early voting, Montgomery County Board of Elections

Good Solution on Early Voting

The Montgomery County Board of Elections (BOE) has agreed to reinstate the original nine early voting (EV) centers, instead of closing ones in Burtonsville and Chevy Chase to relocate them to more Republican Potomac and Brookville.

In return, the all-Democratic state legislative delegation has agreed to support legislation to open a tenth EV center in Montgomery. My guess is that this one would be in Potomac, since that location was preferred by the BOE over Brookville when they agreed to reopen the Burtonsville EV center.

Here is the communication from MCDCC:

The Montgomery County Board of Elections (BOE) voted to reinstate 8 of the original early voting centers from the 2014 election and the Wheaton Firehouse to replace the Wheaton Community Center, which is undergoing rennovation. This includes the Praisner and Lawton centers advocated by the MCDCC, County Council, and State Legislators, as well as numerous community members and non-partisan community groups. The decision means that they will submit the 9 centers to the State BOE for approval at their special meeting on Friday October 23.

A critical part of this decision is that the MCDCC and State Delegation made a commitment to submit legislation at the beginning of the Legislative Session in January to add a 10th early voting center in Montgomery County for the 2016 election. The County Council also made a commitment to establish a 10th early voting center.

Although the decision by the Board today will not be final until it is approved by the State BOE, voters in Montgomery County should be pleased with the outcome.

We will be in touch after the State BOE meeting on Friday to report on the final decision.

Darrell Anderson
MCDCC Chair

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Airlines

Shame on American Airlines II

On Thursday, the Washington Post published a story (“Shame on American!”) about how a woman was bullied by an American Airlines flight attendant to the point of tears and forced off the plane for doing nothing wrong according to the other passengers.

Earlier the same week, American Airlines showed off its shameful company values when it blamed someone else in a sad effort to cover up its own incompetence and poor security (The events occurred on USAirways, owned and operated by AA. Indeed, USAirways ceased entirely to exist as a separate carrier this weekend.)

On USAirways Flight 1718 from Orlando MCO to Washington DCA on October 12th, the plane taxied to the runway but then returned to the gate and asked a passenger to leave the plane. It then took off around an hour after its scheduled departure time.

Roughly 15 minutes into the flight, the pilot announced that we had to return to Orlando because the passenger who was removed from the flight had “faked a ticket” but his luggage was still on the plane. The pilot explained that he did not believe that there was any significant security threat, but as we were heading to “DC,”  he didn’t want to take any chances.

I contacted American Airlines after the flight to investigate. After all, faking your way on to a plane is a serious matter. Was anyone arrested? How did this occur?

Turns out that no one “faked a ticket.” There were two people with the same name. Apparently, both were headed to DCA (or AA thought they were both going to DCA). An AA agent issued a boarding pass mistakenly for “John Smith” #2 after checking his driver’s license, according to AA.

Both passengers managed to board the plane. Indeed, when they had the same seat, the airline announced an overbooking situation and offered vouchers to induce someone to leave the plane. We ended up returning to the gate the first time because the wrong John Smith was still on the plane.

At this point, one wonders how two people with the same seat could be allowed to board the same flight without the second one being flagged since the first had already boarded. Additionally, why did AA fail to sort out the problem properly before we left the gate?

We had to return to Orlando after takeoff because only then–after we had already returned to the gate one time and finally left for DC– did AA realized that the wrong John Smith’s luggage was still on the plane.

The pilot’s announcement that a passenger had “faked a ticket” was “incorrect” according to Alexis Coello, AA’s Corporate Communications Manager at American Airlines Miami Hub. She explained that the pilot had made a safety call to return to Orlando because the wrong man’s luggage was still on the plane.

Of course, this doesn’t explain why AA did not remove Smith’s luggage after we returned to the gate the first time. When I asked if AA should have removed his luggage at that point, Coello stated “I’m not going to answer that question,” which is a nonetheless a very revealing answer.

Letting the wrong person get on a plane is bad enough but failing to sort out whether his luggage was on the plane after he had already been removed was flat out negligent. It also doesn’t explain why the passengers were misinformed about a faked ticket or why AA has not corrected the record.

While Coello says that pilot did not have complete information, “faked a ticket” comes across as an attempt to evade responsibility for poor security and why the flight that took more than twice as long as scheduled on a clear, sunny day with no traffic issues at either airport.

