UDDATE: Venue changed due to school closings. Now at Jane E. Lawton Community Center at 4801 Willow La., Chevy Chase.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-8), a progressive icon in Montgomery County, is set to endorse Sen. Rich Madaleno (D-18) at a rally tomorrow in Silver Spring. Raskin will be among over 20 current or former state and Montgomery County officials set to endorse Madaleno.
Max Davidson
Sure looks like it.
On the day of the filing deadline, Max Davidson launched a primary challenge against four-term Baltimore County Sen. Kathy Klausmeier (D-8). Davidson is head of a pro-medical marijuana lobbying group, the Marijuana Patient Rights Association.
Davidson has donated $970 to Del. Christian Miele, Klausmeier’s struggling opponent, as a look at Miele’s campaign finance reports reveals:
Not exactly the profile of a Democrat who is raring to take on Miele.
Indeed, Davidson’s donation profile leans heavily Republican. Besides Miele, he also gave $520 to Sen. Justin Ready (R-5), $150 to Del. Kathy Szeliga (R-7), $33 to Del. David Vogt (R-4), $20 to Del. Deb Rey (R-29B), and $20 to Del. Ric Metzger (R-6) for a total of $1713 in donations to Republicans.
In contrast, he gave just $392 to Democrats — $250 to Shane Pendergrass (D-13), $100 to Del. David Moon (D-20), and $42 to Sen. Bill Ferguson (D-46).
Rather than being eager to take on his favorite state legislator, Davidson’s candidacy smacks heavily of a Republican effort to weaken Klausmeier. Davidson presents no real threat to Klausmeier but Miele would sure love if he softened her up a bit and forced her to expend resources in the primary.
The notion that Davidson wants to take on his favorite Republican makes no sense. Did Davidson really not coordinate or discuss with Miele, his favorite Republican, before filing for his seat?
Any voter who was on the fence, or who just doesn’t like these tactics, now has an excellent reason to vote for Klausmeier. You should also remember this one the next time Hogan and the Republicans trot out the usual bromides and claim that they are political reformers.
In a radio interview, Del. Bill Frick made hard-charging remarks regarding former Rockville Mayor Rose Krasnow’s competing campaign for county executive.
“I had never heard her name before she announced as a candidate,” Frick, 43, said. “She hadn’t been in public life since the turn of the century. I really had not interacted with her. I’ve been a member of the legislature for 10 years and never encountered her.”
On the same radio show, Bill Frick also said:
“I’ve knocked on a lot of doors in Montgomery County and I’ve never heard someone say whoever’s in charge of the Planning Department should be in charge of the county,” Frick said. “That is not a sentiment I’ve ever heard.”
Krasnow replied by accusing Frick of being dismissive of her campaign and consequently sexist:
In a statement Krasnow sent to Sherwood that was shared with Bethesda Beat, she suggested, “Perhaps Mr. Frick’s dismissive remarks about me are a reflection of his attitude toward women.”
She elaborated during an interview Monday with Bethesda Beat. “I assume his comment about the turn of the century was trying to make me look old,” added Krasnow, 66. “I was in office until the end of ’01. It means I wasn’t an elected official yesterday, that’s definitely true … .”
Even if one believes that it’s okay for Krasnow to refer frequently to her service as Rockville’s mayor and not for Frick to point out it was some years ago, making her look old would be ageism, not sexism. Ironically, after accusing Frick of sexism, Krasnow then engaged in the exact same dismissive behavior and topped it off with a false claim:
“I, like many other people, had not heard of Bill Frick until I got into this race,” Krasnow said of Frick, who has served as the delegate from Bethesda-based District 16 since first being selected by the county’s Democratic Central Committee to replace Marilyn Goldwater in 2007. Last year, he was appointed House majority leader.
She noted she learned more about him from a 2007 blog post titled Who The Frick is Bill. “So I wouldn’t start talking about name recognition. I believe mine is much higher than his,” she said. “He has represented a fairly small district in Bethesda while I represented the entire city of Rockville.”
Frick is one of three delegates who represent District 16, which encompasses an area with a population of about 120,000 residents, while Rockville’s population is about 62,000.
While I am sure Adam Pagnucco Kevin Gillogly is flattered by the reference to his blog post, behaving as if there is one rule for male candidates and another for female candidates is the very definition of sexism. On Monday, Frick responded by describing Krasnow’s allegation as “ridiculous and baseless.”
