Category Archives: Adam Pagnucco

Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County

MoCo’s Two Electorates, Part Two

By Adam Pagnucco.

In Part One, we began contrasting MoCo’s Two Electorates: namely, the Democratic primary voters who pick our elected officials, and the general election voters who decide charter amendments and ballot questions.  Today we present new data on the two electorates from the voter file.

We have integrated the January 2015 voter file available from the county’s Board of Elections with a variety of U.S. Census demographic data to analyze two groups of MoCo voters.  The first group, whom we call “Super Dems,” are those Democrats who voted in all three of the county’s 2006, 2010 and 2014 primaries.  The second group, whom we call “Super Generals,” are those voters from all parties who voted in both the 2008 and 2012 presidential general elections.  We would have also included 2004 voters if we could have, but the voter file doesn’t go back that far.  Presidential general election voters are relevant to this year, which is also a presidential year in which term limits are on the ballot.

Let’s look at a few demographics for Super Dems and Super Generals.

Party Affiliation

party-affiliation-two-groups

Super Dems are, of course, 100% Democrats.  Super Generals are 60% Democratic, 21% Republican and 18% others (most unaffiliated voters).  This matches the distribution of general election votes referenced in Part One.

Gender

gender

Both groups are majority female, with women being a slightly higher share of Super Dems.

Age

age

Super Dems skew towards seniors, with an average age of 64.  Super Generals are much more diverse on this measure, with an average age of 55.  While 19% of Super Generals are below age 40, only 3% of Super Dems are.  And while 63% of Super Dems are age 60 or older, only 39% of Super Generals are.  This means that while young voters are a meaningful voting bloc in general elections, they generally are not in MoCo Democratic primaries.  The difference in average date of voter registration in the county further emphasizes the deeper roots Super Dems have in MoCo than Super Generals.

Average Household Income

average-household-income

This is not a significant differentiator between the two groups, although this data masks real differences in residence geography.

Residence Type

residence-type

This is also not a significant differentiator.  Both groups overwhelmingly live in single family homes and a big majority of them are probably home owners.

Location of Residence

location-of-residence

Super Dems are more likely to live in Downcounty locations like Takoma Park, Chevy Chase, Bethesda, Kensington and Silver Spring while Super Generals are more spread out, including in Upcounty communities like Clarksburg, Damascus, Germantown and Montgomery Village.  This has ideological implications.  In this year’s Congressional District 8 primary, the very progressive Jamie Raskin ran up his biggest margins inside and near the Beltway, while the more moderate David Trone did best in northern areas.

District of Residence

district-of-residence

Once again, the geographic split between the two groups is obvious.  Fifty-four percent of Super Dems can be found in the two liberal strongholds of Council Districts 1 and 5, while Super Generals are more geographically balanced.  This may help explain why three of four At-Large Council Members come from Takoma Park.

Precinct Demographics

precinct-demographics

Race and ethnicity are not available from voter registration data, but we can examine those factors for the precincts in which voters live.  By this measure, Super Generals appear to be slightly more diverse than Super Dems.  This suggests a need for more outreach to people of color by the Democratic Party, which should be their natural home.

We will conclude in Part Three.

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Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery County

MoCo’s Two Electorates, Part One

By Adam Pagnucco.

Montgomery County voters are some of the most progressive people in the nation.  They elect only Democrats, and almost all very liberal ones.  They celebrate diversity and respect civil rights.  They support a large, active government that passes liberal laws, provides excellent schools and generous social services and has extensive environmental programs.  Perhaps most importantly, they are willing to pay the taxes that support all of this.

Is the above a true statement?  Yes.  And maybe no.  It all depends on which electorate you’re talking about.  Montgomery County has two of them.

The first electorate is comprised of those Democrats who vote in the closed primaries for County Executive, County Council and members of the General Assembly.  Many of these are liberals who vote for candidates with similar views.  Indeed, there is an old aphorism that it’s nearly impossible to run too far to the left in MoCo elections.  Most elected officials here regard these voters as their political base and tend to be highly responsive to them.