No apology for either the incompetence or the incorrect information has yet been issued by AA. When I asked Coello if AA had plans to do so, she sounded shocked by the very idea and asked: “How would we be able to do that?” Um, perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult because AA has the addresses and phone numbers and probably email addresses of the passengers.

So AA doesn’t just bully customers off its planes, it mishandles security issues and then tries to mislead their customers in order to minimize responsibility.

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alcohol, Montgomery County

Hans Riemer Responds on Opposition to the County Alcohol Monopoly

Today, I am pleased to present a guest post by Montgomery County Councilmember Hans Riemer (D-At Large), author of the proposed changes to the County liquor laws. (You can read a counterpoint in a previous post by Adam Pagnucco.)

I was very interested to see the results from the survey question commissioned by Comptroller Franchot. I expected to see that residents of Montgomery County are deeply dissatisfied with the alcohol regulations they endure under the county and state. That is why I led the effort to raise these issues and end the DLC’s wholesale monopoly as chair of the Council Ad Hoc Committee on Liquor Control.

I strongly believe our county alcohol regime holds back the vibrancy of our restaurant and nightlife economy and negatively impacts the choices residents get in stores. Our state regime, which denies the convenience of shopping for beer and wine at grocery stores or other large chain retailers, is also badly out of touch with our residents.

While the poll does show the general dissatisfaction with the alcohol regime our residents endure, it unfortunately does not specify which parts of the regime are the culprit, state or local. In my many conversations with residents, I find that the primary complaint relates to the state of Maryland’s unfortunate ban on the sale of beer and wine in grocery stores.

This is important because of the council’s plan is enacted, the county liquor stores survive and actually increase in number in order to increase consumer options and pay for reform. We need them. Considering that, I would ask how important is it to residents to replace county liquor stores with private ones? While I am sure that there is some support for that, it is not clear to me that it is a very high priority for the community. I don’t hear a lot of complaints that we have county stores. Mostly just that there aren’t enough of them. What about you?

Most importantly we don’t know from this poll how much support would exist for getting rid of county stores if it means having less funds available for schools, police, parks, and the like. Because the warehouse would have to move to the capital budget if the DLC were eliminated, the plan would also affect school construction and other capital needs.

After six months of council work sessions with stakeholders, and detailed survey work with stores and restaurants, the Council proposal focuses on something we know factually to be true.  We can come up with an efficient and effective distribution regime by allowing the private sector to deliver craft beer and fine wine. This ends the monopoly by giving the private sector 25,000 boutique brands to distribute, while the county retains only the 4,500 big brands.

The statewide policies of course can only be addressed at that level.

In conclusion, this one poll question does not tell us all very much about the complicated decisions that together our county and state must make. So we will need to use our best judgment.

My belief is that if the county can accomplish what it has proposed and if the state can reform the statewide policies that need to be addressed, the combination — a huge change from the status quo — will bring our residents what they want and deserve.

You can read more about our proposal here, which was unanimously supported by my Council colleagues, and the County Executive, as well as restaurants, stores and the county employee union. It will be before our county delegation for their consideration this coming session.
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alcohol, Montgomery County

Poll: MoCo Voters Oppose County Alcohol Monopoly

Today, I am pleased to present a guest blog by Adam Pagnucco:

A poll commissioned by Comptroller Peter Franchot has found massive opposition to Montgomery County’s liquor monopoly.

Among those polled, 69% support eliminating the County monopoly with slightly  higher levels of support for repeal–74%–among people who describe themselves as definite voters. The results indicate that residents across party, gender, age, education and ideological lines favor getting rid of the laws granting the county control over alcohol sales.

The poll question was asked in a broader statewide poll on a number of issues.  The statewide poll, conducted by Normington, Petts & Associates in September 2015, had roughly 500 respondents with 84 in Montgomery.

The MoCo residents were asked whether they favor or oppose a “proposal to get rid of the laws making Montgomery County an alcohol controlled county.”  Following are the responses from each segment of the poll with a sample size of at least 20 respondents.

(Editor’s Note: Though 84 is a small sample size with an inevitably large margin of error of 10.9%, the difference between the share of favor and oppose getting rid of the monopoly is so large that it is statistically significant despite the small sample.)

