Let the politicking begin

Friday, Jan. 13, 2006

For those who savor complex gamesmanship, the 421st session of the Maryland General Assembly is a dream come true. Initial legislative gambits over controversial gubernatorial vetoes give us a hint of the multiple cat-and-mouse maneuvers at work.

Politics colors everything, making it hard to tell where policymaking ends and partisan posturing begins.

House and Senate Democratic leaders are eager to embarrass Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich. Yet they don’t want to overdo it: That would give Ehrlich a chance to campaign against obstructionist, mean-spirited Democrats. Legislative leaders must balance their desire for substantive programmatic changes, which can only be fully achieved with the governor’s assistance, against the desire to elect a Democratic chief executive in November.

At the same time, the yin and yang of the legislature — the tug of war between the House and Senate — persists. Senate President Mike Miller has scant regard for House Speaker Mike Busch. They may agree on some actions to make Ehrlich look bad, but most of the time the two men will continue their ‘‘King of the Hill” struggles.

Ehrlich, meanwhile, will again play one Democratic leader against the other. He’s been on good terms with Miller, but in recent months their relations cooled. Instead, Ehrlich is warming to Busch. The governor’s success could depend on the ability of his key legislative gurus, Alan Friedman and Chip DiPaula, to develop a better working rapport with Miller and Busch as well as with their committee chairmen.

So far, every Ehrlich move has been harshly condemned by Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley and Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, the two wannabe governors. Neither has landed a solid blow.

O’Malley’s hostility to any Ehrlich pronouncement gives credence to Ehrlich’s counter that the mayor is a ‘‘whiner.” Duncan has been in catch-up mode, always a few steps behind the comments of O’Malley and Ehrlich.

Both Democrats are discovering that taking on an incumbent governor — even a Republican governor in a heavily Democratic state — is difficult. The powers of incumbency can be immensely effective election props.

Look at how 2006 began. O’Malley rushed to College Park to bash Ehrlich’s college-aid funding of past years. This event was designed to preempt the governor’s next-day announcement on college aid.

But Ehrlich’s massive increase in higher education funding blew O’Malley’s complaints out of the water. Who can quibble with a 14 percent jump in college aid, or a doubling of needs-based scholarships in a four-year period? The Democrats tried, but their responses fell flat.

A few days later, Duncan took the high road with a detailed college-aid plan heavy on boosting scholarships for middle-income, high-achieving students. It was a well-designed and important policy pronouncement that got lost in the hullabaloo over Ehrlich’s double-digit increase to the colleges.

That wasn’t the end of Ehrlich’s blitz. Each day he paraded another aspect of his soon-to-be-unveiled budget: turning the Hickey School for violent juvenile offenders into parkland; $90 million more for Marylanders with disabilities; $281 million more for school construction; a tough package of bills cracking down on sex offenders; a 15 percent reduction in the state property tax; a 40 percent jump in funding for arts and cultural programs; a $33 million stem cell research proposal; additional funds to help seniors, and more to come next week. There’s no way his foes can compete.

This Reaganesque, message-a-day approach shows the growing political sophistication of Team Ehrlich. It’s an effective way to keep the governor in the spotlight and his opponents far in the background.

The governor’s biggest advantage may be Maryland’s strong economy, which helped turn a $2 billion deficit rolled up by a Democratic governor into a nearly $2 billion surplus. DiPaula’s ability to ratchet down the growth of program spending over the past three years also set the stage for this remarkable turnaround.

With gobs of cash to spread around, the governor can continue to play Santa Bob throughout the legislative session, especially since he’s likely to benefit from a new infusion of cash when state revenue estimates are revised in March.

Once the legislature goes home, Ehrlich will commence a spiraling series of events to spotlight for the media how he’s putting that surplus to work. He’ll be everywhere in the state in his role as governor making good-news announcements. He’ll seek to look ‘‘gubernatorial” while O’Malley and Duncan play the roles of aspiring politicians in the Democratic primary.

But before then, O’Malley and Duncan will be maneuvering to best each other during the legislative session. Not only will they press supporters to bury Ehrlich’s proposals, they’ll also want to get their Democratic rival’s bills shelved. O’Malley’s backers don’t want Duncan to get credit for any legislation, and vice versa.

As for ordinary delegates and senators, they’ll be looking out for themselves and their electability. That means building legislative records in Annapolis that constituents appreciate — and avoiding any votes their opponents can turn against them. Survival is the name of the game this session.

What happens in Annapolis over the next three months will be wrapped in thick layers of politics, sometimes with unlikely allies briefly linking arms. Maryland hasn’t seen a General Assembly session like this in 50 years. It could turn out to be one for the ages.

Barry Rascovar, a communications consultant in the Baltimore area, has reported on Maryland politics for more than 30 years. His Wednesday morning commentaries can be heard on WYPR, 88.1 FM. His e-mail address is brascovar@hotmail.com.