But there is a second electorate: those residents who vote in general elections.  These voters come from all political parties and have significant ideological diversity.  For the most part, they tend not to reject the nominees of the Democratic Party for local and state office.  (The last Republican elected officials here were defeated ten years ago.)  But they can and do weigh in on charter amendments and ballot questions, and they do not always behave in accordance with the county’s progressive reputation.

This blog series examines the differences between these two electorates on the eve of the general election, when a landmark ballot question on term limits will be decided.  Of the two electorates, only one – the general election voters – will decide whether term limits will pass.

First, we examine the party composition of the two electorates.  The Democratic primary voters are of course 100% Democrats since Maryland uses closed primaries.  The general election voters are roughly 60% Democratic, slightly more than 20% Republican and slightly less than 20% unaffiliated or members of other parties.

party-affiliation

Are liberals a majority of the general electorate?  That’s hard to say, but a little math can help.  If just a fifth of the Democrats, who comprise 60% of general election voters, are not liberals, then a majority of the general electorate would probably not be liberal.  (There are a handful of Green Party members in MoCo, but not enough to change the basic math here.)  So while a majority of Democratic primary voters may be liberal, it’s difficult to apply that characterization to the entire electorate.

Another factor that can be easily seen from the data above is the relative size of the electorates.  There are about three times as many voters in gubernatorial general elections as there are in gubernatorial Democratic primaries.  Presidential general election voters outnumber gubernatorial primary Democrats by five to one.  So while Democratic primary voters pick our elected officials, the presidential general voters are a much closer gauge of the political sentiments of the entire community.

We will begin contrasting MoCo’s two electorates in Part Two.

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Adam Pagnucco, early voting

A Critical Error in Early Voting

By Adam Pagnucco.

On Saturday, I was given a ballot by election officials at the Wheaton early voting site that would have allowed me to vote for John Sarbanes for Congress.  The problem is that I live in Jamie Raskin’s district.  And after I posted the story on Facebook, three friends of mine said that similar things happened to them.  This incident points to a significant flaw in the early voting system that needs to be addressed.

To understand what happened, let’s review how the early voting system works.  A key difference between early voting and election day voting is that voters are allowed to use any early voting site in their county regardless of where they live.  So unlike election day voting at a precinct location, election officials at early voting sites are responsible for making sure that voters get ballots reflecting the districts in which they live.

The first step in early voting is a check-in, during which a staffer verifies a voter’s identity and gives the voter a registration slip indicating his or her precinct and district information.  Next, the voter proceeds to a table at which another staffer checks the registration slip and gives the voter an appropriate ballot.  The voter then fills out the ballot in a booth and proceeds to a scanning device, where the registration slip is collected and the ballot is inserted, scanned and retained.  Lastly, the much-desired “I Voted” stickers are disbursed.

In my case, I checked in, got a registration slip reflecting my information accurately and was given a ballot.  When I started marking the ballot, I noticed that one of my choices for Congress was John Sarbanes.  That was a problem since I don’t live in his district – I live in Congressional District 8, home of Jamie Raskin.  I returned to the ballot table and told them I had the wrong ballot.  Upon checking, the election staffer said, “Good catch,” gave me a new ballot and told me to take my old ballot to a different area.  Acting on instructions, I marked the old ballot as spoiled, folded it in half and put it in an envelope containing other spoiled ballots.  I asked the election staff what would have happened had I indeed voted for Sarbanes.  They said they didn’t know.

Once I told the story on Facebook, two of my friends told me that they were initially given the wrong ballots by staffers at early voting, but the mistakes were caught before they could bring the ballots to the voting booth.  A third friend said she was given a wrong ballot and, like me, she returned it to the staff to get a correct ballot.  This latter incident happened during the primary.

These were honest mistakes, and whenever human beings are involved in a process like this, mistakes happen.  The problem from a systemic perspective is that there is insufficient redundancy built in to prevent and correct these mistakes.  Once the ballot staffer gives a voter a ballot, there is no person other than the voter who can make sure that the ballot is the correct one.  By the time the voter approaches the scanner, there is no way to be sure that the ballot accurately reflects that voter’s districts.  And when the ballot is scanned, it’s too late to tell because there is nothing on the ballot itself identifying the precinct of the voter who cast it.  For all anyone knows, that ballot is accurately counted.  A paper recount would not find otherwise.  Worst of all, there is no way to track these mistakes.  Unless people like me report their experiences, it would be hard to know that this problem is occurring at all.

