Category Archives: Adam Pagnucco

Adam Pagnucco, George Leventhal, Marc Elrich

First Time Ever: Elrich Reaches Financial Parity with Leventhal

 By Adam Pagnucco.

Many things have happened over the last four election cycles, but one thing has remained constant: George Leventhal has smoked Marc Elrich in fundraising.

Not anymore.

Elrich, who is running against Leventhal, Roger Berliner and Bill Frick to be the next County Executive, just filed his first application for public financing matching funds with the state.  So far, Elrich has more in-county contributors than Leventhal (693 to 590) and has raised more money from in-county individuals ($59,717 vs $46,128).  But Leventhal has received more public funds, leaving him with a slight lead in total fundraising.  Summary data for all qualifying publicly financed candidates appears below.

This is a dramatic turn of events from the past.  Leventhal and Elrich first ran against each other in 2002 as members of slates headed by County Executive Doug Duncan and Council Member Blair Ewing respectively.  Leventhal outraised Elrich by more than 5-1 that year and was backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars more in slate money from the real estate industry.  Over the next three cycles, Leventhal raised about twice as much as Elrich.

But public financing has eroded Leventhal’s edge.  That was predictable considering that both Leventhal and Elrich have had around 600 in-county individual contributors each in both the 2010 and 2014 cycles.  The ability of a candidate to raise money in the public financing system depends solely on the number of in-county contributors he or she has.  So if two candidates have similarly sized individual donor bases, they will raise similar amounts of money.

That fact is not lost on the Leventhal campaign, which sent out the fundraising email below shortly after seeing Elrich’s report.

Leventhal is right to be concerned about Elrich’s financial success.  Leventhal finished fourth and Elrich finished first in the last two at-large council elections despite the fact that Leventhal outraised Elrich 2-1.  What happens now when the two are at financial parity?

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Adam Pagnucco, campaign finance, Council At-Large

At-Large Candidate’s Proposal Breaks Campaign Finance Laws

By Adam Pagnucco.

Council At-Large candidate Brandy Brooks, who is participating in MoCo’s public financing system, would like to help natural disaster victims.  That’s a laudable goal.  But she is proposing to spend campaign contributions to do so.  The problem is that’s illegal under state and county campaign finance laws.

On her website and on Facebook, Brooks promotes an initiative that she calls “Power 100,” in which she invites 100 contributors to donate a combined $2,500 to her campaign, half of which would be paid out to a number of charities helping natural disaster victims.  The charities include organizations helping victims of Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, a mudslide in Sierra Leone and floods in South Asia.

Brooks supporter Ed Fischman went a step further in a posting on the Our Revolution in Montgomery County Facebook page, asserting that public matching funds would be used for disaster relief.  To be fair, it’s unclear whether Fischman speaks for Brooks and Brooks has not yet qualified for public matching funds.

State and county campaign finance laws prohibit these kinds of expenditures.  According to the State Board of Elections’ Summary Guide, there must be a nexus between campaign account expenditures and the promotion of a candidate’s campaign for those expenditures to be legal.  The guide specifically addresses charitable contributions, stating:

Generally, campaign funds may not be used solely for charitable purposes. Maryland law requires campaign funds to be used for the purpose of supporting or opposing a candidate, question, or political committee. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that contributors give to campaign committees for one important reason – they want to support the committee’s candidate, question, or political party. When campaign funds are spent for a non-campaign related purpose, it frustrates the intent of the contributor.

However, there are instances when a charitable donation is permissible because it is for a campaign purpose. For example, a candidate may permissibly use campaign funds to attend a charitable event since attending the event increases the candidate’s visibility and allows the candidate to network with potential voters and donors.

ง 13-247 of state election law does allow certain kinds of charitable contributions to be made by accounts that are closing and liquidating their assets, a case that clearly does not apply to Brooks.

Additionally, Montgomery County’s public campaign financing law states, “A participating candidate may only use the eligible contributions and the matching public contribution for a primary or general election for expenses incurred for the election.”  This statement is repeated in the county’s summary of the law.  No one could construe helping disaster relief victims as a primary or general election expense.  It’s noteworthy that the county’s language applies not just to public funds but also to individual contributions made under the public financing program.

