Category Archives: Adam Pagnucco

Adam Pagnucco, Political Campaigns

We Get Phone Calls

By Adam Pagnucco.

Sometimes your author gets phone calls like this.

*****

Politician X:  Hey Pagnucco!  How’s the kid?  How’s business?

Me:  Well, I –

Politician X:  Great to hear it.  I got something you need to write about RIGHT NOW.

Politician X then tells a story about Politician Y.  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 equal to felonious behavior and/or rooting for the Dallas Cowboys and 1 equal to peeing in the shower, this is a 2.5.  Nothing illegal here, but there might be some questionable judgment IF it’s true.  As background, Y is not running against X, but Y has endorsed one of X’s opponents.  X also heard a rumor years ago that Y told someone X is a conniving politician.

Me:  OK.  Do you have any proof that Y did that?

Politician X:  No.  But you know it’s gotta be true!  Remember when Y did that other thing?

X retells another story about Y from a while back that was never verified.  That one might have been a 3.5 IF it ever happened.

Me:  Are there any documents?  Any links?  (The allegation does not involve anything easily verified like a vote on legislation, a campaign contribution or a screenshot.)

Politician X:  I don’t know.  Maybe you can find something.  Ask Politician Y.  Maybe he’ll be stupid enough to admit it!

Me:  Um, OK… Lemme think about whether this is provable, and if so, how.  In the meantime, if you believe it’s true and you can back it up, say it on Facebook.  Then maybe it will be covered.  At least it will be discussed, and if there’s anything there, it might come out.

Politician X:  I can’t do that!  I’m running for office.  If I say that, Y’s supporters will come after me.  That’s why we have blogs.  You guys will say anything!

Me: … … …

Politician X:  I’ll check back later to see how that story is coming along.

*****

Look folks.  We like investigating allegations, but there has to be something to them.  If you’re going to tell us something, be ready to 1. supply evidence or 2. go on the record.  We’re not gonna print unfounded speculation on your behalf just so you can get someone else to say something YOU want to say but won’t.  We’re not the New York Times, but there are such things as libel laws.  If you want to libel someone, do it yourself!

If you are thinking of making a call like the one made by Politician X above, don’t bother.  And Politician X, if you are reading this – and we know you will! – the next time you make a call like this we are gonna print your name.  Believe that!

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Adam Pagnucco, Ike Leggett

Female Candidates Accuse Leggett of Sexism

By Adam Pagnucco.

County Executive Ike Leggett’s decision to endorse four men in the Council At-Large race – incumbent Hans Riemer, Gabe Albornoz, Hoan Dang and Will Jawando – has provoked public accusations of sexism from two women who are running for office.

Council At-Large candidate Danielle Meitiv kicked things off on Facebook minutes after Leggett’s endorsement of Jawando was announced, writing, “Nice how our County Exec doesn’t think we need any women on the Council at large.”

District 18 Delegate candidate Mila Johns followed up, directly accusing Leggett of “sexism, pure and simple,” and eventually shared Meitiv’s post on her own page.

Council Member Nancy Floreen also weighed in on this, although somewhat indirectly.

The sentiment expressed by Meitiv and Johns is shared by other women running for office.  Several of them blasted Leggett to your author in scathing terms but would not go on the record.  That makes sense – most politicians want to avoid public disputes with a sitting County Executive at election time.  One candidate who was willing to comment on the record was Brandy Brooks, who is running for Council At-Large and co-wrote an essay about gender parity in politics with Meitiv.  Brooks told us:

For many, 2018 could be the year for women, people of color, and working people, but not if we aren’t actively changing our political system both internally and externally. Maryland has one of the worst records in the country on gender parity: we rank 38th on the gender parity index with a score of 12.1 (down from 21.2 in 2014) with few women in federal, state, or local office. To be clear, the four men who have been endorsed by the county executive are qualified candidates — that is not the question. However, not endorsing a single woman running at-large sends the wrong message about how our political and elected leaders view gender parity. Some will argue that more of the women running should have sought the endorsement. Unfortunately, this view continues to fault women instead of asking why our leaders aren’t being intentional to seek women to endorse as well. It continues a pattern that leaves many on the margins. Thankfully, there are many strong women candidates running for office in 2018 to change this status quo, and I’m excited to be one of them.

