Council At-Large candidate Gabe Albornoz has released this campaign video.
Monthly Archives: June 2018
Rushern’s Run
Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker
After serving in the House of Delegates and two terms as Prince George’s County Executive, Rushern Baker is making a bid for Maryland’s top office.
He has a serious claim. Prince Georgians should remain grateful that Baker fought against corruption before it was fashionable. Despite opposition from the county establishment, Baker took on sitting Prince George’s County Executive Jack Johnson in 2006. During the campaign, Baker showed he was willing to take the fight directly to Johnson notwithstanding Jesse Jackson’s endorsement of his opponent. Baker nearly won.
Had Baker won, Prince George’s would have been spared the humiliating spectacle of the arrest of both Johnson and his wife, Councilmeber-Elect Leslie Johnson, who infamously tried to flush ill-gotten gains down the toilet and hide them in her bra. In contrast, no such scandals or anything remotely close have tainted the Baker administration and Prince George’s is vastly better off for his leadership against corruption.
The more one looks into Rushern Baker’s personal life, the more impressive his accomplishments look. Baker’s wife suffers from debilitating memory loss that requires a great deal of care. Until the Washington Post wrote about it long after this family tragedy started, it wasn’t known in the Maryland political world. One might contrast this approach with that of Gov. Larry Hogan, who has tried to turn the serious lemons of his cancer treatment into lemonade not just by comforting other sufferers but by also milking it for every drop of publicity in the public eye and his social media accounts.
Baker has one Achilles heel: the public schools. Laudably, Baker recognized that the school system was not providing the education that Prince George’s kids need and deserve. He managed to gain a much more power over the system with a great deal of political assistance from Annapolis. Baker tried to raise property taxes by 15% in a tax allergic county to fund education but was ultimately only able to obtain a 4% raise that went to fund teacher pensions. Reforming schools is a long-term task, not prone to producing short-term gains, which makes the endeavor all the more commendable.
Unfortunately, a number of scandals have emerged on Baker’s watch. The county lost its federal Head Start grant in 2016. Grade manipulation led to many students obtaining diplomas that they didn’t earn in violation of county policy. Ben Jealous attacked Baker scathingly for this problem yesterday on Twitter, though Jealous has never had to actually run a county or a school system. Ultimately, the superintendent has been forced to go.
The Washington Post’s editorial page’s response in their endorsement to give Baker a pass and say essentially “Well, at least he tried.” I don’t know that Maryland voters will be as forgiving of these problems on an issue for which Baker has taken ownership. Troubling for Democrats, education is Hogan’s weakest issue according to surveys but he might be able to switch from defense to offense if Baker is the Democratic nominee.
Notwithstanding this significant problem, even though Baker is not my candidate, he would be a very solid Democratic nominee. Baker has been notably successful at building cross-racial support during an era of increased racial political polarization, as his endorsements from a variety of prominent Democrats attest. Based on the last gubernatorial election, we need a nominee who knows how to reach out.
As county executive, Baker has valuable experience has grappled genuinely with issues, like the school system, not in theory but in practice. Most importantly, Rushern Baker is an honorable person who has restored stature to Prince George’s County government.
Is the Liquor Monopoly Improving?
By Adam Pagnucco.
Once again, Montgomery County’s liquor monopoly is a hot issue in local politics. As far as we know, MoCo is the only county in the nation in which the county government has a monopoly on the distribution of beer, wine and spirits and also a monopoly on retail sales of spirits. Candidates for office disagree on whether it is needed. In a response to David Lublin’s recent post on the subject, Department of Liquor Control (DLC) Director Bob Dorfman claims it has improved.
Has it?
We will give the monopoly credit for one thing: it did not see system-wide distribution failures in the critical week between Christmas and New Year’s last year as it did in 2015 and 2016. That has not stopped two anti-monopoly groups from forming in the last few months, one representing licensees and another representing consumers. But what’s really going on? Let’s look at the data.
According to Gallup and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, alcohol consumption tends to be correlated with education and income. That makes sense – people with college and graduate degrees tend to make more money, and people with more disposable income have more money available for alcohol purchases. MoCo has lots of highly educated and wealthy people so we should be one of the leaders in alcohol spending in Maryland.
The Comptroller of Maryland, who collects alcohol taxes, posts annual reports of alcohol sales per capita for each of Maryland’s twenty-four jurisdictions on his website. We collected the last ten fiscal years of that data and present it below. Let’s remember when recent changes at the DLC occurred. After many revelations of bad performance in 2014, DLC launched an “Action Plan” to improve performance in June 2015. George Griffin, the former DLC Director who was blamed for the first New Year’s Eve meltdown, left in January 2016, about halfway through Fiscal Year 2016 (which ended on June 30). Bob Dorfman, the new DLC Director, started in December 2016, about halfway through Fiscal Year 2017. If these events were associated with genuine operational improvements, we would expect to see significant increases in both per capita sales and rank among jurisdictions over the last three years.
