By the same token, Maryland's investments in education and the environment contrast with those of many of its Southern peers. Maryland is the home of smart growth and Columbia, one of the first planned communities. Should Columbia share a regional designation with Houston, home of stupid growth?
The Potomac River is the new Mason-Dixon Line. Virginia is still reliably Southern, despite analysts who say it's being transformed by yuppies and carpetbaggers in Arlington and McLean. The analysts were saying the same thing two decades ago.
Order an iced tea in Tysons Corner (no smart growth there!) and you'll get it sweetened whether or not you ask for it. I suspect grits, peanut soup and hush puppies are all more abundant across the American Legion Bridge.
In Virginia even the Democrat gubernatorial candidates were waxing rapturous over the state's "right to work" law, which bans union membership as a condition of employment. Maryland has no right to work law.
Bordering Washington, Maryland embraces government. Much of the South is skeptical of government.
Forsaking South for East, first reported by The Washington Post , was mainly Miller's idea, Busch says. Discussions that Maryland legislators wanted to have in regional meetings of the Council of State Governments - on transportation, urban revival, the Chesapeake Bay, energy - often weren't on the Southern region's agenda or were seen as more applicable to other states, he said.
"It was Mike who finally suggested we throw in the towel," Busch said. "People had no interest in going there, anyway," he said of the confabs.
No hard feelings, says the South.
"We're naturally disappointed," says Jeff Wentworth, a Texas state senator and chairman of the Southern Legislative Conference. "We're not in the business of keeping states involved if they want to be elsewhere, and we're going to respect their preference."
Wentworth sees the South's transition from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican as one big reason Maryland might feel it doesn't fit anymore.
Of course Maryland really isn't Eastern, either. The state is special. It was founded as a haven for Catholics who were being persecuted by the Puritans (who were previously persecuted by Catholics).
It has no Ivy League schools. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, despite his name, set The Great Gatsby and other novels of jaded sophisticates in New York, not Baltimore. Maryland still does grow tobacco.
Maybe Maryland legislators will get switched soon enough to make the Eastern region annual meeting in August. It's in Burlington, Vt. At last year's Eastern conference, topics included renewable energy, health care reform, mass transit, cyber-bullying, U.S.-Canadian relations and locally raised produce.
Pass the maple syrup and Ben & Jerry's, y'all.
