Tag Archives: Charles Barkley

Adam Pagnucco, campaign finance, Council At-Large, Hans Riemer

Campaign Finance Reports: Council At-Large, May 2018

By Adam Pagnucco.

Today, we look at the Council At-Large candidates.  As with yesterday, we start with a note on methodology.  First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report period.  Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others.  Self-funding includes money from spouses.  Third, for publicly financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in the column entitled “Cash Balance With Requested Public Contributions.”  That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.

Below is our fundraising summary for the Council At-Large candidates.

First, a few random notes.  As of this writing, five at-large candidates – Craig Carozza-Caviness, Ron Colbert, Paul Geller, Richard Gottfried and Darwin Romero – have not filed May reports.  Lorna Phillips Forde did file a May report and requested matching funds, but her report contains many duplicated entries and is a big mess.  We are not printing her numbers until they get straightened out.  Michele Riley has given herself a combined $21,000 in two loans and one contribution, which exceeds the $12,000 self-funding maximum allowed in public financing.  That needs to be corrected or otherwise remedied.

Now to the numbers.  In the pre-public financing days, winning at-large candidates generally raised $250,000 or more with the notable exception of Marc Elrich.  Four candidates are in that territory: Hans Riemer (the only incumbent), Evan Glass, Bill Conway and Will Jawando.  Gabe Albornoz and Hoan Dang are not far off.  Delegate Charles Barkley (D-39) has not raised quite that much, but he started with a big war chest built over years of little competition in his district.  The cash on hand leaders are Glass, Riemer and Barkley, who are virtually tied, followed by Conway and then Jawando.

In evaluating differences in cash position, we don’t find variances of $20,000-30,000 very significant.  That’s because candidates schedule their expenditures differently.  Some have spent a bit more before the deadline and some held back to show a bigger balance.  What we do find significant is the difference between candidates who have close to $200,000 available for the final push – Riemer, Glass, Barkley and Conway – and those who have half that amount or less, such as Albornoz, Dang, Marilyn Balcombe, Jill Ortman-Fouse, Mohammad Siddique, Ashwani Jain, Danielle Meitiv, Seth Grimes and Brandy Brooks.  (Forget about those who have $25,000 or less.)  The latter group of candidates now faces very tough decisions on resource usage.  A mailer to super-Dems can cost $35,000-$45,000 depending on how the universe is defined.  So a candidate with $100,000 on hand might be able to squeeze out two or three mailers and that’s about it.  Is that enough to stand out given all the other races going on?

Institutional endorsements also play a role.  Several of the lesser funded candidates, especially Brooks and Meitiv, have some good endorsements that could help them.  We think the biggest beneficiary will be MCPS teacher Chris Wilhelm, who has more cash on hand than Albornoz, Dang and Balcombe and also has the Apple Ballot.  If the teachers mail for Wilhelm, that could effectively close the gap a bit between him and the top-funded candidates.

For what it’s worth, the conventional wisdom is that Riemer will be reelected, Glass and Jawando will join him and the last seat will come down to Conway or Albornoz.  We’re not ready to buy that for a couple reasons.  First, among the seven County Councils that have been elected since the current structure was established in 1990, only one – the 1998-2002 council – had zero at-large female members.  Combine that with the fact that 60% of the primary electorate is female and it’s premature to write off all the women running.  Second, this is an unprecedented year.  We have never had public financing before and we have never had so many people running at-large.  What seems like conventional wisdom now could seem very unwise in the blink of an eye!  So we expect surprises in this historic election.

Next: the council district races.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Charles Barkley, Council At-Large, Hans Riemer

Campaign Finance Reports: Council At-Large, January 2018

By Adam Pagnucco.

Now to the swarming Council At-Large race, a fascinating contest with a cast of candidates exceeding the population of several small island nations.  In accordance with our prior post on the Executive candidates, let’s review our methodology.  First, we calculate total raised and total spent across the entire cycle and not just over the course of one report period.  Many candidates, particularly in other races we will discuss, have been campaigning for more than a year and we want to capture that.  Second, we separate self-funding from funds raised from others.  Self-funding includes money from spouses.  Total raised does not include in-kind contributions.  Third, for self-financed candidates, we include public matching fund distributions that have been requested but not deposited in raised money and in cash on hand (which we call adjusted cash balance).  That gives you a better idea of the true financial position of publicly financed campaigns.