The result of all this is that an unknown number of ballots are being cast for candidates by voters who do not live in their districts.  The scale of that problem is mitigated somewhat because this is a presidential year, and the only variability in this county’s ballots occurs between the three Congressional Districts.  But in a mid-term year, there will be elections in five County Council districts and eight state legislative districts in addition to the three Congressional Districts.  There will be many ballot permutations reflecting voters who live in different configurations of these districts.  So the potential for mistakes is much higher.  Relying on individual voters to prevent these mistakes is not an adequate solution.

It’s too late to correct these errors for the ballots already cast, and unless election officials act immediately, it may be too late to clean up the process for this election.  But there is time to build safeguards into the system for the 2018 elections, during which the issue will be even more critical.  The State Board of Elections and their overseers in the General Assembly need to make sure that this problem gets fixed.

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Adam Pagnucco, Bethesda, George Leventhal, Lobbying

Leventhal Blasts the Dumbest Lobbying Campaign of All Time

By Adam Pagnucco.

On the evening of October 20, a representative of Clark Enterprises (Bob Eisenberg) appeared before the Montgomery County Council to testify on the Downtown Bethesda Master Plan.  Clark has been involved in a dispute with its next-door neighbor, fellow developer Brookfield Properties, over Brookfield’s plan to erect a new building on top of the Bethesda Metro Station.  Clark hired PR firm KOFA Public Affairs to wage a campaign to block the new building that accused Council Members of being tools of developers and criticized their salaries.  Accordingly, we labeled it “The Dumbest Lobbying Campaign of All Time” since even dimwitted lobbyists understand that elected officials don’t respond well to attacks on their integrity.

Above is the reaction of Council Member George Leventhal to KOFA’s insult-laden campaign.  Hide the children, folks!

 

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Adam Pagnucco, Robin Ficker, Term Limits

Term Limits Opposition in Shambles

By Adam Pagnucco.

With the challenge to Robin Ficker’s petition signatures having failed in court, the opposition to term limits has hit a new low.  Opponents have less than three weeks left and over 400,000 prospective general election voters to reach.  Tick tock says the clock.

How do you win on term limits?  Here’s a theory: voters will vote in accordance with their perceived self-interest.  Whoever wishes to sway them must address their self-interest and take account of how they see it.  Failure to do so means losing the argument.

So far, the opponents’ arguments against term limits seem to be that they are unfair to elected officials, that Robin Ficker is a baaaaad man (he is), that county Republicans favor them, that nativist extremists were involved in gathering petition signatures (they were), that Nancy Navarro would be denied three full terms under Ficker’s language, that Donald Trump favors term limits and that term limits supporters are like Brexit supporters.

Well, OK.  But what do any of these arguments have to do with the voters’ self-interest?

And then this happened.

“Oh wait a minute.  Never mind, voters.  Forget about what we told you.  We are going to court so you won’t be able to vote!  What’s that?  You will be voting after all?  Oh.  Well, remember what we were saying…?”

Adding to the above is that most prominent opponents of term limits have a personal self-interest in the issue.  Several incumbent Council Members have spoken publicly against them.  Tom Moore, the opponents’ organizer, is a former Rockville City Council Member who ran for County Council in 2014 and might do so again.  Almost all of the scanty funding for the anti-term limits committee came from Council Members, their staff, their family and a non-profit receiving county money.  Are there any non-politicians (aside from Charter Review Commission Chair Paul Bessel) who are willing to work to defeat term limits?

Ficker, on the other hand, does have a narrative aimed at voters.  His sales pitch is that, according to him, current elected officials are “self-serving” by awarding themselves large salary increases and voting for big tax hikes filled with goodies for interest groups that help them get reelected.  The costs of all this are passed on to taxpayers.  Ficker proposes breaking this cycle by instituting term limits and getting new people elected with “fresh ideas.”  Put aside for a moment that there are numerous problems with his theory, including that there is already substantial competition in county elections and that the 2014 public financing law could promote even more competition.  Ficker is speaking directly to the pocketbook interests of voters while the other side is currently not.

