Free Republic

What's the fiercest rivalry in American politics today? There's Obama-Romney, of course, but try O'Malley-McDonnell—neighboring governors battling across the Potomac River over how best to resuscitate a moribund economy. Martin O'Malley, Maryland's liberal Democratic governor, is competing for jobs, businesses and tax dollars with Bob McDonnell, Virginia's conservative Republican chief executive. Both are rising stars considered potential presidential hopefuls in 2016. Both are Irish Catholics—Mr. McDonnell playfully calls Mr. O'Malley "the big Irishman to our north"—and each leads his party's association of governors. The two regularly spar on the Sunday talk shows, on the pages of Washington-area newspapers, and over...

Local governments in Maryland are growing thanks to higher taxes banking their payrolls, a trend that bucks the rest of the nation and stands starkly in contrast with downsizing in Virginia, new U.S. census survey data show. The number of people on local government payrolls in Maryland grew by nearly 3 percent -- or about 6,000 people -- to 220,314 during the year that ended in March 2012, the data released Thursday show . . The two states took vastly different approaches to closing budget gaps this year, with the Old Dominion relying almost entirely on spending cuts and Maryland...

A day after saying, no, the country was not better off than it was four years ago, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley reversed course on Monday and said, yes, indeed it was. “We are clearly better of as a country because we’re now creating jobs rathare than losing them,” O’Malley, a Democrat, said on CNN’s Starting Point. “But we have not recovered all that we lost in the Bush recession. That’s why we need to continue to move forward.”

Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley said Sunday that Americans are not better off under President Obama than they were four years ago, a somewhat startling admission that Republicans and Mitt Romney immediately pounced on. On CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday morning, host Bob Schieffer asked O'Malley if he can "honestly say that people are better off today than they were four years ago." "No," O'Malley said, "but that's not the question of this election." "The question," he continued, "without a doubt, we are not as well off as we were before George Bush brought us the Bush job losses, the...

Maryland’s highest court rejected an appeal Friday by state Democrats who were hoping to block a referendum on the state’s new congressional map. The Maryland Court of Appeals filed an order upholding the state Board of Elections‘ decision to hold a November referendum on the map after it received signatures from more than 59,000 registered voters hoping to get it put on the ballot. The Maryland Democratic Party sued the board this summer, alleging that it erroneously validated thousands of signatures that were collected using the website MDPetitions.com. Read more: Md. court rejects lawsuit challenging redistricting referendum - Washington Times

ANNAPOLIS — The General Assembly passed legislation Tuesday night to expand gambling in the state, setting up a November referendum that will determine the proposal’s ultimate fate. After six hours of passionate debate, the House voted 71-58 in favor of the bill, which would allow table games at the state’s slots casinos and at a sixth gambling facility to be built in Prince George’s County if voted into law. The Senate approved the House amendments to the bill shortly after midnight, finalizing the legislation and wrapping up a four-day special session. Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, is expected to sign...

The Maryland state retirement and pension system is in bad shape. The deluxe benefits package has $37 billion in assets, but even that amount isn’t enough to meet the promises made to government bureaucrats. In the last fiscal year, this prodigious sum was invested in a way that yielded a negligible 0.36 percent return. That would be bad enough, but State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, chairman of the pension-system trustees, insists on pretending the fund is earning 7.75 percent for the purposes of calculating future value. This accounting gimmick masks the dire situation of the program’s finances. Retirement funds are generally...

Maryland legislators will be cutting their summer vacations short after Gov. Martin O'Malley announced a special session for Aug. 9 to address gambling questions left unanswered in the spring. But after Mr. O'Malley repeatedly urged state leaders to “put the issues behind us so we can move forward,” some people are wondering whether the decision was a risky bluff. It’s the second special session this summer — Mr. O'Malley called the first one in mid-May to wrap up the budget — and the issues of table game expansion at Maryland’s existing casinos and adding a sixth casino in Prince George’s...

Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown is donating $17,000 in contributions his campaign received from a D.C. contractor now at the center of a fundraising scandal in Washington embroiling D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray. The move Thursday comes days after Gov. Martin O’Malley donated $38,000 in donations tied to Jeffrey E. Thompson, while some but not all fellow prominent Democrats also moved to get rid of Thompson-linked cash. Federal agents looking into campaign-finance wrongdoing in the District raided Mr. Thompson’s offices and home earlier this year.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley will call a special session of the General Assembly between Aug. 9 and Aug. 16 to discuss a sixth casino and allowing table games in the state. Delegate Frank Turner, a Howard County Democrat who chairs the subcommittee that deals with gambling, confirmed Mr. O'Malley’s plans Thursday. Mr. O'Malley, flanked by Speaker of the House Michael Busch and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. will formally announce the session in Annapolis Friday morning. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, is the only person with the power to call a special session in Maryland. On Wednesday, Mr. Busch,...

