By Adam Pagnucco.
The Washington Post has endorsed the following candidates for County Council and Board of Education.
Council At-Large: Gabe Albornoz, Marilyn Balcombe, Evan Glass, Hans Riemer
Council District 1: Andrew Friedson
Council District 2: Craig Rice
Council District 3: Sidney Katz
Council District 4: Nancy Navarro
Council District 5: Tom Hucker
Board of Education At-Large: Julie Reiley
Board of Education District 3: Pat O’Neill
Read their endorsements here.
By Adam Pagnucco.
Update: Council District 5 candidate Kevin Harris has also filed for matching funds on May 15, claiming $12,400 in qualifying contributions from 176 in-county residents.
Original Post: Council District 1 candidate Jim McGee filed for public matching funds on May 15. His filing claims 157 qualifying contributors and $36,580 in qualifying contributions, above the respective thresholds for a district race of 125 and $10,000. Two other District 1 candidates have qualified for matching funds, including Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez and Reggie Oldak, who has already applied for the maximum amount ($125,000) available under the program.
On Monday, we wrote that county law stated that the qualifying period for matching funds ended 45 days before the primary, which this year fell on Saturday, May 12. That is true. But at the time, we did not know that the State Board of Elections had allowed candidates to file as late as May 15 with only qualifying contributions received by May 12 eligible for matching funds. A reader brought that to our attention and we updated the post. But we are gonna own this one: we screwed up. Your author apologizes to Jim McGee and Seventh State readers.
Then there is Robin Ficker, who is running for Executive in the public financing program. Ficker registered his public account on 2/8/17 and so far has not qualified for matching funds. (The other Executive candidates in public financing – Marc Elrich, George Leventhal and Rose Krasnow – qualified some time ago.) Ficker told Bethesda Magazine that he was unaware that he was subject to the 45-day qualifying period because he has no primary opponent. In order to qualify for matching funds, Executive candidates need 500 contributions from individuals living in the county totaling at least $40,000. Ficker then sent an application for matching funds on May 15 but it asked for… zero dollars.
Can anyone figure this out for us? Because we admit it – we can’t!
By Adam Pagnucco.
Remember the county’s $120 million budget shortfall? While up to half of it may have been caused by tax planning by rich people, the rest was in broad shortfalls across a range of taxes. The County Council approved a FY18 savings plan of $53 million in January, but what happened to the rest of the shortfall? Nothing was published in the press. In fact, the council did cut another $62 million last month and, it seems, no one noticed.
What happened?
One of the county’s long-term obligations is money it owes for retiree health benefits, also known as other post-employment benefits (OPEB). These benefits are becoming rare in the private sector but they are still common in state and local governments. In 2008, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) told state and local governments that they had to begin accounting for OPEB and prefunding it in the same way that they do for pension benefits. In other words, each government would have to publish a funding ratio and start saving for future benefits rather than simply paying as they went. MoCo had a plan to ramp up OPEB prefunding, but the Great Recession hit and the county couldn’t contribute towards OPEB for a couple years. Since then, the county has socked away $797 million to meet future OPEB benefits.
That sounds like a lot of money, but the county’s actuarial liability for OPEB is currently calculated at $3.3 billion, meaning that its funding ratio is 24%. That would be terrible for a pension plan – consider that the county’s pension plan is currently 92% funded. But 24% is actually decent for an OPEB plan considering that state and local governments have only been prefunding them for ten years. The State of Maryland’s OPEB plan was just 3% funded in 2015 and MoCo’s ratio was better than 38 states. Even so, the county has a lot of work to do to get its funding ratio up and it makes millions in contributions every year to get there.
In FY18, the county had budgeted $122 million for OPEB contributions. But the county had a problem: less than half of its FY18 shortfall of $120 million had been eliminated. As late April came around and the FY19 budget process was underway, the County Executive and the County Council had a choice. They could cut over $60 million in current year spending two months out from the primary election. Or they could find the money somewhere else.
You guessed it – in a resolution introduced and adopted on the same day, April 24, the council unanimously cut $62 million from the county’s FY18 OPEB contribution. This fiscal year’s spending on services won’t take another cut, which is great news for incumbents running for reelection or higher office. And as Bethesda Magazine reported, the council has proposed adding up to $21.6 million more to next year’s budget and has so far identified just $1.6 million in offsetting spending cuts. How do you think they will make up the difference?