If Leggett’s choices win, it’s possible that the council might have just one female member in its next term: District 4 incumbent Nancy Navarro.  Since its current structure was established in 1990, the nine-member council has never had fewer than two female members and has sometimes had three or more.  Additionally, the issue of how women are treated in politics has erupted in Annapolis as the General Assembly grappled about how to deal with harassment in its most recent session.  One at-large candidate (Delegate Charles Barkley) has even been accused of inappropriate behavior with women.

Riemer, Albornoz, Dang and Jawando are not unusual choices for Leggett.  The Executive has had a cordial relationship with Riemer during their time in office together.  Albornoz is widely regarded as one of his best department directors.  Dang and Jawando are solid candidates and both would bring assets to the council if elected.  But surely Leggett and his team should have expected pushback on this in the wake of his criticism of the District 39 state legislators for accepting Lesley Lopez on their slate, a dispute in which gender was raised as an issue.

In Leggett’s defense, he has filled his administration with strong and competent women, including but not limited to Department of Permitting Services Director Diane Schwartz-Jones, Office of Management and Budget Director Jennifer Hughes, Health and Human Services Director Uma Ahluwalia, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Lily Qi, former libraries director Parker Hamilton and Special Assistant Joy Nurmi.  (Some of these ladies have left multiple boot prints on your author’s rear end!)  Leggett’s wife, Catherine, is an admired player in county politics who chairs the Executive’s Ball and raises money for the arts.  We are sure that Leggett’s MANY female supporters will step up in his defense should they deem this criticism worthy of response.

So who’s right?  That’s for you, the readers, to decide.

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Adam Pagnucco

Ortman-Fouse Files for Matching Funds in Record Time

By Adam Pagnucco.

Board of Education member Jill Ortman-Fouse, who is running for Council At-Large, has filed for matching funds from the county’s public financing system.  Ortman-Fouse took 49 days from the date on which she established her campaign committee to apply for matching funds, a FAR shorter period of time than any other candidate.

Ortman-Fouse’s application, made on April 16, lists $23,466 in contributions from 368 county residents, exceeding the Council At-Large thresholds of $20,000 and 250 residents.  Below is the number of days between committee establishment and matching funds application for the twenty candidates in public financing who have applied for matching funds.  (Five other candidates submitted applications but were ruled ineligible by the State Board of Elections.)  Bear in mind as you read the stats below that the candidates have different qualification thresholds.  Executive candidates must collect $40,000 from 500 county residents.  District council candidates must collect $10,000 from 125 residents.

Ortman-Fouse totally smoked her competition in filing time, something that is going to turn heads among her competitors.  In just one term, she has become arguably the most popular school board member in the county since Blair Ewing, who left to run for County Council twenty years ago.  One reason for that status is her close attention to answering constituent questions and her constant social media interaction with them, something that is typical of the best elected officials in county and state governments but is unusual for school board members.  That has given her a network of supporters that approaches the level of incumbent County Council Members.  How far that penetrates into the rank-and-file voting public is unknown, however, as few voters can name their school board members.  And Ortman-Fouse has also been handicapped by her late start, missing out on the endorsement processes of many influential organizations.

That leaves us with a general observation.  It’s true that the top fundraisers in the Council At-Large race are men and that men have received most of the influential institutional endorsements (with some going to Brandy Brooks and Danielle Meitiv).  But the Democratic primary electorate is roughly 60% female and of the seven councils in the current structure since 1990, only one (the 1998-2002 council) lacked a female at-large member.  So don’t count out the women, dear readers – and especially not Jill Ortman-Fouse!

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Adam Pagnucco, Kirill Reznik, transportation

Reznik Calls on Board of Public Works to Reject “Shadow Government” Highway Contract

By Adam Pagnucco.

