Maryland Republicans

Maryland is poised to become the only state on the East Coast to issue driver's licenses to immigrants here illegally under a bill passed by state lawmakers Friday. The legislation, which Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to sign, would revive a two-tier licensing system that was set to expire in 2015. It would grant new licenses to more than 100,000 people, legislative analysts said. "We've changed the conversation on how we deal with residents in Maryland, and that includes everyone, including immigrants," said Sen. Victor Ramirez, a Prince George's County Democrat who introduced the bill.

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.

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.

Gov. Martin O'Malley will head to Denmark Wednesday night to be a on panel about "progressive governance," one of the governor's favorite topics. O'Malley will be appearing Friday in Copenhagen alongside Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the leader of the Dutch and United Kingdom labour parties, leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party Labour Party and the founder of the Policy Network, which is organizing the event. O'Malley this week has several times referred to himself as a "performance-driven progressive," and in a speech last month to South Carolina Democrat positioned himself as pragmatist.  Maryland Republicans have accused the governor of pursuing a liberal agenda in order to build a resume for a potential presidential run in 2016.

Maryland Republicans were quick to use Wednesday's tax-cut vote in the House of Delegates against five Eastern Baltimore County Democratic delegates.But then, that may have been the point of the vote.Gov. Parris N. Glendening, House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. had agreed to postpone any consideration of a tax cut until they determine how budget cuts proposed by the Republican-controlled Congress might affect Maryland. But Republicans, who ran under gubernatorial candidate Ellen R. Sauerbrey's tax-cutting banner last year, forced a vote, vowing revenge against Democrats who opposed them.

WITH REP. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. still on the fence about running for governor, dozens of Maryland Republicans are lining up behind Prince George's County Councilwoman Audrey E. Scott as their alternate choice in next year's election. Scott, the lone Republican on the Prince George's council, released a list last week of about 100 people who had agreed to serve on her exploratory committee, chaired by former Sen. Charles McC. Mathias. In an interview, Scott indicated that she had little to explore.

St. Paul, MINN. - Head home, hunker down and hope for the best. That was the recipe for Maryland Republicans as they departed their party's national convention to prepare for an election they hope puts John McCain in the White House. There's not much of a chance of McCain's taking Maryland, which last went for a Republican in 1988 and has drifted leftward ever since.

MARYLAND Republicans are trying to woo a successful Montgomery County businessman into the uphill fight next year to unseat the state's junior U.S. senator, Democrat Barbara A. Mikulski. Joshua B. Rales, a Potomac attorney and real estate developer, says he will decide within two months whether to challenge the three-term incumbent from Baltimore. GOP insiders say Rales would be an attractive candidate because he comes from the state's most populous county and, because he is Jewish, could potentially lure votes from a traditionally Democratic constituency.

BACK IN the 1960s, California psychiatrist Eric Berne compiled a collection of games played by people who needed to grow up. His book, Games People Play, was a best seller and remains relevant today. One game in particular should provide some guidance to Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley in the coming months. Berne called it "Let's You and Him Fight." The variant that's urged on O'Malley these days would more accurately be labeled "Let's You and Her Fight." It's the notion that O'Malley should contest the Democratic gubernatorial nomination with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Maryland's lieutenant governor since 1994.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush is expected to raise more than $1 million for Maryland Republicans at a reception in Baltimore on Wednesday, party officials said yesterday. Bush, who is adding campaign events to his schedule as Republicans brace for tough contests in November, is expected to draw about 350 people to the Baltimore event, said John Kane, the state party chairman. White House and party officials declined to release information about the location of the reception. "We're glad to have the president come," Kane said.

Maryland is poised to become the only state on the East Coast to issue driver's licenses to immigrants here illegally under a bill passed by state lawmakers Friday. The legislation, which Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to sign, would revive a two-tier licensing system that was set to expire in 2015. It would grant new licenses to more than 100,000 people, legislative analysts said. "We've changed the conversation on how we deal with residents in Maryland, and that includes everyone, including immigrants," said Sen. Victor Ramirez, a Prince George's County Democrat who introduced the bill.

