Stacked for Separatists? Catalonia’s Version of the Electoral College

Believe it or not, I don’t study Maryland much for my day job as a political scientist. Read my analysis on Catalonia in the Monkey Cage blog in the Washington Post.

Notwithstanding separatist leader Carles Puigdemont’s dramatic flight to Brussels, Catalonia’s fade from American headlines gives the impression that normalcy is gradually returning to the region in the wake of the ousting of the region’s separatist government by the Spanish central government.

Appearances are deceiving. New regional elections are scheduled for December 21 and the electoral system may yet again manufacture a separatist majority in a manner eerily parallel to the electoral college. In other words, what Catalonia has just gone through might well be the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end.

 

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Be Careful About Going to an All-District County Council

By Adam Pagnucco.

Recently, MoCo’s political community has been thinking of changing the structure of the County Council.  Since 1990, the council has had four at-large members and five members elected by residents of districts.  One idea is to reduce or eliminate the at-large members and replace them with more district members.  Advocates of that perspective believe the districts are too large, that district members are more responsive than at-large members and that the cost of running at-large enables interest groups to play more in those elections.  We offer no opinion on any of those theories, but prior election history points to one consequence of shifting to an all-district council.

The level of political competition will almost certainly decline.

Why do we believe that will happen?  Consider recent elections.  Below is a chart showing the results of all district council elections since 1998.  Over that period, there have been 28 district council elections, 20 of which featured incumbents.  The incumbents won 17 of 20 races, an 85% win rate.  If the Republican incumbents are omitted, the remaining Democratic incumbents won 14 of 15 elections, a 93% win rate.

If that is not enough to prove the non-competitiveness of these elections, consider just two facts.  First, only one Democratic district incumbent has lost under our current structure, and that happened in 1998.  Second, of the last six contested district races, five saw the incumbent win by more than fifty points.

Meanwhile, the at-large races are much more competitive.  Since the current system was established in 1990, no group of at-large incumbents has ever run unopposed.  Three Democratic incumbents have lost – Blair Ewing (2002), Mike Subin (2006) and Duchy Trachtenberg (2010).  Even in the two elections in which all four incumbents ran for reelection (2010 and 2014), challengers still entered the race and one of them (Hans Riemer in 2010) knocked out an incumbent to win.

This year, those same trends continue unabated.  There are 25 at-large candidates (with more to come) running with three seats open.  Meanwhile, district incumbents Nancy Navarro (D-4) and Tom Hucker (D-5) have no opponents while Craig Rice (D-2) has token opposition in the primary.  Only Sidney Katz (D-3) has a serious challenger.  This disparity persists even in the presence of public financing, which was supposed to promote competition.

What explains this pattern?  After all, district races are theoretically cheaper than at-large races because they have fewer voters.  The reason is that one-seat races against incumbents are very different affairs than at-large contests.  A challenger running against an incumbent for one seat must show that the incumbent has committed a firing offense; otherwise, voters will support the candidate they know better.  These one-seat races can turn nasty as we have seen from recent MoCo Senate elections as well as the bitter fight between Council District 5 incumbent Derick Berlage and challenger Marc Elrich twenty years ago.  At-large races are seldom negative unless slates are formed to compete against each other.  (That hasn’t happened since 2002.)  At-large challenger Hans Riemer ran a model race in his 2010 win, promoting his policy agenda of progressivism and smart growth and never targeting any single incumbent for criticism.  Most candidates don’t have the stomach for negative elections when an open seat is available.  And in six of the last eight at-large races (including next year), at least one seat has been open.

Political competition is extremely valuable.  It should not be discarded lightly.  There may be good reasons to increase the number of districts, but if at-large members are completely eliminated, voters will pay the price with fewer choices and less accountability at election time.

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Democrats Thump Republicans in City of Frederick

Frederick 2017 Unofficial Results by David Lublin on Scribd

Frederick voters came out to elect their mayor and city council today. Or at least 8,810, or 21%, of the 42,053 voters did. The Democratic sweep around the country extended into swingy Frederick, as Democrats trounced their Republican opponents.

Democratic Alderman Michael O’Connor beat incumbent Republican Mayor Randy McClement by 22%. The previous Board of Alderman had four Democrats and one Republican. No more as Democrats take full control. Incumbents Kelly Russell and Donna Kuzamchak will be joined by newcomers Derek Shackelford, Roger Wilson and Ben McShane. The nearest Republican fell 2273 votes behind the last place Democrat — a 26% difference.

Sens. Rich Madaleno and Roger Manno, candidates for governor and Congress, respectively, were both there to celebrate the big victory after working to get out the vote in Frederick earlier in the day.