And now, on to the financial presentation.  (We hope this graphic can fit on your screen.)  Two candidates – Brandy Brooks and Darwin Romero – have not filed reports at this writing.

Delegate Charles Barkley (D-39) is a big winner here with the largest cash on hand in the race.  He has used his unique perch as the House’s point man on liquor issues to raise large amounts of money, adding to a war chest he has been accumulating for twenty years.  But the last time Barkley had a competitive election, Facebook did not exist and black and white mailers were still in use.  This is a big field full of hungry candidates and Barkley needs to do more than raise alcohol money to win.

Council Member Hans Riemer, the only incumbent in the race, continues to excel.  He has the highest amount raised ($219,103) and a low burn rate of 11%.  Add to that his two terms in office, his experience running countywide, his history of influential endorsements and his campaign skills and he looks like a safe bet to return.

Bill Conway has gone from being Diana Conway’s husband to being perhaps the one non-incumbent candidate that his rivals say is most likely to win.  Conway’s total raise ($215,881) is almost equal to Riemer’s and he actually collected more than Riemer from individuals.  The difference is that he has spent a lot more than Riemer by employing a campaign manager from the early days of his candidacy.  But since that campaign manager is former Raskin field staffer Doug Wallick, that was a good decision.  Conway combines a MoCo-targeted message of education, transportation and jobs with a likable personality and a staggering ability to learn quickly.  So far, so good.

The Council At-Large candidates pose for their Class of ’18 picture.

Next come the others who have qualified for public financing, most of whom have done so recently.  Evan Glass ran strong in District 5 last time, knows the county well and has a lot of fans from his service on more advisory boards and task forces than your author can count.  Chris Wilhelm is a progressive teacher who should appeal to his union, the powerhouse MCEA.  Will Jawando is a skilled candidate who would be in the House of Delegates now if it weren’t for Jamie Raskin’s 2014 slate.  Gabe Albornoz combines several networks – party, Leggett supporters and folks who have known him from his day job at the Recreation Department – and is liked by basically everyone who meets him.  A group of nine candidates – Glass, Wilhelm, Jawando, Albornoz, Hoan Dang, Seth Grimes, Shruti Bhatnagar, Mohammed Siddique and Ashwani Jain – are basically clustered together financially.  Danielle Meitiv will be right there too because she is close to qualifying for matching funds.

And then there are the rest.  Look folks – it’s popular to say that there are more than 30 candidates in this race.  But in all truth, the number of viable candidates is at most half that number.  To everyone who filed an affidavit or is not close to qualifying for matching funds: it’s not gonna happen for you, OK?  You’re the gazelle trying to run with a pack of hungry cheetahs.  You need to show some game or don’t show up at candidate forums asking for your ninety seconds of speaking time along with the folks that are busting their rear ends and getting several hundred residents to contribute.

We have a lot of questions about this data, such as: who is giving money?  Which candidates are drawing support from specific parts of the county?  And why aren’t the female candidates doing better?  (Of the top twelve fundraising candidates, only one – Shruti Bhatnagar – is a woman.)  All of that analysis will have to wait as we are done for now.

Next: the district council candidates.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, Charles Barkley, Council At-Large, Hans Riemer

Two Tiers in the At-Large Council Race, Part Two

By Adam Pagnucco.

In Part One, we spotlighted five losing candidates who went on to be elected to multiple terms on the Montgomery County Council.  That illustrates a key point: candidates with electoral experience often come back stronger in future races, even if they lose their first elections.  The top tier of potential at-large council candidates includes the following people who have earned lots of votes in prior races for council and the General Assembly and presumably know how to earn them in the future.

Hans Riemer

49,932 votes in the 2014 at-large primary, third place

Your author admits to being partial to Riemer as a former member of his staff.  That said, he is the only incumbent in the race as his three current colleagues have been tossed out by term limits.  Back in 2010, we ran a series on why MoCo incumbents lose and identified four reasons: they were Republicans, they were lazy, they made lots of enemies (especially in their districts) and they had great challengers.  Riemer is not a Republican, he’s not lazy and he has no more enemies than most other local politicians.  Great challengers are rare, and because Riemer is the only incumbent running for one of four seats, four great challengers would have to get in to knock him out.  That’s just not going to happen.  The only certainty in this race is that Riemer will be reelected.