The County Council did not send out a press release headlining the diversion of $62 million of retiree health contributions to support general spending on April 24. It was buried in a press release spotlighting a resolution on equity data. As a result, the press totally missed it.
Now look, folks. The county is good at saving money. They are setting aside close to 10% of revenues as reserves, an important reform adopted during the Great Recession that helped save the county’s AAA bond rating. The pension fund is in excellent condition at 92% funding. And as stated above, the county has done a better job at prefunding retiree health benefits than most other places.
But grabbing retiree health contributions and using them for general spending is something that is normally done in a recession when the alternative is layoffs. That’s what happened a decade ago and it was justified considering the financial trouble the county was facing. Now, despite huge evidence to the contrary, county leaders are telling us that the economy is in great shape. The Council President told Kojo Nnamdi a few days ago that we have “a very strong economy” and “this is a good time in Montgomery County.” Well, if the economy is so great, then why redirect $62 million of retiree health money to prop up this year’s budget?
And if we are diverting retiree health money now when times are supposedly good, what will happen when the next recession comes?
By Adam Pagnucco.
Council Member Marc Elrich, who is running for County Executive, has posted a guest blog denying that he is a socialist. Since he made that claim in a rebuttal to our writings, it is only fair that your author responds. Why have we said that he is a socialist? It’s because we have an unimpeachable source who says he has been a socialist organization member for decades. That source’s name is…
Marc Elrich.
In 2013, Bethesda Magazine asked Elrich flat out whether he is a socialist.
Elrich declines to say whether he considers himself a socialist. “It’s irrelevant,” he says. “…I was in the business world. I appreciate how things are done. I’m not doing anything that will undo the business world or bring socialism to Montgomery County.”
If he is not a socialist, why not say so?
Elrich was more forthcoming with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who describe themselves on their website as “the largest socialist organization in the United States.” In his completed questionnaire for DSA, Elrich answered as follows to their questions on his membership and identification as a socialist.
Why are you soliciting Metro DC DSA’s endorsement for this office?
I am a member and have been impressed with Metro DC DSA’s work. A lot of my positions and values align closely with the positions and values of the organization. The organization has also been very effective recently in encouraging voter turnout and helping tenants and is gaining a reputation as a real force in progressive politics.
Do you identify as a democratic socialist?
Democratic socialism doesn’t have a hard and fast definition; I see it as a philosophy that envisions a more democratic society. I believe in democracy in both the political and economic spheres.
What does socialism mean now? We are living in the 21st century, and simply reducing political analysis to a debate between 18th century capitalism and 19th century Marxism doesn’t help us find solutions. There are ideas that have worked and have moved society forward that have evolved from both perspectives, as well as things that haven’t turned out so well from both. So a lot of the ideals of democratic socialism contribute to my thinking, but they don’t entirely define my thinking.
Are you a member of Democratic Socialists of America? If so, when did you join?
Yes; I joined many decades ago and was involved in both the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC) and New America Movement (NAM) stages of the organization.
It’s worth noting the history of the two organizations he cited in his response. The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee was founded by socialist leader Michael Harrington, who personally identified with socialists like Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas but preached advocating for a socialist agenda inside the Democratic Party. The New American Movement was an openly socialist group. According to its Wikipedia entry:
In its early years, NAM shared much of the political framework of the New Communist Movement, but rejected the strategy of building a “vanguard party”, a position prominent NAM members defended in a debate in the pages of The Guardian. The organization was built around local groups called “chapters,” which emphasized Marxist study, discussion of contemporary issues, support of local labor actions, and work in the community to raise awareness.
These two socialist organizations combined to form DSA in 1982.
The Democratic Socialists of America don’t hide the fact that they are socialists. They say it openly on their website.