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Immigrant Dem Elected Mayor of Annapolis, Defeating GOP Incumbent

In what sounds like a nightmare for the Trump crowd, one-term Annapolis Mayor Mike Pantelides (R), got beat by Gavin Buckley (D), an Australian immigrant. Buckley is a first-time officeholder. Just under 35% of Annapolitans turned out to vote in the hotly contested race.

The Board of Aldermen will continue to have seven Democratic and one Republican. Incumbent Alderman Frederick Paone (R) held on by just 18 votes against Kurt Riegel (D). In Ward 8, Incumbent Ross Arnett (D) held off a strong Republican challenge by 54 votes.

Here are the results.

Votes Percent
Mayor
Mike Pantelides R (i) 3354 38
Gavin Buckley D 5439 62
Board of Aldermen
Ward 1
Larry Claussen R 594 35
Eleanor Tierney D 1028 61
Ward 2
Frederick Paone R (i) 780 51
Kurt Riegel D 762 49
Ward 3
Rhonda Charles D (i) 648 97
Ward 4
Sheila Finlayson D (i) 380 72
Write-In WI 148 28
Ward 5
James Appel R 389 39
Marc Rodriguez D 610 61
Ward 6
Shaneka Henson D 426 95
Ward 7
David Frankel R 339 36
Rob Savidge D 592 63
Ward 8
Julie Mussog R 792 48
Ross Arnett D (i) 846 52

 

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Unofficial Gaithersburg Election Results

Only 3282, or 9.2%, of Gaithersburg voters, voted. Mayor Jud Ashman was reelected without opposition and 2895 votes.

Council Results (2 seats)
Laurie-Anne Sayles, 1953 (59.5%)
Michael Sesma (i), 1730 (52.7%)
Jim McNulty, 1259 (38.3%)
Yvette Monroe (i), 1253 (38.2%)

For the two seats on the city council, newcomer Laurie-Anne Sayles ran away with the race with close to 60% of the vote. Incumbent Michael Sesma also won easily, though with just over majority support. Incumbent Yvette Monroe came in fourth place and lost her seat.

Ashman endorsed Sesma and Monroe. Sayles complained that he violated ethics laws in the way he did it. My guess is council meetings just got a bit more interesting. Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all for running.

 

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Implications of the Minimum Wage Outcome

Bethesda Beat has the story:

The County Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to a compromise that will phase in the $15-per-hour wage over four years based on businesses’ size.

Under the compromise:

  • large businesses with more than 50 employees will be required to pay the minimum wage in 2021
  • businesses with 11 to 50 employees will have to pay the wage in 2023
  • small businesses with fewer than 11 employees will need to pay the wage in 2024.

The council also approved a measure to tie the wage to the inflation rate in 2022 to prevent the need to vote to increase the wage in the future.

Indexing’s Long-Term Impact

This last bit may be the most important. Indexing to inflation assures that Montgomery’s minimum will continue to rise. As a result, the gap between the minimum wage in Montgomery and elsewhere will continue to grow.

If demand for labor keeps the going rate below Montgomery’s minimum, especially as indexing drives it up, it will make the county less competitive in businesses that don’t need to be located here, though have less impact on many services that are hard to move. However, even these businesses, like restaurants, can choose where to open and we would likely see the result.

The impact on the County budget over the short term is unclear. Over the long term, it may force the County to ratchet up wages and cut other services more in lean budget times, since the County will no longer be able to limit COLAs for workers at the bottom and will have to fight wage compression.

Any future economic and budgetary pressures will be made more acute, as the popularity of indexing wages makes it politically perilous to remove. These potentially negative impacts, however, will occur enough in the future that the current crop of officials will not have to address any consequences of their actions.

Political Impact

The short-term politics are more interesting. It gives Marc Elrich a major victory to tout and undermines critiques of him as ineffective in marshaling his colleagues behind him. At the same time, the unanimous adoption of a compromise takes a lot of the juice out of the political issue as it was adopted unanimously.

Candidates can’t differentiate themselves when there is no difference on an issue. Incumbent Sidney Katz’s opponent, Ben Shnider,  regards this as a victory since he pressured Katz on the issue. But the Council’s action makes it very hard to campaign against Katz on this basis – a win for Katz.

The decline of the issue’s salience also benefits outsider candidates worried about the financial impact, as they are on the less popular side of the question. It may give an opening to County Executive Candidates Bill Frick and Rose Krasnow with the business community, which won’t like the outcome.

Roger Berliner will be grateful this issue is off the agenda and will tell business leaders that he did the best he did to mitigate its impact. Ultimately, however, he still voted for a policy they think is harmful, while Frick was willing to say publicly that minimum wage policy should be left to the state.

