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Local Politics
Welcome to your biennial edition of Melannen's Local Elections Voting Guide, special expanded insiders edition 2010!
(What "special expanded insiders edition" means is that I've just come back from being a presenter person at the big county candidates' question night and spent most of two hours staring at the backs of their heads. So I totes have special knowledges, all.)
Also, inspired by the lolitics' Top Trumps project, as well as mention of actual policy of varied seriousness, I will also be rating the candidates who I saw tonight on scales of Hotness, Accessorization, Durpiness, and Douchiness.
The Governor's Race is an epic battle of "More of the Same" vs. "Same Old, Same Old". (Plus three small party candidates nobody cares about. A few years ago several of the small parties decided to run all the same candidates, but apparently *that* alliance didn't last.)
Martin O'Malley, our current governor, is mostly notable for not having done anything that was more than banal evil.
Robert Ehrlich, the one-term governor he defeated four years ago, is mostly notable for not having done anything that was worse than banal evil. And for introducing Michael Steele to a national stage - I'm not sure if that was a net win or a net loss for the Republican Party, but it was definitely a win for lolitics (and yet another abject lesson in why you should *never* introduce a Maryland politician to the national stage.)
Susan Gaztanaga, the liberatarian, as usual, has social libertarian positions I like on rights issues, and fiscal/economic positions that make no sense.
Maria Allwine, the Green candidate, definitely ranks highest on the "hotness" and "accessorization" scales (glasses!) among the governor's race, and as usual for a Green, she is almost far enough left for me. But has zero chance of winning. I am kind of waffling as to whether I dislike Republicans in general enough to vote for the fat-cat Democrat just to keep them out, or whether it's worth giving my vote to a Green. (I think it will come down to how close the race looks when I finally vote.)
We're just going to pretend the Constitution party doesn't exist. Although apparently the three minor-party candidates had several debates (which the dem and rep candidates refused to take part in) and I kind of wish I'd known about them, because I bet there was some actual incisive debate going on at them.
Comptroller is actually a fairly important office in Maryland, but it is kind of hard to care about it, especially since Willy Don left us. (Willy Don was the closest thing our local politics ever had to a Boris. We were fond of him in an "oh, bless" sort of way even when we hated everything he was doing.)
Franchot is the incumbent and a Democrat, and Mom says everything she's heard about him is good, so I'll go with him.
Gansler is running unopposed for Attorney General, as a Democrat. I'm generally of the opinion that if nobody cares enough to run against them, I'll go ahead and throw in a vote.
(I think it actually doesn't matter whether you vote for unopposed people - that even if 99% of the voters leave that line blank, they still get in as long as nobody got more votes. But I'm not sure. I'm an election judge, I should know these things.)
For the senator's race, I could go through all the candidates, but Barbara Mikulski is 4'11" of HBIC in a teal-blue suit, so there's really no point in even mentioning anybody else.
John Sarbanes Jr, the son of our retired senator John Sarbanes Sr, is running for his third house term. I really, really dislike the idea of political dynasties in a democracy, but I like pretty much everything else about Sarbanes (he stood firm in the Health Care debates, in particular, even as a fairly junior Congressman) so he shall continue to get my vote, even beyond general keep-the-Republicans-out-of-power strategic voting.
He has no Green opponent, and the candidates fielded by the right-wing parties are pretty small potatoes, so, yeah, Sarbanes is going to win, and I'm probably even going to vote for him.
...okay, now we move on to the races with people who actually bothered to show up at the Candidates' Question Time tonight.
Ed DeGrange has been our state senator for years. He's pretty non-descript, tbh, and if there was a Green running against him I'd probably go for it, since he'll almost certainly get in. At the candidates' night I scored him fairly high for jobs and transit and for durpiness, and fairly low on health care, which sounds about right: the center-right sort of Maryland Democrat, but he has been pretty good at cooperating, at least on the surface, with the social-justice groups I hang out with, and he's local down to his bones. He has no serious opposition either; the Republican didn't even show up at the Candidates' Night.
For House of Delegates in Maryland each district has three delegates, and we each get to vote for "up to three" of one list of candidates.
32 is a pretty solidly Democratic district. Pam Beidle is another one of those large-amount-of-kickass-in-a-small-package women, and she's done some great stuff and worked fairly well on some issues that matter to me (including slots and some education stuff.)