Right now, all the momentum is with term limits supporters as many factors are working in their favor – especially the council’s Giant Tax Hike.  Opponents are going uphill, with a tremendous amount of work to do and very little time.  At this point in the 2000 term limits battle, legendary Duncan operative Jerry “Darth Vader” Pasternak had put together a massive coalition to fight Ficker, and the opponents ultimately won by just eight points.  In contrast, little of this work appears to have been done this time around. The opponents’ Facebook page has just 69 likes (FAR less than the 4,699 likes on Ficker’s page) and there is no money for a mail budget.  The opponents are relying on the Apple Ballot, the Democratic sample ballot and prayer.  Compare this to the 2000 effort, during which Darth Pasternak’s Empire did at least three mailings plus 130,000 robocalls.

Paul Bessel’s scholarly dissertation on term limits is helpful, but is anyone other than a handful of insomniac college professors going to read it?  Opponents need a direct, relevant message.  Something like this:

Come on, voters!  Is it really in your self-interest to disenfranchise yourselves?  Do you want to prevent yourselves from reelecting an official whom you believe is doing a good job?  Do you benefit from a government that is run by bureaucrats and lobbyists?  Do you really think a County Council jam-packed with lame ducks is going to act on your behalf?  What exactly are YOU getting out of all this?

There’s nothing here about Ficker, Help Save Maryland, Trump or Brexit.  It’s about the voters, stupid!  Just like it’s supposed to be.

Term limits opponents need message, resources and scale – and they need those things yesterday.  Because at this moment, Ficker is on pace to win, perhaps by double digits.

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Adam Pagnucco, Jonathan Shurberg, Montgomery County Council, Term Limits

Council Members Circle the Wagons on Term Limits

By Adam Pagnucco.

The No on B Committee, the ballot question committee opposing Montgomery County term limits, has filed its first campaign finance report with the State Board of Elections.  There are no surprises here: most of the contributions it has raised have come from incumbent members of the Montgomery County Council.

The committee reported raising $9,125 through October 9.  Of that amount, $6,000 (66%) has come from the campaign accounts of Council Members.  George Leventhal  was the lead contributor, donating $1,500.  Roger Berliner, Sidney Katz, Nancy Navarro and Hans Riemer contributed $1,000 each while Marc Elrich contributed $500.  Other contributions of note came from George Leventhal’s father, Carl ($500), Marc Elrich’s Chief of Staff, Dale Tibbitts ($500) and Casa de Maryland ($1,000).  In total, contributions from Council Members and their staff accounted for 72% of money raised by the committee.

After paying attorney Jonathan Shurberg $5,000 for his work on the unsuccessful court case to get term limits thrown off the ballot, and paying other minor expenses, the committee reported a final balance of $4,024.49.

Another committee formed to support term limits, Voters for Montgomery County Term Limits, reported raising $2,890 and finishing with $2,683.27 in the bank.  Developer Charles K. Nulsen III contributed $1,000.  There have been rumors of developer support for term limits, which would be interesting considering that the anti-development Montgomery County Civic Federation also supports term limits.  But Nulsen’s lone contribution signals that so far the real estate community is not fully engaged.

In 2012, 460,885 MoCo residents voted in the general election.  A similar number could be voting this year.  What’s clear is that neither committee has the resources to get its message out to the electorate.  Since many underlying factors favor the passage of term limits, the failure of both sides to raise money is a net benefit for supporters.

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Adam Pagnucco, Josh Kurtz, Media

Josh Kurtz Raising Money for New Media Venture

By Adam Pagnucco.

Legendary Maryland politics writer Josh Kurtz is raising money for a new independent media venture.  He has partners and he has an angel investor, so this could be for real, folks!

Kurtz, whose statehouse and local political reporting led to the Gazette’s Politics and Business edition twenty years ago, is regarded by many as Maryland’s best political columnist.  Over the last few years, his columns have been published weekly by Center Maryland.  But Kurtz is not content with his current gig.  Like many in the state, he has identified a void in state and local news coverage as we described in our Politics After the Gazette series.  And now Kurtz and a team of supporters are actually doing something about that: they are starting a new independent news site called Maryland Matters.

The concept of Maryland Matters is to have a lean, online news operation that would provide objective reporting and, eventually, commentary.  Kurtz would like to have five full-time reporters, a couple of editors and a few business and technology people when the site is fully built out.  Revenue would come from contributions that would be matched by a family foundation (more below).  Other journalists who are connected to the project include former Post reporter Miranda Spivack, Bethesda Magazine reporter Lou Peck, former editor of Charles County’s Maryland Independent Angela Breck and University of Maryland journalism professor Adrianne Flynn.  One or more of these folks might eventually provide content to the site.  Kurtz has a steering committee featuring MANY prominent names from Maryland political circles.

Kurtz is holding a fundraiser in Annapolis on October 24 featuring the Post’s superstar national political analyst Chris Cillizza.  If you follow Maryland news and politics, you should consider supporting this venture.  Josh Kurtz’s credentials are beyond question and if this new site succeeds, it could be a turning point for state news coverage.

Following is the blast email promoting the fundraiser.

*****

maryland-matters

Dear [ ]:

Want to hear from one of the nation’s premier political prognosticators just two weeks before Election Day — and support a great cause at the same time?

Then you’ll want to join us at a fundraiser in Annapolis on Monday, October 24 for Maryland Matters, an independent news website intended to be a one-stop shop for government and political coverage in Annapolis and in local jurisdictions around the Free State. Chris Cillizza, author of “The Fix” column at The Washington Post, will be our special guest.

For the past year, several journalists, as well as concerned citizens from business, communications, law and the public sector, have been working to launch Maryland Matters. It’s modeled on other excellent nonprofit online publications — from California and Texas to Connecticut and Vermont — created to ensure the survival of the type of “accountability journalism” that, for more than a century, was largely the province of the nation’s newspapers.

I don’t have to tell you that the resources devoted to state and local coverage by such institutions as the Post and The Baltimore Sun have shrunk dramatically in recent years. Other publications that once did an excellent job covering the State House, like The Gazette and The Examiner, are gone completely.

We aspire to fill this void by establishing the largest news bureau in Annapolis during the three months of the year when the General Assembly is in session, as well as providing year-round coverage of the executive branch and state regulatory agencies, major local jurisdictions, and the Maryland congressional delegation in Washington. Our plan is to launch Maryland Matters in 2017.

We’re happy to say that our idea has met with overwhelmingly positive reviews. The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region has created a fund for Maryland Matters, which enables us to solicit and collect tax-deductible contributions. Needless to say, it will cost a significant amount of money to pull this off.

But as we say in the news business, I’m burying the lede here: Just a couple of weeks ago, we got a financial angel — a family foundation has informed us that if we can raise $250,000, they will match it. This is exciting news and puts a lot of wind at our backs. Every contribution we receive is now essentially doubled.

So we are inviting you to our first Annapolis fundraiser, to be held from 5-7 p.m. onMonday, October 24, in the upstairs room at Stan & Joe’s, at 37 West Street. We’re honored to have Chris Cillizza joining us. We can’t think of a better person to talk about this crazy election year — and we hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunity to chat with him.

The suggested contribution is $250. We welcome donations both larger and smaller. Checks may be made out to: Maryland Matters Fund/Community Foundation. They can be brought to the event at Stan & Joe’s or mailed to the community foundation at 1201 15th St. NW, Suite 420, Washington, DC 20005.

We hope to see you on the 24th, so you can be more fully informed about our plans and spread the word to others. If you are not able to make it, I hope you can send along a contribution anyway — and tell your friends and colleagues about what we’re trying to do.

As a journalist, I’m not used to asking others for contributions. But all of us involved in this venture believe that nothing less than an informed public — elected officials, political activists, and voters at large — is at stake. So please be as generous as you can.

