Tag Archives: Nine Districts for MoCo

County Republican Leaders Helping Nine Districts

By Adam Pagnucco.

Seven members of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee, the governing body of the MoCo GOP, have given the Nine Districts for MoCo group money, in-kind contributions or both. So have other leaders of the county Republican Party.

The Nine Districts campaign finance reports reveal the following transactions between GOP Central Committee Members and the organization.

County GOP Central Committee Members Who Gave Money

Greg Decker (Legislative District 39) made two monetary contributions of $100 each on 6/1/20 and 7/10/20.

Paul Foldi (Legislative District 16) contributed $100 on 2/5/20.

Lorraine Jaffe (At-Large) contributed $100 on 2/5/20.

Reardon Sullivan (Legislative District 15) contributed $200 on 6/6/20.

County GOP Central Committee Members Who Gave In-Kind Contributions

Martha Schaerr (Legislative District 19) made three in-kind contributions totaling $132.77 for an outdoor banner and printing petitions on 8/12/19 and 8/14/19.

Gail Weiss (Legislative District 16) made a $120 in-kind contribution for hats and caps on 1/15/20.

Reardon Sullivan (Legislative District 15) made a $20 in-kind contribution on 2/25/20 for “proportional use of PC video editing software.”

Ann Hingston (At-Large) made four in-kind contributions totaling $499.43 for office supplies, printed materials and U.S. Post Box rental.

Hingston also wrote this piece on the county Republicans’ website advocating for Nine Districts and asking for financial contributions to the group.

Other party leaders have helped Nine Districts. Sharon Bauer, president of the Montgomery County Federation of Republican Women, gave $50 to the group on 2/13/20. Ryan Gniadek, the contact for the Montgomery County Federation of Teenage Republicans, gave $15 to the group on 1/23/20. And Ed Amatetti, the Republican nominee for County Council District 2 in 2018, gave $25 to the group on 12/26/19. The checks are small but the dots to be connected are many.

Nine Districts is not a solely Republican group. Developers are paying the vast majority of its costs, county employee unions are providing thousands of dollars in in-kind support and lots of people beyond those groups support the concept. But the presence of this many Republican party officials among its supporters as well as the use of the county GOP’s website to raise money for Nine Districts is not a coincidence. Passing the 9 district charter amendment is a big priority for county Republicans.

And soon, I’ll explore exactly why that is.

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Nine Districts Supporters Speak

By Adam Pagnucco.

In prior posts, I have noted support of the Nine Districts charter amendment by Republicans, developers and unions. But a lot more people beyond those groups would like to have nine council districts and I recently asked them why. Here are a few comments from supporters I received with names removed to protect their identities. I am not saying that they are necessarily right, but in order to understand Nine Districts, you have to understand sentiments like these.

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Potomac resident: I support 9 Districts because I don’t feel like my area has adequate representation. I want my representative to live in my area and know the ins and outs of what we need and want. Community leaders should live in their community.

Germantown resident: Taxation without representation. Just like the British thought they were kind and benevolent rulers, the Takoma Park-heavy leadership is similarly clueless about what goes on far away in upcounty. You’ve written about how hard it is to beat incumbents in elections, and I don’t think we will get folks familiar with upcounty without a major structural change like Nine Districts. We can’t get a call back from the at-large members up here, let alone get them to truly understand our issues.

Boyds resident: I have been involved for several years in advocating for upcounty issues and we get lip service (usually no response), but when it comes to voting, at large members just vote with the down county members. So practically speaking down county has eight votes and upcounty has only one, Craig Rice. That’s why one to one is better – total and clear responsibility.

Bethesda resident: We live in a very diverse county. The current structure has ended up concentrating political power down county which results in issues of import to upcounty communities getting short shrift. The current structure has also resulted in a uniformity of political views among our leaders. Even if I tend to agree with the stances of the current leaders on most issues, a more diverse set of viewpoints will be better for our community.