Now let’s be fair. Today’s American socialists have come a loooooong way since dialectical materialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Karl Marx wouldn’t recognize them as socialists. Their platform is much closer to contemporary progressivism than to nineteenth century Marxism. And like DSA’s co-founder, Michael Harrington, their agenda is not actual revolution but to join the Democratic Party and push it as far to the left as possible. That’s a reasonable description of Marc Elrich’s three decades in public office and a big reason why he is so admired by many Montgomery County progressives. In fact, if Elrich were to say in public that he has been a socialist organization member for decades, many of his supporters would probably love it and work even harder for him!
Elrich told Seventh State, “I don’t have a socialist agenda that I’m trying to bring here.” Well, maybe. A genuinely Marxist policy agenda would be precluded by federal and state law. But Elrich’s socialist beliefs have manifested themselves at least twice during his time as a County Council Member.
First, he is arguably the strongest supporter of an indisputably socialist institution: the county’s liquor monopoly. The notion that a county government should have a monopoly on the wholesale distribution of alcohol is about as socialist as one can get. Not only is Elrich one of the monopoly’s biggest defenders – he actually accused restaurant owners who wanted freedom from it of “whining” and wanting to “steal everything.” That got him banned from four restaurants that had protested the monopoly. As a County Executive candidate, he promises to increase the monopoly’s sales, thereby expanding the reach of MoCo’s most prominent socialist institution.
Second, Elrich once recruited the socialist government of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez to participate in providing county services. In 2007, the Washington Post reported:
Montgomery County Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large) invited Venezuela’s ambassador this month to meet community leaders and possibly get involved in funding local social programs, only to find himself yesterday at the center of a heated international political debate…
The visit, planned for Oct. 23, was conceived after Elrich met a representative from the embassy at a District rally to support domestic workers. They talked about poverty and the health-care needs of the county, and Elrich said the diplomat expressed interest in learning more about Montgomery’s community services.
In an e-mail to more than a dozen community leaders Tuesday, including to Leggett’s directors for economic development and health and human services, a legislative aide to Elrich described the visit as part of a “project currently underway to promote future socio-economic partnerships for the development of a common goal to address community needs.”
“The first step toward this goal is to convene a meeting to introduce the Ambassador” to the county and “to begin a dialogue on how to productively address those needs,” the e-mail said…
Talk of a visit was so potentially explosive that [County Executive Ike] Leggett issued a strongly worded statement from Israel. “We do not want to be involved in this visit. We are not involved with this visit,” he said. “Montgomery County can take care of its own problems. Thank you. No thank you.”
The visit did not happen and Elrich’s envisioned cooperation between the county and a socialist foreign government fell through.
Look folks, we respect Marc Elrich for having deeply held principles that have guided his political philosophy for many years. Some politicians have no principles of any kind. Elrich has deployed his on behalf of progressive causes like his signature minimum wage bills. His supporters love him for that, and from their perspective, rightly so. We have found him to be a creative, intelligent and thought-provoking Council Member. And he deserves massive credit for authoring the county’s proposed Bus Rapid Transit system ten years ago. But Elrich has told “the largest socialist organization in the United States” that he is a member who “joined many decades ago.” He put that in writing.
So why not just admit it to the rest of us?
Disclosure: the author wrote this in reply to Marc Elrich’s guest blog and supports Roger Berliner for Executive.
Today, I am pleased to present a guest blog by Councilmember Marc Elrich (D-At Large), a candidate for county executive, that responds to a piece posted by Adam yesterday:
First of all, I’ve made my views pretty clear on “socialism.” You would be hard-put to classify me, but I’ve been pretty clear that I think in terms of blending aspects of both major isms – which is pretty much what most European societies, which are largely democratic socialist, believe and what modern American society reflects, at least up to the present, with minimum wages, 40 hour weeks, social security, Medicare, child worker laws and health insurance. My interest is in finding solutions that make sense – I’m not an idealogue. I have spent 12 years on the Montgomery County Council and I have yet to introduce a SINGLE piece of socialist legislation (whatever that is). I don’t think about my job that way.
