All posts by David Lublin

Casa de Maryland, Endorsements

CASA Issues Endorsements

casa logo
CASA has been kind enough to share their complete list of endorsements around the State. An increasingly successful and powerful group, CASA advocates for Latino and immigrant rights. In 2012, CASA played a central role in the passage of the Maryland DREAM Act by the General Assembly and then it being upheld by a wide margin in the referendum that followed.

I have attempted, as usual, to highlight all of the non-incumbents in boldface. (It’s easy to make a mistake so let me know if I did.) The order of offices is federal then statewide offices. Next are endorsements for the General Assembly and county offices, which are organized by county.

You can also find the full official lists here in English and Spanish.
Puede encontrar las listas completas aquí en inglés y español.

U.S. CONGRESS
District 2       C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger III
District 3       John P. Sarbanes
District 4       Donna F. Edwards
District 5       Steny Hoyer
District 6       John K. Delaney
District 7       Elijah Cummings
District 8       Christopher Van Hollen, Jr.

STATEWIDE
Governor/Lt. Governor: Anthony Brown/Ken Ulman
Attorney General: Brian Frosh
Comptroller: Peter Franchot

BALTIMORE COUNTY

General Assembly
District 10
House: Benjamin Brooks, Adrienne A. Jones, Carin Smith

District 11
House: Shelly Hettleman, Dana M. Stein, Don Engel

District 12 (also Howard County)
House: Eric Ebersole, Rebecca P. Dongarra, Clarence Lam

District 42
Senate: Connie DeJuliis

County Council
District 4: Kenneth N. Oliver

BALTIMORE CITY

General Assembly
District 45
Senate: Nathaniel J. McFadden
House: Cory V. McCray, Cheryl Glenn, Talmadge Branch

District 46
Senate: Bill Ferguson
House: Bill Romani, Brooke Lierman, Luke Clippinger

HOWARD COUNTY

General Assembly
District 12 (also Baltimore County)
House: Eric Ebersole, Rebecca P. Dongarra, Clarence Lam

District 13
Senate: Guy Guzzone
House: Fred Turner, Vanessa Atterbeary, Shane Pendergrass

County Sheriff: John A. Newnan

MONTGOMERY COUNTY

District 14
Senate: Karen Montgomery
House: Anne R. Kaiser, Eric Luedtke, Craig J. Zucker

District 15
Senate: Brian Feldman
House: Kathleen Dumais, David Fraser-Hidalgo, Aruna Miller

District 16
Senate: Susan Lee
House: Bill Frick, Ariana Kelly, Hrant Jamgochian

District 17
Senate: Cheryl Kagan
House: Kumar P. Barve, Jim Gilchrist, Andrew Platt

District 18
Senate: Richard Madaleno
House (four endorsed for three seats): Al Carr, Natali Fani-Gonzalez, Jeff Waldstreicher, Ana Sol Gutierrez

District 19
Senate: Roger Manno
House: Ben Kramer, Marice I. Morales, Bonnie Cullison

District 20
Senate: Jamie Raskin
House: Sheila Hixson, Will Jawando, David Moon

District 39
Senate: Nancy King
House: Charles Barkley, Kirill Reznik, Shane Robinson

County Executive: Ike Leggett

County Council
At- Large: Beth Daly, Marc Elrich, Hans Riemer
District 1: Roger Berliner
District 2: Craig Rice
District 3: Ryan Spiegel
District 4: Nancy Navarro
District 5: Tom Hucker

Board of Education
At-Large: Shebra Evans
District 1: Judy Docca
District 3: Patricia O’Neill
District 5: Michael Durso

PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY

District 21
Senate: Jim Rosapepe
House: Barbara Frush, Joseline Peña-Melnyk, Ben Barnes

District 22
Senate: Paul G. Pinsky
House: Tawanna P. Gaines, Anne Healey, Alonzo T. Washington

District 23
Senate: Douglas J. J. Peters
House: Geraldine Valentino-Smith (23A), Marvin E. Holmes (23B), Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (23B)

District 24
Senate: Joanne C. Benson
House: Carolyn J. B. Howard, Darren M. Swain, Michael L. Vaughn

District 25
Senate: Ulysses Currie
House: Angela Angel, Darryl Barnes, Dereck Davis

District 26
Senate: Anthony C. Muse
House: David Sloan, Kris Valderrama, Jay Walker

District 47
Senate: Victor Ramirez
House: Michael Summers (47A), Jimmy Tarlau (47A), Will Campos (47B)

Countywide
County Executive: Rushern Baker
County Sheriff: Melvin C. High
State’s Attorney: Angela Alsobrooks

County Council
District 1: Mary A. Lehman
District 2: Deni Taveras
District 3: Danielle Glaros
District 4: Vince Canales
District 5: Andrea Fletcher Harrison
District 6: Derrick Leon Davis
District 7: Kito James
District 8: Obie Patterson
District 9: Mel Franklin

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Endorsements, reproductive freedom

NARAL Pro-Choice Final Endorsements

NARAL_logoI’m listing them by legislative district with non-incumbents highlighted in boldface. The one Republican endorsee in District 15 has an (R) after his name.

NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland is also issuing qualified non-endorsees with their 100% Pro-Choice rating. This may devalue their endorsement, as voters will likely be oblivious to seeing one versus the other. Some incumbents who received the endorsement are less than thrilled by this tack by NARAL.

You can revisit the controversy over the non-endorsement of Natali Fani-Gonzalez for delegate in District 18 here and here.

District 3
House: Nicholas Bouquet (3A)

District 8
Senate: Kathy Klausmeier

District 9
Senate: Ryan Frederic
House: Tom Coale (9B)

District 10
Senate: Delores Kelley
House: Adrienne Jones, Robert Johnson

District 11
House: Dan Morhaim, Dana Stein

District 12
Senate: Ed Kasemeyer
House: Terri Hill, Clarence Lam, Adam Sachs

District 13
Senate: Guy Guzzone
House: Sane Pendergrass, Frank Turner

District 14
Senate: Karen Montgomery
House: Anne Kaiser, Eric Luedtke, Craig Zucker

District 15
Senate: Brian Feldman
House: Kathleen Dumais, Aruna Miller, David Fraser-Hidalgo, Ed Edmunson (R)

District 16
Senate: Susan Lee
House: Ariana Kelly, Bill Frick, Marc Korman

District 17
Senate: Cheryl Kagan
House: Kumar Barve, Jim Gilchrist, Andrew Platt

District 18
Senate: Rich Madaleno
House: Al Carr, Ana Sol Gutiérrez, Jeff Waldstreicher

District 19
Senate: Roger Manno
House: Bonnie Cullison, Ben Kramer, Marice Morales

District 20
Senate: Jamie Raskin
House: Sheila Hixson, David Moon, Jonathan Shurberg

District 21
House: Barbara Frush, Joseline Peña-Melnyk

District 22
Senate: Paul Pinsky
House: Tawanna Gaines

District 25
Senate: Ulysses Currie
House: Angela Angel, Stanley Onye

District 27
House: Sue Kullen (27C)

District 30
Senate: John Astle
House: Mike Busch (30A)

District 39
Senate: Nancy King
House: Charles Barkley, Kirill Reznik, Shane Robinson

District 40
House: Marvin “Doc” Cheatham

District 41
House: Sandy Rosenberg

District 42
Senate: Jim Brochin
House: Steve Lafferty (42A)

District 43
House: Maggie McIntosh, Mary Washington

District 46
Senate: Bill Ferguson
House: Pete Hammen, Luke Clippinger, Brooke Lierman

District 47
Senate: Victor Ramirez
House: James Tarlau (47A)

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marriage equality

Achieving Marriage Equality in Maryland

marriage winElection Night 2012

In a blog post today, Andrew Sullivan hails Freedom to Marry and attacks the Human Rights Campaign for their respective roles in the national fight for marriage equality. I’m not going to do the traditional snip from his post because you need to read the full argument to really do it justice and it’s made in the context of a scathing book review.

I have no interest in defending the book (haven’t read it, don’t plan to) in this post or the overall record of either F2M or HRC. But the record needs correction in terms of the roles that each organization played here in Maryland if only to show that the overall picture is far more nuanced than Andrew presents. I was President of Equality Maryland at the time and in a reasonable position to know much of the background, so here goes.

Freedom to Marry was a barrier to progress in Maryland. Its leader, Evan Wolfson, had absolutely no faith in our ability to win a referendum. Even after President Obama endorsed marriage equality and polls showed that support increased further in our state–strongly Democratic and with a large share of African-American voters–Evan still remained adamantly opposed.

Not only did Evan refuse to invest in Maryland but his gatekeeper role with major donors made it much harder to raise the needed funds (note: I am not the anonymous source in the linked article). Even more galling, F2M continued to send fundraising emails into Maryland but never mentioned its unwillingness to get behind the referendum effort.

In contrast, HRC played an absolutely essential role here in Maryland, providing money and people vital to support our media and organizational efforts. I know it’s not Andrew’s favorite group (understatement) but its critical role in Maryland should be acknowledged and applauded.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley also raised money and provided real leadership in the State. Of course, Equality Maryland had worked hard on this issue for a very long time and focused its efforts and resources virtually entirely on the referendum fight. Many others, such as the Maryland’s wonderful and large LGBT Caucus, the ACLU, NAACP, Latino organizations, and the unions also lent welcome and necessary support. It was a team effort.

marriage win2

We were all so happy and proud that night in 2012 when Maryland became the very first state to uphold marriage equality at the ballot box. I know Evan played a wonderfully positive role in other states and, more importantly, in building up organizational support for the overall movement. In short, he’s done a lot of good work.