Do you favor or oppose a proposal to get rid of the laws making Montgomery County an alcohol controlled county?

Full Sample (N=84)
Strongly favor                       48%
Somewhat favor                  21
Somewhat oppose               6
Strongly oppose                  17
Don’t know                              7

Total favor                              69
Total oppose                         24

Definite Voters (N=72)
Strongly favor                       52%
Somewhat favor                  22
Somewhat oppose               5
Strongly oppose                  14
Don’t know                              7

Total favor                              74
Total oppose                         19

Men (N=51)
Strongly favor                       55%
Somewhat favor                  18
Somewhat oppose               6
Strongly oppose                  18
Don’t know                              3

Total favor                              73
Total oppose                         24

Women (N=34)
Strongly favor                       38%
Somewhat favor                  26
Somewhat oppose               6
Strongly oppose                  16
Don’t know                            13

Total favor                              64
Total oppose                         23

Age 18-44 (N=30)
Strongly favor                       57%
Somewhat favor                  20
Somewhat oppose               0
Strongly oppose                  18
Don’t know                              4

Total favor                              78
Total oppose                         18

Age 45-59 (N=34)
Strongly favor                       49%
Somewhat favor                  20
Somewhat oppose               9
Strongly oppose                  14
Don’t know                              8

Total favor                              69
Total oppose                         23

Age 60+ (N=20)
Strongly favor                       34%
Somewhat favor                  25
Somewhat oppose             11
Strongly oppose                  23
Don’t know                              8

Total favor                              58
Total oppose                         34

Education, some college or less (N=23)
Strongly favor                       38%
Somewhat favor                  14
Somewhat oppose             12
Strongly oppose                  27
Don’t know                              9

Total favor                              52
Total oppose                         39

Education, college graduate or more (N=60)
Strongly favor                       53%
Somewhat favor                  22
Somewhat oppose               4
Strongly oppose                  14
Don’t know                              6

Total favor                              75
Total oppose                         18

Registered Democrats (N=46)
Strongly favor                       50%
Somewhat favor                  17
Somewhat oppose               9
Strongly oppose                  19
Don’t know                              5

Total favor                              67
Total oppose                         28

Registered Republicans (N=23)
Strongly favor                       42%
Somewhat favor                  25
Somewhat oppose               4
Strongly oppose                  18
Don’t know                            11

Total favor                              67
Total oppose                         22

Liberal Ideology (N=29)
Strongly favor                       52%
Somewhat favor                  14
Somewhat oppose               4
Strongly oppose                  24
Don’t know                              6

Total favor                              65
Total oppose                         29

Moderate Ideology (N=25)
Strongly favor                       60%
Somewhat favor                  17
Somewhat oppose               7
Strongly oppose                    7
Don’t know                              9

Total favor                              77
Total oppose                         14

Conservative Ideology (N=31)
Strongly favor                       36%
Somewhat favor                  31
Somewhat oppose               8
Strongly oppose                  19
Don’t know                              6

Total favor                              67
Total oppose                         27

The poll has an important caveat: its small sample size.  However, it was conducted by a respected national polling firm with decades of experience and lots of clients around the country.  Furthermore, its results are consistent: every demographic asked favored ending MoCo’s status as an alcohol control jurisdiction.  Democrats and Republicans have many disagreements, as do liberals and conservatives.  But in MoCo, they agree on one thing:

End the Monopoly.

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early voting, Montgomery County

Early Voting Controversy Continues as GOP Feels the Heat

Board of Elections Shenanigans Documented

The Republican Board of Elections Chair is moving to restore one of the early-voting sites closed in a partisan vote after Republicans on the Board consulted secretly with party leaders and among themselves in closed meetings. Instead of opening a new early voting center in Brookville, he will propose at a special meeting to keep open the Praisner Center, which has a high share of African-American and Latino voters. From the Washington Post:

Bowing to three weeks of pressure from Democrats, the head of Montgomery County’s Board of Elections said Monday that he will propose that the Republican-majority panel retain one of the two heavily used early-voting sites it had voted last month to move. . .

Shalleck has scheduled a special board meeting for 5 p.m. Wednesday at the county elections offices in Gaithersburg to recommend that the Marilyn J. Praisner Community Recreation Center in Burtonsville continue as an early-voting spot.