Beth Daly

39,642 votes in the 2014 at-large primary, fifth place

Dickerson activist Beth Daly ran a solid at-large campaign in 2014.  Her support crossed over with incumbent Marc Elrich and she got many valuable endorsements from the labor and environmental communities.  Daly’s problem had less to do with her and more to do with the field as she was running against four incumbents.  So did Riemer in 2010, but he benefited from incumbent Duchy Trachtenberg’s blowing up her relationships with labor and sitting on a huge unspent campaign balance.  None of the 2014 incumbents committed mistakes of that magnitude, and Daly, despite all the things she did right, could not break through.  We don’t know if she has any interest in running again, but if she does, she would be a strong contender in a wide open race.

Tom Hucker

7,667 votes in the 2014 District 5 primary, winner

If Hucker stays in District 5, he will be defending a safe seat.  Pay no attention to his close victory in 2014; Hucker and his super-duper staff led by MCDCC Chair Dave Kunes have locked down the district.  But there are rumors that Hucker could run at-large.  If he does, he would be formidable.  Hucker has a true-blue progressive voting record in both Rockville and Annapolis, and with more than 20 years of political experience, he knows how to win.  Labor and the environmentalists will be there for him, too.  Note: it’s misleading to compare the vote totals of Hucker and his 2014 opponent, Evan Glass, to the other candidates on this list.  Hucker and Glass ran in a vote-for-one race whereas most of the others ran in multiple-vote races.

Evan Glass

7,445 votes in the 2014 District 5 primary, second place

Former journalist and uber-activist Evan Glass nearly shocked the world by coming close to beating heavy favorite Hucker in 2014.  Since then, he has kept busy by running youth film non-profit Gandhi Brigade and serving on Committee for Montgomery’s board.  He has well-wishers in many parts of the county’s political community and could be a consensus candidate in whatever election he enters.  It’s important to note that Glass and Hucker won’t be in the same race.  One will run in District 5 and the other will run at-large.  Our prediction: there is a strong possibility that the two former rivals will be council colleagues in December 2018.

Will Jawando

5,620 votes in the 2014 Legislative District 20 primary, fourth place

5,634 votes in MoCo in the 2016 Congressional District 8 primary, fifth place

Former Obama aide Will Jawando is the kind of candidate you could fall in love with.  He’s handsome, well-spoken and ridiculously charismatic.  He’s also good at raising money.  But after running strong for a District 20 House seat in 2014, he inexplicably ran for Congress in 2016.  Our prediction is that Delegate Sheila Hixson, who just gave up a committee chair she held for more than twenty years, will retire and Jawando will run for her seat.  But if Jawando runs for council at-large instead, he will get more than his fair share of votes.

Charles Barkley

4,896 votes in the 2014 Legislative District 39 primary, first place

Note: the above race had no challengers

District 39 Delegate Charles Barkley was first elected in 1998 as part of a slate of Democrats who took out three Republican Delegates.  He has coasted to victory in the district ever since.  Something of a maverick in Annapolis, Barkley has told Bethesda Magazine that he will likely be running for council at-large.  Barkley’s problems are that he has never run a modern campaign including social media and blast email and his district has the smallest number of regular Democratic voters of any legislative district in the county.  But he reported a $205,478 campaign account balance in January 2017, and if he doesn’t enroll in public financing, he can spend every cent of that in a race for council.

That’s the top tier.  The second tier is everyone else.  There are some noteworthy candidates stepping forward.  Chris Wilhelm is a progressive MCPS teacher who has worked for Delegate David Moon (D-20) and is off to a fast start.  Marilyn Balcombe, President/CEO of the Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce, is well-known in the business community and is smart and pragmatic.  School board members Rebecca Smondrowski and Jill Ortman-Fouse have not publicly said they’re interested in the council – yet – but both of them ran against MCEA-endorsed opponents and won.  Would any of them, or any of the many other people thinking about running, be top-notch candidates?  There’s no way to tell right now.  But given the number of at-large openings and the high probability that some of the top-tier people won’t get in, at least one new candidate will probably win.