Frick will argue to business that his actions show that he is willing to take on tougher causes and they should get behind him. Krasnow is not yet formally in the race, which limits any lumps she can take but also prevents her from earning points on this issue. As the Maryland Lottery has spent much money to explain, “you have to play to win.”

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On Raising the Minimum Wage, Part II


Today, 7S continues yesterday’s discussion of critical issues surrounding the proposed increase in the County’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.

Impact on Employment

Minimum wage opponents have long argued against raising the minimum wage on the grounds that it will spur businesses to hire fewer people. The intent of the policy is to help people who are struggling get out of poverty – not unemploy them – so this is a critical question.

Proponents argue correctly that past studies have shown that moderate wage increases have not had a measurably negative impact on employment relative to neighboring jurisdictions. They can also make a case that the stagnation in the minimum wage has left it lower in real terms than in earlier eras.

Moreover, a minimum wage increase can aid the economy by giving money to people who will undoubtedly spend it because of basic needs and pent up demand, and stimulate the economy.

Of course, the impact of Montgomery’s increase on our own economy depends on whether they spend it here or in neighboring jurisdictions. Do beneficiaries live here? Do they spend their money here?

The Size of the Wage

Councilmember George Leventhal, who opposed the previous wage increase, supports this one because he didn’t think the previous one caused any problem, so the County should press forward with this one. That logic remains wholly unconvincing because one could similarly argue why stop at $15. Why not $17 or $20?

The size of the minimum wage is obviously crucial. Even if the current $11.50 hasn’t caused any problems, which some might debate based on employment figures, it doesn’t mean that a $15.00 wage – a 23% hike – will not, especially if inflation remains low over the phase-in period.

Don’t forget that various social charges tied to total wages will also rise, as will the potential wage differential with neighboring jurisdictions. The proposed $15 minimum will be twice as high as the minimum wage in Virginia.

Councilmember Elrich frames his argument in favor of the wage on what is needed to get people a living wage. A living wage, unfortunately, may be divorced from the wage that has a negative impact on the economy and employment.

The graph at the top shows the difficulty of the assessment problem. If the minimum wage had continued to increase as it did in the 1950s and 1960s, it would be much higher today. But it has tended to fall or stagnate since around 1968, which makes the argument for the increase but also suggests that the higher rate would be outside our historical experience.

Broad Economic Changes

The tight labor markets of the 1990s resulted in wage increases and substantial reductions in poverty.  In contrast, the magnitude of the financial crisis left tremendous slack in the labor market and current low unemployment rates don’t reflect that there is much room for discouraged workers to enter the labor force.

At the same time, wages have stagnated during post-2000 economic recoveries, making it unclear that tighter labor markets will increase wages. The Republican focus during the 2000s on directing ever more money in tax cuts to the wealthy while cutting services only accentuated this trend – an experiment the Republicans seem intent on repeating.

As has often occurred in the past, technological innovations are destroying jobs and creating others. Right now, technology is rapidly replacing many low-end jobs, which creates downward pressure on wages despite lower unemployment. Scanners allow people to check out themselves at the supermarket. McDonald’s is now experimenting with a touchscreen order system. The Internet puts enormous pressure on in-store retail sales.

Minimum wage increases may encourage firms to move more aggressively to adopt new technologies, resulting in fewer workers. This is not necessarily bad for the economy, as it could position Montgomery to be at the cutting edge of efficiency. Higher wages may spur Montgomery businesses to become leaner and meaner faster than the competition while ensuring that employees get better compensation.

Economic Strategy

Finally, the County needs to consider how this issue fits into its broader economic approach. We have experienced low growth and stagnant employment. What can the County do to reverse these trends? How does a minimum wage increase fit into that strategy?

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Raise the Minimum Wage? Roger Berliner Answers

Seventh State is pleased to present Roger Berliner’s response to our question on the minimum wage.

Do you favor an increase in the Montgomery County minimum wage and, if so, by how much and on what timeline? Would you have any exemptions and, if so, for whom?  

I do favor increasing our county’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. I support the County Executive’s timeline, which would increase wages each year and reach $15 an hour by 2022 for larger businesses and 2024 for small businesses. I believe the County Executive’s time line best harmonizes the conflicting truths that are present in this debate: (1) too many people are working too hard for too little; and (2) if we raise wages too quickly, we will harm small businesses in our county, particularly minority-owned businesses, and this in turn will produce results that are exactly the opposite of what we want.

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Raise the Minimum Wage? Marc Elrich Answers

Seventh State is pleased to present Marc Elrich’s response to our question on the minimum wage.