Mary Ann Love didn't make it to the candidates night (but supposedly had a good excuse); she has a similar history to Beidle's, and I'm good with her staying in.
Ted Sophocleus was at the candidates' night. He was the highest-rated Democrat at the candidates' night in terms of general douchiness rating, and he got a frowny face on health care, but much like O'Malley, it's mostly the general banality of his evil that stands out.
There are no third party candidates running; the Republicans who showed up to the event were Wayne Smith and Stephanie Hodges. Stephanie Hodges appears to be in the proud tradition of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Christine O'Donnell; she must have either been playing it up purposely or been chosen to run specifically because it was natural, because I don't see how that close a resemblance could be accidental. To the extent I was able to listen to her positions without wanting to claw my face off, I hated them.
Wayne Smith, the other Republican who showed, actually got several durpiness points, due to the fact that he couldn't go more than two sentences without mentioning that he's director of IT at Johns Hopkins. Apparently this qualifies him to decide exactly how to fix health care and how to fix the local economy? Anyway, he managed not to say anything that made me viscerally hate him, but that may just be due to the fact that he managed to not say much.
...Democratic party line it is on that one, then.
I can't actually vote in District 31, but I want to note that the two Democratic candidates I saw tonight actually really impressed me. It's a pretty solidly Republican district, so I suspect they are party up-and-coming types who are running just for practice, but still. They were both by far the youngest candidates there - probably no older than mid-thirties - and I was impressed.
Justin Towles especially; he clearly wasn't as practiced at candidating as the others, but he managed to get his points across well and come off as a nice guy. Also, his answer on health care really caught my attention: he basically said a bunch of dog-whistles for the pro-public-health-care side, and ended with something like "And if anyone would like to discuss this with me more in private, I will be available later at such-and-such-a-place"; he was totally inviting us to a secret socialists' meeting, which would have won my heart even if I wasn't impressed with him in general.
Jeremiah Chiapelli, while he had good liberal social-justicey positions, came off a bit too agreeable, so it was hard to tell if he actually had his own positions or was just parroting back our talking points. He won points mostly for trying very, very hard and looking quite a lot like Cillian Murphy (where Justin Towles is a total square-jawed all-American buzzcut type.I kind of ship them now.)
On the other hand, Don Dwyer, one of the Republican incumbents, decided the best possible use of his precious 60 second free closing statement was to say - and this is a very close paraphrase; I am not abridging it at all - "I believe marriage is between one man and one woman! And I believe in the great American values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!"
Which, okay. Aside from the fact that I felt quite literally stabby at the first part of that statement (and gay marriage isn't even one of my top five issues to be passionate about, but people like Dwyer who feel the need to make gay marriage a flagship issue as if it even has any effect on their lives are horrible, horrible people with very screwed-up priorities) does he even listen to himself? Is there any better argument for gay marriage than "pursuit of happiness" as a fundamental American principle?
...so, yeah, there's your special District 31 section. Keep an eye on Chiappelli and Towles; I hope they go somewhere.
A County Executive in Anne Arundel County is traditionally elected on the back of the previous executive having been utterly corrupted by power, and them running under "No more politics as usual!" only to be immediately corrupted by power themselves and leaving office some years later under a cloud of dislike, suspicion, influence-peddling, nepotism, and occasionally something even more creative.
John Leopold, the Republican incumbent, is well into the cycle, but he's only in his first term, so he may not quite have enough lawsuits against him yet to lose him an election. I personally dislike him greatly though (and have spet enough time in the same room with him to feel like that's a fairly steady assessment), and he's been horrible with the social justice group I work with.
Joanna Conti is the Democrat who's running under "No More Politics As Usual" or something along those lines. She's also got positions that I actively like, and she managed to respond really well (I thought) at the question night while still coming across as unpolished and down-to-earth compared to the others. Goodness knows how long that will last if she gets elected, though. However, she scores easily first place overall on hotness. She might even outscore Harriet Harman, and she smiled at me. (Look, I'm allowed to be shallow if I also like their politics.)