“I think that’s out of line,” Frick said. “I’ve been a feminist since I was old enough to pronounce the word. I have a 100 percent voting record and have been a strong leader on women’s issues.”
Krasnow could have taken other more effective approaches in her response to Frick. For example, she could have instead pointed out that she is the only candidate with senior executive experience in the public sector – not just as mayor but at the Planning Board – and thus turned the biased idea that men are better executives on its head without even mentioning gender.
She also could have just stuck with the calm, thoughtful claim that voters don’t really know any of the candidates well and she hoped that voters had the opportunities to learn about her through the campaign. She started off with that approach – one that would have made her look experienced and judicious – but then shifted to the weak-beer sexism allegation.
As has been rightly discussed much of late, sexism is alive and well with the spotlight revealing male employers using their positions to behave inappropriately, unprofessionally, and worse towards their female employees. Unfortunately, Krasnow’s accusation attracts attention for the wrong reasons.
By Adam Pagnucco.
For many months, rumors have abounded about the Democratic establishment seeking to find a primary challenger to its hated nemesis, Comptroller Peter Franchot. But at the close of candidate filing, it became clear that the effort to oust Franchot had failed. The Comptroller has no Democratic opponent, and with only an unknown Republican running against him, Franchot is certain to get four more years in office.
Among the statehouse’s leadership, Governor Larry Hogan is regarded as a rival but not a bitter enemy. That’s because since the Governor is a Republican, a certain amount of political competition is expected. Franchot, on the other hand, is despised by the Annapolis Democratic ruling class. As a Democrat and a former twenty-year Delegate, someone in Franchot’s position would normally be expected to be a loyal player on Team Dem. Instead, the Comptroller is the leader of Team Franchot – a team with different interests and tactics than Team Dem – and the leaders revile him as an apostate.
Understanding Franchot requires breaking out of the conventional political box – something the Comptroller specializes in. Here are four facts about Franchot that players in state politics should recognize.
He Has Built a Thirty-Year Career on Rebellion Against Authority
Let’s go back to 1986. District 20 State Senator Stewart Bainum was leaving his seat to run for Congress. Two Delegates, Ida Ruben and Diane Kirchenbauer, ran for the open Senate seat. But Ruben was not content to go to the Senate – she wanted to control the entire district. So Ruben put together a slate including incumbent Delegate Sheila Hixson, MoCo Democrat of the Year Robert Berger and former Takoma Park City Council Member Lou D’Ovidio. Franchot, then a young aide to Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey, was having none of it. He launched an aggressive door-knocking campaign for Delegate running against lobbyists, greedy banks, insurance companies and “special interests” of all kinds. Franchot finished first in the Delegate race, surpassing even Hixson, and learned an early lesson: revolting against the establishment, both political and economic, could be electorally rewarding.
Franchot targets special interests in a 1986 mailer.
That was just the beginning. Two years later, Franchot ran a tough and occasionally negative race against the new darling of moderates in MoCo, Congresswoman Connie Morella. (This is the only race Franchot would lose.) In 1992, Franchot backed an ill-fated coup attempt against House Speaker Clay Mitchell. Mitchell’s rival, Nancy Kopp, would go on to be rehabilitated, but Franchot was sent so far to the back of the bench that he could have been sitting in a Bay Bridge toll booth. After the 2002 election, Franchot began running against Mister Maryland, Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, and even took out a $750,000 loan on his house to do it. After winning an upset victory, Franchot then fought with Governor Martin O’Malley and the legislature’s presiding officers over slots and other issues all the way through Hogan’s election. And the fight goes on over craft beer.
Here is a partial list of all the establishment figures Franchot has taken on in the last thirty years: two incumbent Delegates in his home district, a popular Congresswoman, multiple House Speakers and the Senate President, a sitting Democratic Governor and one of Maryland’s most influential all-time political figures in Schaefer. No other politician has assembled such a list and survived. And yet here is Franchot, more than thirty years later, with no primary opponent.