Most of what I’ve proposed over the years has been passed with 8-1 or 9-0 votes, so this fear of “socialism” is frankly nuts – I don’t have a socialist agenda that I’m trying bring here. Now if socialism means expecting developers to adequately contribute to schools and transportation, I’ll point out that that’s not socialism, it’s simply not wanting to allow developers who substantially benefit from public decisions on zoning, to externalize the costs of providing infrastructure on to the public. I do not believe in zero growth – I believe in responsible growth – and when I work with communities I’m pretty straight-forward about stating that change will come and my goal is to make sure that the people who live here participate in shaping that change. When there’s no viable plan for schools, or transportation, or other promised amenities in a Master or Sector Plan then, yes, I will and do vote against it. Again, hardly socialism.
Second I never equated transit-oriented development with “ethnic cleansing”, I voted for the Purple Line which I wouldn’t have done if I thought that. I never said that TOD equates with “ethnic cleansing” and my BRT approach supports TOD. I made a specific accusation about a specific planning board recommendation about a specific part of the plan that would have displaced thousands of people who would have had little to no chance of remaining in the area, let alone in the County. The only nexus to the PL was that the plan was being done in response to it and, in this case, the Planning Board way over-reached. In a public session review of the plan, I said, “Couldn’t we for once just let the people who live here stay here after we fix a place up?” and no one responded or changed anything. It was only when I dramatized it by calling it “ethnic cleansing”, in an onsite meeting with staff of the Council and PB, did anything get fixed: less than a week later the proposal was withdrawn; it was withdrawn on July 22, 2013 because of the possible implications of the zoning that had been proposed and its impacts on our affordable housing goals. The recommendation to remove was a 3-0 vote on committee, and it happened in a blink of the eye. Never seen so much land rezoned so fast. So in that particular instance, existing affordable housing was preserved because of my comments and involvement. More broadly though, the PL will cause gentrification and almost everyone involved, except for a few who are uncomfortable with confronting anything that might taint their rosy scenario, knows it. The whole point of the Purple Line Compact was to create a multi-party agreement between the State and the Counties to have in place programs that would prevent, or at least minimize, the displacement of small businesses and existing residents. Everyone knew this was coming, and my saying it isn’t some stark new revelation. But we all know that there is no compact because none of the parties would commit do anything to ameliorate what they know is coming down the road. So they changed the word “compact” to “agreement” which is toothless, devoid of funding or requirements to act; it is basically an agreement to worry about what might happen and to hope that someone comes up with a bright idea or two that, preferably, don’t have any costs attached.
Lastly, while I do favor a limited rent stabilization – one that would allow for larger rent increases for repairs or operating costs when they exceed the CPI, and it would not apply to new construction or buildings with existing MPDU’s or otherwise rent limited units – I never had the votes on the council to even discuss it and would expect the same from the next council. I would welcome an honest conversation about it, without any labels attached. I’ve always proposed that the County evaluate different strategies with an eye to what would result in the largest stock of affordable housing 20 or 30 years down the road. And I’d be interested to hear how others would solve the problem of disappearing affordable housing: the recently approved Bethesda master plan would result in fewer affordable units than we have today. And we simply can’t build enough moderately priced dwelling units (MPDUs) to keep up. And we’re not building housing for the thousands who are too poor for MPDUs and spend 50-60% of their income on housing. By contrast, Takoma Park has had decades of rent stabilization, which has provided numerous families with stable housing. It’s not a perfect system but it has been an important tool to preserve affordable units as the area has grown in popularity and housing prices there have skyrocketed. And Takoma Park has increased in desirability and popularity and is proud of its diversity of population.
So while the urban legends are amusing, they’re not who am and they don’t reflect what I do.
I spend a lot of time (too much time) watching candidates and talking with them. Being from Montgomery County, I didn’t really know much about Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz before he entered the race.
I had a chance to sit down and talk with him and watched him in debates and forums and he kinda grew on me. He wasn’t the best public speaker in the race but he had a long record of political involvement and experience that meant he could talk easily and in detail about many of the key issues facing Maryland.
Even more critically, he had grappled with many of them. As a result of this experience and representing a swing county, Kamenetz understood that people have a wide range of views and issues are often complicated but also how to make progress on them.
But until I read an article recapping his career in the Baltimore Sun, I didn’t know about Kevin Kamenetz’s work on affordable housing:
Housing was also a battleground in the changing county. Many fought against a program in the 1990s to allow poor city residents to move to the county. The NAACP and other groups filed a federal housing complaint against the county in 2011 alleging discriminatory policies.