Your author really hated to write this blog post but it had to be done.  Generally speaking, when we have examined campaign finance issues in the past, we have sometimes seen behavior that may not be ethical but is legal.  This case is the opposite: what Brooks is doing comes from the best of intentions but does not comply with the law.  Brooks is free to discuss the plight of disaster victims all she wants.  She could also organize a private fundraiser for victims separate from her campaign account.  But if she goes ahead and uses her campaign funds for disaster relief contributions, she will risk sanctions from the state, the county or both.

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Adam Pagnucco, Ike Leggett, Minimum Wage

Will There Be a Deal on MoCo’s Minimum Wage?

By Adam Pagnucco.

The question of whether Montgomery County will have a $15 minimum wage has simmered for months.  After County Executive Ike Leggett vetoed Council Member Marc Elrich’s bill last January, the county commissioned an ill-fated study on the effects of a wage hike that has been discredited.  But Elrich, not waiting for any study, introduced a new bill that was little different from his previous one.  The Executive has now announced his terms for signing it.  We reprint his letter to the council below.

We summarize the differences between the bill and the Executive’s terms below.

Advocates for the bill reacted harshly to the Executive’s letter.  They sent out the following press release today.

*****

Economists, Community and Labor Groups Slam Executive Leggett Memo Say: “No More Delay Tactics, Working Families Need a Strong $15 Minimum Wage Now”

After Failed Study, Leggett Makes 2nd Attempt to Deny Low-Wage Workers a Living Wage

Rockville, MD- A coalition of economists, community and labor groups today condemned Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett over his memo requiring County Council members to follow a set of criteria that would dramatically weaken Council’s $15 minimum wage legislation. The group also demanded that Leggett suspend his attempts to amend an irredeemable study and sign a strong bill before the end of session. Leggett’s minimum wage “study,” was widely criticized and eventually halted by the Executive himself.

The statement below is attributable to Maryland Working Families, the National Employment Law Project (NELP), 32BJ SEIU, Jews United for Justice, Progressive Maryland and CASA.

“In one of the nation’s wealthiest counties, County Executive Leggett is making a second attempt to avoid raising the wage like so many other economically prosperous cities have done successfully. His youth exemption would keep thousands of working men and women under the age of 20 in poverty, leaving them to continue struggling to support themselves and their families. County residents are counting on the Council and the Executive to resist corporate lobbyists whose self-interests are out-of-sync with the needs of working families. It’s time to stop looking for excuses and raise the minimum wage by passing and signing a clean bill, without delayed implementation or exemptions.”

Research has shown that overwhelmingly, cities that have raised the wage have not experienced job loss and the local economy continues to prosper. Moreover, a wage increase can reduce reliance on public assistance from a safety net that faces extreme cuts from the Trump administration, placing a heavier burden on local taxpayers.

With more than 163,000 members in 11 states, including 18,000 in the D.C. Metropolitan Area, 32BJ SEIU is the largest property service workers union in the country.

*****

So will there be a deal?  Under normal circumstances, the answer is yes.  The Executive is recommending a combination of delays and relatively modest adjustments for some categories of workers.  He is not proposing a fundamental overhaul of the bill.  A properly functioning legislative process would smooth out these details, probably by splitting the differences, and result in a 9-0 vote and a signed bill.  That’s how Rockville works most of the time.

But the circumstances are anything but normal.  Three Council Members are running for Executive and five more are running for reelection next year.  The two Council Members who are Executive candidates and are sponsoring the bill must decide if they prefer a signed bill or a campaign issue.  The bill advocates must decide whether they want another upheld veto which would cause further delay and take their chances with a new Executive and council.  These decisions, which are ultimately political in nature, will determine whether there is a deal on minimum wage.

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Adam Pagnucco, Council District 1, Facebook

Friedson Rules Social Media in District 1

By Adam Pagnucco.

Political handicapping is a very subjective exercise.  That said, there are a handful of objective measures that give clues to the state of a race: fundraising, endorsements, surrogates, communications (like number of mailers sent and TV time purchased), and more.  The jury is still out on the importance of social media followers.  But if Facebook followings matter at all, Andrew Friedson is waaaaaay ahead on that measure in the Council District 1 election.

