Baltimore City, education, Montgomery County

MoCo Delegation Protests Hogan’s Effort to Shift Money from Higher Ed to Corrections

The following is an excerpt from a letter sent by the Montgomery County legislative delegation to Governor Larry Hogan. Emphasis added.

Dear Governor Hogan:

As you know, your unilateral decision to spend $480 million on a new jail will result in unreasonable delays in funding for major projects at numerous universities. One of the projects that will be delayed by your decision to redirect funding from higher education to the Baltimore City jail is a long-planned expansion of the Universities at Shady Grove (USG) in Montgomery County. . . .

It is a sad, unfortunate and startling fact that Maryland spends more on corrections than it does on higher education. This is exacerbated by your decision to fund the Baltimore City jail over higher education. Again, we understand there is a clear need for a new correctional facility in Baltimore. However, there is a capital improvement plan already in place for such a new facility. Note that many of us would support expediting the plan given the deplorable conditions of the facility. But, expediting the entirety of the new jail facility at the expense of higher education is pure folly. Respectfully, if Maryland is “open for business,” then we must invest in higher education for many reasons, including providing an educated workforce for current and future Maryland businesses.

You can download the full letter here:

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Eighth Congressional District

Three Strategies for Winning CD8

Today, I am pleased to present a guest post from Adam Pagnucco:

With roughly ten weeks until early voting begins in the 2016 primary, candidates for Congress in District 8 are entering the home stretch. Three candidates are leading the field, and each of them has a different strategy for winning. Whichever one of these strategies is best suited for the race will play a major role in determining the winner.

And these strategies are:

Spend

Roll Call recently reported that Total Wine co-owner David Trone made a $900,000 ten-day TV and radio ad buy in early February. Bethesda Magazine’s Lou Peck wrote, “The Trone campaign is making what is known in TV ad lingo as a 600-point buy: The aim is to ensure that 80 percent of adult viewers see an ad seven times or more.” And since Trone has nearly limitless resources and has vowed to spend “whatever it takes” to win, we should expect to see more of this.

Let’s put Trone’s opening bid in context. First, in ten days, he spent more than Senator Jamie Raskin’s entire cash on hand ($869,000) and almost as much as Kathleen Matthews’ entire cash on hand ($1.1 million). Second, this one expenditure is almost equal to Chris Van Hollen’s total spending in the 2002 primary ($1.1 million). Third, it’s more than half of what Congressional District 6 candidate John Delaney paid SKD Knickerbocker for media production and ad buys ($1.7 million) in the entire 2012 primary. And there’s still three months to go.

Trone must find Delaney’s success encouraging. And he certainly has a success story to share. But this year’s CD8 race is different in many respects from the CD6 race in 2012.

  1. CD8 is jam-packed with liberal Democrats in Takoma Park, Silver Spring, Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Kensington and Wheaton, while half of CD6 is located in considerably less liberal Western Maryland. The latter district is indisputably more hospitable to self-made businessmen like Trone and Delaney.
  1. Delaney’s principal rival, then-State Senator Rob Garagiola, did not have an aggressive grassroots operation as does Senator Jamie Raskin.
  1. The 2012 campaign did not feature a prominent female candidate like Kathleen Matthews.
  1. Delaney was endorsed by Bill Clinton and the Washington Post. Trone has no obvious connection to the Clintons and we will see what the Post chooses to do.

Trone definitely has the attention of the other candidates, with Delegate Kumar Barve sending out an email titled “Fighting Big Bullies” and Raskin stating, “Public office is something you earn, not something you buy.” Trone seems likely to break local race spending records. The big question is how CD8 Democratic primary voters will respond.

Organize

Jamie Raskin has built what is probably the biggest grassroots organizing operation in the county since Van Hollen’s 2002 race. Unlike most candidates who hide their internal campaign measures, Raskin puts them out for all to see. He has adeptly grown from his Takoma Park/Silver Spring base and tapped into activist networks all over the district, aided by his legions of local elected endorsers. He has responded to Kathleen Matthews by assembling a voluminous “Women for Jamie” group. And there is little question that a huge majority of the precinct-level liberal activists are with him.

The big question about Raskin is whether the time he is spending in Annapolis will impede his campaign’s ability to grow. Raskin is a superb one-on-one and small group campaigner. No one is better in a backyard full of progressives. Unlike many people with his level of intellect, Raskin comes across as both smart AND likable – a great talent for a politician. But with Raskin tied up in the Mike Miller Senate Office Building through early April, those assets are not as deployable and they don’t transfer quite as well to television or mail.