Clarksburg resident: I support 9 districts because Clarksburg constantly gets abused due to lack of political representation. The planning board wants to create a loophole to eliminate home building moratoria so they can keep issuing building permits in Clarksburg regardless of how crowded the schools get.

Montgomery Village resident: I listened to council members that live in Silver Spring and Takoma Park say how much they understand upper county because they came up to rallies or for some other “visit.” I’ve lived in downtown Bethesda (the real one not North) for five years and now in Montgomery Village for four. Two different worlds. Even the produce section of the grocery stores are different. I’m tired of politicians that talk about diversity as their key issue but don’t actually talk about how they can improve opportunities through jobs and new business growth. We’re actively looking to leave the county after this week’s display at the council meeting and BOE.

Olney resident: My experience is that at-large council members are not accountable to anyone. In theory they are accountable to the voters but in practice they are controlled by those who contribute the most to their campaign funds.

North Potomac resident: I have written my at-large “representatives” on several occasions in recent months (along with other council members as well) and the at-large members don’t even bother to send me an acknowledgement of my email. I know some members do send acknowledgements because some have acknowledged emails. There is nothing so frustrating as not only having my concerns ignored, but so flagrantly ignored as not to even acknowledge an email. It’s incredibly arrogant. They clearly don’t represent me and don’t want to. And as a life-long registered Democrat they can’t claim I am not a “constituent.” And even my district Council member doesn’t respond substantively as I assume he has too many constituents to be able to engage with individual constituents.

Gaithersburg resident: I think I support the Nine Districts because it seems to be an improvement – although imperfect – over the present system of “representation.” As a resident of our precious Ag Reserve, I have seen this Council make incursions into the Reserve without (in my opinion) fully researching and considering the effects of their actions on the preservation of farmland and open spaces. Hopefully, the Nine District system of representation would provide a better system for us to make our concerns known. The “At Large” members owe their elections to the highly populated areas, and as such, they can easily discount our concerns. That said, it does depend on the conscientiousness of the particular At Large member. One At Large member did reach out to the upcounty, and met with us at the Damascus Library. I am open to being persuaded to retain the present system but presently am leaning to voting for the Nine District option.

Clarksburg resident: As others are saying – responsiveness and representation. The At-Large system without any balance of geographic residential location leaves hundreds of thousands under- or un-represented. The lone one or two council member(s) who needs multiple at-large members to make change happen is too often left alone on issues. In theory at-large means you have all four of them representing you; in reality, at least in upcounty, we often have none. Zero. And this lack of responsiveness and responsibility can be summarized in one word, which is broad enough for those familiar with recent county history: Clarksburg.

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Revealed! Funders of Nine Districts

By Adam Pagnucco.

Nine District for MoCo, the ballot question entity responsible for gathering signatures for a 9 district charter amendment, has filed a new campaign finance report listing its contributions and expenditures through August 2. The organization’s prior report, released in January, contained data for 7/24/19 through 1/8/20.

The information here is bound to shake MoCo’s political establishment to its core.

First, the overall data on contributions and expenditures.

Contributions
7/24/19-1/8/20: $1,244
1/9/20-8/2/20: $64,790
Total: $66,034

Expenditures
7/24/19-1/8/20: $438
1/9/20-8/2/20: $59,140
Total: $59,578

Here are the largest contributors to the group.

Charles Nulsen, Washington Property Company: $50,000
UFCW Local 1994 MCGEO: $10,000 (in-kind)
Bob Buchanan, Buchanan Partners: $5,000
Fraternal Order of Police: $5,000 (in-kind)
Montgomery County Career Fire Fighters Association PAC: $5,000 (in-kind)
Gingery Development Group: $5,000
Arlene Hillerson (listed as being in real estate): $2,000

The Town of Laytonsville also contributed $100.

Charlie Nulsen is the founder of Empower Montgomery. Bob Buchanan is the former chair of the county’s economic development corporation. Both are long-time regional developers.

The unions’ in-kind contributions came in the form of online advertising.

