Republicans may have gained nationwide in the 2010 elections, but in Maryland, the party of law-breaking remained in power.
Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, Maryland’s law breaker in chief, was re-elected in a landslide. Democrats retained control of the state Legislature, and O’Malley won overwhelmingly in Baltimore, Maryland’s leading law-breaking jurisdiction.
This is no sour grapes rant about Maryland Republicans not doing as well as other GOP candidates across the nation. It’s not that there are no Republican lawbreakers in Maryland; it’s just that there are many more Democratic ones.
And they’re better at it.
Look at the evidence. In 2008 Maryland legislators — if indeed they can be called that — passed a law allowing illegal immigrants to renew their state driver’s licenses. That law is in direct violation of the federal Real ID Act, so every member of the legislature who voted for it is, in essence, a lawbreaker.
Then we have Mr. Law Breaker in Chief, our good Gov. O’Malley. He cut his law-breaking teeth when he was mayor of Baltimore.
Six years ago his mayoral administration set aside 15 grants of $3,000 each for Hispanic immigrants who wanted to buy homes in Baltimore. When observers noted this flagrantly violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other laws that called for things to be done without regard to race, creed or ethnicity, an O’Malley spokesman sneered that the story was “driven by the press, not actual people.”
That episode should raise this question: was O’Malley’s reference to illegal immigrants as “new Americans” during his second debate with former Gov. Robert Ehrlich, R, a goofy slip, or deliberate, shameless pandering to Maryland’s law-breaking Democratic contingent?
O’Malley fired former Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Clark without so much as giving the man a hearing to dispute or rebut allegations the mayor had made against him. Clark’s sacking was illegal, a Maryland appeals court ruled, which meant O’Malley was in violation of the law again.
Throughout his mayoral tenure O’Malley’s anti-crime policy consisted of having police arrest hundreds of citizens for petty crimes. Police also conducted what are called “Terry stops” — ones cops make when they have reasonable suspicion that somebody is up to no good. But police have to document Terry stops.
Records showed that Baltimore police routinely failed to provide such documentation. So, under O’Malley’s administration, police routinely violated the law, apparently with O’Malley’s blessing and approval.
Baltimoreans obviously thought so highly of O’Malley’s law breaking that they went to the polls in droves four years ago to help elect him governor. The following year, they elected former Mayor Sheila Dixon, another lawbreaker who was forced to resign from office.
Law breaking must be endemic to Baltimore. Read this first line of a story from the Web site www.marylandreporter.com:
“There were so many opportunities for fraud and misuse of money by workers in the Baltimore region of the state prison system that state auditors are asking the attorney general to look into possible criminal charges.”
The story also quoted Bruce Myers, a legislative auditor who said, “We brought many of these issues up in the previous audit. It raised a red flag then, and it looks like the problems got worse.”
That previous audit was three years ago. (That was on O’Malley’s watch as governor, wasn’t it?) Anyone wondering why it was primarily Baltimore legislators who led the charge to have immediate voting rights restored to felons now knows their motives.
They wanted voting rights restored to felons because they never know when the day will come when they might actually be felons.
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