Another question about Raskin’s network is how far it penetrates into the community. He definitely has the activist liberals who are critical for winning State Senate and Delegate races. But what about PTA officers and volunteers, civic association leaders, faith leaders and small business people? Raskin is going to be outspent by both Trone and Matthews and his network must be big enough to offset that. If it is, Raskin can corral the progressive vote and win.

Stand Out

Three, maybe four, candidates will have the resources to compete. All of them will have a progressive message. All of them will talk about standard Democratic issues that are also being raised in the presidential campaign. But only one of them is a woman and only one of them has 25 years of experience on television. That’s Kathleen Matthews.

Let’s understand that nearly 60% of Montgomery County’s electorate is female no matter how you cut the data. The Matthews campaign certainly gets that. Below is the cover of the eight-page foldout lit piece that is currently being distributed by their field operation. You don’t need to see the rest of it; the cover says it all.

Matthews Door Cover

Here’s the reaction of the regular female voter who received that piece. “It’s a nice brochure. I haven’t thought about the race. But she is certainly hitting all the right marks for me as a female Dem. I have to admit that the thought of getting another woman in Congress, particularly someone with her knowledge and high profile, is tempting.”

That’s music to the ears of the Matthews campaign.

Matthews has a quiet, but growing field operation that is now roaming the district. Unlike Raskin, the campaign does not advertise its statistics. Her real strength is going to be on television. Trone can run all the ads he wants, but none of these candidates can match Matthews’ abilities on camera. Her campaign’s weakness is that it has not had much of a local dimension to this point. But one TV ad on a hot local issue like Metro could go a long way towards remedying that. No one is better equipped than Matthews to do a film shot at a Metro station with frustrated riders, and then pivot to the camera declaring, “Metro riders deserve better. When I am elected to Congress, I’ll fight to fix Metro!” Then the riders will shout, “We’re Metro riders and we approve this message!

Folks, these are all competent campaigns and this race is turning into one for the ages. It’s going to be a great three months until the end. Enjoy the ride!

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Montgomery County Board of Education

Founder of Failed DC Charter School Enters Board of Education Race

Republican Gwendolyn Love Kimbrough is one of five candidates to have filed for the at-large Montgomery County School Board seat held by incumbent Phil Kaufman, who is seeking reelection. According to the Washington Post, Kimbrough founded a special education charter closed by the DC School Board in 2006:

D.C. school board members said last night that they will immediately take over the Jos-Arz Therapeutic Public Charter School after school leaders failed to introduce required improvements — including obtaining accreditation and providing a proper curriculum — at the special education facility. . . .

Despite the school’s early support from the council, Jos-Arz founders Rollie and Gwendolyn Kimbrough became embroiled in a longstanding dispute with the school board.

School board President Peggy Cooper Cafritz became suspicious of what she considered unusually high rent payments from the school to the nonprofit organization that owned the building and on whose board Rollie Kimbrough served. She also complained about contracts the school awarded to Gwendolyn Kimbrough’s company, American Therapeutic Services.

The Kimbroughs asserted that Cafritz and the school board sabotaged Jos-Arz by failing to refer the required number of special needs students that the school needed to survive. After losing thousands of dollars, Gwendolyn Kimbrough left her position as the school’s executive director in 2003.

As the operator of a charter school, Kimbrough has an unusual background for someone who wants to oversee MCPS. The failure of the charter school she founded does not bode well if she wants to be an effective advocate for new charters in Montgomery.

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District 14, MCDCC

Chris Bradbury’s Fake Official Webpage Gone

chrisbraburymcdccScreenshot of Bradbury’s Fake Official-Looking Webpage

UPDATE: Chris Bradbury has defended his creation of the fake official-looking webpage because:

David’s claim that competing candidates are not allowed to decide how to represent their opponents is factually incorrect. For example attack ads and other political advertisements used during a regular campaign to promote a candidate. This is protected by the bill of rights. Also, it should be mentioned that I have not “attacked” any of the candidates in this race.

Misses the point entirely, as the problem is that he cast the page as a “Montgomery County Democratic Party” page. Looks like MCDCC agreed with me, as Chris has had to take down the page. Chris also claims falsely that I wrote my post “at the direction of the Annapolis power brokers.” My words in posts that appear under my name are my own unless otherwise indicated.

……………………….

Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC) Member Chris Bradbury, a candidate for the vacant delegate seat in District 14, has now removed the fake official-looking Montgomery County Democratic Party webpage he created on his own website. The page solicited opinion on behalf of MCDCC as to who should be appointed to the vacancy.