Share
Adam Pagnucco, alcohol, Charles Barkley

Barkley Blasts Annapolis

By Adam Pagnucco.

Delegate Charles Barkley (D-39) has just given the most astounding interview by a member of General Assembly leadership ever seen by your author.  In it, he broke the most important rule of Annapolis decorum there is: never throw your superiors under the bus.

Barkley is the Chair of the House Economic Matters Committee’s Alcoholic Beverages Subcommittee.   In theory, that makes him the proximate point person on alcohol bills in the House.  Some think of the alcohol industry as one industry, but in fact it is several, with the manufacturers, distributors, retailers, restaurants and several individual companies hiring their own lobbyists and making tons of political contributions.  That makes for complicated politics which, among many other things, has produced the much-criticized bill punishing craft breweries.  That bill has already caused one potential brewery owner to bail on the state.

The anti-brewery bill passed the House on a 139-0 vote.  One source tells us, “When a bad bill passes on a vote like that, someone f____d up.”  In an incredible interview with Maryland beer blog Naptown Pint, Barkley placed the blame on his superiors, specifically Economic Matters Committee Chair Dereck Davis and Speaker of the House Mike Busch.  The whole interview is a massive scoop and a must-read, but the key passages are this:

“We didn’t know what was in the bill until the day it came in front of our committee for the vote,” Barkley answered. But was that due to the rush of the process, or was it an intentional screen being put up around the bill’s contents?

“I don’t think they were trying to give out too many details,” he commented…

“I honestly thought we were moving in the right direction with Nick Manis [MCA], Steve Wise [MSLBA legal counsel] and [Jack] Milani [MSLBA, Monaghan’s Pub in Baltimore]. We thought we were making progress, and we had the guys talking to us.”

Barkley then paused for a moment.

“All of a sudden, they quit talking to us,” he continued. “And then the [Economic Matters Committee] Chairman [Dereck E. Davis] said, ‘This is what we’re doing.’”…

I asked him his thoughts on some of the statements by House members who voted in favor of HB 1283 that they now know it was a bad bill or that they were misled on the contents ahead of the committee vote that pushed HB 1283 over to the Senate.

“I would say absolutely they were misled. [The House] thought we worked out a compromise and this was it. We hadn’t,” he stated.

“Up until this point, I ran the subcommittee and I kept my chairman [Davis] informed. But this one left my hands. I’ve never had this kind of intervention before, until this year. I thought [Manis, Wise and Milani] were meeting with us. But I think we were getting too close to stuff they didn’t want. So I think they met with the Speaker and got things changed.”

Here is a sub-committee chair describing a major bill as a backroom, secret deal involving lobbyists, a powerful committee chair and the Speaker in cahoots to deceive the full House membership.  Your author has never seen a state legislator entrusted with leadership responsibility go on the record in this way before.  It is an almost certain firing offense.

Barkley has always been something of a maverick.  Once a Vice-President of the county teachers union, he has not always been their best friend in Annapolis.  In 2009, he was famously kicked off the Appropriations Committee and lost a subcommittee chair for defying leadership on the millionaire tax.  In 2012, Barkley was one of a handful of MoCo Delegates to vote against the immensely damaging teacher pension shift, a top priority of Governor Martin O’Malley and the presiding officers.  After losing the first vote, he introduced a floor amendment to the budget which would have cut the shift in half, which also failed.  Considering this record, it’s surprising that Barkley acquired the alcohol subcommittee chair at all.

Barkley’s candor is likely aided by his apparent decision to leave Annapolis and run for County Council.  We don’t know what the future holds, but we will say this: given Barkley’s iconoclastic ways, he would make an interesting County Council Member.

Share
Department of Liquor Control

The Liquor Monopoly’s Preposterous Claims of Improvement

Today, I’m pleased to present a guest post by Adam Pagnucco:

On February 4, representatives of Montgomery County’s Department of Liquor Control (DLC) headed to Annapolis to brief the county’s state legislators on their operations. The stakes were high. DLC’s Executive Director had abruptly left his position six days before and legislation was pending on whether to allow voters to decide on opening up the monopoly to private sector competition. As of this writing, 2000 people have signed a petition in support of that legislation.

