Governors Association

Guns, growth and dead fish have given Gov. Parris N. Glendening fleeting moments on the national stage. Now he's about to get a year in the political spotlight. Members of the National Governors' Association will gather today in State College, Pa., for a four-day conference that will conclude Tuesday with Glendening taking the reins of the organization. He becomes the first Marylander to chair the NGA since Marvin Mandel in 1972-1973. Glendening plans to use his year as chairman to acquaint the nation with a phrase he has made commonplace in Maryland: Smart Growth.

The knock on Gov. Martin O'Malley by his critics is that everything he does is an effort to pad his resume for a presumed run for president. The latest evidence: He enacted Maryland's most sweeping gun control measures in a generation, abolished the death penalty, secured the most significant boost in state transportation funding since the Schaefer administration, laid the groundwork for a wind farm off the Ocean City coast, passed legislation that...

WASHINGTON -- Gov. William Donald Schaefer received some support yesterday from fellow chief executives for his plan to ban assault weapons at the state and federal level, although officials acknowledge that the controversial proposal will have a difficult time passing the National Governors' Association.Mr. Schaefer, who has introduced legislation in Maryland that would ban assault weapons, picked up endorsements on his nationwide plan from Govs. James J. Florio of New Jersey, George A. Sinner of North Dakota and John Waihee III of Hawaii.

Companies seeking lucrative state contracts and business deals in Maryland made five- and six-figure contributions in recent months to a Democratic governors group led by Gov. Martin O'Malley, federal records show. Firms making large gifts to the Democratic Governors Association in the last six months of 2011 include bidders for a $2.4 billion state employee health contract, a $56 million deal to rebuild highway rest stops and the license to run Baltimore's slots casino. O'Malley, who has been the association's chairman since December 2010, has said the contributions have nothing to do with his decisions as governor.

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Presidential candidate Bill Clinton, bolstered by strong endorsements from fellow Democratic governors, responded punch for punch yesterday to a new Republican ad that belittles his record as governor of Arkansas.The yet-to-be-aired ad reportedly declares that Mr. Clinton is "a failed governor from a small state."Mr. Clinton, flanked by 17 Democratic colleagues who assembled here for today's start of the 84th annual meeting of the National Governors' Association, replied: "I think I'm running against a failed president of a big country."

PROVIDENCE, R.I. --- Maryland's anti-sprawl efforts received a national audience yesterday when Gov. Parris N. Glendening unveiled an eight-minute video at a session of the National Governors' Association, of which he is chairman. The video highlighted redevelopment efforts in Bladensburg, new development in Gaithersburg and farmland preservation. It was shown on C-SPAN, the public affairs cable network. Glendening also gave his colleagues hand-held computers loaded with software that allows governors to research growth initiatives in other states.

MIAMI -- Fresh from victories in Virginia and New Jersey, Republican governors met in Miami over the weekend to plot strategy for 36 gubernatorial elections in 1998. They declared that education would be the next issue they would use to try to move power from Washington to the states.On top of the Republicans' education agenda is a request that Congress and the Department of Education eliminate federally required paperwork and regulations on schools."What we want Congress to do with education is exactly what it did with welfare three years ago," said South Carolina Gov. David Beasley, the incoming chairman of the Republican Governors' Association.

WASHINGTON - The National Governors Association reported recently that the annual cost to society of traffic gridlock is $72 billion in wasted time and fuel as well as 4.3 billion hours stuck in traffic. And gridlock is getting worse. Politicians know that traffic gridlock is unpopular and that the public expects them to alleviate it. They also know that people only want traffic efficiency - like garbage dumps, power plants, and cell-phone towers - in someone else's back yard. The National Governors Association report, subtitled "Delivering More Transportation Choices to Break Gridlock," reflects this political calculus.

WASHINGTON -- Uncertain whether Congress will adopt a national health insurance program this year, leaders of the National Governors' Association are seeking new power to tax ++ and regulate the health plans of large corporations so the states can forge ahead on their own if the federal government fails to act.At a four-day meeting that began yesterday, the governors are expected to adopt the new policy, over strenuous objections from many business executives...