The Green candidate for county executive, Mike Shay, was also at the candidates' night. One thing that tends to be pretty impressive with the Green candidates (at least around here) is that they've really put in their time with community organizing and advocacy work, and Shay definitely has. He impressed me quite a lot with his general demeanor tonight, too, but for once, at least on the issues that were covered tonight, I think I actually liked the Democrat's positions better, especially on immigration, where Leopold was vile, Shay managed to not actually say anything, and Conti actually spoke up for restoring funding to NGOs that might serve illegal immigrants. \o/ yay for sense!
Half the County Council people didn't even bother to show up, but both of mine did: Klosterman, the center-right Democratic incumbent, and Grasso, the Republican challenger. I was kind of zoned out during this part of the evening because I was coming down from the adrenaline high from my speaking part, but according to my notes, of the four CC people who appeared, Parks (D) won on Durpiness, Grasso (R) won on Accessorizing (he has an *amazing* mustache), Klosterman (D) won on Douchiness, and Jones (D) won on Hotness.
I will probably be just voting for Klosterman, unless I can actually motivate myself to do some proper research on his voting history before I have to go vote.
A Special Not-My-District note on County Council seats: Daryl Jones not only won on hotness, he also got my check of approval for his actual positions (I don't remember what they were, but apparently I liked them.) He's another young up-and-comer; I hope he keeps coming up. And Charlie Parks is apparently running mostly on the platform that a County Council position would mean a fifty percent pay cut of his current county fireman's pension, so electing him saves the county $76,000 over four years. ... you have to admire the sheer lulziness of that platform position, if nothing else.
A bunch of the judges actually came to the candidates night, which makes me feel vaguely invested in these elections for once. See, Tip O'Neill was right: people like to be asked.
Anyway, there are three candidates running for two Circuit Court slots, and I really should look in to them more; usually I just vote all-female in those situations, but there appears to actually be some kind of fuss over Alison Asti, and I need to go find out what it is, and whether I care about it, and who the incumbents actually are (our ballots don't mark who the incumbent is.)
Judge of the Orphan's Court has four people running for three slots; three of them women and three of them Republican. The Democratic woman, Babs Burdette, was also at the Candidates' night, and she gets points for caring enough to show up, and, okay, also hotness points. I may vote only for her; I think I'd quite like to see her get in.
The Court of Special Appeals judges are yes/no for continuance in office; I usually vote yes unless there's a very strong reason to vote no, because I think judges in general should be as free as possible of having to worry about political concerns.
Clerk of the Circuit Court and Register of Wills are both Republicans running unopposed; I may or may not decide I care enough to tick their boxes.
State's Attorney is long-time incumbent Frank Weathersbee versus Republican Eric Grannon. I suspect Googling would actually get me some people with strong opinions on this race, and I should probably do it, but frankly, I would prefer the State's Attorney be a Democrat, because they can have a fair amount of say in how effective the Governor's administration is, on several levels.
Also I visualize him as the principal from Archie Comics, which gives me completely unjustified warm fuzzy feelings.
For county sheriff, Ron Bateman (D, incumbent) is running against Patrick Jameson (R). The most interesting thing about Ron Bateman is the tradition for people to vandalize his campaign signs by erasing the E in the middle, or if they're feeling particularly creative, replace it with a bat sign. This is usually only mildly geeky juvenile behavior; what made it slightly brilliant this year is the fact that two counties over, Bane is running for sheriff. ^_^
...umm. Actual politics. The sheriff's department in our county is far from perfect, but I find it difficult to image that a Republican would improve matters, so (again, pending actually caring enough to do more research) I will probably either vote for Bateman or abstain on this one. (Weathersbee and Bateman! Together, they fight crime!)
The Board of Education is also yes/no for continuance in office. I always vote no, just because I've yet to find anyone in this county, ever, who actually thinks the Board of Ed are competent (this may be mostly because I hang around with too many teachers though.) Enough people automatically vote yes that it doesn't matter what I vote anyway.
Ah, the ballot questions, such a bundle of joy and excitement.
State Question 1 is the required every-ten-years referendum on calling a constitutional convention. I vote yes. I like constitutional conventions, they're exciting! And as State Question 2 demonstrates, it could certainly use fixing.