All the best,

Josh Kurtz

 

Maryland Matters Steering Committee Includes:

Hon. Michael Barnes

Angela Breck

Hon. Bill Bronrott

Bonnie Casper

Thomas Dennison

Adrianne Flynn

Andrew Friedson

Keith Haller

Ed Holzinger

Curtis Johnson

Hamza Khan

Joel Kirkland

Josh Kurtz

Hon. Terry Lierman

Len Lucchi

Hon. Connie Morella

Tyler Patton

Lou Peck

Hon. Steve Silverman

Hon. Jeffrey Slavin

Miranda Spivack

Hon. Chris Trumbauer

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Adam Pagnucco, CCT, Larry Hogan

Does Larry Hogan Really Care About Jobs?

By Adam Pagnucco.

Larry Hogan has worked hard to portray himself as a Jobs Governor.  In nearly every one of his public appearances, speeches and press statements, he talks about jobs, jobs, jobs.  Here’s a quote from his inaugural address that has set the tone for his administration.

“Maryland has an educated workforce, world-class universities and colleges, great community colleges, and public schools. We have our beautiful Chesapeake Bay, the Port of Baltimore, and a great location in the heart of the Mid-Atlantic region. We must leverage these amazing assets to transform Maryland into a place where businesses can flourish and create more jobs and opportunities for our citizens. Starting today let me say loudly and clearly: Maryland is open for business.”  Governor Hogan, Inaugural Address, 1/21/15

The statement above deserves a big asterisk.  In practice, Hogan’s enthusiasm for jobs depends on where they are.  When jobs are located at a Northrop Grumman facility in Anne Arundel County, the Governor proposes tens of millions of dollars in state subsidies for them.  When employment growth lags in the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland, Hogan promises a new jobs initiative.  But when the Red Line was projected to add billions of dollars in economic activity and over 15,000 badly needed jobs to the City of Baltimore, Hogan cancelled it.  And last week, he sent another large public works project into limbo: Montgomery County’s Corridor Cities Transitway.  What do Montgomery County and the City of Baltimore have in common?  You guessed it – they voted for Hogan’s opponent in the last election.

The Corridor Cities Transitway (CCT) is one of the state’s preeminent transportation projects, and one that has an awful lot of job growth tied to it.  The CCT, a 15-mile Bus Rapid Transit Line from the Shady Grove Metro Station to the southern part of Clarksburg, has been planned since the 1970s.  It would link some of Montgomery County’s fastest-growing places, including Gaithersburg, Germantown, Clarksburg, the Life Sciences Center and the federal government’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, in an area that has few transit options.  A 2011 economic impact analysis by Parsons Brinckerhoff estimated that the project would create $2.2 billion of economic activity through 2050 and would create over 6,000 jobs during its construction phase.  Those jobs would go to craft employees like carpenters, laborers, operating engineers, cement masons, iron workers and electricians – blue-collar workers whom the Governor cultivates.

“The government needs to do everything it possibly can to help people provide for themselves and get a job.”  Larry Hogan, candidate for Governor, 10/9/14

But the CCT is far more than just a transportation project.  It is tied to the massive Great Seneca Science Corridor Master Plan passed by the Montgomery County Council in 2010.  The plan leverages the CCT to allow new development including 10.6 million additional square feet of commercial space, 5,700 more residential units and 31,300 new jobs.  This would be one of the biggest developments in the state, comparable to Baltimore’s Port Covington project.  Many of the Great Seneca plan’s jobs would be professional and high-paying, including scientists, doctors and engineers.  All of this is worth countless billions to the State of Maryland.  But because the area’s existing infrastructure can’t handle the traffic volume created by this level of development, the plan is contingent on the CCT’s construction.  In other words, no CCT – no jobs.  As Council Member George Leventhal has said, “By deferring this project, Governor Hogan is deferring our high-tech economy.”

“The primary focus of our administration is economic development, growing our private sector and creating more jobs.”  Governor Hogan, MACo conference, 8/22/16

Governor Hogan is uniquely qualified to understand the ties between growth, development and jobs.  He is, after all, a real estate developer who has made a fortune building projects not so different from those that would be located near the CCT.  He requires no education on the economic merits of this issue.  But the politics are a totally different matter.  The Governor’s political play is obvious: he gets to kill (or at least indefinitely delay) a transit project in a blue county so that he can spread highway money around to the red counties who will presumably vote for him.  And because he (barely!) allowed a stripped-down version of the Purple Line to proceed, he can ax the CCT and still raise money from his friends in the real estate industry.