The leading recipient of money from the group is Rowland Strategies of Baltimore, which was paid $50,000 on June 9. The firm is headed by Jonathon Rowland, a national level strategist who ran Hoan Dang’s campaign for county council in 2018.

Nine Districts for MoCo is now revealed as an unholy alliance of developers and unions – two groups that often don’t see eye to eye. The unions are aggrieved at the council’s rejection of their collective bargaining agreements (among MANY other things). The developers have long complained about – in their view – the difficulty of doing business in MoCo. They are also no doubt upset about the recent imposition of temporary rent stabilization.

The real estate industry and labor both have substantial influence over county politics but don’t get everything they want – especially in these troubled times. If they have indeed formed an unholy alliance on anything, much less a ballot measure that would eviscerate the county council, this is a new day for MoCo.

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The MoCo Council Structure Should Not Be Changed

By Paul Bessel.

With due respect to the members of the MoCo Council, I believe they made a mistake when they voted to put on the ballot the issue of adding 2 District Council Members. We do not need more Council Members and the voters benefit greatly from the current structure. The item on the ballot by petition, to eliminate At Large Members and have 9 District Members, is even worse for our citizens.

The argument that we want to give voters choices is wrong. The vast majority of voters don’t care about the Council structure. They care what the Council does, not its structure.

The issue of Council structure has been studied in detail by 5 separate Charter Review Commissions and ALL recommended that there should continue to be 4 At Large and 5 District Members. That allows each county voter to vote for a majority of the Council Members and to turn to 5 different representatives when they wish.

Adding members to the Council will cost a lot of money: Council Member salaries, staff salaries, reconstruction of the Council building. What would be gained? Nothing. The 9 Council Members do all the work needed.

Eliminating At Large Members would be even worse. If a citizen lived in a district where her or his District Member didn’t care much about constituent service (it happens!) they would have no one to turn to, while now they have 4 others who represent them. Plus, having At Large Members helps to provide a possibly different view on all issues.

There is no need to tinker with the Council structure. There is no need to put any questions about this on the ballot. The current structure works well. Leave it alone.

Paul Bessel was Chair of the Charter Review Commission from 2015 thru 2018.

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Two Districts vs Nine Districts

By Adam Pagnucco.

Moments ago, the county council voted on whether to place three charter amendments on the ballot that would change the council’s structure.

An amendment authored by Council Member Evan Glass that would add two districts to the council’s current five districts and four at-large seats PASSED on an 8-1 vote. Council Member Andrew Friedson voted against it.

An amendment authored by Council Member Hans Riemer to add an elected council president was WITHDRAWN by its sponsor. Riemer recognized he did not have the votes.

An amendment authored by Council Member Nancy Navarro to create four residency districts for the four at-large members FAILED on a 4-5 vote. Those in favor included Navarro and Council Members Andrew Friedson, Sidney Katz and Craig Rice. Those against included Council Members Gabe Albornoz, Evan Glass, Tom Hucker, Will Jawando and Hans Riemer. The split here was district vs at-large members as all the at-large members voted no and every district member except Hucker voted yes.

As for the open meetings issue I raised this morning, council attorney Bob Drummer told the council that it was legal for them to add late items to a meeting agenda. In any event, the issue is moot because both late charter amendments did not pass.

And so if the nine district petition qualifies for the ballot, voters will decide whether to shift to an-all district system, add two district seats to the current system or vote against both and stay with the current system of five district seats and four at-large seats. Because at least one of these council structure questions will appear on the ballot along with two tax limit amendments already placed there, this November will see a hugely important election in MoCo.

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Council Drops Poison Pill on Nine Districts

By Adam Pagnucco.

In addition to placing at least one competing proposal on the ballot, the county council is about to adopt a tactic to defeat the proposed charter amendment for 9 districts that is sure to infuriate its supporters. The worst thing (or best thing, depending on your point of view) is that this tactic has a proven record of success.

Specifically, it relates to the exact language on 9 districts that will be placed on the ballot.