Delegate Kirill Reznik (D-39) has written to the Board of Public Works asking them to reject an engineering and management contract awarded by the Maryland Department of Transportation for its planned expansion of the Capital Beltway and I-270.  According to the Washington Post, the winning consortium included a former employer of the state’s Secretary of Transportation and was awarded the contract despite finishing second in its written proposal.  The Secretary did not vote directly on the contract, but he had dinner with a representative of his former employer and obtained an ethics clearance after the award was made.  Post reporter Michael Laris described the bidding process as “expedited and unusual” and wrote:

The winning firms, known collectively as the “general engineering consultant,” would act as something of a shadow government for the Maryland Department of Transportation, which says its plan to hire firms to build, finance and maintain toll lanes is too big and complex to govern itself.

Referring to much of the above, Delegate Reznik said he was “incredibly alarmed” and asked the Board of Public Works to “restart the process in an open, fair, public, and transparent way, without the involvement of potential conflicts, and only after the public has had an opportunity to weigh in.”  We reprint his letter below.

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Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large

Council At-Large Undervoting, Part Two

By Adam Pagnucco.

In Part One, we learned that even though voters can vote for up to four Council At-Large candidates, they vote for only three on average.  Today we examine whether that statistic varies based on geography.

The chart below shows the total number of Council At-Large votes cast in the 2014 Democratic primary, the total number of Democratic votes for Governor and the ratio between the two from precinct votes on Election Day.  (Precinct-level turnout numbers from the state include early voters, absentee voters and provisional voters, distorting their use as a denominator, so we used votes for Governor as a proxy for Election Day voters by precinct.)  On average, each Democratic voter cast three votes for Council At-Large candidates.  That statistic varied very little between Congressional districts, state legislative districts and council districts.

Let’s take a deeper dive and look at local areas.  Again, there is minimal variation.  A mild outlier is Precinct 11-00 in Dickerson, home of at-large challenger Beth Daly.  Was there some undervoting there for Daly and her 2014 teammate, at-large incumbent Marc Elrich?  (The two finished first and second in that precinct and smoked everyone else.)  One note: the term Democratic Crescent refers to Cabin Branch, Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Downtown Silver Spring and Takoma Park, areas which tend to exert disproportionate impact on Democratic primaries.

Over and over, we have seen that the average Democratic primary voter casts three votes for Council At-Large candidates.  That statistic has been stable over time and does not vary much by voting mode (early, election day, absentee or provisional), geography, presence of open seats or candidate count.  We see no reason why it would be significantly different in this election.  What does that mean?

One obvious implication relates to one of the hottest places to find votes in a MoCo primary: the Downcounty areas of Downtown Silver Spring, Takoma Park and nearby locations to the north and northeast.  Hans Riemer, Evan Glass, Will Jawando, Danielle Meitiv, Chris Wilhelm, Brandy Brooks, Seth Grimes, Cherri Branson, Jill Ortman-Fouse and Jarrett Smith are among the candidates who are from there and/or are running hard there.  If each voter is only voting for three at-large candidates, there simply are not enough votes to go around for all of the above candidates.  Who emerges from that scrum?

Riemer ought to finish first in that area.  He is not just the only incumbent in the race; he also finished second in Downtown Silver Spring, Takoma Park and Kensington to Marc Elrich in 2014, his best places of finish anywhere in the county.  The next tier might be Glass, Jawando, Ortman-Fouse and Grimes, all of whom have done well in prior races in that area.  How many votes are available there for anyone else?

One of the greatest challenges of running for Council At-Large is how to allocate scarce resources across a vast county-wide electorate in the face of lots of competition and other draws on voters’ attention.  Those candidates who successfully target the voters who align with their values, message, bio and (in some instances) demographic will have a leg up on their less strategic rivals.  With only three at-large votes per voter, the premium on strategic engagement is higher than ever.  It might just be decisive in an exciting and historic race.

