September 23, 2010|By Larry Carson, The Baltimore Sun
Schrader is also running again this year for his former council seat in District 3, now occupied by Terrasa. Republicans hope if Flanagan and Schrader can beat Democrats and Greg Fox continues in District 5, they can set their own agenda next year's redistricting.
Parties hold dueling picnics
Republicans and Democrats each had a large fundraising picnic Sunday, only a mile or two apart.
Senate Minority leader Allan H. Kittleman's gathering was first, on his family's property in West Friendship, featuring fishing and swimming in his family's pond, a skydiver trailing a giant American Flag and a minimum of speeches for the roughly 150 paying guests.
" Annapolis is broken, and it's not because of the Republicans," Kittleman told his crowd. "We don't have enough people to be relevant." He repeated his oft-stated claim that majority Democrats decide everything and then tell Republicans, who are too few even to block bills they don't like, how things will be.
A bit later at Nixon's Farm just up Route 32, Ulman hosted about 350 Democrats at his event, and Senate Majority Leader Edward J. Kasemeyer rejected Kittleman's complaints.
"The reality of it is [House and Senate Republican leadership] got unlimited time to present their ideas on the budget. They got to meet with the governor," Kasemeyer said, and he added that some Republican ideas were included in the final document.
"It's a more open process than it's ever been," he said.
Ulman spoke again about Howard County's successes, most recently in helping Maryland get a $115.2 million federal grant to connect broadband fiber-optic systems throughout the state. "This will kick off another wave of private sector innovation," he said, because private firms will be able to use and branch off from the publicly installed broadband network.
larry.carson@baltsun.com