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.

After the sound drubbing Maryland Republicans received at the ballot box this month, a faction in the state GOP is calling for the resignation of state party Chairman Alex Mooney. The effort follows a race in which the state party not only saw most of its candidates go down to lopsided defeats but one in which the ballot questions most Republicans opposed were all approved. Whether Mooney can be forced out in the middle of his four-year term is doubtful, but GOP activists on both sides agree that unhappiness with his performance is likely to lead to a contentious Republican state convention Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 in Howard County.

Mark Twain supposedly quipped, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated. " For Maryland Republicans, the joke is no laughing matter. Gov. Martin O'Malley and Democrats all but engineered the demise of the Maryland GOP through redistricting at the congressional level. It showed in the trouncing of Republican candidates in the election earlier this month. The contest between 10-term Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett and challenger John Delaney in the 6th Congressional District says it all: 58.6 percent for Mr. Delaney and 38.1 for Mr. Bartlett.

This was the year of the referendum in Maryland, and given how things went at the polls, we're not likely to see a repeat any time soon. The success of all the three laws that were petitioned to referendum exposes the fallacy of Maryland Republicans' notion that they could build support for themselves and check the supposed excesses of the Democratic Party by bringing controversial measures to the voters. When Maryland Republicans, led by freshman Del. Neil Parrott of Washington County, succeeded in putting the Dream Act on the ballot, state GOP Chairman Alex Mooney called it a "game changer" and a counterweight to Democrats who "think that they can do what they want.

The chair of the Maryland Republican Party admits he erred by not disavowing his congressional campaign before he started working part-time for Rep. Roscoe Bartlett in June. Alex Mooney began raising money last year for a 2012 bid for Maryland's Sixth District seat, which Bartlett currently holds. After Bartlett announced he was running again - he is a 10-term incumbent in the Western Maryland district - Mooney filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission indicating that he was holding onto the funds he had raised for a 2014 campaign.

While demographics play an important role in assessing voting trends ( "Party's future is bleak, thanks to demographics," Dec. 10), Ron Smith's assertion that Maryland is bluer because it is has large populations of African-Americans and federal workers is sheer fallacy. Were this the case, red states with large African-American populations such as Mississippi and Alabama, and Virginia with its equally large pool of federal employees, would be obvious areas of Democratic strength.

This was the year of the referendum in Maryland, and given how things went at the polls, we're not likely to see a repeat any time soon. The success of all the three laws that were petitioned to referendum exposes the fallacy of Maryland Republicans' notion that they could build support for themselves and check the supposed excesses of the Democratic Party by bringing controversial measures to the voters. When Maryland Republicans, led by freshman Del. Neil Parrott of Washington County, succeeded in putting the Dream Act on the ballot, state GOP Chairman Alex Mooney called it a "game changer" and a counterweight to Democrats who "think that they can do what they want.

U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, a Republican from Maryland and a medical doctor by profession, helped save a two-year-old boy who had stopped breathing in his family's vehicle as they drove along Route 50 in Talbot County, the legislator and the boy's parents confirmed Tuesday. The harrowing incident occurred on Aug. 26 as strong thunderstorms flooded many parts of the state, closing roads and causing Harris to take a detour that evening that put him near Brian and Jess Smith and their two young sons just in their time of need, said Harris and the Smiths.

By any standard measure, Neil Parrott's place in Maryland politics ought to be toward the very bottom. He's a freshman Republican delegate in a very blue state, without pedigree or government connections. Yet through dogged organizing and clever use of technology, this tea party leader from Hagerstown has turned a little-used provision of the Maryland Constitution into a tool capable of overturning chunks of the ruling Democrats' legislative agenda. Parrott, a University of Maryland-trained traffic engineer, developed a website that makes it much easier to collect the 56,000 valid signatures needed to petition a law to referendum in Maryland.