Maryland Election Law § 7-103 lays out the role of local governments in preparing ballot language. This morning, the county council will be considering this language for the ballot on the 9 districts amendment (providing that it has 10,000 valid signatures and actually qualifies).

Question D

Charter amendment by petition

County Council – Alter Council Composition to 9 Districts

Amend Sections 102 and 103 of the County Charter to:
— divide the County into 9, rather than the current 5, Council districts;
— elect all Councilmembers by district, rather than the current 5 by district and 4 at large; and
— reduce from 5 to 1 the number of Councilmembers each voter can vote for

FOR

AGAINST

Consider this. Every voter who looks at the ballot will be told that this charter amendment would reduce the number of council seats he or she may vote for from 5 to 1.

This is the exact same language that appeared on the ballot when a 9 district amendment was submitted to voters in 2004. That amendment was defeated on a 61-39% vote. Like 2020, 2004 was a presidential election year in which many – probably most – voters were interested in national politics and knew relatively little about the county.

I was one of those voters. I moved to the county in 2003 and 2004 was my first election here. At that point, I knew two things about MoCo. 1. It had a county executive named Doug Duncan who had appeared on TV during the hunt for the D.C. sniper. 2. There was a fight being waged over a big highway called the Intercounty Connector. (I checked to make sure its alignment was nowhere near my new house.) That was about it. So here I was in the voting booth trying to figure out what this 9 district question was. And I saw that it would reduce the number of council members I could vote for from 5 to 1. I thought that was a terrible idea. I like voting for elected officials so I voted NO. So did 61% of the electorate.

Supporters of 9 districts are going to cry foul but they have to acknowledge two things. 1. The language is indisputably accurate. 2. It has appeared on the ballot before so the council is following precedent.

Poison pills are hard to swallow. This pill could very well poison the electoral prospects of 9 districts.

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Nine Districts for MoCo Submits 16,448 Signatures

By Adam Pagnucco.

Nine Districts for MoCo, a group that seeks to replace the current county council structure of 5 districts seats and 4 at-large seats with 9 district seats, has submitted 16,448 signatures in support of their 9 district charter amendment. The county board of elections will now begin verifying signatures. The group needs 10,000 valid signatures to get its charter amendment on the ballot.

The group’s raw signature count is not that different from the raw counts submitted by Robin Ficker for his 2016 term limits amendment (more than 18,000) and his current anti-tax amendment (more than 16,000). Both of those amendments qualified for the ballot and the term limits amendment passed. Maryland’s petition signature requirements are tough and some petitions that might appear to qualify at first glance have been thrown out. (For example, Ficker’s term limits petition was blocked in 2010.)

Nine Districts’ petition cover sheet is reprinted below. The phone number and address of the group’s chair have been redacted to protect her privacy.

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What Will Happen to the County Council?

By Adam Pagnucco.

Conversations had been going on for a while, but when Nine Districts for MoCo announced that they had gathered 15,000 signatures for their charter amendment, things got real in a hurry. The county council faced a serious chance that they would get involuntarily restructured by angry voters at the ballot box.

Now they had to talk about alternatives.

A majority of the county council is content with the current council structure of five district seats and four at-large seats. They believe that a mix of district representation and countywide perspective serves residents best. It also does not escape them that a new structure of nine districts could complicate their plans for the next election. Of the six members who are not term limited, who would run for which seats in a nine district configuration?

Leaving a potential nine district charter amendment as the only council structure on the ballot would be a crapshoot. What if all the voters wanting change voted for it because it was the only change option on the ballot? So council members discussed placing an alternative charter amendment on the ballot that would be more palatable. What would it be? In devising their preferences, each council member had to consider three factors: what was best for the county (at least in their opinion), what could gather enough voter support to compete with nine districts and what was best for (or at least not injurious to) their own political futures. These being nine very different people at different points in their political careers, this was a very complicated conversation.

Two ideas rose to the top of discussion over the weekend.

