Send 4 incumbent congressmen back to DC
Voters in Anne Arundel County are now selecting their representatives in Congress, voting in four districts to return incumbents or choose Republican challengers.
It is in manyways a farce.
Anne Arundel County historically has been a Democratic-majority jurisdiction, with enough Republican-leaning independent voters to sway the county in national elections. Because the Maryland General Assembly has been controlled by Democrats for generations, the county was carved up among four congressional districts that weakened the power of those voters.
The technical phrase for this is gerrymandering, named for early American politician Elbridge Gerry.
It is not new. Anne Arundel County has been carved up for some time, in some measure because itwas either the biggest of the small counties or the smallest of the big counties, take your pick. At various times, parts of the county have been combined with Southern Maryland, Prince George’s County, Baltimore County and the Eastern Shore.
Today’s districts are represented by four able Democrats, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in the 5th, John Sarbanes in the 3rd, Anthony Brown in the 4th and Dutch Ruppersberger in the 2nd. Despite the fact that none of them live in Anne Arundel County, they work with local leaders, have strong constituent service, focus on issues important to county voters and generally have strong records.
All work hard, are able to connect with average Marylanders and in general, seem like decent people. We are confident that returning them to Washington is the right choice, and urge voters in each of their respective districts to cast a vote for them with confidence.
In the election now underway, four Republican challengers are running unlikely campaigns: Chris Palombi in the 5th, Charles Anthony inthe 3rd, George McDermott in the 4th and state Sen. Johnny Ray Salling in the 2nd. Like the incumbents, none live in Anne Arundel County.
There is simply no realistic chance that any of them will win.
They are running under-funded, low-key campaigns that should embarrass the Maryland Republican Party. Two of the candidates have been rejected by voters in favor of the incumbents before — one of them six times.
The likely cause of this acquiescence is an assessment by Republican party leaders that they simply cannot win in the districts as they are currently drawn, and that barring scandal or national wave benefiting challengers, powerful, scandal-free incumbents tend to win a return trip to Congress.
This year, with President Donald Trump’s historic failure as a leader set to drag down the party nationwide, it makes it even less likely one of these candidates could hit the electoral lottery and win.
We don’t want to send any mixed messages. It is clear that none of these four Republicans would be a better choice to work for county residents in the House of Representatives than the incumbents.
Yet, it is frustrating to see such weak candidates election after election, nomatter the reasons of political reality by betterqualified standard-bearers for the party.
If, as many analysts predict, we are heading toward a historic drubbing for Republicans nationally in this fall’s elections, there will be a lot of thinking among party leaders about howto regain power.
To do it in Maryland, the GOP has to put forward better candidates for Congress if it wants independents and conservative Democrats to consider voting for them.
Although that reset is likely to take time, there is another factor at play.
Ruppersberger is 74 and Hoyer is 81. They both appear healthy and spry, but time waits for no one. One day — and we wish them both robust health for many years to come — they will leave office and those seats will be within closer reach.
To voters who have noticed this same set of circumstances, we share your frustration. Hoyer, Sarbanes, Brown and Ruppersberger deserve your vote. But this is noway to run a democracy.