As of Monday, September 11, here are the Facebook followers on each of the District 1 candidates’ campaign pages.

Andrew Friedson: 4,822

Pete Fosselman: 461

Bill Cook: 224

Reggie Oldak: 154

Other candidates: no pages

That’s right, Friedson has almost six times as many followers as his competitors COMBINED.  And they have all been running for months before he got in.

One reason why Facebook followers are discounted by many is that they don’t reflect actual voters in the relevant jurisdiction.  They can come from all over Planet Earth.  So your author asked Friedson to provide a geographic distribution of his Facebook followers.  According to data from his page, roughly two-thirds of Friedson’s followers reported cities of residence.  Of those, 1,490 lived in Maryland, 971 lived in MoCo and 462 lived in the District 1 areas of Bethesda, North Bethesda, Potomac and Kensington.  An additional 700 reported living in D.C., but some of those people could actually live in the Maryland suburbs.

This is an impressive campaign page following for someone who just declared for the race a month ago.  It reflects Friedson’s ability to tap into a number of networks, including his friends and family as a MoCo native; his college network from the University of Maryland (where he was a class President); his professional network from his time as an aide to Comptroller Peter Franchot and Congressional candidate David Trone; and his non-profit networks stemming from his service as a Board Member on the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and the MoCo Collaboration Council for Children, Youth and Families.  These are real assets for any candidate for office.  And Friedson can leverage them through social media to raise money, spread his message and build name recognition in a way the other candidates can’t (yet) match.

Reggie Oldak has shown early success in the public campaign finance system but Andrew Friedson is off to a fast start.  Let the rest of the field beware!

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Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large, George Leventhal, Hans Riemer, Hoan Dang, Marc Elrich, State Board of Elections

Updated: Preliminary Fundraising Totals in Public Campaign Financing, September 2017

By Adam Pagnucco.

This morning, we posted preliminary fundraising totals for candidates in public financing.  But one of those reports was wrong because of a problem with the State Board of Elections’ processing software.  This post contains updated information.

Shortly after our original post, we received the following communication from Council At-Large candidate Hoan Dang’s campaign.

Hi Adam, this is Jonathon Rowland, campaign manager for Hoan Dang.  Thank you for the article this morning.  I just want to correct the amount stated.  When we filed with the Board of Elections, our report was duplicated because of a glitch in the system giving us double the amount of donations.  We have been in contact with the Board of Elections since Monday to resolve this issue.  The actual amount of donations is 316.

When your author called Rowland for more details, he said that the Dang campaign found the error first and asked the board to correct it.  Board staff acknowledged the mistake and said that they were working with their IT developer to fix it going forward.  No public funds were ever distributed before the Dang campaign caught the mistake.

Including information provided by Dang’s campaign today, here is the updated comparison of the five campaigns who have applied for public financing.

Dang is not the leader in public financing.  George Leventhal, who is running for Executive, is the overall leader in qualifying contributors and receipts.  (Executive candidates get higher match rates than council candidates.)  Among the council candidates, incumbent Hans Riemer leads in qualifying contributors and Bill Conway leads in matching funds.  This should not discount a strong performance by Dang, whose financial numbers are not terribly different from Riemer’s.

Going forward, we hope the state prevents the kinds of mistakes that affected Dang’s campaign.  In the initial glitchy filing, Dang supposedly requested $148,328 in public matching funds.  (Again, the IT glitch was not Dang’s fault.)  In the updated filing, Dang requested $74,144 in public matching funds.  That’s a $74,184 difference.  If Dang had not caught the mistake, could that difference have conceivably been paid out?  There’s no evidence available on that point.  But for the good of public confidence in the county’s public financing system, we hope such a mistake never happens.

On a different issue, we asked what happened to Council Member Marc Elrich’s filing for public matching funds in our original post.  Elrich said he had enough contributors to qualify back in June but has not filed yet.  When asked about it on Leventhal surrogate Saqib Ali’s Facebook page, Elrich said his delay in filing was related to a payment his campaign had made to the county party, which was subsequently ruled to not be in compliance with public financing requirements.  We reprint Elrich’s statement below.