“The primary focus of my administration is to get Maryland open for business once again and create jobs for our citizens.”  Governor Hogan, 5/12/15

In economic terms, the CCT and its associated development would be a huge win for everyone around the state.  That’s because the state government is the primary recipient of income tax revenues from new residents, and it’s the only recipient of sales taxes and corporate income taxes from new businesses.  Because of how Maryland’s wealth formulas work, the huge majority of those state revenues would not stay in MoCo – they would go to the poorer counties of the state, many of whom are in rural areas that vote in huge numbers for Hogan.  In his effort to score points with his supporters, the Governor is actually damaging their economic interests.

So what does the Governor really care about?  Is it jobs?

Or politics?

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Adam Pagnucco, Bethesda, Lobbying

Is This the Dumbest Lobbying Campaign of All Time?

By Adam Pagnucco.

Suppose you want to persuade an elected official to vote in a certain way.  Which of the following tactics would you choose?

  1. Prepare the best case on the merits of the issue that you can.
  1. Mobilize a large part of the public to agree with you.
  1. Insult the elected official’s integrity and criticize his or her salary.

If you picked Tactic 3, congratulations!  You could get hired by one of Maryland’s top PR firms to run the Dumbest Lobbying Campaign of All Time!

What is this campaign, you ask?  It involves a Battle of Developers in Downtown Bethesda.  (Ring the bell, folks!)  On one side is Clark Enterprises, one of the nation’s largest real estate and construction firms that is headquartered at Bethesda Metro Center.  On the other side is Brookfield Properties, another giant real estate firm based in New York and Toronto, which bought 3 Bethesda Metro Center for $150 million in 2011.  Brookfield would like to place a new high-rise on the concrete Bethesda Metro plaza and the Planning Board agreed to it in its proposal for the area’s new master plan.  Clark, whose existing building would be right next door to Brookfield’s new building, opposes it.

The Montgomery County Council has final say over all master plans, and so Clark paid for a grass-roots lobbying campaign.  A website proclaiming a need to “Protect Bethesda Open Space” was registered in May and emails from constituents started arriving in council inboxes.  While the emails varied a bit in content, the following two sentences appeared word-for-word in a great many of them.

“The County Council has sided with the developers one too many times here in our recent history.”

“After recent raises to our taxes and to your salaries, we ask that the same priority be given to the people who live and work in downtown Bethesda.”

picard-face-palm

Your author has worked for and with elected officials for a long time.  There are many differences among them.  But one thing absolutely every single one of them HATES is to be called a tool.  The only thing worse is to get hundreds of their constituents to call them tools.  You may as well burn down their houses, vandalize their cars, loot their bank accounts and then ask them to give you a vote.  See how that works for you!

And on top of that, is it really wise for a campaign financed by a real estate company to encourage residents to criticize Council Members for siding with developers?  What will those residents say the next time Clark wants to build something?

But Clark is only the client.  They hired someone to run the campaign for them.  One clue appears in this notice listing a certain Bassam Tarbush as a contact for the website.  Tarbush is also named in the campaign’s response emails.  According to his Linkedin profile, Tarbush is employed by KOFA Public Affairs, one of Maryland’s most prominent public relations firms.  That is astounding for two reasons.

  1. KOFA’s principals, who are regarded as professional and competent in Maryland’s political circles, have lots of experience working for elected officials. They include senior aides to former Governor Martin O’Malley, former Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith and U.S. Senator Ben Cardin. If anyone understands how outraged elected officials can get when their integrity is impugned, these people do.
  1. The firm’s roots are deeply planted in the Democratic Party. Its principals have devoted substantial parts of their careers to helping Democrats like O’Malley and Cardin succeed. And yet, here is a group of Democratic operatives running a campaign that depicts Democratic elected officials as tools of developers.

Clark Enterprises is a well-respected real estate firm that has other priorities here in addition to what happens at Bethesda Metro Center.  Burning its bridges with the County Council through such a ham-handed lobbying campaign goes against its long-term interests.  For its own sake, Clark should go back to the drawing board, figure out a different message, hire someone else to implement it and end The Dumbest Lobbying Campaign of All Time.