It was resolved in 2016 with an agreement signed by Kamenetz that calls for the county to spend millions of dollars to support the construction of affordable housing in neighborhoods lacking it.
“I think it was his leadership that brought the administration to the plate,” [NAACP County Branch President] Fugett said. The settlement “may not be a popular decision,” Fugett said, but Kamenetz “always tried to do the right thing.”
Affordable housing is one of the most unbelievably difficult issues. Localities will go to the mat and beyond to fight the placement of low-income housing in their area. It’s a difficult issue and powerful efforts to force acceptance of affordable housing have usually failed in the face of strong opposition.
In short, there was no political hay to be made on this issue. Nevertheless, Kamenetz got it done, and he got it done in a very low key manner. One of the secrets of politics is that the best accomplishments are often the ones that go unnoticed precisely because they were done carefully in a way that minimized opposition and thus allowed progress to be made.
In an era that celebrates newness, often derides political experience and increasingly celebrates radical change, this sort of politics is underappreciated. Unlike sweeping promises that die on the rocks of reality, getting this done will make a meaningful difference in real people’s lives.
In the wake of Kevin Kamenetz’s untimely and sad passing, many of us learned for the first time that Maryland law allows the surviving running mate of a gubernatorial candidate to choose a new running mate and even to switch positions on the ballot. Consequently, Valerie Ervin can now run for governor or lieutenant governor and select a new running mate.
She has to make a decision quickly. Speculation has naturally ensued about what she will decide. While Donna Edwards, Ervin’s longtime friend, has encouraged her, I’ve heard other voices that are more critical of an Ervin bid.
I say it’s up to Valerie Ervin and we should respect her decision whatever it is. Kamanetz and Ervin made a good team and seemed to work well together from what I could see. Beyond that the law clearly gives Ervin the right to run, I see nothing wrong with her choosing to do so.
I imagine she would consult with the Kamenetz-Ervin team, especially with the Kamenetz family. Ervin has already indicated she plans to speak with Jill Kamenetz but I think everyone also understands that this suddenly widowed mother of two kids is coping with an enormous and shocking personal loss.
I don’t know what the law will say about access to the funds that Kamenetz raised for his campaign – they are not in a joint account. I also don’t know how it will impact the race if Ervin runs. The Washington Post quoted speculation that it might hurt Ben Jealous and Rich Madaleno, my preferred candidate. But honestly, who knows at this point in a very fluid election.
Regardless, I think it’s Ervin’s decision. We should respect it and move on with the campaign. Of course, she would rightly face the same scrutiny as any other candidate. And that’s how it should be in any healthy democratic competition. But, her decision to run shouldn’t be the issue.
By Adam Pagnucco.
Update: Even though the deadline is May 12, the State Board of Elections said on March 30 that they will allow a candidate to file for matching funds as late as tomorrow (May 15) provided that all qualifying contributions were received by May 12. We will see if any of the above candidates file reports by tomorrow night.
Original Post: According to Montgomery County’s public campaign financing law, candidates have until 45 days before the primary election to qualify for public matching funds. Since the primary is on June 26, the qualifying period ended on Saturday, May 12. According to filings with the State Board of Elections, the following candidates did not qualify for matching funds by then and will not be receiving them.
Rosemary Arkoian – At-Large
Richard Banach – District 1
Craig Carozza-Caviness – At-Large
Bill Cook – District 1
Robin Ficker – County Executive
Lorna Phillips Forde – At-Large
Richard Gottfried – At-Large
Neil Greenberger – At-Large
Kevin Harris – District 5
Kenge Malikidogo-Fludd – District 5
Jim McGee – District 1
Melissa McKenna – At-Large
Darwin Romero – At-Large
In addition, Bethesda Magazine reported that these candidates were ruled ineligible for matching funds because their submissions to the State Board of Elections did not meet the thresholds of either in-county contributors or in-county money received to qualify.
Shruti Bhatnagar – At-Large
Loretta Garcia – At-Large
Paul Geller – At-Large
Michele Riley – At-Large
Tim Willard – At-Large
These eighteen candidates represent almost half of the thirty-eight active candidates in public financing. Starved of resources and unable to get their messages out, none of them will be elected.
