Hogan for governor
We’ve had our disagreements with the governor, particularly over his treatment of Baltimore, but the totality of his record has earned him our endorsement
Our view:
Four years ago, we very nearly endorsed Larry Hogan for governor. Wehadsignificant doubts about his Democratic opponent’s record and the campaign he had run. Mr. Hogan, meanwhile, offered the prospect of something we had long thought Maryland needed — a moderate, pragmatic executive who could cooperate with the Democratic majority in the General Assembly or act as a check on it when warranted. But we also had reservations. Mr. Hogan had never held public office before, and he had no record to judge. Particularly concerning, he voiced no position on and evinced little interest in a wide swath of things governors have to deal with, from health care to the environment. It was, at the time, simply too big a leap for us to take.
Today, many of our concerns have been allayed. Mr. Hogan was true to his promise to steer clear of social issues like abortion and LGBT rights. He did not seek to weaken Maryland gun laws and even endorsed some measures to strengthen them. His administration worked closely with the General Assembly to shore up the Affordable Care Act and reform the criminal justice system. On the environment, his record is much better than we might have expected on issues from fracking to air pollution to nutrient runoff into the Chesapeake Bay. He has made good to focus on boosting business, seeking reviews of Maryland’s regulatory environment and, laudably, working to eliminate the collateral consequences of incarceration that hinder prospects for ex-offenders. We have long argued for the importance of a viable two-party system in Maryland, and he has provided it without excessive partisan acrimony. We saw how Mr. Hogan dealt with a crisis after the 2015 unrest in Baltimore, and his successful battle with cancer revealed a human side that we and millions of others could identify with.
Our reservations
But we still have a concern, and it’s a big one. Mr. Hogan says he sees Baltimore as the heart of the state, but his actions in office have too often treated it as an afterthought, if not with outright contempt. The prime example, of course, is his decision to cancel the Red Line light rail — a project leaders in the region had been working on for a decade. He has since poured billions into the Washington-area Metro system while offering Baltimore a bus overhaul that can generously be described as underwhelming. When he presented his statewide plan for road improvements, Baltimore City was literally left off the map.
He had to be cajoled into providing money to help city schools cope with declining enrollment after already having promised it to rural counties. He withheld millions for school repairs and renovations from the city (and Baltimore County) over a political dispute about air conditioning. When kids were shivering in city classrooms last winter, his reaction was to point fingers of blame at the adults in the system rather than doing whatever it took to help — or even seeking to understand the ways state school funding policies over the years had contributed to the situation.
The governor insists he wants to redevelop State Center, but he has crucially not committed to keeping the 3,000 state workers on the site. With them, State Center is an extremely attractive site for high-quality mixed use development. Without them — by the state’s consultant’s estimates — it’s a decent spot for some strip malls, fast food joints and B-class offices.
WhenMr. Hogan looks at Baltimore, he too often seems to see a morass and a money pit, not a part of the state for which he is equally responsible and certainly not a place of great opportunity. That matters to us deeply. Yet we still endorse Governor Hogan for re-election. Here’s why.
The case for Mr. Hogan
Our list of complaints does not encompass the totality of Mr. Hogan’s record on Baltimore. On the night of the worst post-Freddie Gray unrest, when Baltimore’s leadership was literally invisible, he stepped in to reassure the city, and he conducted himself with sensitivity in the days that followed. He has worked with Mayor Catherine Pugh to to fight violent crime, by and large providing her with the resources she’s asked for to modernize and reform the Baltimore Police Department. He has substantially increased the state’s role in Baltimore’s anti-blight efforts, and despite his occasionally harsh assessment of the city school system, he did agree to provide extra funds to patch over the district’s chronic budget shortfall until new, fairer education funding formulas can be enacted. We also appreciated his initial support for Baltimore’s bid for Amazon’s second headquarters.