But he still wants to close the Lawton Center site in order to open one in Potomac in the name of “geographic diversity” so the Democrats aren’t buying. The Lawton Center is in one of the more densely populated areas of the County and also within walking distance of the County’s largest employment center in Bethesda.

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Montgomery County

MoCo Voters are Less Liberal Than You Think

Today, I am pleased to present a guest blog by Adam Pagnucco:

Montgomery County is the home of Maryland progressivism. It was the first county in the state to ban smoking in restaurants, enact a living wage law, pass a bag fee, ban private use of pesticides, create a local Earned Income Tax Credit and protect transgender residents from discrimination. It has the biggest county budget of any jurisdiction and has the largest Health and Human Services budget BY FAR. Every single state and county-level elected official is a Democrat and almost all of them are strong progressives. So this must all be supported by an overwhelmingly liberal voting base, right?

Not exactly.

MoCo’s political system is underwritten by three things. First, it has closed primaries that are limited to party members. Unaffiliated voters can only vote for non-partisan offices (like school board seats) in primaries. Second, because the county is so heavily tied to the federal government, the Republican Party is tainted by its association with the tea party, right-wing demagogues, government shutdowns, debt limit crises and the sequester. This is a huge burden on the county’s GOP. Third, turnout in the primaries is low and falling. A grand total of 42,692 Democrats voted in every one of the last three gubernatorial primaries (2006, 2010 and 2014), which determine the election of the County Executive, County Council, State Senators and Delegates. That’s just four percent of the population. These folks get swamped by election-time mail and email and the county leaders owe their election to them.

These three factors have together produced a closed political system that is accessible only to Democrats, and very liberal Democrats at that. But the general electorate is much more diverse. Over the last three gubernatorial cycles, non-Democrats accounted for roughly 40% of the county’s general election turnout. And the Democrats are not necessarily all liberals. Council Member Phil Andrews ran for County Executive last year on an unabashed anti-tax, anti-union platform. In the summer of 2013, he was polling in the mid-teens among Democrats. In the 2014 Democratic primary, he received 22% of the vote. The fact that more than a fifth of primary Democrats embraced an anti-tax, anti-union candidate should give progressives pause.

But the real evidence for the sentiments of the voters comes from how they vote on ballot questions and charter amendments. These questions are decided in the general elections, not the primaries, and voters outside the Democratic four percent get to play. Consider the last three important county-level questions.

The Ficker Amendment, 2008

Former basketball heckler and perennial right-wing candidate Robin Ficker placed a charter amendment on the ballot that required all nine County Council Members to approve any property tax increase that would exceed the rate of inflation. Similar amendments had failed in the past. The County Executive, the entire County Council and a large progressive coalition spearheaded by labor opposed it. But the same general electorate that gave 72% of its vote to Barack Obama for President also approved the Ficker Amendment by a 51-49 margin.

The Ambulance Fee, 2010

The ambulance fee, which was intended to be paid by insurance companies to supplement the county’s Fire and Rescue budget, was a top priority of the County Executive and the county employee unions and it was passed by the Democratic County Council. It was opposed by the Volunteer Fire Fighters, Council Member Phil Andrews and the Republican Party and was petitioned to the ballot. The reasons for opposition differed; the volunteers worried that the fee would deter people in need from calling ambulances, while others simply opposed a new government fee. The Executive and the unions campaigned hard to pass it. The general electorate rejected the fee by a 54-46 margin.

Police Effects Bargaining, 2012

The politics of this one were a bit murky. The Democratic County Council unanimously passed a bill repealing the right of the police union to bargain over the effects of management decisions and the Executive supported it. Both the Democratic and Republican parties also supported the legislation. But labor vehemently opposed it and responded by picketing county Democratic Party events and eventually taking over part of its Central Committee. This was a big test for labor’s power in the county and the police union and its allies went all out to defeat the legislation. The general electorate upheld it by a 58-42 margin.

In every case, when general election voters were asked to weigh in, they chose what was arguably the less progressive position. And in every case, they went against the position of the county government employee unions.

