As he delivers the State of the State address Thursday, Gov. Martin O'Malley reaches the midpoint of his term. On the morning the General Assembly opened its 2009 legislative session, I sat down with him in Annapolis to take stock of the state of his governorship at the two-year mark.
As he munched a bacon-and-egg-on-rye sandwich in the specially designated governor's booth at Chick and Ruth's Delly on Main Street, I asked him to rate his performance. He rattled off various policies, assigning mostly A's and B's on everything from public safety to energy conservation. "There's a lot of second semester work to be done," he acknowledged.
Then, in a very self-effacing moment, Mr. O'Malley issued himself a C-minus as a "communicator." But more on that in a moment.
Earlier that morning, the governor conducted a radio interview with WEAA-FM's Marc Steiner and a press conference during which he provided the gory budgetary details now familiar to most political observers: a $1.9 billion deficit, belt-tightening all around, hundreds of state employee layoffs and furloughs for thousands more.
Surely Mr. O'Malley hoped the December 2007 special session he called would be the biggest hurdle of his term. After approving new taxes, his approval numbers dropped, then rose again after he shepherded passage of slots legislation.
But the 2008 economic downturn delivered another set of fiscal problems. Like his 49 fellow state chief executives, Mr. O'Malley finds himself in a thorny position.
On one hand, the governor is forced to bring bad news while offering encouragement to beleaguered county and local officials struggling with their own budgets. At a meeting with members of the Maryland Association of Counties the week before the legislative session began, the former Baltimore mayor warned local leaders to expect decreased aid from Annapolis. "I think I'm a much better-informed governor on [many] issues because of my experience as mayor," he told me.
On the other hand, he looks for hope while bracing for disappointment as the federal government doles out the billions of dollars in spending the Bush and Obama administrations have appropriated or will appropriate. Mr. O'Malley said he was cheered by Barack Obama's presidential win, and will task state agencies to develop lists of "shovel ready" public works projects so his office can assess and prioritize them for funding worthiness.
