Yes to Racial Equity and Social Justice. No on this Legislation.

Montgomery County has decided to tackle racial equity and social justice with legislation sponsored by Council President Nancy Navarro and supported by the entire County Council and County Executive. As Bethesda Beat reported:

The bill would establish a countywide racial equity and social justice program, according to language introduced Tuesday in a council session. It also calls for a separate Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice.

It would require a countywide equity action plan and individual plans for each of the more than 30 executive departments and offices, including Montgomery County Public Libraries and the county’s police department.

The act would require a racial equity and social justice impact statement at the end of every bill, program, or master plan submitted before the council.

Unfortunately, this bill will do little to address either racial equity or social justice in any meaningful way. But it will create a new county office and take up many hours of time by county bureaucrats in other offices that could be better spent on county services, including existing policies that promote the goals of the legislation.

What Will Happen

Bureaucrats will respond to the requirement for action plans by deploying personnel to writing plans that demonstrate (surprise!) that their current approach promotes racial equity and social justice. These numerous new reports will be more produced than read but will satisfy the new mandate from their political masters.

Similarly, all new bills, programs and master plans will have racial equity and social justice impact statements arguing for their positive impact. It’s hard to imagine that the people who write the impact statements on new bills or new master plans will write negative reviews of proposals by the people who employ and supervise them.

What is Racial Equity and Social Justice?

Debates over the nature of racial equity and social justice give the writers of these many new required plans and impact statements more flexibility than Gumby. Consider the following examples:

Raises for County Employees. As I pointed out not too long ago, the County Council voted to give delayed pay increases to all county unions except MCGEO–the only majority female and majority minority union in the county. Yet Navarro still took umbrage at the idea that she had overlooked racial equity.

Ironically, Navarro focused on the budget as a primary reason to pass her racial equity legislation: “Budgetary decisions are where the rubber meets the road.” The bill’s primary sponsor failed her own blue chip test for racial equity. Or else the idea is so malleable as to lack real meaning.

Purple Line. The new light rail line is touted as making it easier for poorer people to travel to work. Except that transportation access raises property values, making it harder for poorer people to continue to afford rents around light-rail stops. It also encourages property owners and developers to redo or to tear down existing apartments to attract higher paying tenants, rendering existing residents homeless.

The Purple Line has already created pressure to rezone areas populated by low income residents and businesses. The County Planning Board rejected a proposal to rezone the light industry area in Greater Lyttonsville along the Purple Line to a CR (commercial-residential zone) on a 4-1 vote. This highly diverse area (see pp. 12-13) is home to many small businesses owned by African Americans and Latinos that would have been displaced by the zoning change. The sole vote in favor was Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson, who was recently unanimously reappointed by the same Council that sponsored the racial equity and social justice bill.

Casey can reasonably argue that the decision will reduce the county tax base over the long term, giving it less money to spend on racial equity and social justice. Possibly true but cold comfort for the immigrant and minority-owned businesses that would have been ejected. In any case, arguments can be marshaled for or against policies like the Purple Line and zoning changes on racial equity and social justice grounds. The required reports will likely often be political documents rather than objective analyses.

Won’t Address the Problems Cited by Councilmembers

Here are some of the rationales for the legislation reported in Bethesda Beat:

Council member Will Jawando said he experienced racism for the first time in fourth grade — a lobbed slur as he brushed past an older white women [sic] on the street.

Unemployment is three times higher in District 5, a diverse region with a majority black population, than in the rest of Montgomery County, Council member Tom Hucker said.

Council member Craig Rice raised two daughters who thought people didn’t see skin color, he said, until one of them was the target of a racist taunt on the school bus last week.

“It’s a reminder that there’s a systemic issue here and we need to make sure we’re doing everything we possibly can to change things,” Council member Sidney Katz said at the council session.

Churning out more reports isn’t going to stop racists from calling people ugly and awful racist slurs or prevent children from learning them. I wish it would. I would love for Will Jawando not to experience them, and Craig Rice not to have to explain them to his beautiful daughters.

Most of the county budget goes to schools and basic services like police and fire, so the county’s ability to tackle larger problems like the unemployment rate gap is somewhat limited beyond its very smart decision to continue investing heavily in Montgomery College. In any case, systemic reports won’t do anything about it.