But we won marriage in Maryland in spite of him.

 

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Chevy Chase, David Lublin

My Retirement

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

I wanted to let you know that I plan to step down from the Town Council this May at the end of my term. I feel very fortunate and honored to have received the trust of the people in the Town of Chevy Chase and to have had the opportunity to serve on the Council the past six years, including two as mayor.

I’m looking forward to remaining involved in the community. Thanks to Housing Unlimited, a wonderful organization that provides housing for people with psychiatric disabilities here in Montgomery County, for the privilege of letting me serve on their Board.

Though I didn’t file for reelection, I am very pleased to have been nominated for my professional association’s governing Council. I look forward to having more opportunity to focus on my research and to indulge my love of travel.

I’ve learned and gained so much from the experience–my respect for those of you who are running has increased all the more. I appreciate all of the friendship and support so many people in the Town have given me. The best part about serving on the Council is all of the great people that I have gotten to know.

Many thanks and all the best,
David

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Endorsements, MCEA, MCGEO, Montgomery County Council

SEIU Endorses Council Candidates

SEIU Local 500 has released their endorsements for Montgomery County Council Districts 1, 2, 3 and 4:

1: Roger Berliner
2: Craig Rice
3: Ryan Spiegel
4: Nancy Navarro (unopposed)

The most interesting endorsements are in Districts 1 and 3.

In District 3 (Rockville-Gaithersburg), Ryan Spiegel now has the endorsement of two major school system unions: MCEA and SEIU. Two nice endorsements in a hotly contested race with several high-quality candidates for this open seat.

In District 1, Roger Berliner has to be relieved to have received SEIU’s endorsement in his tough contest against Duchy Trachtenberg. So far, MCEA has not endorsed in that race.

The District 1 race could be shaping up as a proxy fight between the school system and county government employee unions. The latter have been mighty unhappy with the current Council and believe that the former have done comparatively well.

Roger Berliner looks among the more vulnerable Council incumbents. Duchy Trachtenberg is not labor’s ideal vehicle given her history but she is the only option if the government employee unions want to take out Berliner and exercise some muscle. Recently, Trachtenberg hired Robert Stewart, the just retired executive director of MCGEO, as her campaign manager.

High-income District 1–it includes Potomac, Bethesda and Chevy Chase–seems an unlikely locale for a labor proxy fight but stranger things have happened. Their divisions could also provide opportunities for other groups to have more influence.

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2014 Governor's Race, Gansler, polls

Thoughts on the Gansler-Ivey Poll

The Gansler-Ivey poll results are catnip for people like me who follow campaigns but also a good example of why outlets that try to estimate the current shape of election campaigns (e.g. 538, pollster.com) do not include them in their analyses.

The press release includes some interesting numbers. I was less interested in the top lines than in the report of Doug Gansler’s favorability ratings. If opinions of the AG have indeed improved since the spate of very bad press earlier this year, that would certainly be good news for the Gansler-Ivey campaign.

However, the press release was more telling for what it did not include than what it did. There is no information about the questions that were asked. One poster on Seventh State’s Facebook page claims that the questions were primed to elicit negative responses about Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown.

(Update: The Gansler campaign informs me this was not the case and that the questions about candidate ratings and horse race numbers were asked prior to the questions regarding the exchanges in any case.)

While the poll reported Gansler’s favorability ratings, it did not do the same for either Brown or Mizeur. Additionally, there are no demographic breakdowns. I’d be especially interested to know the gender, racial, and religious composition of the survey, as well as the results for these demographic groups.

This information would make it possible to answer several questions. For example, does the share of women estimated in the electorate correspond to past gubernatorial elections? Women routinely makeup a disproportionate share of Democratic primary voters in Maryland but do they in the polling sample? How strong does the poll state support is for candidates among groups whose support they might hope to consolidate?

So, while fun to read, I’ll be looking forward to the next poll reported by an outlet not associated with one of the campaigns.

Note: I’m supporting Gansler but I try to call it like I see it as is evident here.

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2014 Governor's Race, Gansler, polls

Gansler-Ivey Release Poll

I’ll try to provide more analysis later but thought I would just share the document now. It shows Brown with a 31% lead with 22% for Gansler, 8% for Mizeur, and a whopping 40% undecided–less than reported in past polls for the Post and the Sun.

The release from the campaign also highlights that Brown has a 37% positive-47% negative rating on handling the health care exchange. It also says that Gansler’s favorability ratings have increased 10 points from previous media polls to a net 46% favorable and 16% unfavorable.

Gubernatorial Poll from Gansler-Ivey Campaign

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