Talking School Board

Be sure to check out my column from today's Maryland Gazette discussing the need for an elected school board here in Anne Arundel County....something that I have talked about at length for a number of years now.

So....

.....let's take a look at the last two people in political circles who have employed Judd Legum.

One was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who of course spent most of the 1990's engrossed in one scandal or another....or another....or another. Legum worked as the Research Director of her Presidential Campaign, and if you remember towards the end of the campaign it was supporters of Clinton's campaign that first gave worth to the asinine birther movement.

Next, Legum (as we noted) went to work for New York Governor David Paterson. Paterson, of course, admitted to having an affair with a subordinate while serving as Lt. Governor and ended his campaign for a full term today due to the fact that he is being investigated for accusations that he abused his power to protect an aide accused of assaulting a woman last October.

So if you take a look at the scorecard, the last two political candidate employers of Judd Legum are two people who embody the picture of Democrats constant embroiled in scandal. With the people Legum works for, I think we really need to be questioning the fitness of his judgment and his fitness for office. Legum has shown to be a bad judge of character considering these (and others) he has decided to associate himself with.

Sadly.....it also makes me wonder what skeletons are in Judd Legum's attic.

Being Generally Unhelpful

From the file of ways to neither win friends nor influence people comes tonight's story out of Howard County.

The Howard County Republican Club is a reasonably large group of Republicans in Howard County that has a large and extensive contact list. Apparently, that was an inviting target for club member John Wafer, who is also a member of the Howard County Republican Central Committee. Wafer, claiming to act on behalf of the entire committee, made a motion at tonight's meeting to compel the Club to hand over their entire contact list over to the Central Committee, claiming that this was "routine" and that "it happens all the time." Club members, being of sound mind, rejected the motion nearly unanimously.

There are a number of related problems that are here:

1. If a Republican Club within the county has a larger and more useful contact list than the County Central Committee, then one of these groups has fallen asleep at the switch; and,
2. If a Republican Central Committee member feels like the Committee is entitled (for lack of a better term) to access to a club's mailing list, it would seem that the aforementioned Central Committee member seems to think they are more important than they really are.

And nowhere that I am aware of "routinely" sees clubs turnover their lists to Central Committees. When I was President of the Anne Arundel YR's, I was never even asked to turn over the list. We information flowed down, we got it out without making a big to-do about it.

Obviously this appears to be an isolated incident, but I hope that all Republican Central Committee members take heed from this. We do not need Central Committee members to stoke ill will with committed, organized Republican Clubs, least of all in an election year. These Central Committee members need to "do no harm" as it were, and avoid taking actions that are generally unhelpful at best or, in this case, generally knuckleheaded.

Playing the Hand Your Dealt

I don't often disagree with Streiff's assessment of local politics, but I don't think his assessment of yesterday's budget hearings does the Republican Caucus justice in this regard.

As soon as President Miller and Speaker Busch called for public hearings and a public airing of Republican ideas; the caucuses were faced with a Hobson's Choice:

• Show up; or,
• Not show up.

Of course, there were consequences to the Caucus picking either choice:

• Show up, and you get the opportunity to air your grievances publicly, in front of citizens and the media. You get the opportunity to show the people and legislative leadership that there are, in fact, real alternatives to the failure of Martin O'Malley and the Democrats to lead on this issue; or,
• Don't show up, and then the story becomes Republicans not wanting to present their ideas on fixing the budget.

Tony O'Donnell, Chris Shank, David Brinkley, EJ Pipkin, Steve Schuh and other Republicans down in Annapolis did the best they could with the hand that they were dealt; in fact, I think that Republican leadership, in actuality, called the bluff of the Democrats. I am not sure that Speaker Busch thought the Republicans had real budget solutions to offer (never mind all of the amendments that O'Donnell, Lowell Stoltzfus, and others have offered over the years).

The fact that Republicans participated in the budget hearing was the best of all possible solutions, particularly when you consider the media hellstorm that would have followed had the Republican caucus balked.

That leads into a different problem; everybody and their brother knew that the Republican budget ideas were not going to get a fair shake in the media. Which leads me to wonder where the hell the Maryland Republican Party has been on this issue. What messages, emails, and talking points have gone out to aggressively push the Republican side of the story?