He Champions Non-Partisan Issues
Think of some of the issues Franchot has taken on in the last decade: opposition to slots, cracking down on fraudulent tax returns, getting air conditioning in Baltimore County schools, opposing MoCo’s liquor monopoly, moving the start of school until after Labor Day and liberalizing state laws on craft beer. These issues seem like an eclectic set but they have two things in common. First, none of them are partisan or ideological issues. Folks in the left, right and middle can agree on many of them. And second, the constituencies in opposition are attractive opponents to have: casino conglomerates, tax cheaters, corporate mega-beer producers and incompetent bureaucrats. To quote former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, from a political perspective this is [expletive deleted] golden. Franchot has picked up allies and admirers in all these fights who range all over the political spectrum and will never desert him. How many Maryland politicians can make that claim?
Moreover, despite the contempt that the establishment holds for Franchot, he has had his share of wins. Pressure from Franchot and Hogan has helped accelerate Baltimore County’s school construction program. Hogan’s executive order on school openings after Labor Day, a Franchot idea, has gone unchallenged. Last year, Franchot got a major tax fraud bill passed through the General Assembly. And the current efforts to put slots money in a lockbox for education is a big vindication for Franchot, who has argued for a decade that gambling money was not used for schools as promised but has instead been poured into the general fund. We will see how his current craft beer crusade turns out.
He Lacks Ambition and Fear
Most politicians are driven by ambition and fear. Ambition, typically manifesting as a drive for higher office, causes politicians to take risks, stand out and appeal to critical interest groups. Fear can be healthy when it aids self-preservation, including fear of being disliked, embarrassed, ostracized or losing an election. The behavior of most politicians involves a competition and balance between these two competing traits. In a sense, Franchot has neither of them.
Franchot’s absence of fear is obvious. The scathing denunciations of Franchot by O’Malley, the legislature’s presiding officers, the Baltimore Sun editorial page and various dukes and barons of Annapolis would scare the living daylights out of most politicians. Not Franchot. He not only doesn’t care; the confrontations actually energize him. Your author has seen him grin and rub his hands together in glee at the prospect of taking on folks whom he would call “bullies and bosses.” No other influential figure in state politics acts like this.
But here’s the thing: Franchot also lacks any ambition for higher office. He figured out some time ago that Comptroller is a great job. Franchot doesn’t have to vote on controversial bills, draft budgets, raise taxes or say no to constituents. He gets to travel around the state, hand out awards to small businesses, get involved with issues of his choice and, as long as tax refunds go out quickly and efficiently, he can do all of the above as long as he likes. So he isn’t going to run for Governor, Congress or anything else. That frees up Franchot from having to compete for all of the Democratic interest group support he would need in a competitive primary with quality opponents. That means he gets to set his own agenda in a way other politicians can’t. And boy, that has been a major asset to him.
The Establishment Handles Him Terribly
If you’re a leader in the Democratic establishment, there are only two ways to deal with the occasional and inevitable Franchot eruptions. You can ignore them. You can co-opt them. Sometimes you can do both. But whatever you do, don’t take on Franchot directly. Then he gets to fight “bullies and bosses,” and either gets his way or he gets to be martyred in front of legions of adoring supporters. Either way, he wins.
The recent craft beer fight is a good example of mishandling Franchot. Maryland’s alcohol laws are notoriously anti-competitive, although they have very slowly begun to liberalize. Franchot rightly criticizes the state’s beer franchise laws, which essentially establish state-sanctioned distribution cartels, and he ridiculed a requirement in a bill passed last year that craft breweries send some of their beer to distributors and buy it back before serving it in their tap rooms. Then he set up a task force to give his proposed beer law reforms legitimacy and had his army of craft beer supporters descend on Annapolis. What to do?
The rational response would be to ignore and co-opt. From a strictly political perspective, the establishment should have given Franchot’s bill a polite hearing but otherwise ignored it. Then they should have extracted pieces from it that the distributors could live with, pass those in a separate bill sponsored by state legislators who could use a bump, and declare victory. Franchot would declare partial victory too, but who cares?
But this is Franchot so rationality went out the window. Instead, the leaders put forth two bills: one to retract the improvements the craft breweries won last year and another to form a task force to study whether the Comptroller’s alcohol regulatory authority should be taken away. The establishment’s reward was an all-day hearing that degenerated into a searing circus featuring angry and sputtering Delegates, militant craft beer advocates, allegations of payoffs through booze industry political contributions and a starring role for Franchot who got to denounce “back room deals.” They gave Franchot exactly what he wanted: a swarming sea of fans and HUGE press attention. How exactly is this supposed to encourage him to behave differently in the future?
