3rd District

Four months after entering the race for the 3rd District congressional seat, Anne Arundel County Councilman Bill D. Burlison announced this week that he has withdrawn his candidacy. "It's personal," Burlison, a Democrat, said in a statement of his reason for dropping out, "and I will have no further comment." Burlison, 74, who announced his candidacy in July, was vying for a return to Congress after more than 25 years away. He served six terms in Missouri until being voted out in 1980.

Sylvia Williams can stand outside her campaign headquarters for the 3rd CouncilDistrict seat and smell marijuana smoke floating across the parking lot.Charles Fitzpatrick walks his neighborhood and sees "For Sale" signs mushrooming across the lawns. Dennis Kresslein has watched sewage wash into Herring Run and wonders why no one at City Hall stops it.As candidates in a field of 14 Democrats and Republicans seeking three seats from northeast Baltimore, Williams, Fitzpatrick and Kresslein say their experiences reflect the concerns of a stable, middle-class community experiencing the steady encroachment of drug use, crime, and an unresponsive city bureaucracy.

Daniel E. McKew, a businessman who also serves as chairman of the Injured Workers Insurance Fund board of directors, announced yesterday he is running for the 3rd District seat on the Baltimore County Council. McKew ran unsuccessfully for the House of Delegates in 1990 and 1994 as a Democrat, the second time as an ally of state Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell. He switched his affiliation to Republican for this race because of GOP dominance in the north county district. That means he will face incumbent T. Bryan McIntire in the September primary.

In many ways, the two leading candidates to fill Benjamin L. Cardin's 3rd District congressional seat couldn't be more different. John P. Sarbanes, the Ivy League son of the well regarded U.S. senator, was literally reared in the milieu of politics from the age of 8, when his father was first elected to Congress. Sarbanes, a Democrat, has raised more than $1 million, winning a competitive eight-way primary that propelled him into November's general election. John White, a self-made businessman, didn't even register to vote until several years ago. He was a Democrat at first but two years later switched to the Republican Party.

In the most hotly contested race of the Anne Arundel County Council, embattled Councilman Thomas W. Redmond Sr. lost yesterday his bid to run for a second term.Amid the predicted low voter turnout, Democrat A. Shirley Murphy, a 57-year-old promotions director for a catering company, came from nowhere to beat Redmond with 64 percent of the vote in the 3rd District. Murphy will face Republican Carl G. "Dutch" Holland, a 55-year-old vice president of an engineering company who served in the council from 1990 to 1994, in the Nov. 3 general election.

Republican state Del. David G. Boschert of Anne Arundel County filed papers with the state board of elections this week making him a candidate for Congress in the 3rd District, which includes portions of Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties and Baltimore City. Boschert, 56, is the first candidate to file in the district. The 3rd District is represented by Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, a nine-term Democrat who will be seeking re-election next year. "No doubt about it, he is absolutely running," Cardin spokeswoman Susan Sullam said yesterday.

An editorial yesterday about the 3rd District City Council race implied that councilmen Martin E. "Mike" Curran and Wilbur E. "Bill" Cunningham had endorsed Maegertha Whitaker for the district's third councilmanic seat. We wish to make clear that Whitaker is not running on Curran and Cunningham's ticket.America is a nation of immigrants, and the most interesting Americans are those who decide to leave the fold in their native land. When, around mid-century, Irish and Italians from East Baltimore's crowded 10th Ward -- roughly the area surrounding the state prison -- looked to where the good life beckoned, it was winking at them from the green acres of the 3rd District in the city's northeastern quadrant.

After nearly a decade as clerk of the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, Republican Robert Duckworth announced yesterday the formation of an "exploratory committee" of party members for a bid for the 3rd District congressional seat. The committee is being led by former Rep. Marjorie S. Holt, who represented Anne Arundel County. It also includes former U.S. Sen. Bill Brock, who represented Tennessee and sought election unsuccessfully in Maryland; state Sen. Janet Greenip of Crofton; Howard's Circuit Court Clerk Margaret D. Rappaport; and Del. William J. Frank of Baltimore County.

Baltimore businessman and political activist Raymond V. Haysbert was in critical condition last night at Good Samaritan Hospital after he collapsed about 6: 30 p.m. at a fund-raiser in Northeast Baltimore.The former chairman of Parks Sausage Co., Haysbert, who is in his late 70s, collapsed after speaking to about 200 people at the event sponsored by the North Central Democratic Coalition to raise money for Sylvia Williams' campaign for a 3rd District City Council seat."He was speaking, and he just fell backward," said Ruth Sparks, who held the event at her home in the 2500 block of Montebello Terrace.