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Adam Pagnucco, Department of Liquor Control

The Magic of Freedom from the Liquor Monopoly

By Adam Pagnucco.

Montgomery County is witnessing an historic craft beer renaissance.  New small breweries are popping up all over the county offering an incredible array of IPAs, Belgian tripels, pilsners, ESBs, saisons, stouts and even rum rye.  Politicians and customers alike are celebrating, even if they might be a wee bit late to work on the following day.  But this renaissance has been caused by one factor that few so far are talking about.

These breweries are exempt from having to sell their products through the county’s Department of Liquor Control.

brookeville-beer-farm-1

Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett and members of the County Council at a ribbon cutting for Brookeville Beer Farm.  Photo courtesy of Delegate David Moon.

Until recently, there were three small breweries in MoCo: Growlers in Gaithersburg, Rock Bottom in Bethesda and Gordon Biersch in Rockville.  The latter two are part of chains.  While each establishment could sell to individual customers, they had to go through the Department of Liquor Control (DLC) to sell to restaurants and retailers.  For the most part, it wasn’t worth the bother.

That changed in 2014 when a group of craft brewers wanted to open Denizens Brewing Company in Downtown Silver Spring.  The condition they imposed was that the DLC must not be allowed to carry their beer.  Denizens co-owner Julie Verratti told the Sentinel, “There’s no freaking way in hell I would ever trust my product to the Department of Liquor Control.”  According to the article:

Veratti said the main reason she does not trust the DLC to deal with her product is because she believes the warehouse employees would not properly handle it.

“It’s not their product so they don’t give a sh**,” Veratti said. “They don’t care if it sits out and I doubt half the people in the warehouse have knowledge of how to handle beer.”

Paul Rinehart, founder of Baying Hound Aleworks, whose brewery had to go through the DLC prior to the change in law, called using the DLC as a distributor “not fantastic.”

Rinehart said when using the DLC his brewery “ran into issues where our product would get lost” and would often hear from clients that their product orders had been either delivered incorrectly or not delivered at all.

Despite the DLC upgrading their inventory system to Oracle, which rolled out on Feb. 1 and has its own problems, Rinehart said he has no plans to use the DLC to distribute again.

“I’m just afraid of my product getting lost again,” Rinehart said.

The result of Verratti’s advocacy was a 2014 state bill that allowed micro-breweries to bypass the DLC and sell craft beer directly to restaurants and retailers as well as on-site customers.  This was the key reform that enabled Denizens to grow in MoCo.  Once again, from the Sentinel:

Had it not been for the change in law that gave breweries the ability to deliver their product directly to their customers, Julie Veratti, co-owner and director of business outreach for Denizens, said her brewery would not have distributed inside the county at all and instead would have just distributed the product to Washington, D.C. Denizens opened for business after the change of law came into effect.

And so MoCo micro-breweries are now free of DLC entirely.  Disasters like DLC’s week-long meltdown in last year’s holiday season do not affect them at all.

The result of all this is a BOOM in craft brewing.  Since the DLC exemption was passed, Denizens (Silver Spring), 7 Locks (Rockville), Waredaca (Laytonsville) and Brookeville Beer Farm (Brookeville) have opened.  A fifth brewery attempted to open in Rockville but encountered permitting and zoning issues with the city government and moved to Baltimore.  The chart below shows all active licenses and permits pertaining to MoCo microbreweries.  Fifteen of eighteen originated in 2014 or later.

moco-brewery-licenses

The lesson to be learned here is that removal of the county’s liquor monopoly leads to economic growth and job creation.  Those are important considerations for a county that has seen its private sector jobs base shrink between 2001 and 2014 and has just raised property taxes by 9 percent.  The state’s Bureau of Revenue Estimates has found that the county could create more than 1,300 jobs and nearly $200 million in annual economic activity by tossing its liquor monopoly into the dustbin of Prohibition.

Will the county embrace economic prosperity and job creation?  Or will politicians continue to defend the monopoly while cutting ribbons for breweries who are exempted from it?

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