Tag Archives: Jonathan Shurberg

Adam Pagnucco, Jonathan Shurberg, Montgomery County Council, Term Limits

Council Members Circle the Wagons on Term Limits

By Adam Pagnucco.

The No on B Committee, the ballot question committee opposing Montgomery County term limits, has filed its first campaign finance report with the State Board of Elections.  There are no surprises here: most of the contributions it has raised have come from incumbent members of the Montgomery County Council.

The committee reported raising $9,125 through October 9.  Of that amount, $6,000 (66%) has come from the campaign accounts of Council Members.  George Leventhal  was the lead contributor, donating $1,500.  Roger Berliner, Sidney Katz, Nancy Navarro and Hans Riemer contributed $1,000 each while Marc Elrich contributed $500.  Other contributions of note came from George Leventhal’s father, Carl ($500), Marc Elrich’s Chief of Staff, Dale Tibbitts ($500) and Casa de Maryland ($1,000).  In total, contributions from Council Members and their staff accounted for 72% of money raised by the committee.

After paying attorney Jonathan Shurberg $5,000 for his work on the unsuccessful court case to get term limits thrown off the ballot, and paying other minor expenses, the committee reported a final balance of $4,024.49.

Another committee formed to support term limits, Voters for Montgomery County Term Limits, reported raising $2,890 and finishing with $2,683.27 in the bank.  Developer Charles K. Nulsen III contributed $1,000.  There have been rumors of developer support for term limits, which would be interesting considering that the anti-development Montgomery County Civic Federation also supports term limits.  But Nulsen’s lone contribution signals that so far the real estate community is not fully engaged.

In 2012, 460,885 MoCo residents voted in the general election.  A similar number could be voting this year.  What’s clear is that neither committee has the resources to get its message out to the electorate.  Since many underlying factors favor the passage of term limits, the failure of both sides to raise money is a net benefit for supporters.

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Term Limits

Term Limits Will Be on the Ballot

Term limits for the Montgomery County Council will be on the ballot next month. After losing in the Montgomery County Circuit Court, the No on B team appealed to the state’s highest court, the Maryland Court of Appeals. Yesterday, the Court denied certiorari in Moore v. Montgomery County Board of Elections, meaning that they decided not to even hear the appeal.

The decision surprised the No on B team, as they believed that they had strong arguments. Moreover, the circuit court judge had been overturned twice before on cases involving major ballot initiatives. Attached is the brief written for No on B by Jonathan Shurberg, so you can assess the strength of the argument and whether the Court of Appeals made the right call.

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Term Limits

Judge Tepid on Term Limits Foes’ Arguments; Ficker Still Ficker

Attorney Jonathan Shurberg made the argument for No on B–the group fighting term limits–but the judge wasn’t inclined to buy because (1) he doesn’t think he’ll rule that the Board of Elections improperly validated the signatures, and (2) they didn’t have enough evidence to support their case.

No on B has over the weekend to continue to hone their argument and put together their evidence. But I’d expect council term limits to go to the voters. Meanwhile, Bethesda Beat reports that Attorney Robin Ficker is still Robin Ficker:

Ficker, who fought for and won the right to be a defendant in the case Wednesday, arrived nearly two hours after the hearing started. He told Greenberg he needed to leave at 3 p.m. to be at CNN studios in Washington where he was taping “Nancy Grace.”

This is after Ficker fought to become a co-defendant in the case. He’s laser focused on press attention. Not so much on the case.

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Term Limits

Term Limits Goes to Court

Today, at 9:30am, the Circuit Court will hear arguments as to whether No on B’s case against the referendum on term limits can go forward. The argument is purely about whether the proposal has met the legal requirements to be placed on the ballot–not the constitutionality of the referendum.

No on B’s argument rests on two points: (1) Robin Ficker marked up the petition pages and made changes before their submission to the Board of Elections in violation of the law, and (2) the petition lacks sufficient number of legal signatures. Having checked 28% of the pages so far, they have found 63% of the number of flaws required to knock the referendum off the ballot.