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Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large, George Leventhal, Hans Riemer, Hoan Dang, Marc Elrich

Preliminary Fundraising Totals in Public Campaign Financing, September 2017

By Adam Pagnucco.

Correction: The numbers for Hoan Dang in this post are inaccurate.  For updated numbers on Dang and a response by Marc Elrich, please visit our updated post.

One of the virtues of public campaign financing is the rapid release of financial reports for participating candidates.  That’s right, folks – for this group of candidates, there is no need to wait until January to see fundraising numbers.  That’s because when they qualify for public matching funds and request them from the state, their financial reports are released almost immediately.  This is terrific for all data junkies like your author as well as inquiring minds among the readers!

Below is a summary for the five candidates who have applied to receive matching funds from the state.  Bear in mind the following characteristics of the data.  First, the number of qualifying contributors means the number of contributors who live in Montgomery County.  Non-residents can contribute up to $150 each but the state will not authorize matching funds for them.  Second, the individual contribution amounts are the basis on which the state determines how much in public matching funds will be released.  Third, the date of cash balance is important because it varies depending on when the applications were sent in.  That is unlike the regular reporting dates on which financial positions are summarized at the same time for all candidates.  And fourth, for those candidates who have only filed once (which includes everyone except George Leventhal), the cash balances do not include public funds from the state.  To estimate the cash positions of those candidates, the cash balance should be added to the public matching funds they requested.

What do we make of this?

1.  Let’s start with the obvious: there are a lot of small checks out there!  While many contributors are probably donating to more than one of these five campaigns, it’s not a stretch to say that close to a thousand people will have contributed by some point in the near future.  It’s hard to make comparisons with the past without exquisitely detailed research to back it up (anyone want to pay us for that?) but our hunch is that this is a larger early donor pool than in prior cycles.

2.  The big story here is Council At-Large candidate Hoan Dang.  At-Large Council Members George Leventhal (who is running for Executive) and Hans Riemer (the only incumbent running for reelection) have a combined 22 years of representing the whole county.  But Dang had more in-county contributors than either one of them!  How does that happen?  Dang ran for Delegate in District 19 in 2010.  He was financially competitive, raising $103,418, but he finished fifth out of six candidates.  There was no reason going into this race to believe that Dang would receive more grassroots financial support than Leventhal or Riemer.  But so far, he has.

3.  Dang is not the only story.  Look at first-time candidate Bill Conway, who collected more private funds than Riemer primarily by having a larger average contribution.  In most elections, challengers struggle to be financially competitive with incumbents.  But the early performances of Conway and Dang relative to Riemer suggest that, at least among publicly-financed candidates, some or all of that gap may be closed.  Our hunch is that a group of at-large candidates will all hit the public matching funds cap of $250,000 and therefore have similar budgets heading into mail season.  The big question will then become how those totals compare to what candidates in the traditional system, like Marilyn Balcombe, Charlie Barkley, Ashwani Jain and Cherri Branson, will raise.

4.  Where is Marc Elrich?  The three-term at-large Council Member and Executive candidate announced that he had qualified for matching funds back in June at roughly the same time that Leventhal and Riemer said the same.  Riemer followed up by filing for matching funds and Leventhal did it twice.  Why hasn’t Elrich filed more than two months after his announcement?  One suspects that the bewildering paperwork requirements of public financing are responsible for the delay, but political types are starting to chatter about it.

That’s all for now.  Candidates, keep those reports coming in so your favorite blog has more material for the readers!

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Adam Pagnucco, Aruna Miller

How Much Will Emily’s List Spend in CD6?

By Adam Pagnucco.

Recently, Emily’s List announced its endorsement for CD6 candidate Aruna Miller, a move seen as significant in that race.  Emily’s List’s Super PAC, Women Vote, has made millions of dollars in independent expenditures (IE) in federal races over the last five cycles.  But how effective are they?

Let’s start in Maryland.  In 2016, Emily’s List invested in three federal candidates: Donna Edwards (U.S. Senate), Joseline Peña-Melnyk (CD 4) and Kathleen Matthews (CD8).  The group had an impact: they accounted for at least a million dollars in TV spending for Edwards and basically assumed the bulk of mail duty for Matthews.  But all three candidates lost, with Edwards finishing second in the primary and Pena Melnyk and Matthews finishing third (despite both having the Washington Post endorsement).  The group spent $3.2 million of IE funds on behalf of the three candidates, including $2.9 million for Edwards.  Edwards’ amount was one of the largest single-race investments made by Emily’s List in the 2016 cycle.  Data for the group’s IE spending in Maryland appears below.

Now let’s examine the group’s IE spending nationwide in 2016.  The group invested in 23 races, winning 7 and losing 15.  In the remaining race (Florida CD9), the group’s original pick lost in the Democratic primary, but they then spent on behalf of the Democratic nominee, who won in the general.  Let’s call that one a draw.  It’s important to note that Emily’s List did not spend in every race in which it endorsed.  Data for the group’s IE spending nationwide in the 2016 cycle appears below.

What can be learned from the results of Emily’s List’s chosen races?  Although their win rate and their experience in Maryland are not impressive, they had some notable successes.  Perhaps their biggest win was helping to knock out freshman Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte (NH) in a razor-tight win for then-Governor Maggie Hassan.  Emily’s List spent $3.2 million against Ayotte.  They also spent $3.6 million to hold Harry Reid’s Senate seat in Nevada, helping to boost Catherine Cortez Masto to victory.  But besides Ayotte, they tried and failed to knock out seven other GOP incumbents, spending $6.9 million on those races.  These were not crazy bets – GOP Senators Pat Toomey (PA) and Richard Burr (NC) were thought to be vulnerable at the time – but they did not work out.

In U.S. House races, Emily’s List spent an average of $218,675 per contest.  The group’s highest single IE in a House race was a combined $881,880 to defeat freshman New York GOP Congressman Lee Zeldin, who beat the group’s candidate by 16 points.  In many House races, the group spent less than $100,000, which was probably not enough to make a difference.  Maryland and New York are the only states in which the group lost three races.  We would not blame Emily’s List if they decided not to throw more money our way!

What does all of this mean for CD6?  The 2018 elections, in which opposition to Donald Trump is likely to play a significant part, may very well contain more opportunities for Emily’s List and other progressive groups to score victories against the GOP than in 2016.  That could draw Emily’s List’s money away from a blue-state primary like CD6 and into districts where GOP incumbents are vulnerable.  The group may also consider David Trone’s nearly unlimited finances, which helped outpoll their chosen candidate in CD8 last year, and conclude that it’s not worth opposing him again.  All of this means the group could do one of two things.  First, it could make a modest investment in CD6, perhaps a couple hundred thousand dollars at most.  That would only make a difference in a close race.  Or second, as it has done in many races over the years, it could invest nothing at all.

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Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large

First Impressions, Part Four

By Adam Pagnucco.

Seth Grimes, Takoma Park

Former Takoma Park City Council Member Seth Grimes’s edge is his experience.  Other than incumbent Hans Riemer and Delegate Charles Barkley (D-39), Grimes is the only candidate in the field who has served in elected office so far.  During his two terms in office (2011-2015), Grimes passed legislation allowing 16-year-olds to vote in municipal elections as well as banning environmentally harmful pesticides and polystyrene containers.  The latter two bills were models for similar county legislation.  He also pushed for better management practices in the city both before and after he started serving on the council.

In person, Grimes comes across as studious and tremendously substantive.  Those qualities are present in such abundance that he can struggle to convey ideas in layman’s terms.  He can go into significant detail on his favorite subjects, including affordable housing, food security, reducing poverty and municipal tax duplication.  On many other subjects, Grimes can relate them to his work in the city.  As a provider of many more services than a lot of Maryland municipalities (including a full service police department), the city provides a good laboratory for understanding the functions and problems of county government.

One major plus for your author is that Grimes is a blogger.  (Folks, we bloggers are sorely misunderstood and must stick together in the face of a sometimes unforgiving world!)  His blog shows a person who is fact-oriented, careful, versed in policy and extremely well informed.  It’s obvious that he would be ready to serve on the County Council from day one.  That fact alone makes him worthy of consideration for your vote.