The share of women among officeholders varies dramatically based on the office type. While my previous posts focused on Congress, I’m going to focus today on countywide offices because they vary nicely in terms of job responsibilities.
Below is a table showing the party (D = Democratic, R = Republican) and gender (M = Man, W = Woman) for four offices elected in 2014 in all 24 Maryland jurisdictions. County executive is also included for counties with that office.
Source: Maryland Manual.
Closer examination of the data reveals that women hold some of these offices far more often than others. Women are more far more likely to occupy positions as Circuit Court Clerk and Register of Wills than County Executive, Sheriff and State’s Attorney.
Traditional gender roles cast women as fairer and more process-oriented than men who are seen as having stronger leadership skills along with greater physical strength and a propensity for violence that lends itself to fighting off threats. The types of offices more often held by women reflect these roles. Women are much more likely to hold clerkship or process-oriented offices than executive leadership or crime-focused positions.
Circuit Court Clerks and Registers of Wills oversee the careful organization, administration, and collection of detailed important records as well as related taxes and fees. Fair process and administrative ability are central to each position. In Maryland, 67% of Registers of Wills and 42% of Circuit Court Clerks are women.
In contrast, while these same abilities are no doubt useful for County Executives, Sheriffs, and State’s Attorneys, people see them more as positions requiring leadership and crime fighting skills. Not a single Maryland Sheriff is a woman. Though women now form nearly one-half of attorneys and a majority of law students, only 17% of prosecutors, or State’s Attorneys, are women. Among Maryland’s nine county executives, 22% are women.
(Note: my reporting on the continued power of gender roles is neither meant as an endorsement of them nor a suggestion that many men and women do bot perform all of these offices well.)
Women form a higher share of Democratic than Republican officeholders. These differences may result from a variety of factors about which I can only speculate. Republicans are more likely to hold traditional values regarding gender norms while women form a higher share of Democratic primary voters. Democrats may also simply perform more strongly in areas more amenable to female officeholders but this may relate to the same factors.
These differences are similar to what I found in an article coauthored with Sarah Brewer, a former AU graduate student and now Ph.D., published in Social Science Quarterly that studied the election of women to county offices in the South in the 1990s.
Source: David Lublin and Sarah E. Brewer, “The Continuing Dominance of Traditional Gender Roles in Southern Elections,” Social Science Quarterly 84: 2(June 2003), pp. 386-7.
Untangling the causes of these differences is difficult. This sort of work cannot really speak to the extent that these differences result from electoral barriers or career choices stemming both from the environment or other gender differences.
Candidate supply is an easily overlooked factor that needs to be considered. Just as there may be more female Democratic officeholders because more women are Democrats, demographics relating to the gender composition of high-quality candidate pool also influence the probability that a woman holds an office. Sarah Brewer and I found that women are more likely to win in areas with large numbers of African Americans or senior citizens.
Why? At the time of our study, men tended to be better educated than women among whites, while the gender gap in education was reversed for African Americans. As a result, women formed a higher share of the high-quality candidate pool in counties with high African-American populations.
According to the 2016 American Community Survey (ACS), similar racial and gender differences in educational attainment exist in our state. Among whites, 42.6% of men and 41.9% of women hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. In the African-American community, 29.9% of women but only 25.2% of men have a B.A. degree or higher.
Though older voters are usually seen as more traditional than younger voters, women may perform better in counties with high concentrations of seniors for another depressing reason (at least from my end): women live longer than men. The 2016 ACS reports that 57.0% of Marylanders 65 and older are women compared to just 50.7% of under 65s.
By Adam Pagnucco.
The Washington Post’s endorsement of businessman David Blair hit like a grenade this past weekend, blowing up the County Executive race. What does it mean?
First, in reading the language of the Post’s endorsement, we are struck by how closely their views on the challenges facing the county resemble our own. The majority of these opening three paragraphs mirror what we have been writing about the county economy for years.
These seem like boom times in Montgomery County, the mainly rich suburb that has absorbed roughly 100,000 new residents since 2010 to a population now approaching 1.1 million. Amazon (whose CEO, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Post) has shortlisted the county for its second corporate headquarters; construction cranes tower over Bethesda and Silver Spring; and the public school system, one of the nation’s largest, includes some of the best high schools anywhere.