DLC’s message to the legislators is that improvements were underway, but they would take two months to take effect. As Delegate Charles Barkley (D-39) noted, that coincides with the end of the General Assembly’s session. Barkley said, “If we’re going to do anything, we have to do it before we get out of here—and of course, after a two-month period, it’s too late.”

DLC also claimed to have a 98.5% delivery accuracy rate. Delegate Kirill Reznik (D-39) replied, “If all of what the DLC does is comparable to or better than private industry . . . why does every restaurant manager I talk with beg me to get rid of this system?”

DLC has had problems and has been promising to make improvements for a long, LONG time. Consider the following.

  1. In 2005, then-DLC Executive Director George Griffin (who just recently left) outlined his improvement efforts to the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association:

In a department-wide project called Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), the DLC is upgrading its systems in all areas, with an emphasis on integration. “POS (point of sale), inventory control, accounting, the warehouse, licensee ordering, buyers: they’ll all be tied together,” said Griffin, “from the retail stores, which will have running inventories, to our drivers, who will be equipped with handhelds.”

Ten years later, the county’s Inspector General found that DLC’s warehouse was being run with sticky notes. The Inspector General found that the warehouse was missing as many as 154 cases a day without anyone investigating why.

  1. A 2007 article in the Washington City Paper noted extensive problems with DLC’s special order system. The article contains this quote:

When Griffin took over the DLC, he inherited a department with low morale and little motivation. “The department had not been operating well and was sort of seen as an outcast from the rest of the county government in a way,” the director says. “I used to joke around and say, ‘This department was like, in a family, the crazy aunt who lives upstairs. None of us talk about her. You’re kind of embarrassed to admit that she exists, but everyone wants her money.”

The same problems persist a decade later. Many licensees would not refer to the DLC as “a crazy aunt” because that characterization is far too kind.

  1. A year ago, DLC launched a new inventory system to catalog, order and deliver its products. Griffin said, “It was a little rough getting started, but it’s gradually getting better.” But NBC4 found that the new system made ordering and delivery worse. American Tap Room owner Mike Jones said, “It’s getting increasingly worse. . . . This has been one of the most frustrating processes I’ve ever been involved in, where you’re almost pleading and begging with officials to get something done.”
  1. In late November, the County Executive said that complaints about DLC were “overblown.” One month later, DLC suffered a historic delivery meltdown in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
  1. Last June, DLC developed an “Improvement Action Plan” to improve its operations. The Restaurant Association of Maryland surveyed its members about how DLC was doing eight months after this plan was adopted. Here are a few survey responses from restaurant owners and managers on a number of issues.

On Special Orders

What frustrates me the most is the lack of care/regard for special order items. After waiting 15 days for certain cases of wine, I get a camera shot from my vendor who is at the warehouse staring at all the missing cases just sitting in my designated space. Infuriating!

Not been able to speak to someone who knows what is going on with my order 2) If you run out of product, good luck getting it back in stock at a reasonable time with a once a week delivery and order system is impossible to keep availability. 3) For weeks I was out of several wines and after waiting and talking to the sales rep. I was informed that the wines were delivered to the county. Called them and talked to several people without a clear answer so I decided to go to DLC and find out what they had there for me. They were surprised that the wines were there because they could not find them on the computer as being delivered and in my cubicle waiting for weeks to be delivered.

On Regular Stock

The DLC constantly runs out of inventory, delivers late and never apologizes. Also, anytime you go to the DLC to pick stuff up, all you see are guys standing around by the ‘no smoking’ sign, and smoking. They are lazy and many of them do nothing.

Products that should be widely available are out of stock – Blue Moon six pack bottles, Corona 24 oz. cans, Sierra Nevada six pack bottles.

On Billing

I was charged for 6 cases of stock wine that NEVER CAME! I spent hours on the phone trying to resolve the issue. They sent the 6 cases . . . of the WRONG wine 2 weeks after the fact. Never refunded the money and wouldn’t take the order back.