In manyother respects, wehave been pleased by his leadership. Health care has been a particular strong suit. His administration’s cooperation with Democrats to enact a reinsurance pool this year, and its subsequent success in getting the Trump administration to sign off on it, turned projected huge increase in individual insurance premiums into decreases. Perhaps even more important, his administration not only supported the innovative reform to Maryland’s unique hospital payment system that the O’Malley and Obama administrations agreed to but they renewed and expanded it. Maryland’s efforts to improve patient care while reducing cost are a national model.
We wholeheartedly embrace Governor Hogan’s call to create a non-partisan system for redrawing congressional and legislative Gov. Larry Hogan has cooperated with Democrats at times and acted as a check on them without excessive partisanship. district lines. Democrats’ refusal to enact it is shameful.
Mr. Hogan’s stewardship of state finances has been sound. He has neither made large new spending commitments nor attempted big tax cuts but has instead maintained a steady approach to the budget. This year, when it became clear that unintended side effects of the federal tax cuts would increase state income tax collections, he again worked cooperatively with the legislature to offer protection for lower-income Marylanders while banking much of the windfall to lay the groundwork for future increases in education spending. His adoption of the Democrats’ proposal for a “lockbox” for casino revenue is another step along the same path.
Indeed, Mr. Hogan — his willingness to adopt (some would say, co-opt) ideas and policies first proffered by Democrats and claim credit for them. He has shown himself to be adept at jumping on politically popular bandwagons, whether that’s the fracking ban, the lockbox or free community college. It drives Annapolis Democrats nuts. They argue, not without some justification, that Mr. Hogan has no real agenda and is instead running on theirs. To which wewould respond: Howexactly is that going badly? We are accustomed in Maryland to governors who are the real drivers of policy, but what we have instead with Mr. Hogan is a governor who sometimes seeks to put the brakes on the legislature’s policy initiatives but otherwise focuses on the day-to-day business of running the state. Consequently, Mr. Hogan has offered little in the way of an agenda for his second term beyond offering more of the same.
In Jealous, a worthy opponent
Mr. Hogan’s opponent, Democrat Ben Jealous, is at the opposite extreme when it comes to offering an agenda. He has issued reams of position papers on education, health care, criminal justice, the environment, economic development, taxes and more. His ideas are often detailed and reflect both his sensibility as a civil rights leader and his embrace of progressive policies. He’s strong on the opioid crisis, police reform, urban development and public safety. Indeed, if this contest were just about who we think would be more devoted to the causes that specifically affect Baltimore, he wins, no contest.
But there are other huge swaths of his agenda about which we have significant concerns. We are wary of upending Maryland’s health care system to create a Medicare for all plan, for example, and we have never been strong advocates for legalizing recreational marijuana. And beyond the specifics of any one proposal, the sum total of what Mr. Jealous proposes is staggering in cost. He has sought to explain how he would pay for many of the items on his agenda — not just universal health care but free college, large pay raises for teachers, billions to settle a lawsuit by advocates for Maryland’s historically black colleges and universities, universal pre-K, a sales tax cut, and on and on — but the cumulative effect is hard to imagine.
We admire Mr. Jealous a great deal. We named him Marylander of the Year in 2013 (a year before giving the same honor to Mr. Hogan) for his work as president and CEO of the NAACP and his advocacy for marriage equality, Maryland’s Dream Act and the abolition of capital punishment here. He is a strong leader, and his life-long commitment to social justice is undeniable. But we don’t believe he has made the case to replace Governor Hogan.
For some Maryland voters, the issues we’ve just described are irrelevant. This election, for them, is about nothing more or less than registering a vote of approval or defiance of the president. No question, there’s something appealing about the idea of electing a civil rights leader in the age of Donald Trump. But there’s also much to be said for re-electing a Republican who is willing to openly stand up to his party’s leader, and who does so in a calm, measured, positively un-Trump-like way.
We have our disagreements with Governor Hogan. His decision on the Red Line, in particular, we will have a hard time forgetting. But in considering the totality of his record, we conclude that he has lived up to his promise to govern in a way that reflects Maryland’s “middle temperament.” He was the right leader for Maryland during his first term, and we believe he will be again for a second. He has our endorsement.