Weighing heavily on the pro-referendum side will be that the Board of Elections–the main defendant in this case–has certified the petition has a sufficient number of valid signatures. The judge could well regard the Board as more neutral party, as their job here is to carry out a bureaucratic process, not to advocate. At the same time, neutral does not immunize them against legal errors–and they may not have known of Ficker’s changes.

Robin Ficker, the petition’s proponent, has received permission from the Court to be an additional defendant. Whether Ficker’s brand of obnoxious vocal advocacy aids the case remains to be seen. While bringing strong support for the referendum, his presence could undermine any view of the Board as a more neutral party.

There is also the little underlying problem that Ficker is a walking advertisement against his own proposal. After all, the voters managed to unseat the Republican after his one and only term in the House of Delegates. While irrelevant to the case, it isn’t the sort of background that aids the pro-term limits side.

Democrat Jonathan Shurberg, a former candidate for delegate in District 20 who now blogs and has remained active in County politics, will serve as the attorney for No on B. While No on B aspires to pay him, they have not raised the funds so far.

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campaign finance

The Case Against Public Financing: A Manifesto

To a certain type of Goo-Goo liberal, public financing of elections seems like a splendid idea.

It isn’t. Here is why:

The New York Example
I’ve worked perhaps even more extensively in New York politics, where City Elections are publicly financed, than in Maryland. From my reading of the bill, it appears based upon the system used to finance New York City Council races. This isn’t a good thing.

In New York State Assembly races, you can effectively finance a campaign with the support of four donors. If you happened to be running for New York City Council, you need the support of hundreds of small donors to reach the match threshold to run an effective campaign. So candidates for City Council are forced to do congressional candidate level hours of call time (20-30/week).

I remember one of the most successful fundraisers in Democratic Politics once asked me whether I’d rather ask a  thousand people for a dollar, or one person for a thousand dollars. The answer for a candidate is obviously the second one.

I’m sure that if any sitting council members truly understood that come 2018, if they pass this, they will be spending six hours a day in a windowless room calling small time activists to beg for fifty dollar donations, this bill would die a swift death.

The New York State Legislature understands this perfectly well.

I remember having a long phone conversation with one of the head lawyers for the New York Senate Democrats on this topic. He vividly related to me the story of how he told the children of Billionaire Financier George Soros that no amount of money was going to buy him a public financing law. Why you ask?

Because most term limited New York City Councilman end up in Albany and will never go back to the nightmare that is raising small dollar donation for matching funds.

The Colorado Example
In Colorado, the max out donation is $400. Typically, a targeted State Senate race in Colorado maxes out at $200,000. (This cycle they will likely hit $225,000). However, $750,000-$1,000,000 is typically spent by the Colorado Senate Democratic Majority Fund in independent expenditure. This means that the real fundraising campaigns happen outside of the campaigns themselves.

Divorced of a candidate’s name or approval, this translates into lots of nasty, negative, no holds barred political advertising. To me this bill seems like a final attempt by Phil Andrews to kneecap Montgomery County business and union interests. While I find this a vile prospect, Phil’s plan is doomed to failure. At the end of the day, Real Estate Developers and Labor Unions are savvy people. They shall do in Montgomery and circumvent the system through independent expenditures.

The Second New York Example
Mike Bloomberg was elected Mayor of New York City as a Republican because his Democratic opponents were capped at $5  million dollars in spending while he dropped nine figures on his campaign. If you want Dana Buyer, Lou Simmons and Jonathan Shurberg on the Council–the top three self funders in Montgomery County in the 2014 Democratic Primary–please vote for this bill.

The Annapolis Example
Maryland Democrats consistently win districts that should send Republicans to Annapolis (with Democratic Performance indices giving Republicans up to a ten-point edge in many seats long held by Team Blue). This is not because we run better campaigns on the Democratic side in Maryland than anywhere in the country. We’re a decade behind New York, Virginia, California and dozens of others in that regard.