Adding two council seats

Last year, At-Large Council Member Evan Glass told the county’s charter review commission (which studies charter amendments and makes recommendations to the council) that “more districts may be warranted.” Indeed, MoCo’s council districts have more than twice as many residents in them as the regional average. One topic of conversation centered on adding district seats with two being the most mentioned number. Another variant was adding one district seat and another at-large seat. Regardless of the nature of additions, this line of thought addressed the need for more seats (and districts) without disturbing the configuration of the existing council and its currently serving members.

Adding an elected council president

The Montgomery County Council does not have a four-year president elected to that position by voters. The District of Columbia, Baltimore City, and Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William Counties have presidents or chairs who are elected at-large. In Anne Arundel, Arlington, Baltimore, Frederick, Howard and Prince George’s Counties, the council or board selects its own officers, which is the system MoCo currently uses.

With this option, two corollary questions were generated. First, would an at-large council president replace one of the current at-large seats or would it be a brand new additional seat? Second, would the term limit clock “reset” for council president? In other words, if a term-limited council member were to run for council president and win, would that person be entitled to a new set of three consecutive terms? In 2016, when Prince George’s County (which has council term limits of two terms) created two at-large seats to go with its existing nine district seats, the county’s charter language explicitly allowed district incumbents to serve two more consecutive terms if they won at-large seats. The question of how term limits would apply is not an academic one for the three term-limited council members currently in office – Nancy Navarro, Craig Rice and Hans Riemer.

The problem with the council president proposal is not so much on its merits but rather that it is unresponsive to the public discussion, which has focused on two questions: should there be more district seats and should the at-large seats be eliminated? To my knowledge, no mass constituency has come forward and said, “You know, our problems would be solved if we had a permanent council president.” How does this dissuade anyone from voting for nine districts?

As of this writing, it seems the most likely proposal from the council will be to add two more district seats with no elected council president. But the council will not make a decision until Tuesday and there could be more twists and turns on this than on a country road in a blizzard.

Finally, there is one more bizarre possibility: what if the Nine Districts proposal does not make it onto the ballot? The group claims to have 15,000 signatures but the county board of elections has until August 14 to certify them. The group needs to have 10,000 valid signatures for certification; otherwise, regardless of the group’s claims, their amendment will not qualify for the ballot. The county council, however, must decide what question(s) it will put on the ballot this week. And so it’s possible that a council proposal could make it onto the ballot while the Nine Districts proposal fails to qualify.

Regardless of how it all turns out, it seems there is a strong likelihood that change is coming to Rockville.

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Nine Districts for MoCo Claims 15,000 Signatures

By Adam Pagnucco.

Nine Districts for MoCo, the group seeking to replace the current county council structure of 5 district seats and 4 at-large seats with 9 district seats, claimed earlier today that it has obtained 15,000 signatures for its proposed charter amendment. Under the state’s constitution, a charter amendment proposed by voters must receive valid signatures from not less than 20% of registered voters or at least 10,000 voters. The group’s Facebook post appears below.

The original deadline for receipt of petition signatures was Monday, July 27. However, the State Board of Elections extended the deadline by one week due to the COVID-19 crisis, meaning that the group may submit its signatures to the county on Monday, August 3. The county board of elections must then verify the signatures to ensure that the 9 district charter amendment qualifies for the ballot.

The group’s declaration was shared on Facebook by the Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County, the Montgomery County Republican Club, the Republican District 16 Team, the Conservative Club of Maryland and former Montgomery County Republican Party Chairman Mark Uncapher.

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Nine Kings and Queens

By Adam Pagnucco.

Advocates of a nine-district county council in MoCo press on despite clear evidence that our at-large races have much more political competition than our district races. But there is no need to speculate about what a nine-district system would look like. For more than 30 years, a nine-district system was in use right next door to us in Prince George’s County. How did it work there?