Ashwani Jain, Potomac

Former Obama administration official Ashwani Jain has an inspiring story.  He is a first generation American whose father came here from India years ago with no connections and built a thriving family jewelry business.  He is also a cancer survivor, having contracted the disease at age 13 and undergone chemotherapy.  Jain understands the American dream as well as personal tragedy.  Lots of people will relate to him.

Jain’s claim to fame is his association with President Obama, dating from his volunteering for him ten years ago and ultimately culminating in positions at the White House and the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development.  He is part of the local Obama network that also includes Council Member Hans Riemer, Delegate Marc Korman, former Maryland Obama Director Jason Waskey, former Delegate candidate Kyle Lierman, former MCDCC Member Oscar Ramirez and fellow at-large council candidate Will Jawando.  But Jain is not just a national-level person – he is also a native of the county and has lived in several parts of it, both east and west.  That gives him a gut-level knowledge of the county that most transplants don’t have.

Jain’s policy views on land use and budgetary issues are not well developed, though he does favor transit projects like the Purple Line and the BRT system, he supports a $15 minimum wage, he believes the county should be a sanctuary jurisdiction and he emphasizes the need for affordable housing.  He also thinks the county should consider ending its liquor monopoly.  But perhaps the biggest reason why voters will like him in addition to his Obama experience is his appealing personality.  Simply put, it is virtually impossible to dislike him.  That’s a major asset for any politician.  Local activists don’t know him yet, but he could really surprise people before this race is over.

That’s it for now, folks.  As we meet more candidates, we may renew this series in the future!

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Adam Pagnucco, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, SEIU, SEIU Local 500

SEIU Targets Senator Shirley Nathan-Pulliam for Defeat

By Adam Pagnucco.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of Maryland’s most powerful labor unions, has targeted District 44 Senator Shirley Nathan-Pulliam for defeat by running one of their own against her.  Aletheia McCaskill, a rank-and-file leader in SEIU Local 500, is announcing her challenge to the incumbent on Saturday.  Nathan-Pulliam has antagonized SEIU and several other progressive organizations by dragging her heels on last session’s sick leave bill, which she ultimately voted for.

Several things make this race interesting.

1.  SEIU has a record of defeating Senate incumbents, including Nat Exum and David Harrington (Prince George’s County), Rona Kramer (Montgomery County) and George Della (Baltimore City). Their negative mail against Exum was particularly devastating.

One of at least seven anti-Exum mailers from SEIU.

2.  Nathan-Pulliam has not had a truly competitive election in her entire career. She walked into her current Senate seat after the incumbent retired and had five straight cakewalk House races before that.  She is also not a great fundraiser, raising $77,695 in the 2006 cycle, $72,363 in the 2010 cycle and $124,732 in the 2014 cycle.  She reported $33,533 in the bank in January.  Those are easy numbers for a big organization like SEIU to overcome.

3.  Many labor organizations have supported Nathan-Pulliam over the years, including AFT Maryland, MSEA, the Fire Fighters, the Police, UFCW Local 400, several building trades local unions, the AFL-CIO and SEIU. Those unions have given her more than $30,000 over the last four cycles.  How many of them will follow SEIU’s lead and dump the incumbent?

SEIU endorses Nathan-Pulliam in 2014.

4.  Nathan-Pulliam has not represented many of her current constituents all that long. True, she has been in office since 1994.  But her district has changed substantially since then.  District 44 now includes a portion of the western part of Baltimore City along with Lochearn, Woodlawn, Catonsville and the areas around US-40 and I-70 in Baltimore County.  Prior to that, Nathan-Pulliam represented District 10.  During the 2000s, District 10 did not include any part of the City and during the 1990s, the City portions it did include are not part of today’s District 44.  This somewhat erodes the advantage a decades-long incumbent would normally have.

5.  At age 78, Nathan-Pulliam could decide not to fight SEIU and simply retire.

We reprint McCaskill’s kickoff announcement below.