State Question 2 is about raising the minimum required damages for a civil suit's plaintiff to have a right to jury trial. The problem here is that an actual dollar amount is written in to the state constitution, so we have to have ballot questions/constitutional amendments every time there's enough inflation that the number needs to go up (this is not the only point where a specific dollar amount is written in, either.) I plan to vote "no" on these until we get one where the amount is pegged to inflation, or pegged to something the legislature can set on its own, so we don't need them any more; otherwise it's just inefficient.
State Question 3 requires that Baltimore City Orphan's Court Judges be qualified lawyers. There is a story behind this one; part of it is the long story about how Baltimore City is not part of a county and therefore gets screwed over, and why; part of it is that this ballot question *appears* to be partly a vendetta against one particular Baltimore City Orphan's Court Judge. I will either leave it blank (out of general protest about us having to vote on local city matters) or vote against it, depending on whether I find out anything more about the vendetta.
Ah, County Question A: the slots referendum. Giving the whole backstory on this would probably be as long as the rest of this post together, and the turnout just for this referendum is going to completely skew the voting numbers for the whole county, and there are no good guys. But for me the final deciding factor is: I am voting against zoning for slots in my area, because I have actually visited places that have slots, and it's amazing how you can actually taste the despair and desperation in the air increase the closer you get to the towns with the casinos. We've got enough despair and desperation here already, thanks.
County Question B will change the county charter to allow state and federal employees and members of the US military (and possibly members of the National Guard?) to serve on the County Council. This seems reasonable to me (especially as, with the State Capitol, a very large Army base, the Naval Academy, and Washington DC bedroom communities, there are a lot of people in those categories in the county,) and it doesn't seem like they're any *more* likely to face a conflict of interest than people working for private companies. However, it's possible I've missed a bit of logic; I'm going to have to think on it a bit more.
County Question C looks like it increases public accountability for the budget from the county government, by requiring more time for review and a public hearing. It's possible there's a hidden catch, but right now I lean toward yes.
And that's the ballot! Aren't elections fun?
(What "special expanded insiders edition" means is that I've just come back from being a presenter person at the big county candidates' question night and spent most of two hours staring at the backs of their heads. So I totes have special knowledges, all.)
Also, inspired by the lolitics' Top Trumps project, as well as mention of actual policy of varied seriousness, I will also be rating the candidates who I saw tonight on scales of Hotness, Accessorization, Durpiness, and Douchiness.
The Governor's Race is an epic battle of "More of the Same" vs. "Same Old, Same Old". (Plus three small party candidates nobody cares about. A few years ago several of the small parties decided to run all the same candidates, but apparently *that* alliance didn't last.)
Martin O'Malley, our current governor, is mostly notable for not having done anything that was more than banal evil.
Robert Ehrlich, the one-term governor he defeated four years ago, is mostly notable for not having done anything that was worse than banal evil. And for introducing Michael Steele to a national stage - I'm not sure if that was a net win or a net loss for the Republican Party, but it was definitely a win for lolitics (and yet another abject lesson in why you should *never* introduce a Maryland politician to the national stage.)
Susan Gaztanaga, the liberatarian, as usual, has social libertarian positions I like on rights issues, and fiscal/economic positions that make no sense.
Maria Allwine, the Green candidate, definitely ranks highest on the "hotness" and "accessorization" scales (glasses!) among the governor's race, and as usual for a Green, she is almost far enough left for me. But has zero chance of winning. I am kind of waffling as to whether I dislike Republicans in general enough to vote for the fat-cat Democrat just to keep them out, or whether it's worth giving my vote to a Green. (I think it will come down to how close the race looks when I finally vote.)
We're just going to pretend the Constitution party doesn't exist. Although apparently the three minor-party candidates had several debates (which the dem and rep candidates refused to take part in) and I kind of wish I'd known about them, because I bet there was some actual incisive debate going on at them.
Comptroller is actually a fairly important office in Maryland, but it is kind of hard to care about it, especially since Willy Don left us. (Willy Don was the closest thing our local politics ever had to a Boris. We were fond of him in an "oh, bless" sort of way even when we hated everything he was doing.)
Franchot is the incumbent and a Democrat, and Mom says everything she's heard about him is good, so I'll go with him.
Gansler is running unopposed for Attorney General, as a Democrat. I'm generally of the opinion that if nobody cares enough to run against them, I'll go ahead and throw in a vote.