Do you favor an increase in the Montgomery County minimum wage and, if so, by how much and on what timeline? Would you have any exemptions and, if so, for whom?

Yes, I support making the Montgomery County minimum wage into a living wage of $15 an hour.  I led the fight to secure the county’s last minimum wage increase, which is why our minimum wage is now $11.50 an hour, and believe strongly that jobs should pay people enough to provide for their families.

An extensive body of evidence shows that minimum wage increases have had their intended effect of lifting wages for low-wage workers with little to no effect on employment.  Montgomery County is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States and has a very high cost of living, so we are even more well-positioned than many other jurisdictions to take the step of going to $15.

The most prudent course of action would be to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020 for all workers in the county with no exemptions, indexing the minimum wage to rise with inflation or average wages after 2020.  Over 100,000 Montgomery County residents would benefit from such an increase.

Opponents of this idea today made the same arguments and dire predictions four years ago.  They were wrong then and they’re wrong now.

The $15 minimum wage bill I recently reintroduced, like the one that took effect in 2013, contains several compromises to assuage the concerns of some of my colleagues and some small businesses.  It delays the phase-in to 2022 for businesses with 25 or fewer employees, for example, and it continues to allow the exemptions for some workers that exist under federal law.  These compromises will result in less help for people in need than my ideal proposal would achieve, but the bill we ultimately enshrine into law will still have a huge, positive impact.

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On Raising the Minimum Wage, Part I

The County Council is getting ready to reconsider Councilmember Marc Elrich’s bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour that was vetoed by County Executive Ike Leggett, who outlined changes to the bill that he would like to see. Elrich’s bill was one vote short of being able to override Leggett’s veto.

As we are heading into an election year, there is a lot of political pressure around the issue and I imagine something will emerge from the Council. Rather than focus on the politics, however, what are the questions that councilmembers and voters ought to consider?

Direct Impact on the County Budget

For all of the controversy over the effect of a wage increase on the County’s economy, it remains surprising that little thought has been given to the potential impact on the county budget. Marc Elrich argues that it shouldn’t be much:

Probably not much if any [impact] on the County’s own budget. County employees and those who contract for the County have to pay a living wage which this year is around $14.50. So any inflation would get you to $15 in two years at the most.

The PFM Study on the minimum wage was widely discredited as junk science but nonetheless outlined the argument for why a higher wage could cost the county money:

[A $15 minimum wage] would likely present a significant cost to the County both in terms of adjusting employees’ pay to reflect a higher wage floor and to avoid wage compression in relation to that floor, but also through the resulting increases in additional compensation dependent on the base rate of pay (e.g. overtime) and in the County’s pension liability for eligible employees, due to increases in base earnings.

The fiscal impact statement for the bill is rather Delphic:

This legislation, as well as this fiscal impact statement, does not address the issue of wage compression in the County. Any action taken to address this issue would have a significant fiscal impact, which would be difficult to determine at this time.

Seems like it would be good to have a healthy discussion of budgetary impact to make sure we don’t have a repeat from 12 years ago with the county government racking up wage bills that it couldn’t afford in advance of an election. Elrich makes a good case but would the County need to have a higher floor to compete with the private sector?

Should the County Leave It to the State?

Libertarians argue that there should be no minimum wage because individuals should have the right to make contracts at any mutually agreeable wage. Assuming that this ship said long ago in Montgomery County, the question still remains if it wise for the County to enact its own rate substantially different from the state and double that of Virginia.

Del. Bill Frick, a candidate for county executive, has argued we should have a higher minimum wage but it should be done by the State:

Minimum wage policy, however, is more effective as a state policy than as a local one.  Maryland has a Department of Labor, with the statutory power and duty to enforce minimum wage and other employment laws. Montgomery County does not. Just as zoning and land use decisions belong at the County level instead of the state, I believe employment regulation is better in the hands of the state . . .

Additionally, statewide action eliminates risk of losing business to either Howard or Prince George’s Counties, though not DC or Virginia. At-Large County Council Candidate Seth Grimes argues that the county needs to act because the state hasn’t:

The self-sufficiency standard varies widely across Maryland, [so] legislators outside high-cost counties including Montgomery might see a higher minimum as less of a priority than we in Montgomery do. Montgomery County especially needs a higher minimum, but statewide action has failed. Yet Mr. Frick would let a specious search for “more effective” policy hold us back from needed local action.

Still, the county has spent much time focused on areas outside of its core services and regulated in areas, such as pesticides, where it has little enforcement capacity. Frick raises the broader question of whether the County Council spends too much time on issues that should be legislated on in other arenas rather than the nuts and bolts of county government.

Tomorrow morning, 7S continues with a discussion of the impact of minimum wage increases on employment in Part II.

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