It’s because in Maryland’s one-party environment, traditional economic donors that would be inclined to support Republicans (think Comcast) donate to Democrats. Which explains why Jim Mathias, the most vulnerable Democrat in Maryland’s Senate, will face a Republican with less than $50,000 all in to spend. Mathias will have north of $300,000.

If you have Republican County Council candidates with $125,000 in the bank, Democrats should expect to have competitive general elections in districts 1, 2 and 3.

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2014 Elections, campaign finance

Holy Moly, Look at What They Spent!

Campaign finance reports have started to come out. And wow, Dana Beyer and Jonathan Shurberg now have significantly lighter wallets but still managed to lose their primaries. If anyone knows of General Assembly campaigns that have spent more, please let me know.

Dana Beyer

Dana Beyer spent a whopping $332,503–or $63.48 per vote–on her failed bid for the District 18 Democratic senatorial nomination. Virtually all of it came out of her own pocket. In 2013 and 2014, Dana loaned her senate campaign $315,500. So she raised only $17,003 in contributions, including $500 from Emily’s List.

Dana has loaned herself $497,703 over the course of her three unsuccessful campaigns for the General Assembly–two for delegate in 2006 and 2010, and senator in 2014.

Jonathan Shurberg

But Dana’s expenditures fall short next to Jonathan Shurberg’s total so far of $421,858 for losing effort to gain the delegate nomination in District 20.  The total could go even higher as Jonathan has loaned or given his campaign an astounding $496,773. His loans totaled $366,200 and gifts added up to $130,573.

The total per vote based on Jonathan’s expenditures is an incredible $140.76 per vote but that could rise to $165.76 based on his loans and gifts to his campaign.

And to think some people just go to Neiman Marcus.

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campaign finance

I Ran for the Legislature and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

In Montgomery County, money talked in the form of bombing people’s inboxes with mail but didn’t always translate into votes.

(1) In District 20, Jonathan Shurberg likely set a new local record for the ratio of money spent to votes received. After loaning his campaign at least $240,000, he hired an expensive campaign team, conducted polls, and sent a barrage of mail to voters, including an expensive booklet.

Jonathan came in sixth with just 2853 votes and far behind the 5709 votes secured by the third-place nominee for delegate. The ratio of spending to votes exceeds $80.

(2) In District 18, third-time candidate Dana Beyer, has loaned her campaign account at least $350K across all of her races according to the last report and more money since it was filed. After sending bundles of mail to households, Beyer lost her two-person race with 4890.

While still lagging behind Shurberg, her expenditure of well over $200,000 in this campaign probably still exceed $50 per vote. And she spent roughly $500,000 over her three unsuccessful legislative campaigns in 2006, 2010, and 2014.

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District 20

Raskin Endorses Moon and Smith, Defends Shurberg

In a major boost to their campaigns, incumbent Sen. Jamie Raskin has endorsed David Moon and Will Smith for the two vacant delegate seats in District 20. Both Moon and Smith had managed one of Jamie’s earlier campaigns. Previously, Jamie had already endorsed incumbent Del. Sheila Hixson.

Despite not endorsing him, Raskin also defended Jonathan Shurberg against attacks on him for having been suspended temporarily from the practice of law for co-mingling client funds with his own:

Because of my allergy to negative politics, I have been unhappy about the imbalanced ad hominem attacks (not coming from District 20) on my friend and Delegate candidate Jonathan Shurberg. While he was found to have negligently misappropriated client funds, he was punished for it, no clients were harmed, and all funds were restored. In my opinion, this event should be viewed in the context of Jon’s significant public contributions to our community . . .

Raskin’s endorsement of David Moon:

Born in Takoma Park to Korean immigrants, David Moon has had an unusually effective career as a grassroots political organizer, civil liberties and civil rights policy consultant and attorney, and founder of the awesome political blog Maryland Juice, which was named one of the nation’s best by the Washington Post.  A champion of insurgent reform politics, David volunteered to manage my underdog campaign for the Senate in 2006 and, through many sleepless nights and by precocious mastery of the new social media, built the organizational infrastructure for the movement that changed Montgomery County politics forever.  Recognized for his dazzling political mind and devotion to social justice in our community, David went on to run numerous successful campaigns at the county and state level. He also used his formidable political skills to mobilize thousands of Marylanders to defend at the polls our legislative victories on marriage equality and the Dream Act. What impresses me most about David is his wonderful modesty, his passion for service to our community, and his love of making both democracy and new technology work for all.  He will make an exceptionally able and faithful servant to Silver Spring and Takoma Park in the House of Delegates, and I support him with pride.

