Martin O?Malley celebrates his 45th birthday next week and completes his first year as governor. He has accomplished or started to accomplish much of what he promised to do in his campaign with the glaring exception of putting a lid on electricity rates.
There have been minor missteps along the way. In the riskiest move of his first year and maybe his first term, he persuaded the General Assembly to pass $1.4 billion in tax increases along with a referendum on slots ? actions he never discussed in the 2006 election.
Neither O?Malley nor legislators relished all the elements of the plan, and lawmakers significantly revised it before passing it by narrow margins. But the plan mostly resolves a long-standing gap between revenues and spending, at least for a few years. And it allowed the governor and Assembly to enact with much more enthusiasm an expansion of health care insurance to low-income residents and a new fund to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
Risky session turns into success
The success of the special session crowned O?Malley?s first year. The planning for the session in private staff meetings, followed by a month of public campaigning for the proposals, and then the legislative tussle of the session itself consumed almost a third of the year.
“He accomplished more in one year than his predecessor did in four,” said Donald Norris, chairman of the public policy department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. “He did it with skill. He took his time. He studied things.
“The governor got most of what he proposed. I thought it was a risky move, but I thought it panned out quite well. All of the pieces had to fall into place.”
Herb Smith, a political science professor at McDaniel College and longtime political consultant, said O?Malley “certainly embarked on a course that very few governors would try. I don?t think he had much choice, [but] he demonstrated a considerable degree of success.”
Political consultant Laslo Boyd said O?Malley showed “remarkable political skill and real discipline. This success that he was able to have ran counter to all the conventional wisdom of all the columnists ? that you don?t call a special session unless you have all the votes lined up.”
O?Malley “taught me a lesson,” pollster Patrick Gonzales said. “I didn?t think [the session] was going to be successful.” Gonzales? presession poll, showing 84 percent support for a referendum on slots, was repeatedly quoted by O?Malley to justify his stand.
“He was flexible enough to accept what the legislature could build a consensus for,” House Speaker Michael Busch told The Examiner. “There are other governors who might have had a problem with that.”
The other side
This upbeat assessment is not shared by Republicans or the conservative talk radio shows that relentlessly berate O?Malley over the tax increases.
House of Delegates Republican leader Tony O?Donnell said O?Malley?s first year “could be characterized as a failure to keep his promises and as saddling Maryland with massive tax increases.” O?Donnell said there was a long list of broken promises, but the “high-profile one” was O?Malley?s assertion that the 72 percent Baltimore Gas & Electric rate increase “won?t stand.” That was “all smoke and mirrors,” O?Donnell said.
The tax increases that O?Donnell and other Republicans have been trying to block with a court suit “are making it harder to afford to live in Maryland. Marylanders are already having a hard time making ends meet.”
“A lot of people are having buyer?s remorse” over voting for O?Malley, O?Donnell added.
“I think the legislature has done everything they can to make him look good,” said Senate Republican Leader David Brinkley, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “They pulled out all the stops even when the decisions were poor.”
The governor “did reach out to Republicans,” Brinkley said. “At the same time, philosophically, we do have some vast differences. He?s beholden to a lot of special-interest groups” ? labor, progressives, environmentalists. “We?ll have to see how he satisfies all their wants and needs.”
O?Malley had mixed success in pleasing his union backers. An executive order allowing day care workers to unionize was overturned by the courts after a Republican lawsuit. A bill allowing a state public-employee union to collect fees from nonmembers died in committee. And teachers have not been happy with a scaled-back Thornton school-aid formula, threatening salary increases in some jurisdictions.
Smooth transition
The transition from mayor to governor has been smoother than the first year for O?Malley?s three predecessors. “For county executives and mayors, it comes as a challenge in their first year,” said Busch, who has served in the House under four governors.
O?Malley apparently learned a lot as mayor of Baltimore. Not only did he learn how to run a government and staff its leadership team ? the one he brought with him to the State House ? the once brash, hotheaded mayor, elected in his 30s, also learned to be a disciplined campaigner who did not blow his top under prodding from foes.
