budgetary reality. But the source material for the study makes me question its sincerity:

Research for the study consisted of data gathered from various documents; workload trend data; agency site visits; and meetings with the representatives of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and AFSCME employees. (My emphasis.)

It’s also worth noting that the number of employees the executive branch has been “shorted” is nearly matched by the number of additional positions at higher education, where staffing has increased 23% from 2002-18 (Executive Branch staffing is down 9.6% in that period.) Honestly, I don’t think we have a neutral referee doing this study. Needless to say, many of these new workers will be quickly absorbed into the public-sector union, which is, I’m sure, their quid pro quo for AFSCME support.

Youth Unemployment: Jealous would expand the YouthWorks program in Baltimore City to a statewide program and make internships or part-time jobs part of the public school curriculum. It seems to me the YouthWorks would be better tailored to a county or city level (one reason being: the city of Salisbury has a similar program in conjunction with the local Junior Achievement branch.) So the opportunities are already there.

As for the school curriculum, this is a matter where public schools could compete when it comes to school choice.

Formerly incarcerated: I believe Jealous is going to work along these lines by “banning the box” in private-sector employment (meaning applications cannot inquire about criminal record) and adding incentives to hire formerly incarcerated – however, there are private-sector employers already doing so. I believe this should be on a case-by-case basis and not a mandate.

Rural communities: The message from Ben Jealous: you can grow, but only a little bit and only on our terms. Developed areas can retain their advantage because we won’t let you compete.

Smart growth and conservation policies that Ben Jealous will promote will help Maryland to restore its reputation as a one that protects its most valuable natural resources, from farmland, to the Chesapeake Bay, to mountains, forests, and beaches. When our natural resources in land, water, and air are cared for, rural places are able to thrive as producers of agricultural products, thriving tourism centers, and choice places to live. In a 21st century economy, rural economies are also transitioning into being producers of clean energy, like solar and wind farms. Land in rural areas near existing development and infrastructure can be repurposed or ethically developed to host clean tech manufacturing, data centers, and other 21st century economic engines. Finally, rural economies are powered by small businesses, and, with proper support for early stage businesses throughout rural Maryland, these small businesses will continue to multiply and grow.

Basically, this is an extension of the MOM era where most agricultural land would be placed off-limits to development (except for solar panels and wind turbines, which are neither reliable nor desirable sources of energy). And say what you will about “low-impact tourism” – I will show you the difference between the economic base that is Ocean City in the summer season against whatever is drawn by Blackwater being a wildlife refuge. That’s not to say that I’m not glad we have the industry we do here, but we shouldn’t say no to more traditional development even if it’s placed in a more rural area.

This also ignores the transportation needs of this region, such as a second (southern) Chesapeake Bay crossing and, in cooperation with Delaware, an interstate-grade highway connection north to I-95.

As governor, Ben Jealous would provide additional funding to the state’s cooperative extension programs to develop technical assistance programs providing support to farmers transitioning into the 21st century marketplace. This would include linking urban agriculture and food production businesses with rural agricultural businesses, so Maryland families, restaurants, and commercial producers can conveniently access an abundance fresh agricultural products grown right here in Maryland.

If you were a savvy farmer, wouldn’t you already be doing this? Why is it a state concern?

We also have the talk of expanding broadband, the means of which is already in place here in Maryland as a non-profit cooperative. It will be interesting to compare their process and progress with Delaware, which is using more of a PPP approach for rural portions of Kent and Sussex counties.

Global commerce: Mainly deals with expanding Foreign Trade Zones around the Port of Baltimore. As the center of the local poultry industry that sends chicken products around the globe, I wonder why Salisbury couldn’t have one? Perhaps because it’s a federal designation. Jealous exhibits his Baltimore-centric view (and a little bit of ignorance) with this one.

A 21st Century transportation plan: The first page of this is devoted to Jealous whining about the cancellation of Baltimore’s Red Line boondoggle and Larry Hogan’s changes to Baltimore’s bus service. I think it’s hilarious how a 21st century transport plan uses the strategy and limitations of 19th century technology by advocating for more usage of the light rail service money pit.

And then we get to this:

Complete streets policies build thriving and prosperous communities by ensuring that the design of roads and other facilities is safe and convenient for pedestrians, business patrons, cyclists, and all other road users. As governor, Ben Jealous will make Maryland a complete streets leader by ensuring that ample funding is directed to local communities through the complete streets and other programs like Maryland Bikeways, and by ensuring that the Maryland adopts the most progressive complete streets policy possible.

So we cater to the 2% of travelers who use alternate means of transportation – ones that aren’t nearly as convenient and useful at a time such as this moment with a thunderstorm overhead – at the expense of the 98% who would like to get where they wish to go as quickly and conveniently as possible. This also works hand-in-hand with the effort to pack people into the urban areas, leaving vast wildlife corridors for critters to traverse.

Aside from a means of taxation in some states, those who crave control hate cars because they equate to freedom of movement and less restriction on behavior. If it’s 6:30 and I want to be at a 7:05 ballgame, I’m not going to ride my bike or walk – and sure as heck ain’t going to consult the Shore Transit routes to see if any run and stop close by. I have a car and I’m going to drive it.

Most of us do not want to be at the mercy of someone else’s schedule, which is why driving is the predominant means of personal transport in the nation. People like Jealous don’t like that, so rather than make driving easier they would rather discourage it.

If you really want a 21st century transportation plan, make it easier to use that freedom of movement by improving the roads. Promote entrepreneurship by giving less of a hassle to services like Lyft, Uber, or whatever competes with them rather than try and regulate them like taxicabs, making an artificial market the locality can use to create revenue. And rather than create the incentives for employers to encourage their employees to commute, perhaps they should instead encourage the use of remote work where possible. Given the proper broadband connection to my work server and to my boss, I could reasonably do much of my job at home.

So for this segment I can’t tell you just what the Jealous agenda will cost in monetary terms, but it’s going to cost the taxpayer a lot to wander down some pathways better trod by private initiative.

I think I’m going to put this series on hiatus for a little while, since I have a couple other projects I’d like to concentrate on. Thus, I may not get to everything on the Jealous agenda but I think you probably get the picture anyway. So I’ll see if I’m ready to resume by month’s end or not.