6th District

John Delaney, a Democrat running for Congress in Maryland's competitive 6th District, launched  a pair of radio advertisements Tuesday  intended to introduce himself to voters and highlight his business credentials. One of the 60-second spots includes former Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan, who calls Delaney a “progressive businessman, not a career politician.” Both ads tout Delaney's blue-collar beginnings, recalling his “union electrician” father and noting that the Democrat is the first in his family to attend college.

State Sen. David R. Brinkley on Wednesday became the latest candidate to formally enter the race for Maryland's 6 th Congressional District, arguing in a speech in Frederick that it is time for incumbent Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett - a fellow Republican - to “pass the congressional baton.” Brinkley, a 52-year-old financial planner, made his announcement in front of Frederick's City Hall, flanked by several state and local elected officials....

John Delaney, a multi-millionaire financier from Potomac, said Wednesday that he will seek the Democratic nomination for Maryland's newly drawn 6th Congressional District, setting up a potentially competitive April primary with State Sen. Rob Garagiola.  Delaney told The Sun that he filed to put his name on the ballot for the Western Maryland district Wednesday afternoon. "We need people who have leadership ability," Delaney said in an interview Wednesday. "We're at a point with the decision-making process in Washington where Congress is just completely unable" to do its job.         Delaney said he believes Congress must take a middle path between drastic spending cuts and allowing budget deficits to continue to spiral out of control.

Duchy Trachtenberg, a former Montgomery County Council member who was the first to enter the race for the Democratic nomination in Maryland's 6th Congressional District, said Wednesday she is withdrawing.  In a statement, Trachtenberg said she has had a recurrence of breast cancer that she was first diagnosed with in 2011. “While I undertook the campaign with a clean bill of health, circumstances have now deteriorated to the point where I honestly cannot continue the race,” she said.

Three federal judges expressed skepticism Tuesday that Maryland's political mapmakers intentionally diluted black voting power when they drew new congressional districts, as the map's opponents have argued. The three-judge panel held a hearing in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt to determine whether the state's new congressional map passes constitutional muster. Judge Paul V. Neimeyer, one of the three deciding the matter, said that the General Assembly-approved plan appeared to be drawn with an eye toward ensuring that some incumbent members of Congress would be re-elected.

Nobody asked me, but I'm betting - and hoping - that 85-year-old Roscoe Bartlett, Buckeystown's most durable Republican, will seek re-election in the reconfigured 6th Congressional District. There's been a lot of buzz about this lately, with political gossips saying Mr. Bartlett is doomed, and with numerous Republicans and Democrats lining up to run in the 2012 primaries. A political blogger reported that Mr. Bartlett's chief of staff, Bud Otis, has been exploring a run. Mr. Bartlett apparently hasn't been raising much money for a re-election bid, either.

A longtime top aide and confidant to Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett who has considered running for his boss' seat in 2012 abruptly resigned, the congressman confirmed Thursday, fueling speculation that the 10-term incumbent will not seek another term. Bud Otis, who has served as Bartlett's chief of staff for 11 years and who befriended the congressman more than three decades ago, submitted his resignation after rumors surfaced that he might run for Maryland's newly redrawn 6th District if Bartlett decided to retire.

A leading Democrat and the Republican incumbent running for Congress in Maryland's battleground 6th District turned their attention to the economy Tuesday, previewing a looming clash over the top issue of next year's election. State Sen. Rob Garagiola, who officially launched his campaign Tuesday, used his first major address to argue that Republicans in Congress have all but ignored the economy. He said government needs to invest more to create jobs instead of just looking for ways to trim spiraling budget deficits.

Baltimore City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway, who is running a write-in campaign to keep her seat in the Nov. 8 election, accused the city elections board Tuesday of committing "major fraud" by mailing out incorrect absentee ballots to 7th District voters. Conaway said she has confirmed that at least seven voters in her district received 6th District absentee ballots in the mail, and worries that the problem could be more widespread. Conaway said she sent a letter Tuesday to U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., asking him to intervene in the administration of the election.

With a bit of math and a few clicks of a mouse, state Democrats transformed a once-sleepy congressional district in Western Maryland last week into one of the most closely watched political battlegrounds in the nation. Hours after Gov. Martin O'Malley signed his controversial redistricting plan into law, potential candidates and powerful third-party groups began jockeying for position in the redrawn 6th District, which now stretches from the state's western border to the suburbs of Washington.