Under Prince George’s County’s original charter in 1970, its county council had eleven members, all elected at-large. Five of them had to reside in one each of five districts while the other six could live anywhere in the county. The structure was quickly dominated by Democratic Party leaders who ran slates for state and county offices, but it began to disintegrate when non-slate members won races in 1978. In 1980, the county passed Question K, which replaced the old structure with 9 district-based council members who would be elected solely by voters in their districts. At the time, the Washington Post wrote:

With the council reduced from 11 to 9 members and its members elected from separate districts, there will be decidedly fewer countywide offices with which to form a slate. That was one goal that the amendment’s initiators — Republicans and Democrats who ran against the party slate in 1978 — intended. The supporters of K also said they designed the amendment to make the council more responsive to the electorate. Its opponents charged that the amendment will cause parochialism and an emphasis on district issues at the expense of the county.

Sound familiar?

The new structure was first used in 1982, which saw the defeat of numerous incumbents and power brokers. The system remained in place until 2016, when residents approved Question D to add 2 at-large members by a 67-33% vote. In 2018, a retiring district council member and a non-incumbent won the 2 new at-large seats, defeating seven other candidates including another retiring district council member and a former state delegate.

Another factor in Prince George’s elections are term limits, passed by voters in 1992. The county executive and county council members are limited to two consecutive four-year terms, though they can return after being out of office. Additionally, council members can serve two terms in district seats and then immediately run for two more terms in the at-large seats created in 2018. Prince George’s voters have rejected multiple attempts to repeal or extend term limits.

How well has the nine-district system promoted political competition in Prince George’s County?

The table below shows the distribution of the 60 county council elections held in Prince George’s from 1998 through 2018. Of those 60 elections, 32 were district races with an incumbent on the ballot, 22 were for open district seats, 5 were special elections for open district seats and one was an at-large election in 2018.

The first thing one notices is that the average number of primary candidates is much lower in races with incumbents (1.9) than in open seat district races (4.8) and special elections (6.6). The 2018 at-large race had 9 candidates.

Now let’s look at how incumbents fare in Prince George’s district races.

Fully half of the elections featuring an incumbent (16 of 32) had no opposition. Only 3 elections had an incumbent winning by less than 10 points. Ninety-one percent of the elections had an incumbent winning by 20 points or more or not having an opponent at all.

The combined record of incumbents running for reelection over the last two decades is 32-0.

Granted, elections work differently in Prince George’s and MoCo. Prince George’s politicians employ mixed slates of incumbent and non-incumbent state and county candidates who distribute sample ballots listing all of them. This gives incumbents, especially non-term limited state legislators, enormous influence in selecting and grooming new members of their political organizations. But the end result is not much different than in MoCo’s district council races since 1998, in which Democratic incumbents have an 18-1 record and regularly win blowouts.

The lesson from Prince George’s County is clear: in the context of all district seats, true competition usually only occurs when an incumbent does not run. Because Prince George’s limits incumbents to two consecutive four-year terms, that means true competition happens once every eight years for district seats (unless a vacancy occurs and a special election is held). In Montgomery County, which limits council members to three consecutive four-year terms, true competition would occur once every twelve years. That is a mammoth setback from MoCo’s at-large elections, which have at least some degree of competition in every primary and have sent three incumbents home.

The effect of electing nine candidates and then allowing them to face creampuff (or no) opposition for twelve years would be to create nine kings and queens. That is comparable to what happened in Prince George’s County except our monarchs would rule 50% longer. The NIMBYism and parochialism of the Prince George’s nine-district system even acquired a name – “council courtesy,” under which the other eight members nearly always accepted a member’s position on development in his or her district. With neither the county executive nor the planning board trumping the council on land use powers, the council members were unchallenged overlords inside their domains. Then-special election candidate (and future Council Member) Derrick Leon Davis explained how this works on Kojo Nnamdi’s show in 2011.

In politics, there are few things more dangerous than elected officials who face little or no competition. The risk of being hurled from office by pitchfork-wielding voters is one of the few safeguards protecting the people from politicians afflicted by greed, ego, malice, sloth or sheer incompetence. Nine-district advocates have legitimate grievances and the county could use more district council seats. But competition is a far better solution to our problems than the crowning of kings and queens.

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