Our Past and Ongoing Commitment

If one views our county’s budget as a moral document, it reflects the county’s long-term commitment to racial equity and social justice.

We dedicate roughly one-half of our spending to the public schools, as part of our effort to assure that every kid has an opportunity. The county schools continue to include more kids of color and more from poorer backgrounds (often not the same). Moreover, MCPS directs substantially more funding to the schools with poorer kids who tend to have greater needs and parents with less means to meet them.

In short, the wealthier areas of the county pay a disproportionate share of taxes, but a disproportionate share of funding goes to schools outside their neighborhoods. That’s entirely as it should be. It’s makes me proud to live in Montgomery. This is not new policy but a very long-term commitment.

In a similar vein, we pay county employees well and give them good pensions. The county works hard to make sure that pensions are fully funded, a commitment that Ike Leggett worked mightily hard to keep as the county coped with the economic downturn’s enormous budget crunch and newfound demands from rating agencies for higher funding. It goes without saying that the county supports and works with unions.

If all of this isn’t social justice, then what is?

I also have little doubt of the concern of each and every councilmember in this area. I don’t think that Nancy Navarro believes that she or other longtime councilmembers, like Craig Rice or Hans Riemer, have failed this test year after year. Marc Elrich became county executive on a platform to combat exactly these sorts of problems.

Did past councils, who put the progressive structure of our county government in place, really ignore these questions? I may often disagree with this or that Montgomery politician, but I’d be hard pressed to name one who doesn’t care. Did Ike Leggett in his long tenure on the county council or three terms as county executive ignore these problems? How about Howie Denis? Or was it Roger Berliner, Nancy Floreen, and George Leventhal?

I’ll take the county council at its word that the proposed bill comes out of a sincere desire to represent the support of Montgomery voters to continue to move forward on these issues. But instead of passing a bill that will mainly generate mounds of reports, it should spend more time engaging with the tough work on issues from affordable housing to making sure students from all backgrounds have the skills and support they need.

Nevertheless, I have no doubt that the proposal will pass easily. The chances of the Montgomery County Council voting this down are about as likely the Montgomery County Republican Party sending me an email in support of undocumented immigrants. No Democrat wants to be seen opposing racial equity or social justice. It is just not worth the ire from progressives attacking one as a racist or insufficiently committed to stamping it out.

That’s a pity. We need fewer totems of our commitment and more of the hard and sadly often not headline-grabbing work of delving into policy that making real change on these difficult issues entails.

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Jealous’s Latest Float Vaporizes

Ben Jealous had invited speculation that he’d run for mayor of Baltimore but pulled out as the race picked up. In the wake of Rep. Elijah Cummings’s sad passing, history has repeated itself at a faster pace around the open seat:

Jealous said in a text that his attention is “on running the kids to baseball and rowing practices, keeping door open to run for governor.”

Weird how the kids don’t need to attend practice in gubernatorial election years. Of course, it’s no stranger than the Democrat who got blown away with just 43.5% in a stellar Democratic year thinking that he should run again. That’s a lower share than received by any Democratic nominee in the last 50 years.

Regardless, Jealous would have been an odd successor to Cummings. While Jealous is a Juul consultant , Cummings broke ground in the fight against big tobacco:

In the Maryland House of Delegates, where Mr. Cummings served from 1983 to 1996, he championed a ban on alcohol and tobacco ads on inner-city billboards in Baltimore — the first prohibition of its kind in a major U.S. city.

The 1980s were the glory days when you could still smoke on airplanes and Joe Camel marketed smoking as cool to kids. Ben Jealous’s client, Juul, has been accused of similarly targeting teenagers.

The sales campaigns for Juuls — now hugely popular with teenagers across the nation — are at the heart of a federal investigation into whether the company intentionally marketed its devices to youth. The attorney general of Massachusetts, also investigating the company, contends that Juul has been luring teenagers to try the product and has introduced many to nicotine.

“From our perspective, this is not about getting adults to stop smoking,” the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, said in an interview. “This is about getting kids to start vaping, and make money and have them as customers for life.”

Elijah Cummings took the battle for kids against big tobacco to Annapolis. “Progressive” Ben Jealous just took the money.