That has not happened.
Below is data on per capita sales of spirits, wine and beer in Montgomery County over the last ten fiscal years.
Spirits sales per capita have increased over the last decade, although they have barely changed since 2013. Wine is stagnant. Both wine and spirits fell in FY17, the first year of the new Director. Beer sales per capita are down over the last decade and rose slightly in FY17. But here’s the thing: MoCo’s new craft breweries are exempted from the liquor monopoly and, as a result, are doing really well. The tiny gain in beer could be due to FREEDOM from the monopoly, not better operations at the monopoly.
Now let’s compare MoCo’s rank in per capita sales to the 23 other local jurisdictions in Maryland.
Because of its education and wealth, MoCo should be one of the leading counties in per capita alcohol sales. It’s not. In terms of spirits, the only county that’s worse is Somerset, which perhaps not coincidentally has its own monopoly on spirits sales. In terms of beer, MoCo is dead last. In terms of wine, MoCo has slid from ninth in the state to fourteenth, moving down a spot in FY17. Jurisdictions in which residents bought more wine per capita than MoCo in FY17 included Anne Arundel, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Calvert, Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Howard, Kent, Talbot and Worcester. Does anyone believe that residents of counties with two-thirds of MoCo’s household income (or less) drink more wine than we do?
What’s happening is that consumers leave the county to buy alcohol. That’s why numerous D.C. liquor stores are located within blocks of the MoCo border. That’s why a fifth to a quarter of customers at Total Wine stores in McLean and Laurel come from MoCo. The state’s Bureau of Revenue Estimates found that if MoCo customers were to return to the county to shop for alcohol in the absence of the liquor monopoly, the county would see a surge of almost $200 million in new economic activity, enabling a path forward for the county to replace every cent of lost revenue.
Dorfman is a better manager than his predecessor and we believe he is genuinely trying to improve DLC. But Dorfman won’t be there forever and DLC has a long history of problems. The monopoly also has a long history of promising improvement, mostly resulting in fleeting or ineffective fixes with quick relapses. Even modest liberalization passed by the General Assembly to allow some private retail sales of spirits has been blocked. What the above data on per capita alcohol sales shows is that, despite claims to the contrary, not much has changed. And unless MoCo starts behaving like a normal county and allows private sector competition, true change may never come.
Update on Vignarajah Eligibility Case / Renewed Racism and Sexism Claims
My blog post from yesterday faithfully reports the information online and that I confirmed with the Anne Arundel Circuit Court at the time. I also tried to speak with the Vignarajah campaign but they would not discuss in advance of their press conference.
Since then, there have been some updates. The case was dismissed on grounds of timeliness. As a result, the petition for declaratory judgement has been dismissed. Mr. Horn has just notified the media that he intends to appeal. I don’t know if he can get a hearing before the primary election or his chances for success.
In a press release, Vignarajah did her best to claim vindication and that she was “absolutely eligible,” though she neglects to mention why the petition was dismissed and that no decision was reached on the merits. When I spoke with her campaign’s chief of staff, Aryn Frazier, she promised someone would get back to me on this question but no one ever did.
Vignarajah’s press release goes on to claim that the evil nefarious establishment is trying to stop her:
It’s not a surprise that the establishment and political operatives are trying desperately to stop women of color from disrupting the old boys club in Maryland, but as a lifelong Marylander, I’ll continue fighting to support our schools, curb violent crime, and build a more inclusive economy for our state.
I asked Aryn Frazier for any evidence backing up these inflammatory claims of racism and sexism. Again, Ms. Frazier promised that someone would get back to me, but no on ever did.
Vignarajah’s serious charges undermine the causes for which she claims to be fighting. They are exactly the sorts of spurious claims that cause people to take a jaundiced view when serious claims of sexism and racism are made. Her constant waving of these banners jars all the more when one considers her voting record.
Vignarjah couldn’t be bothered to vote in the 2014 primary, when she could have helped the first black woman win election from Maryland to the U.S. Senate. She also didn’t vote in the 2014 general election, when she could have aided Anthony Brown’s quest to become the first African-American governor in Maryland. Indeed, this “lifelong Marylander” never voted here before 2016.
Ben Shnider’s Campaign Video
Brooks and Wilhelm Take on Amazon
By Adam Pagnucco.
Council At-Large candidates Brandy Brooks and Chris Wilhelm, who are running as a team, have sent out the mailer below raising concerns about the impact of Amazon possibly establishing a second headquarters in Montgomery County. Put aside whatever feelings you have about the underlying issue; we find this to be a smart political tactic. There are so many candidates in the at-large race this year that the victory threshold could be as low as 30,000 votes – or less. If that number of voters, which corresponds to roughly thirty percent of the likely Democratic primary electorate, is concerned about Amazon, and if Brooks and Wilhelm are the only candidates in the race with that message, they could get a leg up. We reprint their mailer – a 15″ by 12″ monster – below.