Raskin’s endorsement of Will Smith:

Born at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, the son of a Barwood taxi driver and a civil servant at GSA, Will Smith is the first person in his family to graduate from college, a gifted lawyer and former legislative assistant at the ACLU of Washington, a passionate Democrat, a U.S. Naval Reserve Officer and Obama administration appointee, and a young person of awesome intellect, character and commitment.  In 2010, Will ran the combined campaign of the District 20 Delegation (Delegates Hixson, Hucker, Mizeur and myself), and in that capacity I got to know him as a zealous advocate for the young people of Silver Spring and Takoma Park.  An active Board Member for the Gandhi Brigade, IMPACT Silver Spring, the NAACP Montgomery County Chapter, and GapBuster Learning Center, Will established the Youth Achieve Scholarship Fund, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for college scholarships for young people in our community.  As a Delegate, Will promises to fight hard to promote educational excellence for all of our kids, accelerated school construction in Montgomery County, and criminal justice reform, especially passage of the “Second Chance Act,” a measure to shield from public scrutiny marijuana possession and other nonviolent misdemeanor convictions several years after a person completes his term; with Will’s urging, I introduced the Second Chance Act in 2014 and we passed it in the Senate this Session but it languished on the House side.  I know that, as a Delegate, he will not rest until he gets the job done. I also know that he will stay in close touch with our community groups and neighborhood associations because he is totally accessible and responsive; my friend Paula Kowalczuk remembers him coming to register voters for several hours on the weekend when he was in high school! I have great confidence in Will and support him with pride and excitement for the future.

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District 20, Green Party, Montgomery County

A Competitive General in . . District 20?!

No Republicans hold office in Montgomery County at the county, state, or federal levels. However, in the bluest facet of this sapphire, a challenger of some credibility has emerged. In District 20, former Takoma Park City Councilman Dan Robinson has filed to run in the general election on the Green Party line. If there is a legislative district in Maryland where the Green Party is viable, it would be the ultra-progressive district home to nuclear free Granola Park.

How serious a challenger Dan is remains to be seen. Most Green Party targeted campaigns raised $20,000-$30,000. Dan will probably be able to exceed that amount. Like any third party candidate, this is a long shot. But conditions will likely be as good  as ever this November for an Emerald takeover.

Robinson could try to make the case that powerful Ways and Means Chair Sheila Hixson is a tool of a Democratic Leadership that is too moderate for the District 20 electorate.

If Jonathan Shurberg wins the Democratic Primary, Robinson could try to make the race about Shurberg’s ethics issues.

Robinson could attack Will Smith, who is a Homeland Security consultant, on the premise that he’s part of the military industrial complex and therefore not truly progressive.

These issues are typically irrelevant in state legislative elections but Jamie Raskin had some success attacking Ida Ruben over a non-binding resolution regarding the Iraq War in 2006. Robinson would have to make corporate welfare for Lockheed Martin a central issue in this line of attack.

Will Jawando is a corporate lobbyist. Robinson could probably ding him on that but I don’t see how he can turn it into the kill shot he needs in a region almost as full of lobbyists as lawyers.

David Moon, the most progressive candidate in the race, is squeaky clean as far as I can tell. Robinson would be foolish to target him.

Whoever the Democratic nominees are, they will have depleted their resources in the primary. They will also likely take the general election for granted. More than likely they, will have difficulty raising additional funds in the general–most donors will likely choose to devote their resources to tough races in other parts of the state–and I doubt many volunteers will be fired up about knocking doors.