(I think it actually doesn't matter whether you vote for unopposed people - that even if 99% of the voters leave that line blank, they still get in as long as nobody got more votes. But I'm not sure. I'm an election judge, I should know these things.)
For the senator's race, I could go through all the candidates, but Barbara Mikulski is 4'11" of HBIC in a teal-blue suit, so there's really no point in even mentioning anybody else.
John Sarbanes Jr, the son of our retired senator John Sarbanes Sr, is running for his third house term. I really, really dislike the idea of political dynasties in a democracy, but I like pretty much everything else about Sarbanes (he stood firm in the Health Care debates, in particular, even as a fairly junior Congressman) so he shall continue to get my vote, even beyond general keep-the-Republicans-out-of-power strategic voting.
He has no Green opponent, and the candidates fielded by the right-wing parties are pretty small potatoes, so, yeah, Sarbanes is going to win, and I'm probably even going to vote for him.
...okay, now we move on to the races with people who actually bothered to show up at the Candidates' Question Time tonight.
Ed DeGrange has been our state senator for years. He's pretty non-descript, tbh, and if there was a Green running against him I'd probably go for it, since he'll almost certainly get in. At the candidates' night I scored him fairly high for jobs and transit and for durpiness, and fairly low on health care, which sounds about right: the center-right sort of Maryland Democrat, but he has been pretty good at cooperating, at least on the surface, with the social-justice groups I hang out with, and he's local down to his bones. He has no serious opposition either; the Republican didn't even show up at the Candidates' Night.
For House of Delegates in Maryland each district has three delegates, and we each get to vote for "up to three" of one list of candidates.
32 is a pretty solidly Democratic district. Pam Beidle is another one of those large-amount-of-kickass-in-a-small-package women, and she's done some great stuff and worked fairly well on some issues that matter to me (including slots and some education stuff.)
Mary Ann Love didn't make it to the candidates night (but supposedly had a good excuse); she has a similar history to Beidle's, and I'm good with her staying in.
Ted Sophocleus was at the candidates' night. He was the highest-rated Democrat at the candidates' night in terms of general douchiness rating, and he got a frowny face on health care, but much like O'Malley, it's mostly the general banality of his evil that stands out.
There are no third party candidates running; the Republicans who showed up to the event were Wayne Smith and Stephanie Hodges. Stephanie Hodges appears to be in the proud tradition of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Christine O'Donnell; she must have either been playing it up purposely or been chosen to run specifically because it was natural, because I don't see how that close a resemblance could be accidental. To the extent I was able to listen to her positions without wanting to claw my face off, I hated them.
Wayne Smith, the other Republican who showed, actually got several durpiness points, due to the fact that he couldn't go more than two sentences without mentioning that he's director of IT at Johns Hopkins. Apparently this qualifies him to decide exactly how to fix health care and how to fix the local economy? Anyway, he managed not to say anything that made me viscerally hate him, but that may just be due to the fact that he managed to not say much.
...Democratic party line it is on that one, then.
I can't actually vote in District 31, but I want to note that the two Democratic candidates I saw tonight actually really impressed me. It's a pretty solidly Republican district, so I suspect they are party up-and-coming types who are running just for practice, but still. They were both by far the youngest candidates there - probably no older than mid-thirties - and I was impressed.
Justin Towles especially; he clearly wasn't as practiced at candidating as the others, but he managed to get his points across well and come off as a nice guy. Also, his answer on health care really caught my attention: he basically said a bunch of dog-whistles for the pro-public-health-care side, and ended with something like "And if anyone would like to discuss this with me more in private, I will be available later at such-and-such-a-place"; he was totally inviting us to a secret socialists' meeting, which would have won my heart even if I wasn't impressed with him in general.
Jeremiah Chiapelli, while he had good liberal social-justicey positions, came off a bit too agreeable, so it was hard to tell if he actually had his own positions or was just parroting back our talking points. He won points mostly for trying very, very hard and looking quite a lot like Cillian Murphy (where Justin Towles is a total square-jawed all-American buzzcut type.
On the other hand, Don Dwyer, one of the Republican incumbents, decided the best possible use of his precious 60 second free closing statement was to say - and this is a very close paraphrase; I am not abridging it at all - "I believe marriage is between one man and one woman! And I believe in the great American values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!"