MCEA’s Awkward Alliance
This year, the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) – the teachers union – decided to support Ben Jealous for governor. Fine, so far.
But this just got very awkward after last night’s education forum. Except for Rich Madaleno from Montgomery, all of the other candidates, including Ben Jealous, embraced a new wealth based formula for education funding that just kills Montgomery.
I imagine it also does little for affluent Howard. The new formula zeros out funding for Talbot, Kent, and Worcester counties. Not only would it eliminate all no state aid for these three Eastern Shore jurisdictions, it also would require all that money to be made up in local taxes. Every penny cut would be required by state law to be replaced by local funds.
If there is one thing MCEA opposes, it’s cutting funds for Montgomery County Public Schools. Now, they’re supporting a candidate who wants to siphon large sums of money away from Montgomery to other jurisdictions.
Beyond the large number of portable classrooms, Montgomery faces a growing number of students who need extra help for a variety of reasons but who don’t come from families with a lot of extra money to help pick up the slack.
In the past, Adam Pagnucco has written about state funding formulas are already skewed against Montgomery, even as we face burgeoning problems in the public schools. Separately, a hike in the millionaires tax, paid primarily by Montgomery, has helped fund a burst of construction in Baltimore and elsewhere in the State.
The changes endorsed by all candidates except Madaleno would massively undermine efforts by Montgomery to address the achievement gap here. Indeed, the County would be hard pressed to maintain its current commitment with the size of cuts proposed, as Adam has explained well in a piece aptly titled “Hell, No!”
While this is awkward for Montgomery advocates of greater state school funding who support a variety of candidates, I imagine it might dismay county officials who support Rushern Baker at least partly in the hope that the D.C. area would get more attention to its increasingly serious needs.
But the problem is particularly acute for MCEA. They’ve found themselves behind a candidate whose platform would result in enormous pressure on the salaries and pensions of their members or force major cuts elsewhere in an already pressed county budget despite county efforts for years to protect education funding.
Sun Endorses Jealous
This morning, the Baltimore Sun endorsed Ben Jealous for governor:
Maryland voters deserve a real choice in November’s election for governor, and we believe Democrat Ben Jealous provides the clearest alternative to Gov. Larry Hogan. It’s not just that the former NAACP president and CEO has the stature or political skills to run a competitive campaign against the popular and extremely well funded Republican incumbent (though he does), it’s that he presents the strongest contrast to the governor in his vision for the state. We give him our endorsement in the Democratic primary.
Jealous is already doing well in the Baltimore region and this should only aid his efforts there.
Labor Pumps Money Into Anti-Blair Super PAC
By Adam Pagnucco.
Four labor unions and an immigrant advocacy organization have contributed a combined $90,000 to a Super PAC which opposes the election of David Blair as Montgomery County Executive.
The Progressive Maryland Liberation Alliance PAC is a Super PAC affiliated with Progressive Maryland. The Super PAC’s Chair, Larry Stafford, is Progressive Maryland’s Executive Director. The group has previously distributed anti-Blair flyers but now has the money to do a lot more than that.
The Super PAC’s campaign finance filings indicate that it was organized for the purpose of supporting gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous, State Senate candidates Jill Carter, Antonio Hayes and Mary Washington, State’s Attorney candidate Victor Ramirez and Delegate candidate Melissa Wells and opposing State Senator Bobby Zirkin, State’s Attorney candidate Ivan Bates and Blair. But the labor contributions to the Super PAC were explicitly designated to opposing Blair. Those contributions included $35,000 from MCGEO, $35,000 from the Laborers, $10,000 from UNITE HERE Local 25, $5,000 from SEIU Local 500 and $5,000 from immigrant advocacy group Casa in Action. All of these organizations except for UNITE HERE Local 25 have endorsed Marc Elrich for Executive, as has Progressive Maryland.
Of these contributions, $10,000 has been spent on a video opposing Blair. We imagine MoCo voters will be seeing that video soon.
With $80,000 remaining, the Super PAC has enough money to finance mailers and more. What’s unclear is how much more money it can raise with labor spending almost a million dollars to elect Ben Jealous as Governor and more than $600,000 to elect Donna Edwards as Prince George’s County Executive. Still, they are playing in MoCo and we expect them to play hard.
Ervin Drops Out, Plans to Endorse Baker
Former Montgomery County Councilmember Valerie Ervin, who faced an uphill battle in her effort to run for governor has decided to leave the race and to endorse Rushern Baker.
Ervin decided to run after the sudden and sad death of her running mate, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz. She faced an uphill battle due to her inability to access his campaign funds. The Board of Elections also could not change the ballots this close to the election, despite Ervin’s complete eligibility under state law to run in Kamenetz’s place and select a new running mate.