Gop Leaders

A group of Fifth District Republicans are supporting Democrat Linda Gilligan for County Council.About 15 GOP leaders will be sending letters to fellow Republicans in the district urging them to vote for Gilligan on Nov. 6. The letters will stress her financial background and community activism.Gilligan faces Diane R. Evans in the general election. Evans has a long history of Republican and civic activism.Other Republicans are standing by Evans. She was endorsed this week by former Representative Marjorie S. Holt.

Maryland's House Republicans decided this week to jettison Del. Anthony J. O'Donnell from the leadership of their caucus on the grounds that a new messenger is needed to revitalize the party's prospects and pick up seats in the 2014 election. We wish new Minority Leader Nicholaus Kipke and new Minority Whip Kathy Szeliga the best of luck; Maryland is better when it has two functioning political parties. But color us skeptical that rearranging the deck chairs in the House GOP caucus is going to accomplish much.

WASHINGTON -- Republican congressional leaders struggled yesterday to distance their party from the specific cuts that would have to be made in Medicare to meet their goal of curbing the growth of the popular health care program.After failing to agree among themselves on a way out of their predicament, the Republicans sought to share the burden of cutting Medicare with President Clinton."It's time to step back, examine the facts and lower the rhetoric," Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole told reporters yesterday.

March has been a rough month for Maryland Republicans. In Annapolis, they watched helplessly as Democrats worked their way through an ambitious ideological wish list that includes new taxes and spending, death penalty repeal, Second Amendment limitations, wind power subsidies, and other proposals anathema to Republicans. Seven of 12 GOP senators - apparent victims of "Stockholm syndrome" - - supported Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget, which includes $1 billion in new spending. And just as state Democrats rammed through an 87 percent hike in state gas taxes, David Ferguson, executive director of the Maryland Republican Party, canceled a planned training session for candidates to embark on a quixotic national "tour" to preach the evils of a possible Martin O'Malley presidency.

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans removed a major stumbling block to their $190 billion tax-cut plan yesterday after GOP leaders agreed to make tax reductions conditional on passing a budget that would eliminate the deficit by 2002."

In an embarrassing setback for President Bush and the beleaguered Republican Party, House GOP leaders abruptly put off a vote yesterday on a bill to cut spending after failing to round up enough votes to pass the measure. GOP leaders remained a few votes short, even after days of arm twisting and making a major concession to wary Republican moderates - stripping out a provision that would have authorized drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. House leaders expressed confidence that they would have the votes next week to pass the $50 billion in spending cuts, a measure they have portrayed as part of a new, more determined effort to reduce the federal budget deficit.

WASHINGTON -- With the government partially shut down for a fourth day, President Clinton and Republican congressional leaders agreed last night to reopen talks aimed at reaching a deal on a balanced budget, possibly by the end of the year.After a two-hour session at the White House, Mr. Clinton, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich planned to meet again this morning to establish the framework and agenda for new bargaining sessions.If they succeed in jump-starting the stalled budget negotiations, Congress is expected to quickly pass a stopgap spending bill that would end the partial government shutdown that has idled a quarter-million federal workers since last weekend.

State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller predicted Thursday that the General Assembly would approve an increase in Maryland's gas tax, putting his considerable influence behind an issue that is likely to be divisive in the coming legislative session. "There's going to be a gas tax," Miller said flatly in an address to Maryland business leaders meeting here. "Is it popular? No, [but] it is going to have to get done now. " Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch spoke at the Maryland Chamber of Commerce Business Policy Conference.

WASHINGTON -- The tide of voter anger that cost the Democrats control of Congress and the governorships of 11 states spared every GOP incumbent and gave the Republicans what they called an unmistakable mandate to lead.But even as exuberant GOP leaders welcomed a new convert, Alabama Sen. Richard C. Shelby, into the fold yesterday, they said that they have a big responsibility to do a much better job of governing than the Democrats have done."We won the election because I think the American people want to give us the opportunity," said Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who will return to the post of majority leader that he last held in 1986.

WASHINGTON -- A political wish list -- drafted by candidates, polished by consultants and tested on focus groups -- is the bible that Republican House leaders are determined to follow, chapter and verse, in their frantic first 100 days in office.The Republicans say they will translate their "Contract with America," which was essentially a political document designed to give the congressional elections a national theme, into the framework for a new government.There is no guarantee that this grab bag of proposals with feel-good names like "The American Dream Restoration Act" will become law. The more than 300 House candidates who signed the "contract" in September promised only that its package of tax cuts, conservative reforms and anti-government measures would come up for a speedy vote.