The page was created without authorization from MCDCC. Yesterday, Bradbury’s response had been solely to correct his misspelling of “Caldwell Banking” to “Coldwell Banking” but the page was entirely gone by this morning. I imagine that MCDCC demanded that the unauthorized page be taken down.

Obviously, Bradbury did not understand that an MCDCC Member who is also a candidate should not go rogue and create an unauthorized official-looking page that presented information about his opponents as well as himself.

As of now, Bradbury is still listed as a Central Committee Member on the MCDCC website. I do not know whether Bradbury plans to remain a candidate for the vacancy or a member of the Central Committee in the wake of these disqualifying actions demonstrating astonishing poor judgement.

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District 14

Bradbury Launches Bid for Delegate Vacancy, Creates Official Looking Form on His Website

chrisbraburyfbScreenshot from Facebook

The selection of Del. Craig Zucker to fill the Senate vacancy caused by the retirement of Sen. Karen Montgomery (D-14) has opened up a vacancy in the House of Delegates. The Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC) will select Zucker’s replacement.

Four candidates are in the race. Pam Queen is Professor of Business at Morgan State and a MCDCC Member. Herman Taylor is a former delegate as well as President and CEO of Deskmate Office Products. Mark Feinroth is the Director of Regulatory Affairs at the Maryland Association of Realtors and worked previously at the Maryland Department of Labor.

MCDCC Member Chris Bradbury has also jumped into the race–a surprise as he had previously said he was going to support Queen, who also has the backing of the D14 legislative delegation. While Bradbury’s Facebook page says he is a real estate broker at Magnolia Realty, that fact is oddly not mentioned on his bio created specially for the race.

MCDCC Form is on Bradbury Webpage

Even more strangely, Bradbury appears to have placed what is designed to look like an official MCDCC form on his personal webpage. The form links to bios of the candidates, and looks like an official place for voters to give their recommendations for who should fill the delegate vacancy:

chrisbraburymcdcc

Why is this form on Bradbury’s website? I cannot imagine that MCDCC sanctioned the bad judgement of placing a form that asks voters for input on the website bearing the name of one the candidates–and mentioned on his Facebook page. Indeed, his website redirects to the delegate selection form.

This decision alone should disqualify Bradbury from being on the MCDCC let alone the House of Delegates.

Bradbury’s Bio

Here is Bradbury’s bio from the same “official” MCDCC webpage:

chrisbraburybio

Under work experience, Bradbury says impressively that he specialized in “preventing foreclosures” as an asset manager of $30,000,000 for an unnamed (!) private equity firm. Bradbury, who graduated from Blake HS in 2001, also reports that he is “enrolled” in Business Administration at Thomas Edison State College, located in Trenton, New Jersey.

Though his bio doesn’t mention his work in real estate, Bradbury states he attended the Caldwell (sic) Banker School of Real Estate last year. In the past, he sold cars at Koons Ford and worked as an organizer for Impact Silver Spring.

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US Senate

Cummings Filed for Reelection this Morning

CummingsScreenshot from Maryland State Board of Elections

As of 10am this morning, the Maryland State Board of Elections reports that Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-7) has filed for reelection. Cummings, a respected senior representative, had considered running for the U.S. Senate. He would have been a formidable candidate.

Despite his late decision, a Cummings bid seemed increasingly unlikely as time passed and other candidates raised money, campaigned and organized. His decision will free up people who had waited and would have supported Cummings to join the Edwards or Van Hollen camps.

Rep. Cummings would have had to give up his position as the leading Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee where he made a name for himself in defending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration against the endless highly partisan Benghazi investigations.

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Eighth Congressional District

Trone’s Very Bad First Day as a Candidate

GregAbbottDavid Trone spent his first day as a candidate explain his donations to Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott among others.

I imagine that David Trone hoped his first day on the campaign trail would focus more on his biography as a self-made businessman, generous philanthropist, and family man. His first day, however, was spent explaining the large donations he made to Republicans that I detailed here yesterday.

In his first press release, David Trone stated:

The way I campaign will show 8th District Democrats the kind of Representative I’ll be. First, I will not take any contributions from corporations, lobbyists, or political action committees and will limit individual contributions to $10. Voters will know I mean it when I say I won’t be beholden to anyone but them.

Like many wealthy politicians before him, Trone understands that he can use his wealth to avoid having to appeal to other wealthy men and promote an appearance of independence to the average voter. It helps that Americans generally don’t dislike the wealthy but admire and want to be them.