The county is not a monolith. It’s a big jurisdiction with more than a million people and its various sub-components have different political leanings. For example, Takoma Park is famous for its liberalism, but Damascus leans towards the GOP. I totaled up the precinct results of all three ballot questions for each city and town in the county to determine which ones went for the more progressive positions (no on the Ficker Amendment and the police legislation, yes on the ambulance fee) and which ones did not. Here are the results.

Ballot Voting

Not a single part of the county adopted the more progressive position all three times. Only two areas – Cabin John and Takoma Park – sided with the more progressive position twice (opposing the Ficker Amendment and supporting the ambulance fee). Ten areas – Burtonsville, Darnestown, Derwood, Dickerson, Gaithersburg, Laytonsville, Montgomery Village, North Potomac, Olney and Sandy Spring – voted against the progressive position all three times. The referendum on effects bargaining was influenced by the fact that many police officers live in Upcounty areas like Clarksburg, Damascus, Germantown and Poolesville. Many presumably liberal areas in Downcounty favored reducing the bargaining rights of the police union. Bethesda, Cabin John, Chevy Chase, Leisure World and Potomac went against labor by two-to-one or more. Even Takoma Park voted against labor by 58-42%. Here’s an interesting fact: in these three instances, the only time the general electorate agreed with the Democratic County Executive and a majority of the Democratic County Council was when they wanted to reduce public employee bargaining rights. Is that truly a liberal voter base?

So the politics of county voters are considerably more diverse than their progressive elected leaders. What does that mean? It’s highly unlikely that the Democrats will be removed from power. The county’s Republicans are too weak, too underfunded and in many instances too conservative to pick up more than a seat or two (if that). And there is no other organized political movement to take on the Democrats. The real danger is that the business community, conservatives and single-issue groups will seize the voter tools available to them – charter amendments and ballot questions – and begin overturning progressive legislation and limiting the authority of county government on a strategic basis. Given the past history of the general electorate and depending on the issue, they just might succeed.

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early voting, Montgomery County Board of Elections

More Evidence of Early Vote Partisanship

Nope. Not a Partisan Decision at All

In a previous post, Adam Pagnucco examined the effect of the planned shift in early voting centers and found that the changes–passed by the Republican members of the Election Board over the unanimous objection of the Democrats–helped Republicans.

More evidence of partisan shenanigans emerged at the Montgomery County Council hearing. Portions of it shown above in a video put together by the Montgomery County Young Democrats nicely excerpt key moments.

The logical solution is simply to expand the number of early voting centers by two. This allows the placement of additional centers in less densely populated areas of the County, as Republicans favor, while maintaining existing centers in high density areas, including one with an above average share of African-American and Latino voters.

Republicans, however, tend to view early voting as one big “anti-conservative gambit,” weirdly claiming that it is an attempt to “make it harder for ‘the Republican base’ to vote” even though early voting allows everyone to vote. You’d think a party with so many resources would welcome the chance to get voters to the polls.

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Congress

Joel Rubin Announces Bid for the Eighth

My neighbor, Joel Rubin, has announced his entry into the Democratic primary for the Eighth Congressional District. Above is his announcement video and below is his email:

Hi David,

It’s Joel. I’m excited to let you, my friends, and family know first – I’m running for Congress to represent Maryland’s 8th Congressional District!

My wife Nilmini and I are proud to call the 8th our home. It’s where we started our family, and we now have the privilege of raising our three beautiful daughters here.

I’m joining this race because this Congressional District needs someone to represent it who has strong progressive values and a proven track record of getting things done. That’s me. I’ve fought for these values my entire career – from my time in the Peace Corps to my work at J Street, the Ploughshares Fund, and in the Obama Administration at the State Department.

Help us send an effective progressive voice to Washington here.

It’s time to elect leaders who have the courage to confront our nation’s challenges. And that’s why I’m running. I’ll provide Maryland’s 8th District with the kind of unapologetic, effective, and progressive leadership that it deserves in Congress. I have a track record of success in taking on tough challenges and will do that again in Congress. And I won’t stop until we win!

Support our campaign for effective progressive values. Donate now.

Thanks for your support,

P.S. – Please share this email, visit our website, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter. Encourage your friends, family and colleagues to be a part of this important campaign.

(Disclosure: I’m supporting Jamie Raskin for Congress.)

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Maryland Politics Watch