Politics

The recent publishing of proposed revised Howard County Council district lines has pushed me to try to finish this series before the new lines are actually adopted. So onward. . . . As noted in part 12, 1990 saw the Howard County political scene shaken up by the election of Republican Charles Ecker as County Executive, accompanied by Republican Darrel Drown being elected to County Council to join Charles Feaga and cut the Democratic majority from 4–1 to 3–2. Since 1990 was also a census year, this led to one of the most interesting episodes in council redistricting history:1 ...

Part 11 of this series took us through the 1990 party primaries for the second election year featuring county council districts; in this part we see how the results of the 1990 general election compare to those of 1986. October 1990. Now that the primaries are over the candidates position themselves for the general election. Republican Charles Ecker faces an uphill fight in his campaign for county executive, at least on the money front: Reports out in late September for fundraising through August 31 show him trailing Democratic incumbent Elizabeth Bobo in terms of attracting major donors (contributing $200 or more), raising under $6K from thirteen major donors versus Bobo’s total of over $60K from 184 major donors. Undaunted, Ecker channels Ronald Reagan as he asks Howard County voters “Are you better off now than you were four years ago” and accuses Bobo of “killing Route 100.” Bobo in turns accuses Ecker of hypocrisy on the matter of county spending: “He asked me to spend the money [when Ecker was deputy superintendent of schools]. . . . Has he changed his mind?” ...

After a long hiatus, I’m happy to announce that I’m resuming my series on the history of County Council redistricting in Howard County (which is also, as in this post, somewhat of a potted history of Howard County politics in the modern era). I hope to finish the series in a timely manner, and possibly do a couple of extra things in this general line. If you recall, at the conclusion of part 10 Howard County had just completed its first set of council elections based on the new district lines, with the election producing a 4–1 Democratic majority on the council along with a Democratic count executive. (The electoral results were very similar to those of the 2010 elections—almost scarily so, in fact.) We now jump forward to 1990 and the second set of county elections held under the district boundaries adopted in 1986. Because 1990 was a census year, the 1990 elections were also the last set of elections under those district boundaries, with boundaries to be redrawn after the election (and hence the importance of that election, as we shall see).1 ...

In a fire-proof vault somewhere in the capital Grover Norquist stores the signed originals of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge in which politicians “solemnly bind themselves to oppose any and all tax increases.” Reading about this put me in mind of the classic Stephen Vincent Benét short story “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” in which Jabez Stone, a New Hampshire farmer beset with troubles, signs his soul away to the devil (or “Scratch,” as he calls himself in the story). ...

Lots of people love filling out quizzes to find out things about themselves they probably already know, and if you’re that type of person here’s another one for you: the new “political typology” quiz from the Pew Research Center. It’s part of a new and interesting “Beyond Red vs. Blue” research study designed to suss out how people in the United States cluster in their political views. My responses put me in the “Post-Moderns” group, though I should note that I didn’t fit the profile exactly in terms of my answers to the quiz, and also that some of the questions don’t allow for nuance or “none of the above” answers. For example, in national security matters I’m a follower of Thomas P. M. Barnett, and thus consider non-military approaches to security, including extending economic globalization, equally as important as military efforts. However the response “Good diplomacy is the best way to ensure peace” doesn’t really capture that very well, so I answered the opposite, “The best way to ensure peace is through military strength.” ...