Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush praised Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s bipartisan efforts as the Republican chief executive of a deep-blue state in a stinging critique of the divisiveness in Washington, D.C., only 30 miles away.
“Larry is at the top of a list of leaders that I admire today, because what is happening here in Annapolis is the antithesis of what’s happening in Washington, D.C., these days,” Bush said during Hogan’s inauguration Wednesday.
“Washington’s not just our nation’s capital, it’s also the capital of gridlock and dysfunction, and with a divided Congress, it doesn’t look like things are going to get much better any time soon,” he added.
@JebBush: @GovLarryHogan has shown how bi-partisanship works, compared to what’s going on in Congress. @WashInformer pic.twitter.com/PL8mB1tJMA
— William J. Ford (@jabariwill) January 16, 2019
Bush, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for president during the 2016 Republican primaries, said that outside of the Beltway “good and interesting ideas, and strong leadership, still hold the power to repair and reinvigorate our institutions.”
Hogan was sworn in for his second term as Maryland’s governor Wednesday. He is the first Republican governor since 1958 to win re-election in the state where the Democrats have a tight grip on the legislature.
The governor illustrated his dedication to bipartisanship and jumping party lines based on issue by telling a story of how his father became the first Republican congressman to be in favor of former President Richard Nixon’s impeachment in the midst of the 1970s Watergate scandal.
“‘Party loyalty,’ he said, ‘and personal affection and precedents of the past must fall before the arbiter of men’s actions: the law itself,’” Hogan said in quoting his father, according to his prepared remarks. “‘No man, not even the president of the United States, is above the law. For our system of justice and our system of government to survive, we must pledge our highest allegiance to the strength of the law and not to the common frailties of man.’”
“With those words, my father became the first Republican to come out for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon,” Hogan said.
Lawrence Hogan was a congressman representing Maryland’s 5th Congressional District from 1969 to 1975. He was the only Republican representative that voted to recommend all three House articles of impeachment against Nixon.