It is impossible to know track on the DLC website how much will be pulled out of your bank account and when. The amounts directly debited from our bank account never match the invoices.

On Delivery

The DLC doesn’t care for or understand the products they are delivering. It’s why we receive wrong boxes, out of date items, improperly handled merchandise and a general sense lacking of any genuine appreciation for their jobs.

Over all there is no sense of urgency or organization with the DLC. Paying 20%+ for product over what we pay in DC is just insane. Recently we did not get product in for a wine dinner we were having and we placed the order 3 weeks prior and they even showed it as an in stock!

The above history makes it obvious that DLC’s promises to improve cannot be believed. Delegate Barkley is right; they are trying to run out the clock and prevent anything positive from getting done. And what should get done?

Thousands of people know the answer: End the Monopoly.

Share
House of Delegates, Marijuana

Analysis of Marijuana Vote

The House of Delegates voted 78-55 to pass the marijuana decriminalization bill. Most prominently, Judiciary Chairman Joe Vallario defied House tradition and voted against a bill now supported by his own committee.

A total of 17 Democrats voted red. Del. Charles Barkley (D-39) was the only Montgomery delegate who voted no. Most of the Democrats who voted no are from more conservative jurisdictions in the State with a smattering of African Americans

Democrats who voted NAY (17): K. Kelly (Allegany), Donoghue (Washington), Burns (Baltimore City), Frush (Prince George’s & Anne Arundel), Hubbard (Prince George’s), Valentino-Smith (Prince George’s), Howard (Prince George’s), Vallario (Calvert & Prince George’s), Jameson (Charles), Wilson (Charles), Bohanan (St. Mary’s), Wood (Charles & St. Mary’s), Sophocleus (Anne Arundel), Rudolph (Cecil), Conway (Wicomico & Worcester), Barkley (Montgomery), Conaway (Baltimore City).

Republicans who voted YEA (2): Costa (Anne Arundel), and Smigiel (Caroline, Cecil, Kent & Queen Anne’s).

Democrats who didn’t vote (6): Olszewski, Jones, DeBoy, Griffith, Walker, and James.

Republicans who didn’t vote (8): Myers, Hogan, Stocksdale, McDonough, Dwyer, Glass, Stifler, and Harper.

Share
Charles Barkley, Kirill Reznik, Nancy King, Saqib Ali, Shane Robinson

Surprisingly Dull in D39

District 39

None of the four incumbent Democrats that represent District 39 in the General Assembly face opposition–a surprising change from four years ago and not what many expected.

Sen. Nancy King faced fierce competition from Del. Saqib Ali in 2010. Not too long after the 2006 election, Sen. P.J. Hogan stepped down and the MCDCC chose then Del. King, who had won two terms and also served on the Board of Education, for the seat over newly elected Del. Ali.

Ali dogged King relentlessly for the rest of the term, continually attacking her as insufficiently progressive. The 2010 primary was rough with Sleepy Saqib pictures that Ali had posted on his Facebook page appearing in King’s mailers. (Kids, there is a life lesson here.) Ali ran a very strong campaign but The Rumble in Germantown ended with King taking the nomination by 248 votes.

The new redistricting plan just happened to draw Ali’s home into District 15. Unlike for congressional elections, Article III, Section 3 of the Maryland Constitution requires that legislative candidates live in their district. In the words of the Church Lady (late 1980s SNL youngsters), “how convenient.”

But not so surprising. Senate President Mike Miller has zero desire to see Saqib in the Senate. And Ali’s aggressive style in the General Assembly did not win him friends among his colleagues, though it was nearly enough to propel him into the Senate.

Ali could have established residency in the new D39 but committed to D15 when he sought the delegate vacancy last year caused by Del. Brian Feldman’s appointment to the Senate. Ali entered the delegate election in D15 but pulled out in December.

King and Del. Charles Barkley have especially robust campaign accounts–Barkley has 92K compared to 91K for King. Del. Kirill Reznik has a healthy 43K with 26K in Del. Shane Robinson’s account. I guess Reznik needs to serve more expensive hamburgers at his annual Grill with Kirill event. Or maybe Del. Barkley can take him to school.

An enjoyable election season for the incumbents in District 39–but not for those watching elections.

Share