Franchot preens like a peacock before press and supporters outside the House hearing room where his craft beer bill was discussed. Credit: Franchot’s Facebook page.
The Bottom Line
There are 188 members of the General Assembly. The place needs hierarchy to operate. There must be organization, leadership, direction and consequences for violators. Otherwise, nothing would get done. All of this means that if the establishment didn’t exist, we would have to create one.
That said, establishments decay and become obsolete when they go unchallenged. There’s a valuable role for disrupters like Franchot: they keep the leadership on its toes and make sure issues that do not originate solely within favored interest groups get addressed. This push and pull keeps the place vibrant and relevant and, over the long run, makes it better.
The leadership may not always like that. But they’re going to have to deal with it, at least for another four years.
Disclosure: The author has done campaign work for Peter Franchot in the past but has not worked on his current campaign on craft beer.
The recent county executive debate was fascinating if only for the incoherence brought to it regarding the Purple Line:
Rose Krasnow, deputy director of the county’s planning department and former Democratic Rockville mayor, said the Purple Line “will have wonderful benefits for people along its length. It will raise property values, but it will spur development,” she said. . . .
After Elrich expressed his concern about gentrification that could follow the path of the Purple Line, Leventhal spoke about the benefits the line would bring immigrant workers.
“We should stop frightening people about it, as Mr. Elrich has repeatedly done,” Leventhal said.
“I never said the word ‘destroy’ about the Purple Line,” Elrich responded, noting that his opposition to some of the plans resulted in changes that will preserve hundreds of affordable housing units.
Purple Line advocates have long argued that it will spur new development around Purple Line stations. Indeed, although Metro stops have not resulted in urban nodes similar to Bethesda or Silver Spring near any station in Prince George’s, proponents have faith that the slower moving light-rail Purple Line will nevertheless make it happen.
If they’re correct, the Purple Line will, as Rose Krasnow points out, result in more development and higher property taxes. More generally, if land near Purple Line stations becomes more desirable, its value will increase and so will taxes on it. Generating more tax revenue was a major rationale for the Purple Line.
If a place becomes more desirable and tax rates increase, the cost of renting or buying housing near Purple Line stops will rise and some current residents will find it harder to afford housing. Developers and landlords obviously prefer higher rents — and the Purple Line’s goal is to stimulate investments that will allow them to charge more.
As a result, current residents will gradually be forced out. It can occur when a property is wholly redeveloped so that higher prices can be charged. Alternatively, greater demand will allow landlords to raise rents and sellers to charge more. People who worked hard to buy homes there will gain.
This is not a side effect of the Purple Line. It is the intent of the Purple Line. Indeed, the more successful the Purple Line is achieving economic development, the more it will occur. Notwithstanding all of the social justice blandishments, there is only so much counties can do to stop it.
Nor do they want to do so because they want the tax revenue and it’s the nature of the market. When areas become more desirable, prices rise. This is not meant as an attack on people who leave as abandoning the neighborhood or on people who move in as insensitive gentrification agents. It is simply how the market works.
George Leventhal says “We should stop frightening people about it.” But, as the debate highlighted, change will occur. To the extent that the Purple Line is a transportation boon, and billions are going to be invested towards that end, it will raise prices and drive current residents out, as it has in Bethesda and increasingly in Silver Spring.
There are a variety of policies one can do to increase the availability of affordable housing more generally. But the Purple Line is not one of them. Marc Elrich, an advocate of the Purple Line and more aggressive efforts to preserve affordable housing near Purple Line stops, explained his view in more detail in a blast email yesterday:
To zero in on an important case that came up at the forum, county officials have too often proposed zoning changes that would displace low-income communities of color. In 2012 and 2013, a Long Branch sector plan that included the upzoning of a very large swath of existing affordable multi-family housing – housing occupied largely by Long Branch’s low-income immigrant community – was brought before the County Council. The plan’s architects intended to tie construction of the Purple Line to new, much more expensive housing developments that would replace the existing affordable housing in that area. Even if 15% of the new units were “MPDUs” (moderately priced dwelling units), which was the best-case scenario, there would have been fewer total affordable housing units available in Long Branch if this plan had been implemented – in other words, less available lower-priced housing for people who need it.
Many of the families living in the existing affordable multi-family homes would not have qualified to live in MPDUs. Some had more family members than most MPDUs would have been able to hold (the proposed plan did not require developers to provide family-sized units). Some families had incomes too low or credit histories too short to qualify. For others, legal status would have been their chief barrier. In addition, the county did not have the resources to provide long-term rental assistance on the scale that would have been required in Long Branch.
In other words, under the Planning Board’s proposal, the current low-income immigrants in Long Branch would have been forced to relocate elsewhere. Since the existing buildings weren’t even an impediment to building the Purple Line, the Planning Board’s recommendations were particularly ill-advised.
When I met with planning staff and their director at the Long Branch shopping center, I told them – forcefully – that their plan was unacceptable.
I am happy to note that, within a week of my meeting, the proposal to rezone the particular properties I had questioned was withdrawn. I was also able to get results when the same process unfolded in two more sector plans and a proposal from the Planning Board to do a mini master plan. But these plans should never have been proposed in the first place. I am convinced they never would have been if we had a racial equity lens in place and were required to show the impacts such plans would have had on the surrounding communities of color.
I’ve been the consistent voice on the County Council speaking out on these issues because I know what the consequences will be if we fail to preserve our existing affordable housing. And as your next County Executive, I would like to make the consideration of racial equity the expectation in all of our policymaking, rather than the exception to the rule.
Put another way, the question is essentially how much power is county government willing to exercise over developers both in terms of what they can do and what they have to pay. However, it’s also a question of how much tax revenue the county is willing to sacrifice. Happy talk is not the same as action or making the best of not-so-easy choices.
Krish Vignarajah at Sunday’s Debate (Photo: Ed Kimmel)
Krish Vignarajah filed the papers to run for governor with only hours to spare. The Baltimore Sun reported earlier today that she is running with Sharon Blake, the former president of the Baltimore Teachers Union, in “the first ever all-women of color ticket.” Though now public knowledge, I cannot seem to find any mention – or nice photo of the ticket to put above this post – on Vignarajah’s website, Twitter, or Facebook.
Vignarajah has made a positive impression at gubernatorial debates and forums based on before and after straw polls, as her Twitter feed understandably reports. My own impression is that she is clearly very sharp and got off the best line at Sunday’s debate, but I would like to see evidence of more in-depth knowledge of state public policy.
Nevertheless, Vignarajah may have had trouble attracting a running mate due to serious questions about whether she is qualified for the ballot. The Maryland Constitution requires that gubernatorial candidates have resided and been registered to vote in Maryland for five years.
Vignarajah has a real problem here, as Bethesda Beat first reported:
Vignarajah, 37, an attorney, first registered to vote in Maryland in 2006 at an address in Catonsville. However, she didn’t vote in the state until the 2016 general election. . .
While her Maryland registration remained active, she registered to vote in D.C. on Sept. 14, 2010, then voted in the city’s primary the same day, according to her D.C. voting history, also obtained by Bethesda Beat.
She listed her address at the time at an apartment building at 1701 16th St. NW in the District.
Her D.C. voting record shows that she also voted in the April 26, 2011, special election, as well as the 2012 and 2014 general elections in the city.
Though she was never purged from being registered in Maryland, Viganarajah was registered and voted in the District in 2014. Two years later, she voted in Maryland for the general but skipped the primary.
This issue has plagued Vignarajah’s campaign from the start, punctuated by her disastrous exchange with Tom Sherwood on “The Maryland Politics Hour” (starts at 4:25) in which her only explanation for why she registered and voted in DC if she was a Maryland resident was convenience, and she also refused to say if she paid income taxes in Maryland.
Vignarajah referred to her D.C. apartment as a “crash pad” and said she “did not live there” after Kojo Nnamdi described the building as “the coolest” in the city, raising the obvious question of how she registered to vote in D.C. if she didn’t have a D.C. residence.
Despite asserting that “I am absolutely eligible to run” and that she made legally certain of it before entering the race, Vignarajah filed a lawsuit demanding that the State Board of Elections confirm her eligibility. Attorney General Brian Frosh opposed the suit. Since she had not yet filed, the issue was not really ripe for consideration – courts don’t do hypotheticals – and she then withdrew the suit.
I imagine some potential running mates would be put off by the excellent prospect of being thrown off the ballot with Viganrajah, thus turning a long shot at the number two slot into the latest joke and a very short campaign.
I imagine we will find out shortly.
Note: As we have pointed out previously, Adam Pagnucco and I are both supporters of Rich Madaleno’s campaign. Nevertheless, as is always the case, our posts remain our own.
In a recent Seventh State post on February 26th the following is written: “And so we have something extremely rare in MoCo politics: a candidate who drafts a questionnaire for other candidates with an endorsement on the line.” I’d like to correct the record with examples to the contrary:
Serving as a member of the Maryland General Assembly is considered to be a part-time job. State delegates and senators frequently have other means of employment concurrent with their service in elected office. Indeed even members of the Montgomery County Council, which is considered by many to be a full-time legislative body, have additional part-time positions. Just as many members of the legislature and many candidates for elected office have other jobs, so too do I as the host Public Interest Podcast. It is entirely within the realm of accepted practice for candidates and elected officials to be involved with political organizations and for those organizations to issue endorsement questionnaires.
I’d like to add that Public Interest Podcast is a non-partisan entity and, much like The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and other periodicals, issuing endorsements in no way diminishes the non-partisan nature of the endorsing organization. Endorsements will be issued by Public Interest Podcast based solely upon candidate responses to the questionnaire regardless of party affiliation and regardless of whether those candidates’ views are aligned with my own political views.
Adam: I am not defending those other organizations. But there is a difference here: they involve more than one person and can establish recusal procedures. You ARE Public Interest Podcast. There is nothing else there other than you recording interviews with people.
David: I called out Progressive Neighbors four years ago for having a ridiculous number of candidates on their board. Dana Beyer even sent a questionnaire to her opponent. I believe that they’ve fixed the problem and have no candidates on their current Steering Committee. Adam is also correct that PIP is you of course.
I hadn’t thought of a recusal process before. I could very well have someone else go through the endorsement responses and give them metrics for endorsement, say 7 of 9 questions have a Yes. That would be very fair wouldn’t it? In any case I can assure you that Republicans with whom I disagree personally on many issues will receive a Public Interest Podcast endorsement. I just don’t see a conflict of interest here. Perhaps we’ll have to agree to disagree on this. I did ask quite a few people before I sent out the questionnaire if they thought it was ethical or would present any problems and they told me that as long as I keep the campaign separate from the podcast there’s no reason why I shouldn’t use this opportunity to get candidates speaking about some of the issues I raised that no one else is talking about.
David: People frequently misunderstand that someone who recuses themselves from a process does not participate in it. Someone who designs a process for rating other candidates has not recused himself. I don’t see how one can keep the campaign separate from the podcast.
It looked for a bit that Tom Hucker (D-5), who only narrowly prevailed over Evan Glass in the open primary four years ago, was going to have an easy ride in his reelection bid. Not so. Kevin Harris has jumped into the race.
Harris and Hucker look likely to clash over development and the Route 29 BRT proposal. My impression is that normal primary divisions are a bit scrambled, as Harris is against the Route 29 BRT and wants to rein in developer influence.
Hucker’s decision to stay out of the public financing system while taking sizable contributions from development interests has already attracted attention in Bethesda Beat. Harris has chosen to stay in the public financing system.
If campaign finance resonates as an issue anywhere, you’d think it might be in this very progressive district. As the incumbent who has been in politics for years, Hucker starts out as a natural favorite but no longer has a cakewalk to a second Council term.
Kevin Harris Announcement by David Lublin on Scribd
By Adam Pagnucco.
A Facebook page purporting to belong to an officer of a new county Democratic club has turned out to be fake and was deleted. We have seen MANY things in prior election cycles but nothing quite like this.
Recently, a new organization called the Asian American Democratic Club of Montgomery County was established. Their Facebook page went up on Friday, February 23. The club’s Treasurer was listed as Hu Nguyen.
The club sent out a questionnaire to candidates. We reprint the first section below.
Below was a Facebook page established in the name of Hu Nguyen. Curiously, this person’s gender was listed as male. Also of note is that the person’s birthday was listed as November 12, 1987.
Hu Nguyen updated the club’s officer list to include her/himself and announced the club’s founding on Facebook.
Hu Nguyen was also listed as an officer on the club’s Twitter page.