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Filling Sad Vacancies

Rep. Elijah Cummings was one of those people who truly grew in stature and value to the country over time. His indefatigable stand against ceaseless efforts to deprave our institutions from the Benghazi witch hunt to his ringing words fighting Trump’s seemingly bottomless corruption provided badly needed moral voice and leadership. Nor did he forget problems at home even as he led on national questions.

Seventh District Vacancy

The Baltimore Sun explained the process for filling this sad vacancy:

Gov. Larry Hogan has 10 days to issue a proclamation stating a special primary election and a special general election will be held to fill the vacancy, according to the law. The seat will remain vacant until then.

The special primary election shall be held on a Tuesday that is at least 65 days after the proclamation was issued and the special general election shall be held on a Tuesday that is at least 65 days after the primary.

That’s near the end of February at the absolute earliest.

“The whole process could be five months,” said Jared DeMarinis, the state elections board’s director of candidacy and campaign finance. “And that’s moving it along.”

Hogan’s spokesman, Mike Ricci, said Thursday morning that it wasn’t clear yet when the special election would take place.

The elections board needs that window of time to get procedures in order. Ballots will need to be printed and sent out, along with other logistics.

“What we’re waiting for is when the governor issues the proclamation,” DeMarinis said. “That fills in all the gaps.”

In short, it depends how fast Gov. Hogan moves to call the election. The Third District takes in portions of Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Howard County.

While I imagine many will be eyeing this rare opening, I suspect that Cummings’s widow and current Maryland Democratic Party Chair Maya Rockymore Cummings would be a lock for the seat if she seeks it. Beyond being this respected representative’s widow, she raised her own profile through her gubernatorial run and then her successful run for Democratic Party Chair in the wake of the 2018 election.

Oversight Chair Vacancy

Cummings’s passing is a also a loss for Maryland’s influence in the U.S. House. On the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings’s chairman’s gavel will be up for grabs. The committee has played a critical role in the impeachment inquiry.

Based on strict seniority, the post would go to Carolyn Maloney (NY 12), who has been named acting chair. Just behind her are Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC AL) and William Clay (MO 01). Norton, who also possesses significant legal chops, would be the first DC delegate to chair a committee.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD 08) is also a rising star on this committee. After just a couple of terms, he’s already eighth in seniority, which puts him ahead of fifteen other Democrats but still probably too junior to leapfrog into the post.

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Progressive Juuling with Ben Jealous

After Gov. Larry Hogan trounced him at the polls in 2018, Ben Jealous moved fast from his job as a venture capitalist to combining it with new work as a corporate consultant for Juul. Jealous’s hiring appears part of a larger effort to blackwash the vaping company through strategic donations and hiring connected African-American leaders.

The corporately credulous may believe that Jealous is taking Juul’s money in order to keep kids away from vaping. The FDA called out Juul for illegally claiming that its harmful products are safer than cigarettes. Juul is also being sued for marketing to youth. Montgomery County filed its own lawsuit against Juul last week.

Progressive Maryland (PM) has not only ignored Jealous’s ties to a truly awful corporation but also embraced him since he started working for Juul.

PM brought Jealous in to speak on mass incarceration at a September event. During his campaign, Jealous oddly used statistics from Georgia rather than Maryland on this topic. He also made no mention of significant reforms made thanks to General Assembly Democrats. Maryland Matters coverage of the PM event similarly quotes Jealous on the issue from a national rather than a state perspective.

Jealous used Progressive Maryland’s platform to tout a potential 2022 gubernatorial bid. This comes shortly after he dropped a floated bid for mayor of Baltimore because he wants to spend more time with his 7- and 13-year old kids. “I’ve really got to focus on running my daughter to rowing practice in South Baltimore and running my son to baseball practice in Roland Park.”

Jealous nonetheless felt okay with running for governor two years ago and already is making soundings for a 2022 run, so it seems more likely that other reasons came into play. Hogan criticized Jealous for his recent residence in Maryland—the 2018 primary was the very first in which he voted in Maryland. His Baltimore residency is of even more recent vintage.

Running for mayor might also have entailed needing to explain all that addictive Juul money. Taking big bucks from a company that is being sued for getting kids hooked on vaping instead of phonics may go down well at Progressive Maryland. A harder sell to the electorate.

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