A famously tough, sharp-tongued former martial arts instructor who once brandished a shoe during a tense meeting, City Council President Sheila Dixon has been trying to project an image of a stateswoman as she runs for re-election.
She no longer argues with her colleagues in public, and the meetings she runs are civil to the point of lacking meaningful debate. Instead, she speaks forcefully during closed-door meetings in City Hall, where she hammers out compromises away from the public's eye, according to colleagues.
This strategy has won her praise from supporters, who say her low-profile deal-making has made her more influential than the past two council presidents, Lawrence A. Bell III and Mary Pat Clarke, who often captured headlines by lambasting mayors in public.
But critics portray Dixon as an ambitious insider who tends to align herself with whoever is in power, serving as a rubber stamp for former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Mayor Martin O'Malley. They say she has a penchant for secrecy, which backfired badly when the council's alternative to a popular referendum that eliminated four council seats was rebuffed by the state's highest courts in September because Dixon violated the state's open meetings laws.
Opponents also raise questions about her ethics and nepotism - since 1999, four of Dixon's relatives have been on the city payroll at one time or another.
The question of Dixon's leadership style is all the more important as she runs for re-election in the Sept. 9 Democratic primary, because the president of the council will ascend to the mayor's office without a vote if O'Malley runs for governor and wins in 2006.
"It's all speculation, and there is no guarantee that Martin will run and win," said Dixon, who has been council president since 1999 and who was first elected to represent the city's west side in 1987. "But I think I'd make a great first woman mayor in the city's history."
Council Vice President Stephanie C. Rawlings Blake said that Dixon has proven herself far more competent and powerful than the last council president, Bell, who was frequently at the throat of Schmoke.
"We saw with the last administration, it's very easy for a City Council president to stand on the sidelines and shout about what's wrong. But that doesn't have any impact," Blake said. "Sheila is able to influence policy and have a real impact."