Frankly, there are two points that need to be said about the State Party media operation;

• One, it seems to comprise short, pithy, not particularly aggressive our meaningful press releases; and,
• Two, it seems to me that we here at Red Maryland seem to have a more aggressive and organized media operation than the State Party does.
  

Republican legislators in Annapolis did what they had to do yesterday; they played the hand that they were dealt.

Now, we have to do our part to grow their numbers this fall....

Judd Legum's Philosophy of Governance

Judd Legum, the out-of-state funded Democrat for Delegate in District 30, also has a side gig in addition to be a candidate and a trial lawyer as the Chairman of the Market House and City Dock Committee of Annapolis Mayor Josh Cohen's transition team. And buried deep in this Capital story about the failure of the Market House rehabilitation project to get on track are Legum's thoughts about how Market House should operate:

The committee recommended the formation of a commission to determine exactly who will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Market House and what businesses will move into it. It's more important to reflect the character of Annapolis than for the property to turn a profit, Legum said.

Emphasis mine.

So, just to be clear, Judd Legum has absolutely no problem whatsoever with Annapolis City Taxpayers operating an ostensibly for-profit enterprise that competes with local private businesses for customers and revenues operating at a loss. That of course would mean that city taxpayers could see themselves footing the bill for more of Market House's operating costs than would be legitimately necessary; a philosophy that has already failed at the state level.

In Judd Legum's world, soaking the taxpayers for the ineffectiveness of government is a perfectly legitimate position to take. We need to make sure that Judd Legum doesn't bring his backward philosophy of governance to the State House next year...

James King and the Californiazation of Maryland

Delegate James King has finally decided to stand for something (other than giving Martin O'Malley political cover) and he has picked term limits as his hill to die on for this legislative session, being the sole sponsor of HB660 which would prohibit members of the General Assembly, the Comptroller, the Attorney General, or the State Treasurer from serving more than two consecutive terms.

Why James King decided now was the time to actually try to play the role of a conservative is kind of baffling (unless you think his crowded District 33A re-election primary or a potential Senate challenge to Ed Reilly is a concern) but King has decided to happen upon the one issue that would turn effective control of the machinations of state over to......lobbyists and staffers.

One of the biggest criticisms of term limits is the complete lack of institutional memory that remains once the limits are in place. Legislative and Committee leadership are being overturned pretty much with every successive election that takes place. With that, that experience (for whatever its worth) is turned over. That leaves the most knowledgeable people when it comes to issues and legislative dynamics being those people who are unelected and not subject to term limits in the first place; the lobbyists and the staffers.

To see where the idea of term limits can get you, take a look at the fiscal situation in California. While it's true that King's constitutional amendment is not nearly as draconian as California's law, there are a number of pretty obvious impact these limits have brought the state:

1. Legislative leadership turns over at a rapid rate;
2. Staff members are increasingly valuable to newly elected legislators, since they know how the place really works.
3. Lobbyists are one of the most knowledgeable sources of information for newly elected legislator on particularly issues, legislative dynamics, etc.
4. Most legislators who know that when they are termed out of office that there are no practical political repercussions for any zany and off-the-wall ideas they want to introduce; and,
5. Those legislators who aren't trying to go home are career politician wannabes who are trying to move up the food chain to the next office.

So when you combined the elements of legislative turnover, entrenched staffers and lobbyists, and ambitious folks mixed with people not required to face the music, you get a state that is billions in debt, has an oppressive tax rate and business climate, and is losing people and companies to neighboring states in droves. Basically, Maryland on steroids.

And besides, we already have term-limits; they're called elections. The antidote to the same schmucks getting elected over and over again is citizen involvement.

Hey, we all think that our "citizen-legislators" should be more emphasis on the citizen and less on the legislator. And we all know that we can do better than the entrenched legislators that we have in Annapolis, some of whom have been there since the 1960's. But King's idea is foolish at best and dangerous at worst. And it isn't like the Amendment is going to be passed by the General Assembly any time soon.