As the state?s chief executive, he is an older, wiser, more cautious and flexible leader.
“His political style changed drastically from his early days as mayor,” said Matthew Crenson, professor emeritus of political science at Johns Hopkins University. “He is much more cautious than he was as mayor.”
Compared with his days in City Hall, McDaniel?s Smith said, “there is no shooting from the hip.” As governor, “he seems very civil andprofessional.”
“As mayor, sometimes he seemed a bit full of himself,” Crenson said. Now “he seems more self-effacing,” able to “step out of the spotlight.”
Both in the campaign and in office, O?Malley has deliberately contrasted his style to the more combative approach of Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich. “Compromise is not a dirty word,” O?Malley is fond of saying.
The importance of staff work
Crenson attributed O?Malley?s caution and flexibility to “political learning and staff work.”
O?Malley?s top staffers played key roles in getting his revenue package enacted, testifying before committees and constantly working the lawmakers in private. Most have been with him for years, except for chief lobbyist Joe Bryce, who played the same role for Gov. Parris Glendening. Aside from public hearings, key staffers are largely seen but not heard by the media. Just two or three designated spokespeople ? and the Cabinet secretaries ? represent the administration, other than O?Malley himself.
The governor is friendly but restrained around reporters. Access to the governor, as it was with Ehrlich, is restricted to short encounters after public events, when he?ll take a handful of questions.
O?Malley often stops himself as he gives a rambling response to a question. “Let me try that again,” he?ll say even with no cameras present, as he seeks to rephrase his answers. Most reporters who cover him carry digital recorders to capture O?Malley?s often elliptical phraseology and complex sentences.
Ehrlich staffed the first Republican administration in decades with many loyalists who never had run large agencies before. O?Malley could draw on a large pool of Democrats who had served in government, many of them under Glendening.
To some extent, most missteps of O?Malley?s first year have occurred at the departmental level: firings that may have been done improperly; a land deal for open space that may have been overpriced; and a juvenile-services administrator hired despite problems at his past job. There is a running catalog of O?Malley miscues on the Web site OMalleyWatch.com. And as in other administrations, mistakes are made at the agencies; successes are announced by the governor.
The ultimate effect of the touted tax package might turn out to be a mistake if it drives companies and jobs from Maryland, as business groups maintain it will. A recent study by the Capital News Service published in The Examiner showed that over the past three years, there was a net migration of 20,000 people from Maryland to lower-tax, lower-cost states such as Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Challenges ahead
While there are significant new revenues coming in, the state?s fiscal problems are far from solved. O?Malley releases his budget next week.
“We still have to cut $250 million,” Busch said. “It will be a very frugal budget. There is not going to be a whole lot of leeway in the budget when it comes to spending growth.”
The legislature?s spending affordability committee just capped that growth at 4 percent, compared with 7.5 percent this year, as legislative analysts calculate it ? a figure 5 percent higher than the governor?s accounting.
O?Malley “will have to demonstrate that the money is being used well, delivering programs that people care about,” said Boyd, the political consultant. But he?s got three years to do that.
“The tendency of legislatures is to want to spend money,” UMBC?s Norris said. “It?s one of the ways they get re-elected. [O?Malley?s] biggest challenge is to maintain fiscal discipline.”
“The state?s budget situation is far from fixed,” said Sen. Brinkley, and there?s no guarantee “that the economy will keep cruising along.”
“The real uncertainty is the state of the economy,” said Roy Meyers, a professor of public budgeting at UMBC, with a third to half of professional economists looking for a recession. “The revenue forecasts look pretty good right now, but there?s a lot of volatility in this economy.”
Warren Deschenaux, the Assembly?s top fiscal expert, told legislators $200 million deficits were projected two years away, though shortfalls of that size can normally be handled in the regular budget process.