*****

Event: Working Families Democrat and SEIU Union Leader Aletheia McCaskill announces a Democratic primary challenge in Maryland’s 44th State Senatorial District

Date:  September 9, 2017, 2:00-4:00

Where: Karate Family Center 1101 N. Rolling Road, Catonsville, MD 21228

Aletheia McCaskill is a wife, mother, activist and advocate who has owned her own small business providing early learning child care services to the residents of West Baltimore and Western Baltimore County for over 20 years.  She got involved on issues of economic justice such as the fight for fair wages and earned sick leave legislation because of the reality she saw in the lives of the families whose children she provided care for.  She has been the Statewide Political Member Leader for the largest Maryland local in the Service Employees International Union and has been a leader in the fight in Baltimore and Annapolis to pass the Women’s Economic Security Agenda- a package of bills aimed at  providing some measure of economic stability for the working families of the 44th.  Aletheia believes that the 44th District deserved a choice, she wants to be our voice in Annapolis fighting for stronger schools and for finally giving our Seniors the services and facilities WITHIN the 44th, that they deserve.

https://www.mccaskill44.com/

For Press or scheduling, please contact:

Mark Jason McLaurin, Political Director

SEIU Local 500

901 Russell Avenue, Suite 300

Gaithersburg, MD 20879

(301) 740-7100 – Voice

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Adam Pagnucco, Council At-Large

First Impressions, Part Three

By Adam Pagnucco.

Danielle Meitiv, Silver Spring

Danielle Meitiv is from Queens.  You can hear it in her voice.  But she is also quintessentially MoCo.  Our county is full of people who moved here from somewhere else and are principally concerned with national or international issues.  Some keep up with local issues and vote regularly, but many others have little idea who their state or county elected officials are.  Meitiv was once in the former group.  But then she had a Great Awakening.

We are of course referring to Meitiv’s international fame as the Free Range Mom, during which she battled – and defeated – MoCo’s Child Protective Services (CPS).  Nearly everyone in the county has heard the story of how CPS detained Meitiv’s children for walking alone in public and how her family fought back.  For Meitiv, the incident drove home the importance of local government and the unequal resources possessed by residents who have to deal with its bad side.  It left a permanent mark on a person who was once little different from so many other MoCo voters.

In many ways, Meitiv is a conventional county liberal.  The issues she brings up – BRT, walkable neighborhoods, the Purple Line, civil rights, climate change – are mostly the same as the other at-large candidates.  But Meitiv adds something else: her calls for greater transparency and responsiveness by county government based on her own searing experience with CPS.  Few voters have gone through what she did, but virtually everyone has a story to tell of unresponsive bureaucracy and/or unresponsive elected officials.  That plus Meitiv’s appealing combination of passion and intelligence make her relatable and brings potential to her run for office.

Chris Wilhelm, Chevy Chase

MoCo has a reputation as the most progressive county in Maryland.  But Chris Wilhelm doesn’t think we are progressive enough.  He writes on his website, “Yes, the biggest threat to our progressive priorities is coming from the current occupant of the White House and Republicans in Congress.  But too many leaders in our County and Party act in ways that go against the progressive agenda that residents are demanding.”

Wilhelm sees many local issues as reflections of national issues.  Senator Bernie Sanders, whom Wilhelm admires, made free college a key element of his platform.  Wilhelm thinks the state and the county should do everything they can to make Montgomery College free for county residents.  After all, if deep-red Garrett County is doing it, why can’t we?  He supports Roger Berliner’s fossil fuel divestment bill because he sees it as a way for MoCo to contribute to a nationwide movement towards clean energy.  He deplores corporate welfare for big companies and favors local support for small businesses both across the country and here at home.  And his demand that all county candidates enroll in public financing is rooted in a belief that corporate campaign money is a problem both nationally and locally.

Wilhelm has two advantages over his competitors.  First, he is an ESOL teacher in MCPS.  He can speak in very detailed, compelling terms about the school system – always a huge issue in local races – and the things it can do to improve.  Second, he has more campaign experience than most of his rivals, having worked in the field for Barack Obama (2008) and David Moon (2014).  The principles of how to run an effective campaign are not new to him.

Chris Wilhelm is clearly positioning himself in the most liberal part of the field.  If you want a serious, thoughtful progressive who will help move the council to the left, you should give him a close look.

We will conclude in Part Four.

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