Gov. Martin O?Malley?s nominees for seven Cabinet departments sailed through a Senate committee Monday evening in a unanimous vote that was bipartisan and full of mutual admiration. The nominations must now be approved by the full Senate.
The 19-member Executive Nominations Committee, the largest Senate panel and one that includes all Democratic and Republican leaders, took just 45 minutes to have the appointees introduced by their local senators, make a few remarks and hear a few comments.
“This was the easy part,” said Sen. James Ed DeGrange, D-Anne Arundel, the committee vice chairman. There are agencies that may be more difficult to fill, among them the troubled Department of Juvenile Services and the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
“They all met with us,” noted Sen. Donald Munson, R-Washington, and the senators had worked with most of them during the Gov. Parris Glendening administration or other state jobs.
Sen. Patrick Hogan, D-Montgomery, vice chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee, advised all the new Cabinet secretaries to read the legislative audit reports of their agencies and “take ownership of the solution” for the financial and management problems they uncovered. “Too often we take these audits and just push them aside,” he said.
Sen. Ulysses Currie, D-Prince George?s, chairman of the budget committee, told the new budget secretary, T. Eloise Foster of Silver Spring, that she is “the right person at right time. I think she?s the person thatwill get us through the ?09 and ?10 budget.”
Foster had the same role under Glendening, as did Transportation Secretary John Porcari, a Cheverly resident. DeGrange and Sen. Robert Hooper, R-Harford, said they hoped Porcari would help their counties through the Base Realignment and Closure process.
BRAC “is a major opportunity; it is also a real challenge,” Porcari said, and “certainly it will have ripple affect throughout the state.”
The other Cabinet secretaries sent to the Senate for confirmation are Shari Wilson, Environment; John Colmers of Baltimore, Health and Mental Hygiene; Thomas Perez of Takoma Park, Labor, Licensing and Regulation; John Griffin of Annapolis, Natural Resources and Richard Hall, Planning. Lawyer Paula Carmody, appointed by Attorney General Doug Gansler, was also approved as the new People?s Counsel.