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Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large

Council At-Large Undervoting, Part One

By Adam Pagnucco.

In the Montgomery County Council At-Large race, voters can vote for up to four candidates and the leading four vote-getters win.  That gives candidates a lot of ways to get votes.  A common statement heard from candidates is, “You have four votes to cast.  There are a lot of good candidates in this race.  I hope I can earn one of your votes.”

But that statement, while politically appealing, doesn’t actually reflect the reality of at-large voting.  Lots of voters don’t cast four votes in the at-large race.  On average, they cast only three.

The chart below shows the total number of Council At-Large votes cast in Democratic primaries and the total number of Democrats voting over the last five cycles.  If everyone was casting four at-large votes, the number of at-large votes divided by the number of voters should be four.  Instead, the ratio of at-large votes to voters ranges from 3.0 to 3.2, averaging 3.1.  That tight range holds regardless of the number of candidates running and the presence of open seats.

What about the timing of votes?  The conventional wisdom is that early voters are unusually well informed, know exactly who they’re voting for and can’t wait to vote.  If anyone would be willing and able to use all four of their at-large votes, it should be early voters.  But in fact, that isn’t true.  There is not much difference between early voters, election day voters and absentee voters in terms of how many at-large votes they cast.  All of them are right around three each, with provisional voters coming in near 2.5.

Why does this happen?  Now we’re in the realm of speculation.  Here is a theory.  For all its importance to the function of county government, the Council At-Large race is seen by many as a down-ballot affair.  It doesn’t attract the attention of races for Congress, Governor and Executive.  It competes with state legislative and council district races in the voters’ mail, Facebook feeds and email inboxes.  The name recognition of incumbents is modest.  (How many voters can actually name all their Council Members?)

Now think about the voting process of the average voter.  Perhaps the voter was aided by At-Large Incumbent X in some way, maybe through constituent service or a vote on a bill, master plan or budget item.  The voter really likes X and will vote for him.  Next, perhaps a voter will pick At-Large Candidate Y because she was endorsed by the Washington Post, the teachers or the Sierra Club.  And then perhaps the voter will pick At-Large Candidate Z because a neighbor said something nice about him or handed her his lit.  Or maybe Z knocked on the voter’s door.  Or maybe Z lives in the same community as the voter.  Or maybe Z is the only other candidate the voter recognizes.  Or maybe… you get the idea.  Often, these voting decisions do not involve great strategic deliberation or deep research on the candidates.

But there is one more variable to examine: geography.  We have previously written that Democrats in Downcounty areas, especially those in the Democratic Crescent (Cabin Branch, Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Kensington, Downtown Silver Spring and Takoma Park) are much more likely to vote in mid-term primaries than Upcounty Democrats.  Do Democrats in Downcounty vote for more at-large candidates than those in Upcounty?  We’ll find out in Part Two.

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Adam Pagnucco, mike miller, SEIU Local 500

Fed-Up SEIU Launches “Take a Hike Mike” Website and Super PAC

By Adam Pagnucco.

SEIU Local 500 launched its anti-Mike Miller campaign on Lawyers Mall in Annapolis today.  Attending the rally in addition to SEIU members were former Delegate Jill Carter, who is running for Senate in the district of the recently resigned Nathaniel Oaks; Sheldon Laskin, who is running for Senate against incumbent Bobby Zirkin; Mila Johns, who is running for Delegate in District 18; and of course Miller’s mortal enemy, Comptroller Peter Franchot.  Daily Record reporter Bryan Sears streamed video of the event on Facebook.  The union announced the launch of a new anti-Miller super PAC and a “Take a Hike Mike” website which we screen shot below.

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Adam Pagnucco, Maryland Democratic Party, Republicans

Maryland GOP Catching Up to Democrats in Fundraising

By Adam Pagnucco.

Maryland is a majority Democratic state.  So one would expect that in financial competition between the two state parties, the Democrats would blow the Republicans away.  That may have been the case a few years ago, but not anymore.