Those deficits will become dramatically worse if the constitutional amendment on slots doesn?t pass in November. That will leave O?Malley with a situation much like Ehrlich?s on the increased Thornton school aid passed in 2002. There would be promised new programs ?- in this case, health insurance ? with no money to pay for
it.
“Where does O?Malley position himself on [slots] ? does he step back a little from it since it runs the risk of being defeated?” Boyd asked. “It?s much easier to conceive of the opposition to it.”
O?Malley already told a WBAL reporter in November he expected to spend a lot more time helping Hillary Clinton get elected president than working for slots.
The Public Service Commission also has drafted a report on solving Maryland?s long-term energy needs. “I think you?ll see a lot of activity on this energy issue in the upcoming General Assembly,” O?Malley told reporters last month. Legislative leaders agree.
“I think the governor needs to stay on track,” Busch said, focusing on bolstering Maryland?s strengths ? a good transportation system, higher education, the health care system, public safety issues, and addressing Baltimore City?s needs.
There is the persistent question of O?Malley?s national ambitions.
“I think if he expects to get national visibility, he needs to focus on health insurance for everyone,” Crenson said. For a politician with higher aspirations, “being governor provides you with a range of policy experience that you can?t get anywhere else.”
O?Malley through the months
» January: Inaugural address emphasizes “One Maryland,” unity and cooperation. O?Malley?s first budget uses much of the rainy-day fund previous Gov. Robert Ehrlich had put aside to balance it while increasing education spending. Talk begins about curing the “structural deficit.”
» February: O?Malley personally testifies for abolition of the death penalty. He makes more Cabinet appointments, including replacing a majority of the utility-regulating Public Service Commission.
» March: The governor dramatically shuts down the century-old House of Corrections, where violence on guards and inmates had persisted. A death penalty repeal fails by one vote in committee, despite heavy lobbying by O?Malley, but a court-ordered moratorium remains in effect, because he has not resolved the procedural roadblocks for execution.
» April: After the Assembly session ends, O?Malley signs hundreds of bills, including ones on climate change, setting up StateStat accountability measures, creating a sub-Cabinet to cope with BRAC inflow of federal defense jobs, and establishing nation?s first “living wage” law for some state contracts.
» May: O?Malley endorses Hillary Clinton for president, and later campaigns for her in New Hampshire. A new energy administrator and next-to-last Cabinet secretary is named, and the governor orders the rest to make $200 million in budget cuts. O?Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot reject a wetlands permit, blocking a 1,350-unit development on Kent Island.
» June: O?Malley promises local officials he will try to keep from cutting local aid in curing the structural deficit. At the Board of Public Works, Franchot objects to the statepurchase of 271 acres on Kent Island for $5 million, his first major public confrontation with O?Malley.
» July: As huge electric rate increases take effect, O?Malley announces a new energy conservation program and calls an energy summit. Board of Public Works approves the first round of budget cuts, $280 million in total, but only $128 million in state funds.
» August: A housing preservation task force appointed to look at a foreclosure crisis. Governor promises county officials he?ll increase transportation funding and he?ll try to maintain their current aid levels.
» September: O?Malley rolls out a plan to cure the structural deficit in a series of events around the state. Major elements include a 20-percent increase in sales tax and expansion to more services, a more graduated income tax at the high end, indexed gasoline tax and higher corporate taxes. A new twist on slots is the referendum on constitutional amendment setting up at five sites.
» October: Calls for special session, despite opposition from House leaders and a lack of “consensus.” Sales pitch continues, and session starts Oct. 29.
» November: House and Senate enact key elements of the tax plan but drop his cut in the state property tax and indexing of the gas tax. Instead, they use half of the sales tax for transportation. A proposed boost in income tax rates at upper end is also trimmed, and tax on computer services gets resurrected and replaces O?Malley?s levy on property management.
» December: O?Malley makes his first judicial appointments, largely safe ones, by promoting sitting appeals judges and sending current District Court judges up to the Circuit Court.