A ONE-TIME university professor and now head of the National Governors Association, Parris N. Glendening no doubt relishes his role as instructor of the nation's newly elected governors. He tells them, no doubt, that timely attention to the nuts and bolts of state business is fundamental. Yet, he hasn't met that standard himself lately. On the road 32 days since Sept. 1, the governor hasn't attended a meeting of Maryland's Board of Public Works in five weeks. He rescheduled last week's meeting so he could be with the new governors in Utah.

Martin O'Malley was selected by his peers Wednesday to chair the Democratic Governors Association, a platform from which he says he will build the party and promote candidates who will invest in education and infrastructure. "Our agenda is one of creating jobs," O'Malley said. "That is what our agenda is. It is about the agenda of each of our states. " He also said the group would not "run away" from progressive values. O'Malley, who begins his second and final term as governor in January, deflected questions about whether the new role indicates ambitions beyond Maryland.

The nation's lieutenant governors, more in the limelight in recent months than their second-in-command status usually affords them, are gathering in Maryland this week for a conference to brush up on policy skills. The National Lieutenant Governors Association is holding its annual meeting through Friday at Baltimore's InterContinental Hotel. About 120 attendees, including two dozen lieutenant governors and others who may not hold that title but are first in the line of succession to governors in states and U.S. territories.

WASHINGTON -- As the National Governors Association began its winter meeting, 13 governors expressed alarm yesterday that they were about to run out of federal money for a popular program that provides health insurance to children. They appealed to Congress and the Bush administration for swift action to protect hundreds of thousands of children who could lose benefits. The full association is poised to endorse that appeal. In a letter to Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress, the 13 governors said that "health insurance for some of our states' most vulnerable citizens is in jeopardy."

INDIANAPOLIS - Nothing concerns state governors more these days than their state budgets, and nothing is driving their deficits deeper, they say, than rising Medicaid costs. With only three states showing a budget surplus, all 50 governors have lined up in a rare show of unity to support a provision of the House prescription drug bill that would shift as much as $7 billion in costs to the federal government to cover more than 6 million people known as "dual eligibles." The title refers to people who qualify for prescription coverage under both Medicare, the federal program for the elderly, and Medicaid, the federal-state partnership for the poor.

Utah Gov. Michael O. Leavitt was sick of environmental battles and how they always pitted extremists against each other in decisions on air, land and water. So more than five years ago, the Republican tried a new approach to environmental policy. Called "Enlibra" - a quasi-Latin phrase meaning "to move toward balance" - the philosophy seeks to reach compromise through collaboration and cooperation between sides that are usually at war. "There is no progress polarizing at the extreme, but there is great progress, there's great environmental progress, when we collaborate in the productive middle," Leavitt said this week as he was named head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

WASHINGTON - After two months of intense secret negotiations, governors and Bush administration officials have been unable to agree on a plan to rein in the soaring cost of Medicaid, participants in the talks say. Governors of both parties are resisting a proposal offered by President Bush this year to set firm limits on federal Medicaid spending in each state over the next decade. "I am extremely wary of that approach," said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat on the bipartisan team of 10 governors negotiating with the Bush administration.

Half the nation's governors are expected to run for re-election this year. For two Republicans, 1994 could be a trial run for a presidential bid in 1996.One is Gov. Pete Wilson of California. His four years as chief executive have been a disaster in California, literally. There have been earthquakes, devastating forest fires, a terrible riot; and the state's economy, especially in the populous south, is still not rising out of the recession apace with most of the rest of the nation.Governor Wilson said this week in Washington, where the National Governors' Association was meeting, that he should not be included on the presidential sweepstakes lists, because if re-elected he wants to focus on getting his state back on the road to better times.

With Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. rising in the polls, national Republicans are planning to pour major resources into Maryland's governor's race with the aim of, as one Republican put it, finishing off the Kennedys "once and for all." "He is one of our superstars," said Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland, chairman of the Republican Governors Association. "He is a tremendous candidate, he has a great record and we are really fortunate to have him running." Just a few months ago, national Republicans viewed Ehrlich as a long shot against Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

AUSTIN, TEXAS - Saying he hopes to leave office with a clean slate - and a clear conscience - Gov. Parris N. Glendening has developed a plan to leave Gov.-elect Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. with a "hefty reserve" by eliminating the deficit in this year's budget. Meeting at the National Governors' Association conference here, Glendening told Ehrlich of his plans last night during an hour-long meeting. The two cast aside their stark political differences and discussed the state's fiscal situation and the governor's hopes that the new Republican administration does not cut some of his beloved programs.