In Maryland, the two state parties have two campaign accounts each: a federal account used for promoting federal candidates and a state account used for promoting state and county candidates.  Contributions to the federal account are regulated by federal election law while contributions to the state account are regulated by state election law.  Both federal and state money can be used for purposes like paying staff, voter registration and voter turnout so there is a bit of flexibility in use.  There are a few local party accounts but they are dwarfed by the state parties.

Below is the distribution of federal and state fundraising for the Democratic State Central Committee of Maryland.  A few things stand out.  First, because there are many Democratic federal elected officials, federal fundraising often exceeds state fundraising.  Second, election year receipts are far greater than off-year receipts.  Third, the presence of a Democratic Governor and/or a marquee federal race (like the 2006 U.S. Senate contest between Ben Cardin and Michael Steele) is good for fundraising.  In 2017, the first year for current Democratic Chair Kathleen Matthews, the party exceeded its off-year pace in federal money but slightly lagged its typical state fundraising.  Still, despite not having the Governor’s seat, the party did pretty well and finished 2017 with almost $800,000 in the bank.

Below is the same information for the Republican State Central Committee of Maryland.  The GOP’s federal fundraising is often puny due to its lack of federal elected officials.  (The 2006 race involving Michael Steele was a big exception.)  But in state money, the Republicans do better than the Democrats when they have an incumbent Governor.  They have led the Democrats in state fundraising four years in a row and exceeded them in total money raised in 2005, 2014 and 2017.  Their total cash on hand at the end of 2017 was about a quarter of the Democrats.

The chart below shows GOP fundraising as a percentage of the Democrats.  Again, notice how the last four years stand out in how the Republicans have exceeded the Democrats in state-level fundraising.  The Democrats’ advantage in federal fundraising can be used for staff and voter activity but it cannot be used to directly promote the party’s gubernatorial nominee in the coming election.

Governor Larry Hogan will have an enormous financial advantage against whoever wins the Democratic nomination and the two parties could be at rough parity.  If Hogan wins, it’s reasonable to assume that the GOP will continue to raise as much or more in state-level money as the Democrats during his second term.  That would be a nice boost for the next generation of Republicans looking to succeed him.

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Adam Pagnucco, Minimum Wage

Fight for 15 Unveils Poll Results in Key Senate Districts

By Adam Pagnucco.

The Maryland Fight for 15 Campaign has published poll results showing the popularity of a $15 minimum wage in three key Senate districts.  The polling comes as Annapolis heads to Sine Die on Monday.

The $15 minimum wage bill, lead-sponsored by Senator Rich Madaleno (D-18) and Delegate Shelly Hettleman (D-11), has not received a committee vote in either the House or the Senate.  That is despite the fact that it has 21 Senate sponsors (close to the 24 votes needed for passage) and 74 House sponsors (a majority of that chamber).  From a purely political perspective, we can’t understand why General Assembly Democrats have not sent that bill to Hogan’s desk.  Polling shows that the issue is enormously popular and having Hogan veto it – as he did with sick leave – would enable the Democratic gubernatorial nominee to draw a huge contrast with the Governor.  A veto override would also have been a big progressive victory for Democratic rank and file lawmakers.

Fight for 15 has released poll results showing net support for a $15 minimum wage in three Senate districts: 8, 28 and 38.  There’s a reason why they picked those three districts.  District 28 is represented by Senator Mac Middleton, who chairs the Finance Committee which has jurisdiction over the bill.  District 8 Senator Kathy Klausmeier and District 38 Senator Jim Mathias are also on the Finance Committee and are facing strong Republican challengers.  Both have taken money within the last year from the NRA.  Each of them could use a boost from voting for the minimum wage bill to motivate Democrats to turn out on their behalf.  And the poll results show that minimum wage has a net favorability of 17 points in Mathias’s district and 32 points in Klausmeier’s district.

Will the Democrats take this opportunity to draw a contrast with the GOP and energize progressives?  Or will minimum wage wait for next year?

We reprint Fight for 15’s press release and polling memo below.

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