Except that he spent the first day undermining this message by explaining his donations to Republicans with statements in the Washington Post like:

I sign my checks to buy access.

I’ve passed more laws than most politicians.

Bill Turque reports that he corrected the second statement to explain that he had “lobbied to pass numerous laws.”

Oy.

Trone says that his financial independence will prevent him from being beholden to others. But donating very large sums puts Trone on the other end of precisely the same transactions. Put another way, if his refusal to accept large donations leaves Trone unbought, should voters regard his own donations as buying politicians?

Trone’s statement on his view of the Republicans to whom he gave major donations will only serve to increase cynicism:

We disagree categorically with their political positions on everything social and economic.

That wouldn’t seem to leave much left. Does he like the foreign policy of the many state Republicans he has supported?

Indeed, Trone disagrees strongly with Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a recipient of over $8000 of his largess, on guns. Here is David Trone’s position:

I support comprehensive gun control reform that limits access to assault weapons and expands safety regulations. We need to bring back the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, expand background checks, tighten regulation of the gun dealers, and require safe firearm storage in homes. We need to close loopholes from private sales, including gun shows. Sensible gun laws work in countries that use them.

In contrast, Abbott signed laws to allow the concealed carrying of handguns on campus and open carrying of guns in the State. Trone may have donated for his own business purposes but he also helped promote gun laws that he opposes.

When Abbott was Attorney General, he described his job as “I go into the office in the morning. I sue Barack Obama, and then I go home.” Abbott opposes the DREAM Act. Not exactly someone with whom a Democratic candidate normally wants ties.

Abbott’s relationships with donors have come under heavy scrutiny:

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) was supposed to provide funding for cancer research. But soon after its implementation, the multi-billion dollar entity was awarding grants to donors of Rick Perry and Greg Abbott without the proper review. Scientists resigned in protest, and an investigation into the activities of the fund has since resulted in a felony indictment.

Trone’s strong statement of disagreement with Abbott and other Republicans on major issues just reinforces his statement that he was buying access to lots of officials. And some may rightly or wrongly make the leap to something more, particularly in light of Trone’s braggadocio about having passed legislation.

David Trone is a real star in the wine business. He has revolutionized that industry and built a great company. His opening campaign statements do not demonstrate the same acumen.

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Eighth Congressional District

Confused Candidate Alert: Vogt Attacks Raskin–Who is Running in a Different District

Sixth District Republican Candidate David Vogt appears to think he is running against Eighth District Democratic Candidate Jamie Raskin. Yesterday, he issued a press release attacking Raskin for “dangerous political correctness”:

“Senator Raskin’s letter is evident of how dangerous and disturbing political correctness can be,” Vogt commented.  “As representatives, we owe it to our constituents to place their safety and security above all else.  Senator Raskin’s irresponsible approach would instead make Maryland a more dangerous place.”

“Until we have an effective and secure vetting process, Maryland should close its borders to anyone with potential terrorist ties.  That’s the only way we can be sure that we are keeping Marylanders safe,” Vogt concluded.

Vogt attacked Raskin for this letter, which Raskin authored and many Maryland legislators signed, to express support for Syrian refugees in the face of the fear incited by Gov. Larry Hogan and many other Republicans:

It’s easy to pick on Syrian refugees. They’re Arab. Most are Muslim. Understandably, many Americans fear terrorism and turmoil originating in that part of the world.

As Vogt likes to remind us–it’s mentioned twice at the beginning and twice again at the end of this short press release–he was a decorated marine who served this country well in Afghanistan. That honorable service and risking of life in our country’s defense deserves to be honored.

But it also takes guts to stand up in support of an unpopular and highly vulnerable group. Raskin isn’t being politically correct here. He’s standing up in support of the very ideals that we’re grateful to Vogt for defending even as I disagree with his stance here.

I’m no fan of political correctness–it’s often overbearing and tiresome. Moreover, it makes it easier for bigots like Donald Trump to brand Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals in the name of fighting political correctness.

Real leadership, however, is often not about whipping up fear but promoting calm. As John Oliver has pointed out, this country has an extensive vetting process for Syrian refugees–a fact that somehow never seems to get mentioned in these calls to keep them out.

Whatever you think of Raskin’s stance, it’s a principled one. It’s easy for leaders to go along with the majority but we should also admire when they’re willing to defend passionately and cogently a minority view. It shows a lot more political courage than Vogt’s press release.

 

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Maryland Politics Watch