Md. Legislative Black Caucus accuses Rockeymoore Cummings of 'bullying (More Baltimore corruption)

The chairman of Maryland’s Legislative Black Caucus on Thursday fired back at the state’s Democratic Party over what he called “bullying” and “threatening” attempts to prevent a political deal to elect the state’s first African American speaker of the House of Delegates.

Del. Darryl Barnes, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, said Democratic Party Chairwoman Maya Rockeymoore Cummings is attempting to intimidate black lawmakers from partnering with Republicans to elect a black speaker.

Maggie McIntosh is a white lesbian; Baltimore city is 35% white and she represents one of the white districts (I think the city has 6 of the 47 legislative districts). She has been in the House of Delegates for 27 years and is chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, arguably the second most important position in the MD House.

There are somewhere around 40 Black members of the 141 member MD House; almost all of them are from either Baltimore city, Baltimore county or Prince George’s county. 28% of the total population of Maryland is Black. The Black caucus doesn’t want McIntosh to become the speaker; they want one of their own, such as Adrienne Jones, who was the speaker on the last day of the session after Busch died (Busch was my delegate when I lived in Annapolis between 1988 and 2011).

This presents a situation like that in Texas, where former speaker Joe Straus, a RINO, got elected speaker by cutting deals with the Democrat caucus. The Blacks can’t win a statewide election for governor, as white Dem voters in Baltimore county turn against the ‘Rats when they run a black such as Anthony Brown or Ben Jealous. This is now their opportunity to get one of the centers of power in the state, and it appears that they may be willing to cut the GOP one or two committee chairmanships in order to elect a Black speaker.

Interestingly, because of the tension between the Baltimore area and the Washington suburbs, the Speaker of the House was chosen from one of the outlying districts; in the past 40+ years, only now US Senator Ben Cardin was the only speaker from a metropolitan district (south Baltimore); the speakers came from St. Mary’s County in southern MD, Kent County on the upper Eastern Shore, from Cumberland in Allegany County in western MD, and from Annapolis, equidistant from both Baltimore and Washington.

I hope this makes sense to you.

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