If King wanted to put more emphasis on trying to create positive change in Annapolis and a little less emphasis on trying to put on conservative airs in an election year, he would reach across the aisle and work with Baltimore Democrats to change the legislative apportionment process to create single member districts in the House and a nonpartisan redistricting commission. That idea, which would have a lot of legs on both sides of the aisle, would bring about a much more positive change (and actually have a chance of going somewhere) and would be of greater benefit to the people of Maryland than this dog and pony show...

Maryland Dems soiling themselves with prospect of Ehrlich Running

In a nice moment of synergy, Center Maryland's centrist facade meets scare(d) tactics with this morning's advice that Bob Ehrlich should wait to run for Governor until 2014.

I'm not going to bother quoting the article, but I think the message is pretty clear: DEMOCRATS ARE TERRIFIED O'MALLEY IS GOING TO LOSE.

They may want to grab some clean underwear, too.....

The Brian Griffiths Minute: 02-08-2010

Keep one eye on New York

Looks like the New York Times is readying a scandalous story centered on New York Governor David Paterson that will likely be published any day now.

Why does this matter to Maryland. If you remember, the Paterson campaigned hired one Judd Legum to do their dirty work for them.

It will be interesting to see what scandals Paterson has gotten himself in. Then the question becomes this: what did Legum know, and when did he know it. We already know about Legum's lack of guts. But if Legum knew Paterson was up to no good and took his money anyway, it will speak volumes towards his character....

Bill Frick Beclowns Himself Again

Last night I wrote about Bill Frick's tweet lamenting his job. Well, sometime between 8:54 PM and now, Frick deleted the Tweet.

Thankfully, we have saved it for posterity so you can see it.

You can run, but you can't hide, Delegate Frick.....

The Selfbeclowning of Bill Frick

Delegate Bill Frick may have become the first Delegate to selfbeclown himself in 140 characters or less. Check out this tweet from Frick:

In a tax bill hearing. Lectured at by a 22 year old from Americans 4 Prosperity about freedom and how business works. This is my life.

Apparently, Delegate Frick isn't a fan of, you know, public participation in the Legislative Process. Apparently it is a tremendous strain on Frick's life to listen to testimony from somebody who probably understands more than Frick how free markets work and how to pull Maryland out of our economic doldrums. Then again if you read into his condascending tone, I suppose Bill Frick doesn't think 22-year olds should participate in the political process except to be quiet and knock on doors.

Of course, Delegate Frick, if your life is so difficult and you are so inconvenienced by public testimony, you could always hit the bricks, go back to Montgomery County, and let one of the thousands of unemployed Marylanders take your $43,500 a year seat in your place...

MTA stands for "Most Troubled Agency"

You know that sometimes, I get letters. And sometimes I get them about the Maryland Transit Administration, which as you know if you've been paying attention, is in dire need of a clean slate and fresh leadership from somebody who has not been part of the circus and has at least a smidge of common sense.

So needless to say that the following email message I got was....disturbing:

A guy I work with has a neighbor who does maintenance and repairs of the MTA buses in Baltimore City. Last week, a call came in from a driver, and she wanted to bring her bus in because "someone had taken a crap in the bus."

She brought the bus in, and, unbeknownst to her, this guy reviewed the tape from the bus. Well, as you probably guessed by now, they have footage of her emptying her bus, going Out of Service, pulling off somewhere, and taking a crap in the middle of the bus. The best part of it was this: she was on the phone calling it in as she was taking the dump.

So, the mechanic followed up with HR (or whatever the heck they have) and, because she is union, she was not fired... only reprimanded for her behavior.

Wow. Just wow. Is it any wonder why Light Rail, Metro, and MTA Buses fail to meet ridership expectations? I mean, how can riders expect a clean and safe mode of transit when even MTA employees can't meet basic standards of human civility?

So that leads me to ask the same questions I usually have when this issues come up:

• Why do Senior Leaders at the Maryland Transit Administration continue to have jobs;
• Why does Governor O'Malley take no responsible for MTA and its mismanagement?

If transit advocates really want to help increase ridership in the Baltimore area, they should join me in calling for new leadership and new realities over at MTA Headquarters. The current crew cannot change make the necessary changes to provide safe, reliable and clean transit.
For positive change, outside leadership is necessary.

A Prebuttal

A prebuttal to Governor O'Malley's State of the State Address: