Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large

Brooks and Wilhelm Take on Amazon

By Adam Pagnucco.

Council At-Large candidates Brandy Brooks and Chris Wilhelm, who are running as a team, have sent out the mailer below raising concerns about the impact of Amazon possibly establishing a second headquarters in Montgomery County.  Put aside whatever feelings you have about the underlying issue; we find this to be a smart political tactic.  There are so many candidates in the at-large race this year that the victory threshold could be as low as 30,000 votes – or less.  If that number of voters, which corresponds to roughly thirty percent of the likely Democratic primary electorate, is concerned about Amazon, and if Brooks and Wilhelm are the only candidates in the race with that message, they could get a leg up.  We reprint their mailer – a 15″ by 12″ monster – below.

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2018 Governor's Race, education

MCEA’s Awkward Alliance

This year, the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) – the teachers union – decided to support Ben Jealous for governor. Fine, so far.

But this just got very awkward after last night’s education forum. Except for Rich Madaleno from Montgomery, all of the other candidates, including Ben Jealous, embraced a new wealth based formula for education funding that just kills Montgomery.

I imagine it also does little for affluent Howard. The new formula  zeros out funding for Talbot, Kent, and Worcester counties. Not only would it eliminate all no state aid for these three Eastern Shore jurisdictions, it also would require all that money to be made up in local taxes. Every penny cut would be required by state law to be replaced by local funds.

If there is one thing MCEA opposes, it’s cutting funds for Montgomery County Public Schools. Now, they’re supporting a candidate who wants to siphon large sums of money away from Montgomery to other jurisdictions.

Beyond the large number of portable classrooms, Montgomery faces a growing number of students who need extra help for a variety of reasons but who don’t come from families with a lot of extra money to help pick up the slack.

In the past, Adam Pagnucco has written about state funding formulas are already skewed against Montgomery, even as we face burgeoning problems in the public schools. Separately, a hike in the millionaires tax, paid primarily by Montgomery, has helped fund a burst of construction in Baltimore and elsewhere in the State.

The changes endorsed by all candidates except Madaleno would massively undermine efforts by Montgomery to address the achievement gap here. Indeed, the County would be hard pressed to maintain its current commitment with the size of cuts proposed, as Adam has explained well in a piece aptly titled “Hell, No!”

While this is awkward for Montgomery advocates of greater state school funding who support a variety of candidates, I imagine it might dismay county officials who support Rushern Baker at least partly in the hope that the D.C. area would get more attention to its increasingly serious needs.

But the problem is particularly acute for MCEA. They’ve found themselves behind a candidate whose platform would result in enormous pressure on the salaries and pensions of their members or force major cuts elsewhere in an already pressed county budget despite county efforts for years to protect education funding.

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2018 Elections, Endorsements

Sun Endorses Jealous

This morning, the Baltimore Sun endorsed Ben Jealous for governor:

Maryland voters deserve a real choice in November’s election for governor, and we believe Democrat Ben Jealous provides the clearest alternative to Gov. Larry Hogan. It’s not just that the former NAACP president and CEO has the stature or political skills to run a competitive campaign against the popular and extremely well funded Republican incumbent (though he does), it’s that he presents the strongest contrast to the governor in his vision for the state. We give him our endorsement in the Democratic primary.

Jealous is already doing well in the Baltimore region and this should only aid his efforts there.

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Adam Pagnucco, MCGEO, Progressive Maryland, SEIU, SEIU Local 500

Labor Pumps Money Into Anti-Blair Super PAC

By Adam Pagnucco.

Four labor unions and an immigrant advocacy organization have contributed a combined $90,000 to a Super PAC which opposes the election of David Blair as Montgomery County Executive.

The Progressive Maryland Liberation Alliance PAC is a Super PAC affiliated with Progressive Maryland.  The Super PAC’s Chair, Larry Stafford, is Progressive Maryland’s Executive Director.  The group has previously distributed anti-Blair flyers but now has the money to do a lot more than that.

The Super PAC’s campaign finance filings indicate that it was organized for the purpose of supporting gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous, State Senate candidates Jill Carter, Antonio Hayes and Mary Washington, State’s Attorney candidate Victor Ramirez and Delegate candidate Melissa Wells and opposing State Senator Bobby Zirkin, State’s Attorney candidate Ivan Bates and Blair.  But the labor contributions to the Super PAC were explicitly designated to opposing Blair.  Those contributions included $35,000 from MCGEO, $35,000 from the Laborers, $10,000 from UNITE HERE Local 25, $5,000 from SEIU Local 500 and $5,000 from immigrant advocacy group Casa in Action.  All of these organizations except for UNITE HERE Local 25 have endorsed Marc Elrich for Executive, as has Progressive Maryland.

Of these contributions, $10,000 has been spent on a video opposing Blair.  We imagine MoCo voters will be seeing that video soon.

With $80,000 remaining, the Super PAC has enough money to finance mailers and more.  What’s unclear is how much more money it can raise with labor spending almost a million dollars to elect Ben Jealous as Governor and more than $600,000 to elect Donna Edwards as Prince George’s County Executive.  Still, they are playing in MoCo and we expect them to play hard.

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2018 Governor's Race

Ervin Drops Out, Plans to Endorse Baker

Former Montgomery County Councilmember Valerie Ervin, who faced an uphill battle in her effort to run for governor has decided to leave the race and to endorse Rushern Baker.

Ervin decided to run after the sudden and sad death of her running mate, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. She faced an uphill battle due to her inability to access his campaign funds. The Board of Elections also could not change the ballots this close to the election, despite Ervin’s complete eligibility under state law to run in Kamenetz’s place and select a new running mate.

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2018 Governor's Race

Vignarajah’s Day in Court

The Anne Arundel County Circuit Court made its first decision in Horn v. Vignarajah et al, the case on Krish Vignarajah’s eligibility to run for governor. The court granted the motion by the defendent’s (i.e. Vignarajah’s) attorney to dismiss a request for declaratory judgement by the plaintiff.

I suspect this decision will allow Vignarajah to remain on the primary ballot. There probably is not enough time between now and the primary election for the judge to hear the case and to reach an outcome.

The Vignarajah campaign has called a press conference on the steps of the Anne Arundel Circuit Court – no doubt to declare this a victory and probably to reiterate her claims that her eligibility is beyond question despite having only voted here once and repeatedly declaring her residency in D.C.

Careful observers, however, should note that the case continues. The judge made no determination on the underlying issue of her eligibility, which is also clouded by the time limit for a challenge arranged by the State Board of Elections.

The most likely outcome to the case is dismissal due it being moot after Vignarajah loses the primary. Of course, it would continue if she somehow managed to win the nomination. Her voting record and residency issues provide a buffet for Hogan in any case.

Vignarajah has heavily implied questioning of her ballot access is sexist and racist:

Vignarajah’s campaign spokeswoman, Aryn Frazier, told the Post in an email in response to the lawsuit that “Sadly, it’s no surprise that the only two candidates in this race who have had their ballot access questioned by political operatives are the two women of color.”

Except that Valerie Ervin and Krish Vignarajah’s cases are wholly different. Ervin unquestionably meets the requirements. The judge’s decision focused on the ability to reprint the ballots – not on her eligibility – and all candidates and Democrats agree that she is eligible and would have preferred fixing the ballot.

Instead of claiming sexism or racism, it’d be nice if she would fulfill her promise to release her tax returns.

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Adam Pagnucco, Nancy Navarro

Nancy Navarro’s Crane Mailer

By Adam Pagnucco.

The county government is investing a tremendous amount in Wheaton now, including constructing a new headquarters for Park and Planning and a new library and recreation center.  District 4 County Council Member Nancy Navarro is a big reason why.  She is a fierce, relentless advocate for Wheaton and makes sure the area gets its fair share of county dollars.  Your author is proud to be her constituent.

pink prom dress

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Adam Pagnucco, campaign finance, early voting

A Request for the State Board of Elections and the General Assembly

By Adam Pagnucco.

One of the purposes for the disclosure of political contributions is to help voters decide whom to support in elections.  In order to serve that role, contributions should be disclosed with enough time remaining before the election so that voters can review them before proceeding to the voting booth.  But that’s not quite the case in Maryland.

Recently, we wrote that the percentage of voters who vote early has been rising for years.  That percentage hit a high of 31% in the 2016 general election and could be between 20% and 25% in the upcoming primary.  Unfortunately for some of those voters, they will not have access to the latest campaign finance reports when they vote.  Consider the following entries on the state’s election calendar.

Primary Election

Annual 2017 campaign finance report due: 1/17/18 (11:59 PM)

Pre-primary 1 campaign finance report due: 5/22/18 (11:59 PM)

Early voting begins: 6/14/18

Pre-primary 2 campaign finance report due: 6/15/18 (11:59 PM)

General Election

Pre-general 1 campaign finance report due: 8/28/18 (11:59 PM)

Early voting begins: 10/25/18

Pre-general 2 campaign finance report due: 10/26/18 (11:59 PM)

The above calendar shows that people voting during the first two days of the early voting period will have no way to know about the contents of the last pre-election campaign finance reports when they vote.  This is potentially important because there are sometimes surprises in those last reports.  In 2014, the Baltimore Sun reported on October 26 that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown received a $500,000 loan from the Laborers Union in his final pre-general report, an unusual event that far exceeded the $6,000 limit on PAC contributions.  However, early voting started on October 23.  According to the State Board of Elections, 101,537 people voted during the first three days of early vote in the 2014 general election and would have not seen that report in the Sun.  One can easily imagine similar surprises occurring with regards to big self-funding checks, bundled corporate contributions, out-of-state PAC checks or the like.

To remedy this problem, we request that the State Board of Elections and/or the General Assembly change the due date of the final pre-election campaign finance report to 72 hours before early voting begins.  This will give the media time enough to report on anything interesting in those last reports and for voters to consider it before they head to the booth.

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Maryland Politics Watch