Perhaps Dan Robinson can catch the sleeping giant and become the first Green Party State legislator in Maryland. I don’t expect it to happen. But I wouldn’t be totally surprised if he did.

 

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Endorsements, Progressive Neighbors

Not So Progressive Neighbors

PNWebanner

Last Friday, I explained how Progressive Neighbors just isn’t attracting the love from incumbent Democrats. A majority of incumbent legislators didn’t even return their candidate questionnaire.

They aren’t the only ones.

Anthony Brown and Ken Ulman didn’t fill one out either. The MO of this campaign has been to seek aggressively virtually every endorsement around the State, so their decision to decline to seek that of Progressive Neighbors speaks volumes.

Surely, the lack of interest from the man who may be the State’s first African-American governor must have caused some navel gazing in this progressive organization even if the policies of Heather Mizeur and Delman Coates better fit their profile.

Brown-Ulman are not the only ones who appear to have made a calculated decision to give PN a pass. Is anyone really surprised that Council President Craig Rice did not bother to fill out the questionnaire when his 2010 opponent–a perfectly nice woman in my experience–sits on the Steering Committee that votes on endorsements?

One major reason for the antipathy expressed by many for Progressive Neighbors’ endorsement process is that 5 of the 19 members of their Steering Committee are running for either the state legislature or the county council. Boards often have a member seeking office but I’ve never heard of five at once.

Not only that but the PN endorsement questionnaires were unbelievably sent out by one of these candidates–even to her opponent. Progressive Neighbors views this as a minor hiccup that was corrected less than a week later after it was pointed out. But it is far more than an oopsy daisy.

Portions of the questionnaire attack corporate cronyism and call for public financing. How can people so concerned about inappropriate influence on politics think it was a good idea for a candidate to send a questionnaire to her opponent?

PN’s endorsement questionnaire goes on at great length about transparency:

Progress has been made in improving transparency in the General Assembly over the past four years, with greater access to online tools for the public, the posting online of committee votes, and increased audio and video coverage of legislative deliberations. Much still remains to be done, however, including posting of subcommittee votes, committee amendments and votes, and the institution of a system to allow constituents to sign up to testify online the day before a committee hearing so they don’t have to spend all day in Annapolis waiting to testify. Do you support these improvements, and do you have others you’d like to offer? Are you willing to support special elections to fill legislative vacancies? Do you support stripping the party central committees of the power of appointment, which ultimately lies with the Governor?

But the structure of the organization and its endorsement process is less open than might appear at first glance. The PN Steering Committee is elected by . . . the Steering Committee. The same committee–the one with five members running for office–also controls the endorsement process.

In this process, PN doesn’t model the open behavior it would like to see in the General Assembly:

The Steering Committee may choose to have a secret ballot on certain concerns and some meetings may be closed. Steering Committee members will be encouraged to keep individual Steering Committee members’ votes in confidence.

Surprisingly, the Steering Committee did not endorse two of their own members. In News of the Weird, Jonathan Shurberg and Will Smith were progressive enough to serve on the Steering Committee but not to be endorsed. I imagine that PN would argue that it somehow proves the integrity of their process but it is also just odd since both are credible, progressive candidates.

Other choices seem as bizarre. In District 18, Del. Ana Sol Gutiérrez has long been a stalwart staunch progressive. How on earth can she, the first Latina elected to public office in Montgomery County who passionately favors left-wing policies to reduce economic inequality, not be progressive enough?

On the other hand, the organization endorsed both Steering Committee Member Terrill North and Del. Tom Hucker for the open District 5 County Council seat. Apparently, PN decided to give Hucker, generally viewed as a solid left winger, a pass on his recent vote against indexation of the minimum wage in the House (Gutiérrez along with Mizeur and Ivey voted yea) despite having pressed that the County adopt this stand.

Progressive Neighbors has a nice sounding name and provides another decal that endorsed candidates can stick on their literature. Beyond that, especially outside of District 20, they cannot provide anything meaningful with the endorsement. As one liberal legislator explained to me, “Nobody fills out their questionnaire because they demand extreme positions and offer nothing of value.”

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