ABC’s Terry Moran was caught on-screen Sunday laughing as Barack Obama surrogate Martin O’Malley (D-Md.) bashed presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. When the Nightline host filling in for This Week’s vacationing George Stephanopoulos realized he was on camera, he tempered his glee and put on a more serious face (video follows with transcript and commentary):

FREDERICK, MD - Some people in Maryland will get a surprise when they look at their tax bill. In a special session the Maryland General Assembly approved increasing taxes for people who make more than $100,000 a year and couples who make more than $150,000 a year. Those changes take effect this week. "They will go up for most people anywhere from five to 15-percent, and what they'll also see is that they'll be retroactive. I think Maryland families are suffering under the current economy and really don't need to be sending more and more to the government," said Sen....

Utility crews made significant progress Tuesday restoring power to homes without electricity since Friday night’s storm, but officials in several jurisdictions announced they were canceling Independence Day celebrations as the recovery continues. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said Tuesday morning that 75 percent of outages in Maryland had been restored, while Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell reported that power outages in Virginia had been reduced to a fraction of the 1.2 million customers left without lights and air conditioning in the wake of the storm. As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, about 13,000 of 257,000 Pepco customers in the District were still without...

D.C. Council members planned to meet face-to-face with officials from Pepco as soon as Tuesday to address the “unacceptable” pace of the utility’s recovery efforts after Friday night’s fierce storm swept through the region and left hundreds of thousands without power in stifling heat. Their stern response to a third day of widespread outages builds on years of skepticism aimed at the utility that serves nearly 800,000 customers in the District and Maryland. Several city lawmakers could empathize with their constituents’ plight, because they, too, lacked power in their homes. They wondered aloud whether Pepco gave “short shrift” to the...

Pepco has crews working around the clock to restore power knocked out by Friday night’s storm, but some customers may remain in the dark through the week. Pepco estimates 90 percent of the outages will be restored by 11 p.m. Friday, a timetable Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett called unacceptable at a news conference with Gov. Martin O’Malley. "Nobody will have their boot further up Pepco's backside than I will to make sure we get there," O'Malley said about the July 6 timeframe. Pepco president Tom Graham said about 343,000 customers remain without power as of noon Sunday. About 443,000...

State police officers routinely scan license plates at toll booths to ensure emissions inspections are up-to-date. Portable cameras fine speeders practically everywhere in the state. In the name of safety, children of all heights and weights are now required to sit in a rear- facing car seat for their first two years, regardless of whether they fit in it. And legislators once again found new and creative ways to tax residents this year, in part by redefining rich. But, relax, the government doesn't control everything in this state ... yet. You can still freely sip sugary soft drinks of any...

Government officials in the Washington region, as well as nationwide, are looking increasingly to bus rapid transit for new transit options as they face tightening public purses. BRT plans are under way in Alexandria and Arlington County, where buses are planned to travel from Braddock Road to Pentagon City. Alexandria expects to begin construction in July and start running buses in dedicated lanes in December 2013, said Abi Lerner, Alexandria's deputy director of transportation. Arlington expects to complete its half of the system in spring 2014. Across the Potomac, Montgomery County officials have proposed a 160-mile system with 23 routes....

Back in January, we noted in this space that Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell "offer competing political visions. … McDonnell stresses fiscal restraint and believes government should live within its means," while O'Malley "sees taxes as boosters of prosperity." The piece noted that others have remarked on the dichotomy — such as The Washington Post's metro columnist, Robert McCartney, who wrote: "Two states. Two governors. Two philosophies. Take your pick and see which succeeds." We concluded "conservatives are fond of likening the states to laboratories of public policy. The experiments on opposite sides of the Potomac...

Former Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich, looking rested and at ease before TV cameras, had some succinct advice Sunday morning for Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, the head of the Democratic Governors Association, who often is mentioned as a possible 2016 candidate for the White House. “Raise a lot of money,” a smiling Mr. Gingrich told the governor on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Mr. Gingrich, who dropped his own presidential bid earlier this month, showed flashes of why he briefly rose to the top of the Republican field, answering questions deftly and decisively, often squeezing in zingers while Mr. O'Malley stuck...

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley signed a quarter-billion dollars’ worth of tax increases into law on Tuesday. The move is meant to keep the state’s ever-expanding budget on a path toward growth. “Growth” is the last thing the private-sector economy is going to see in the Free State. According to the latest Labor Department figures, Maryland lost 6,000 jobs in April, the largest such drop in the nation. Unless the General Assembly and the governor begin to rethink their free-spending ways, Maryland soon will be in the fiscal hole like California and Greece. Like a good Democrat, Mr. O'Malley has taken...