Which, okay. Aside from the fact that I felt quite literally stabby at the first part of that statement (and gay marriage isn't even one of my top five issues to be passionate about, but people like Dwyer who feel the need to make gay marriage a flagship issue as if it even has any effect on their lives are horrible, horrible people with very screwed-up priorities) does he even listen to himself? Is there any better argument for gay marriage than "pursuit of happiness" as a fundamental American principle?
...so, yeah, there's your special District 31 section. Keep an eye on Chiappelli and Towles; I hope they go somewhere.
A County Executive in Anne Arundel County is traditionally elected on the back of the previous executive having been utterly corrupted by power, and them running under "No more politics as usual!" only to be immediately corrupted by power themselves and leaving office some years later under a cloud of dislike, suspicion, influence-peddling, nepotism, and occasionally something even more creative.
John Leopold, the Republican incumbent, is well into the cycle, but he's only in his first term, so he may not quite have enough lawsuits against him yet to lose him an election. I personally dislike him greatly though (and have spet enough time in the same room with him to feel like that's a fairly steady assessment), and he's been horrible with the social justice group I work with.
Joanna Conti is the Democrat who's running under "No More Politics As Usual" or something along those lines. She's also got positions that I actively like, and she managed to respond really well (I thought) at the question night while still coming across as unpolished and down-to-earth compared to the others. Goodness knows how long that will last if she gets elected, though. However, she scores easily first place overall on hotness. She might even outscore Harriet Harman, and she smiled at me. (Look, I'm allowed to be shallow if I also like their politics.)
The Green candidate for county executive, Mike Shay, was also at the candidates' night. One thing that tends to be pretty impressive with the Green candidates (at least around here) is that they've really put in their time with community organizing and advocacy work, and Shay definitely has. He impressed me quite a lot with his general demeanor tonight, too, but for once, at least on the issues that were covered tonight, I think I actually liked the Democrat's positions better, especially on immigration, where Leopold was vile, Shay managed to not actually say anything, and Conti actually spoke up for restoring funding to NGOs that might serve illegal immigrants. \o/ yay for sense!
Half the County Council people didn't even bother to show up, but both of mine did: Klosterman, the center-right Democratic incumbent, and Grasso, the Republican challenger. I was kind of zoned out during this part of the evening because I was coming down from the adrenaline high from my speaking part, but according to my notes, of the four CC people who appeared, Parks (D) won on Durpiness, Grasso (R) won on Accessorizing (he has an *amazing* mustache), Klosterman (D) won on Douchiness, and Jones (D) won on Hotness.
I will probably be just voting for Klosterman, unless I can actually motivate myself to do some proper research on his voting history before I have to go vote.
A Special Not-My-District note on County Council seats: Daryl Jones not only won on hotness, he also got my check of approval for his actual positions (I don't remember what they were, but apparently I liked them.) He's another young up-and-comer; I hope he keeps coming up. And Charlie Parks is apparently running mostly on the platform that a County Council position would mean a fifty percent pay cut of his current county fireman's pension, so electing him saves the county $76,000 over four years. ... you have to admire the sheer lulziness of that platform position, if nothing else.
A bunch of the judges actually came to the candidates night, which makes me feel vaguely invested in these elections for once. See, Tip O'Neill was right: people like to be asked.
Anyway, there are three candidates running for two Circuit Court slots, and I really should look in to them more; usually I just vote all-female in those situations, but there appears to actually be some kind of fuss over Alison Asti, and I need to go find out what it is, and whether I care about it, and who the incumbents actually are (our ballots don't mark who the incumbent is.)
Judge of the Orphan's Court has four people running for three slots; three of them women and three of them Republican. The Democratic woman, Babs Burdette, was also at the Candidates' night, and she gets points for caring enough to show up, and, okay, also hotness points. I may vote only for her; I think I'd quite like to see her get in.
The Court of Special Appeals judges are yes/no for continuance in office; I usually vote yes unless there's a very strong reason to vote no, because I think judges in general should be as free as possible of having to worry about political concerns.
Clerk of the Circuit Court and Register of Wills are both Republicans running unopposed; I may or may not decide I care enough to tick their boxes.
