Gov. Martin O’Malley’s vision of “One Maryland” with Democratic and Republican lawmakers working together started to crumble even before the 2008 General Assembly started last week.
Mr. O’Malley, a Democrat, formally opened the session with a request for compromise and civility.
“In our state there really is more that unites than divides us,” he told the 141 members of the House.
However, the mood for the 90-day regular Assembly session was largely cemented just days before its start, when House Speaker Michael E. Busch, Anne Arundel Democrat, said a “low point” in his political career came when Republicans filed a lawsuit to overturn tax increases approved in a special Assembly session.
Republican lawmakers said the incivility began anew prior to the special session because state Democratic leaders jammed the expansive tax-and-spending increases through the legislature, despite promises from Mr. O’Malley at the start of his term that they would be included in key decisions.
Senate Minority Whip Allan H. Kittleman, Northern Maryland Republican, this fall disputed Mr. O’Malley’s statement that they talk frequently. Mr. Kittleman said he has talked to the governor just twice since taking office — when Mr. O’Malley congratulated him on becoming minority whip and when Mr. O’Malley “let me know he was firing my mother.”
Their suit, which attempted to repeal the tax increases because of possible violation of the Maryland Constitution, failed but exposed that a House clerk altered a document that records legislative proceedings.
“You lost the debate, you lost the vote,” Mr. Busch said of the suit, adding it was “politically motivated” and done only for “political drama.”
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Southern Maryland Democrat, said the suit reminded him of the political divisions on Capitol Hill created by former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Georgia Republican.
“They throw [stuff] up against the wall, and unfortunately, some of it sticks…as frivolous and outrageous as it is,” he said. “It’s very unfortunate, this is what politics has sunk to in today’s world.”
Mr. Gingrich was unaware that he was being made a scapegoat more than nine years after as House speaker, but was not surprised.
“I think when you are a tax-increasing politician doing something you know the people don’t like, you hide behind the biggest smoke screen you can find,” he told The Washington Times last week. “If you like your taxes going up, you know who to thank; if you don’t like your taxes going up, you know who to defeat.”
Senate Minority Leader David R. Brinkley, Frederick Republican, wants lawmakers to rise above the situation, saying “there’s just a special session hangover, I don’t think there’s a lot of personal rancor.”
However, other Republican leaders are more outspoken.
House Minority Leader Anthony J. O’Donnell, the Southern Maryland Republican who filed the lawsuit, said that when Mr. O’Malley talks about One Maryland, “these days he’s really talking about one Marylander — himself.”
Michael S. Steele was lieutenant governor for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who in 2002 became the state’s first Republican governor in more than 30 years.
He witnessed firsthand the difficulty in a one-party state and last week acknowledged that bridging the partisan divide is “a very tough thing to do.”
Mr. Ehrlich called for civility and respect during the middle of his only term, after repeated battles with the Democrat-controlled Assembly over slot-machine legislation, medical-malpractice insurance and education spending.
Democrats spent 14 months and more than $1 million investigating Mr. Ehrlich’s hiring and firing practices, but no criminal charges were filed against the administration. They also overruled 33 of his vetoes.
Former Senate Minority Leader J. Lowell Stoltzfus, Eastern Shore Republican and 16-year veteran of the Senate, said last week that Republicans are not the only lawmakers dealing with incivility.
“I like [Mr.] Miller, but I’m very sad with the state of the Senate,” he said of Mr. Miller’s heavy-handed approach to dissenters.
Democratic senators who disagreed with Mr. Miller during the grueling, three-week special session were stripped of chairmanships, then given seats in the back of the chamber.
Sen. Rona Kramer, a Montgomery Democrat who opposed the income-tax increases, lost her chairmanship role of a budget subcommittee.
Mr. Miller also moved Sen. James Brochin, Baltimore County Democrat, to the back of the Senate, after he caucused with Senate Republicans during the special session in attempts to block tax increases.
“It’s disappointing and you wish that independence was more alive on the floor by both parties and it’s not,” Mr. Brochin said. “You learn to live with it.”
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