Tom LoBianco, Maryland politics reporter

(Crossposted from my Wild Maryland blog at Corridor, Inc. – TL)

Wild Maryland Blog: January 29, 2010

At this point (about 1:30 p.m. on Friday) President Barack Obama has been taking questions from a politely hostile crowd of Republican lawmakers for well over an hour at the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel downtown.

The talking points from both parties (quite literally) have been omnipresent, from Obama’s new war on earmarks to House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence’s call for “across-the-board tax cuts.”

Obama repeated the “Party of No” attack from behind the podium, and Illinois Republican Rep. Peter Roskam (who served with his old friend Barack in the Illinois state house) derided the “attack machine” which has targeted Republicans.

But some of the best quips have been on the bare-knuckle fighting that keeps us scribes (and you, dear reader) interested.

Talking about everything he’d like not to see, Obama suggested they keep the meeting from becoming a “political steel cage match.” About a half hour later he chided House GOPers for painting his healthcare priorities as “some type of Bolshevik plot.”

So what of the “substantive” policy debate both Dems and GOPers say they’d like to have – the one unfettered by “obstructionism” and “partisan gridlock”? That will likely have to wait until the cameras stop recording at the Renaissance Harborplace.

— Tom LoBianco

Read my stories and check for updates at tomlobianco.com and on Twitter @tomlobianco

Perhaps the only thing worse than being a Glendening appointee in 2003 is being an Ehrlich appointee in 2007 (and onward.) Ask former Prince George’s County Sheriff James Aluisi: he was appointed to head a sex offender review task force in late 2006 by then-Gov. Ehrlich and then spent three years wandering in the wilderness of state government trying to get someone to empanel his panel.

Former Prince George's County James Aluisi became a veritable "Ghost in the Machine" after his attempts to empanel a sex offender review board fell flat.

Now, thanks to the intrepid reporting of The Sun’s Julie Bykowicz, Aluisi’s panel is set to meet … without him. Aluisi has been replaced by O’Malley’s father-in-law, former Attorney General Joe Curran. Bykowicz first reported last week about Aluisi’s three-year long struggle to get anyone from the O’Malley administration to help get the sex offender review board off the ground.

Thus we dub Aluisi Maryland’s own “Ghost in the Machine” (yes, I realize it is an album, not a song … wait for it.) Like a “Spirit in the Material World,” Aluisi screamed and screamed for attention (by his account) and found himself only in “Darkness.” His attempts to “Rehumanize” himself, vis a vis The Sun, were in vain (a shame considering that could have been a high-profile post for the former lawman, given the prominence of sex offender legislation this year following the death of an 11-year-old Eastern Shore girl.)

(From WYPR this morning – TL)

UPPER MARLBORO, MD (wypr) – “Happy Birthday to Wayne”

Well over a thousand businessmen and women, politicos and state lawmakers pack the Martin’s Camelot banquet hall in Prince George’s County.

Wayne Curry, their onetime, and possible future leader is turning 59.

His friends and colleagues insist this is nothing more than celebration for a prominent figure.

But talk of Curry’s possible run for governor has bubbled in Maryland political circles for years now. And he sounds an awful lot like a candidate, as he rails against Maryland’s political leaders.

“Like the captain of the Titanic, they’re sailing smugly, disregarding serious warnings that icebergs are ahead. They casually disregard alarms, in the belief that their ship is unsinkable. And you are on it, and in fact you pick the captain. So they tell you that Maryland schools are first in the nation. What they don’t tell you is that yours in Prince George’s County and Baltimore City are 23rd and 24th in the state.”

Full story here.

(Crossposted from Wild Maryland blog at, Corridor Inc. – TL)

Wild Maryland Blog: January 27, 2010

Leave it to Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele to open the doors to all comers, including die-hard Democrats.

A somewhat incredulous Joe Shapiro, a Democrat and spokesman for Comptroller Peter Franchot, recently got Steele’s request to donate upward of $25 to the national GOP, upon which he took it straight to your faithful blogger.

“If only I lived or worked in the First District, or was a Republican, I’d be honored,” Shapiro said Wednesday.

The RNC reached out to him “because of the high level and steadfast commitment to the Republican Party,” read the appeal.

An RNC spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.

This is not the first time Shapiro, a hardcore Montgomery County Dem, has been propositioned by the GOPers. The Gazette of Business and Politics reported on Republican Congressional candidate Andy Harris errant attempts to draw cash from Shapiro back in 2008.

At least they’re trying.

(This is crossposted from my blog at Corridor Inc. – TL)

Maryland Politics Blog: January 27, 2010

Gov. Martin O’Malley has been having some trouble picking a date for his fourth State of the State Address. The speech was originally scheduled for today but rescheduled so as not to conflict with a little something known as the State of the Union Address that President Barack Obama will be delivering tonight.

So the governor’s office pushed the speech back a week to February 4. They then canned that date when they remembered that Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon is set to resign her seat that day.

So O’Malley had to reschedule to February 2. No word yet whose toes he’ll be stepping on for that date.

The ripples were felt far and wide in Annapolis, as Senate committee chairman announced they would be re-rescheduling their hearings for today, replete with apologies for not announcing the changes sooner.

Senate President Mike Miller had a little fun with the scheduling debacle, saying “I think it was the governor who made a mistake.”

Here’s The Sun‘s take from today’s paper.

- Tom LoBianco

This is, in fact, what virtual insanity looks like: Maryland's fiscal 2011 budget.

Welcome to the inaugural “State House Theme Song” where I’ll be examining some of the more cathartic relations between music and Maryland politics. Best to start with the pre-eminent issue down here in Annapolis – the state budget. It’s a big deal every year and an even bigger deal this year because Gov. Martin O’Malley is banking on about $400 million to come in from feds in the form of a second stimulus bill. That didn’t seem likely to happen before the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat (what, with an exhausted Congressional membership which had already swallowed hard on everything from healthcare to climate change.) And it now seems less likely with the addition of another Republican to the U.S. Senate Chamber.

So today’s State House Theme Song is Jamiroquai’s “Virtual Insanity”, because much like in the video, the budget has Republican’s crawling up the walls and Democrats “Traveling Without Moving.”

My latest write-up from CenterMaryland.org:

Lawmakers frustrated by disagreement over new stormwater regulations

By Tom LoBianco

Sometime between April 2007 and now, the nearly unanimous political support for tougher stormwater regulations in Maryland evaporated, leaving developers, environmentalists, state lawmakers and administration officials at odds just a few months before the final regulations are set to take effect.