State's Attorney is long-time incumbent Frank Weathersbee versus Republican Eric Grannon. I suspect Googling would actually get me some people with strong opinions on this race, and I should probably do it, but frankly, I would prefer the State's Attorney be a Democrat, because they can have a fair amount of say in how effective the Governor's administration is, on several levels.
Also I visualize him as the principal from Archie Comics, which gives me completely unjustified warm fuzzy feelings.
For county sheriff, Ron Bateman (D, incumbent) is running against Patrick Jameson (R). The most interesting thing about Ron Bateman is the tradition for people to vandalize his campaign signs by erasing the E in the middle, or if they're feeling particularly creative, replace it with a bat sign. This is usually only mildly geeky juvenile behavior; what made it slightly brilliant this year is the fact that two counties over, Bane is running for sheriff. ^_^
...umm. Actual politics. The sheriff's department in our county is far from perfect, but I find it difficult to image that a Republican would improve matters, so (again, pending actually caring enough to do more research) I will probably either vote for Bat
The Board of Education is also yes/no for continuance in office. I always vote no, just because I've yet to find anyone in this county, ever, who actually thinks the Board of Ed are competent (this may be mostly because I hang around with too many teachers though.) Enough people automatically vote yes that it doesn't matter what I vote anyway.
Ah, the ballot questions, such a bundle of joy and excitement.
State Question 1 is the required every-ten-years referendum on calling a constitutional convention. I vote yes. I like constitutional conventions, they're exciting! And as State Question 2 demonstrates, it could certainly use fixing.
State Question 2 is about raising the minimum required damages for a civil suit's plaintiff to have a right to jury trial. The problem here is that an actual dollar amount is written in to the state constitution, so we have to have ballot questions/constitutional amendments every time there's enough inflation that the number needs to go up (this is not the only point where a specific dollar amount is written in, either.) I plan to vote "no" on these until we get one where the amount is pegged to inflation, or pegged to something the legislature can set on its own, so we don't need them any more; otherwise it's just inefficient.
State Question 3 requires that Baltimore City Orphan's Court Judges be qualified lawyers. There is a story behind this one; part of it is the long story about how Baltimore City is not part of a county and therefore gets screwed over, and why; part of it is that this ballot question *appears* to be partly a vendetta against one particular Baltimore City Orphan's Court Judge. I will either leave it blank (out of general protest about us having to vote on local city matters) or vote against it, depending on whether I find out anything more about the vendetta.
Ah, County Question A: the slots referendum. Giving the whole backstory on this would probably be as long as the rest of this post together, and the turnout just for this referendum is going to completely skew the voting numbers for the whole county, and there are no good guys. But for me the final deciding factor is: I am voting against zoning for slots in my area, because I have actually visited places that have slots, and it's amazing how you can actually taste the despair and desperation in the air increase the closer you get to the towns with the casinos. We've got enough despair and desperation here already, thanks.
County Question B will change the county charter to allow state and federal employees and members of the US military (and possibly members of the National Guard?) to serve on the County Council. This seems reasonable to me (especially as, with the State Capitol, a very large Army base, the Naval Academy, and Washington DC bedroom communities, there are a lot of people in those categories in the county,) and it doesn't seem like they're any *more* likely to face a conflict of interest than people working for private companies. However, it's possible I've missed a bit of logic; I'm going to have to think on it a bit more.
County Question C looks like it increases public accountability for the budget from the county government, by requiring more time for review and a public hearing. It's possible there's a hidden catch, but right now I lean toward yes.
And that's the ballot! Aren't elections fun?
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At the next S&B, ask her about her fun stories about Leopold. :)
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I don't know anything about the other candidates, though.
I have to agree that Willy Don's retirement has taken a certain... something out of MD politics. And I strongly suspect Leopold will be re-elected, but I've found him oily and objectionable every time I'm met him, nevermind his sexual harassment of his employees. (I'm friends with one of the officers who's one of his personal drivers -- he has several -- and from the little crumbs I've heard, there's nothing decent about Leopold.)
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Also, one of my former college roommates is running for county commissioner in Frederick County, MD. Which I think is totally cool I wish her all the best.
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This seems to be the year of wacky Republicans.