That’s why it’s easy to overlook some ominous signs of fiscal and economic trouble ahead. A burgeoning population of retirees, immigrants and other less affluent residents has strained local resources and budgets. Those moving into the county tend to be poorer than those leaving. The chasm between economically prosperous pockets (such as the ones dominated by cranes) and stagnant ones is widening. Most worrying, business and job growth are anemic.
That’s the unsettling backdrop for the June 26 Democratic primary, which is likely to determine who will run the county for the next four years. County Executive Isiah Leggett, a deft and capable manager, is retiring after 12 years in the job (and no Republican has won an election in Montgomery since 2002). The central question is which of the candidates for county executive is most capable of juicing a sluggish commercial environment — the only way to broaden the local tax base so it can sustain the county’s excellent schools and progressive services.
The Post framed the election’s central question correctly. And their policy view, clearly established in the language above, will no doubt influence their choices for County Council. That said, they do not share your author’s view that governing experience is useful for addressing these challenges. So be it.
The Post has a pretty good record in top-tier MoCo Democratic primaries. They endorsed Chris Van Hollen (CD-8) in 2002, Ike Leggett (County Executive) in 2006 and 2014 and John Delaney (CD-6) in 2012. They also endorsed Kathleen Matthews (CD-8) in 2016, who finished third.
Even so, the Post is not a king-maker; one of the good things about MoCo politics is that we have no king-makers here. But their endorsement matters, especially when five candidates are vying to be the chief rival for Marc Elrich. Consider what Roger Berliner (your author’s choice), Bill Frick or Rose Krasnow would have said if they had gotten the Post endorsement. If Berliner had received it, he would have told non-Elrich voters, “I am the one who combines the Sierra Club, moderates, District 1 voters and now the Post. I’m the alternative to Elrich.” Frick would have said something similar while substituting realtors for the Sierra Club. If Krasnow had received it, she would have said, “I am the only woman in a primary in which sixty percent of voters will be women and now I have the Post. I’m the alternative to Elrich.” None of these things can be said now. All three lose the opportunity to leverage the Post endorsement to expand outside their geographic bases.
It is sometimes said that Elrich has a ceiling. Some voters will find a decades-long socialist who equates transit-oriented development with ethnic cleansing and favors rent control unappealing. But Blair has a ceiling too. That was expressed by a commenter on Seventh State’s Facebook page who wrote, “I don’t want a businessman political newcomer who is trying to buy the election.” Fair or not, that is a common sentiment among Democratic activists, and those who feel this way are not persuadable on this point. Blair can send them thirty mailers and they won’t budge. How many rank-and-file voters have this view? David Trone, who shares this handicap, received 22% of MoCo’s vote in the 2016 Congressional District 8 race. That’s an imperfect analogy because CD8 omits some relatively moderate areas in MoCo’s Upcounty and Trone was not talking about the unpopular nine percent property tax hike in his campaign. Still, Blair will need more than 22% to win.
Besides Blair, the other big winner from the Post’s endorsement is Elrich. Elrich has been crusading against rival candidates who have been supported by wealthy businessmen for years; now he gets an ACTUAL wealthy businessman as perhaps his chief opponent. Elrich is no doubt rubbing his hands together in glee as his progressive hordes gird for battle against plutocracy. His field coordinator must be dizzy with joy.
Both the Elrich and Blair campaigns need to consider the following question. Which group is larger in the Democratic primary electorate: the people who believe that taxes have gone up but their service quality has not or the people in Elrich’s base? If the former outnumber the latter – not an impossible prospect considering that a majority of Democrats voted for term limits two years ago – then maybe an outsider has a shot. It would be totally unprecedented given that every prior MoCo Executive has had governing experience before assuming office. But Robin Ficker winning a charter amendment vote by forty points was also unprecedented.
Thanks to the Post, a wild election has gotten a little wilder. There are only forty-three days to go before this story reaches its momentous conclusion!
The Washington Post has endorsed David Blair for Montgomery County Executive. Read their endorsement here.