In August 2011, amidst the debt ceiling debate, I changed my party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. I never liked the Bob Ehrlich sell-out-your-values Republican Party. I'm a Rand Paul "The Tea Party is Coming to Washington" kind of Republican. Yet I see the Tea Party has yet to come to Howard County. I received a mailer from the Gelfman-Tucker campaign with the endorsement of Sen. Allan Kittleman and I have to ask, "Why is a leading Republican supporting a Democratic endorsed slate and a judge (Tucker)

If you think Rick Santorum is a weird, pious wackadoo, try being a female walking around certain ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Israel with your ankles showing. Mr. Santorum's near-victory in the Iowa caucuses last week raised the volume on some of his more paranoid kvetchings about the moral breakdown of society - gay marriage being a slippery slope to marrying your pet, "Christendom" being under attack, birth control being "not OK" even for married couples.

Gov. Martin O'Malley is proposing a $15 million increase in the state's program to help build affordable rental housing, saying the bump would leverage $285 million in private investment and create 1,100 jobs in Maryland. Surrounded by housing advocates, construction workers and local residents, O'Malley went to the site of a former public housing development in Annapolis to announce plans to double the state's investment in loans to developers to help spur rental housing construction.

State Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller predicted Thursday that the General Assembly would approve an increase in Maryland's gas tax, putting his considerable influence behind an issue that is likely to be divisive in the coming legislative session. "There's going to be a gas tax," Miller said flatly in an address to Maryland business leaders meeting here. "Is it popular? No, [but] it is going to have to get done now. " Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch spoke at the Maryland Chamber of Commerce Business Policy Conference.

A House Republican leader who is pushing to end the state's $15 million earmark program has herself introduced or sponsored bills this year that would use the fund to send $1.4 million to projects in her district. House Minority Whip Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio, who called for an end to the use of so-called bond bills this week during the Republican response to Gov. Martin O'Malley's state of the state address, says she introduced her legislation before she saw his budget proposal and learned how dire the state's fiscal situation is. "I think all of us would love to have projects funded," the Eastern Shore Republican said.

For all the remarkable accomplishments of the just-ended lame-duck Congress, one of its most notable disappointments was the defeat of the Dream Act for children of illegal immigrants. The measure would have given a path to citizenship to children who, through no fault of their own, were illegally brought into the country by their parents, provided they later served in the military or attended college. By rights, the act should have been passed in the same spirit of bipartisan cooperation that produced so many other year-end legislative successes.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government is headed for a partial shutdown today after President Clinton followed through last night on his threat and vetoed the stopgap spending bill needed to prevent federal agencies from running out of money.The clash of spending priorities between the Democratic president and Congress, which has been building all year, escalated into a full-blown crisis as both sides struck an unyielding position and prepared for the fallout from at least a brief shutdown.Moments before the midnight deadline for action on the measure arrived, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole emerged from nearly a two-hour meeting at the White House with Mr. Clinton and reported that no agreement had been reached in averting the shutdown.

State Sen. Christopher J. McCabe of Howard County is leaving the Maryland General Assembly after 11 years to take a job in the Bush administration, a move that will cause another shake-up among GOP leaders in the legislature. In September, Senate Minority leader Martin G. Madden, Howard's other Republican senator, announced that he will resign and return to private life. The two friends were elected in 1990 - representing a Republican surge in Howard, where Democrats had dominated for decades.

Republican former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. described his gubernatorial election loss this week as the close of a chapter in his life. It could also signal the end of an era for the Maryland GOP. As Republicans nationwide celebrated a historic victory in the midterm elections, GOP leaders in Maryland expressed worry that Ehrlich's loss Tuesday to Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley by twice the margin of his 2006 defeat would cement the party's minority...

The Maryland Republican Party remains in upheaval after party leaders voted to express "no confidence" in James Pelura, the beleaguered chairman who has ignored calls for his resignation. Republicans are mulling the ramifications of the vote that took place at a meeting of the party's executive committee over the weekend, including whether a separate vote to call a special convention to oust Pelura is needed. Two-thirds of the committee, made up of 30 statewide and county officers, sided against the chairman.