Hu Nguyen offered a positive review of Hamza Khan, who is a candidate for Delegate in District 15 and is an administrator of the club’s Facebook page, and also complimented him in a conversation on the club’s page.
According to the Maryland State Board of Elections, Khan’s birthday is November 12, 1987 – the same as Hu Nguyen’s.
The profile picture on Hu Nguyen’s page matches the picture of a student at a prominent university in another part of the country. We reprint the original source of the picture below but we will not indicate her name or her university out of deference to her. Her real name is not Hu Nguyen.
At least one individual filed a complaint to Facebook and the Hu Nguyen profile was removed. The statements above were also removed.
Soon after, a new Hu Nguyen page was created. It used the same head shot as the first page and said the person was based in Rockville. However, the cover photo was taken from a publication in Memphis, Tennessee.
That page has also now been deleted.
Your author sent the following email to Hamza Khan on February 26 at 1:53 PM.
Hamza, I am writing to ask about a person named Hu Nguyen. She is listed as an officer of the Asian American Democratic Club of Montgomery County on the club’s Facebook page and Twitter page. You are an administrator of the club’s Facebook page. She issued a positive review of you on Facebook and complimented you on the club’s page.
According to Hu Nguyen’s Facebook page, the person’s gender was listed as male despite her very obvious appearance as female. Her birthday was November 12, 1987, which matches your birthday. The person’s Facebook profile picture matches that of a student at a university in another part of the country.
Hu Nguyen’s Facebook page has now been deleted.
I am attaching screenshots, including one of the original source of Hu Nguyen’s profile picture.
Can you comment on the record via email about Hu Nguyen? Can you describe the circumstances under which you met her and how she joined the club? Also, can you supply an email address so that I can contact her? Thank you – Adam Pagnucco.
Khan replied:
Hi Adam & David:
Thank you for reaching out.
I actually am a mystified myself because despite her kind words about me, I’ve never met Hu Nguyen. She added me on Facebook claiming she met me at a fundraiser or meet and greet. Subsequently she disappeared on Facebook several times — in line with your statement above. I originally thought she was someone I met at a meet & greet for my campaign, but it turned out she’s not that person at all. As for why she has my birthday and she/he’s listed as a male on Facebook, from what I’ve been now told it was a deliberate attempt to try and tie her back to my campaign. This is unfortunate and very troubling.
I think Barnaby Yeh, their communications director can direct you further. He is cc:ed here.
Shortly after your author’s email was sent, Hu Nguyen was removed as an officer from the club’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Barnaby Yeh, the club’s communications director, posted the statement below on the club’s page branding the Hu Nguyen account as “fake” and saying the person “was trying to pose as a supporter as a candidate running for office in our county, but was a Facebook plant designed to try and discredit that candidate instead.”
Yeh then wrote the following in an email to your author:
The Asian American Democratic Club of Montgomery County is a grassroots organization of local Asian American activists. Our founders include several local millennials who have worked on more than a few campaigns, been members of other Democratic groups, and are just passionate about getting people involved ahead of the June & November elections. We wanted to organize our club organically by spreading the word online, and decided to create a Facebook group for that purpose.
Hu had approached all of us online claiming to be an Asian American living in Montgomery County. Being that most of our board are millennials, we assumed that it was entirely plausible that we just never met her. She also posed as a friend of several officers’ mutual contacts, going as far as to claim to know the ex-girlfriend of one of our founding members, and claimed to have attended several local political events. She offered to be our treasurer, and given we a) have no money, and b) didn’t see the harm in having another board member, we agreed.
However, we encountered some strange irregularities in trying to reach Hu starting this weekend. Hu began aggressively posting on social media on our behalf, which contravened our agreed-upon roles. We also received a notice from Twitter that someone had changed our Twitter account password, and they had traced the change to an IP address in Aspen Hill, MD. None of our officers had authorized such a change, and we began to investigate. We then also traced the IP e-mail address that Hu had provided to us, and discovered it was from the Ashburn area. At that point, we tried to contact Hu on Facebook to confirm, and further noticed Hu’s birthday and gender identity did not match who Hu presented themselves to be. We concluded Hu was misrepresenting themselves, and have reported the account as fraudulent.
I hope this helps lays this all to rest.
Let this be a lesson: before making someone an officer of your organization, make sure that they actually EXIST first!
