Tom LoBianco, Maryland politics reporter

When it comes to election-year politics, Senate President Mike "Godzilla" Miller is the king, but Andy Harris knows how to tear things up too.

“With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound,
He pulls the spitting high-tension GOPers down!”

With my apologies to the fine members of Blue Oyster Cult, I bring you State House Theme Song 5, in which we merge the “monstrous” political egos of Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and Sen. Andrew P. Harris. with Godzilla and King Kong respectively (as shown on right.) Then it is set to “Godzilla” by BOC.

Miller, who has traditionally shown little patience for hard campaign-style politicking in his body-politic, unleashed the flames on Harris today, hitting him right in the chief of staff. Miller demanded that Harris remove his chief of staff because she is running for a state House seat. Miller let loose the flaming fury in a letter to Harris, and Harris stomped right back declaring that the move was in retaliation for a pension debate he opened in the Senate.

So, when I think of political mauling and destruction, I can’t help but think of the seminal Blue Oyster Cult song. (Pardon the slight interpretation.)

Helpless people in a Senate chamber
Scream bug-eyed as he looks in on them

Oh no, they say he’s got to go—
Go, go, Millerzilla . . .
Oh no, there goes Tokyo—
Go, go, Millerzilla . . .

History shows again and again
How Miller points out the folly of men . . .
Millerzilla!

Lookit, that's Bob Seger on the tube! Maryland likes its rock the same way it likes its legislative access: old!

Maryland sure loves that “old time rock and roll” when it comes to online access. Len Lazarick over at MarylandReporter.com has this write-up:

The homepage for the General Assembly looks pretty much as it did in the late 1990s. It displays none of the latest bells and whistles seen on many governmental websites, such as the one for Gov. Martin O’Malley.

“It’s been the same design for a while,” said Michael Gaudiello, the chief technology officer for the legislature. And he said there are no plans to redesign it any time soon.

“I’m assuming at some point we’ll do that,” Gaudiello said.

So in that vein we dredge up Bob Seger (and the Silver Bullet Band) to honor open government in the “Free State.” Is anyone shocked that the General Assembly techies are saying “Don’t try to take me to a disco/You’ll never even get me out on the floor”? Of course state politics junkies would rather “Just take those old records off the shelf/ I’ll sit and listen to ‘em by myself.”

You know what’s cooler than “open government”? Nostalgia and inconvenience! Rock on.

(Sun songstress and political scribe Julie Bykowicz provided the inspiration for this post. Thanks, Julie!)

O'Malley's gotta get those "Bills, Bills, Bills" paid before he can start talking about "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs"

When they were taking off Destiny’s Child were the bees knees, and Beyonce was the queen. Their paean to fiscal empowerment, “Bills, Bills, Bills” is pointed right at Jay-Z: You want the sugar? Pony up.

So it’s fitting that Gov. Martin O’Malley has introduced a second budget padded with $400 million in new federal funding. This will be the second budget he’s filed that relies heavily on federal stimulus funds (this is on top of the vast portion of the total, $31.2 billion budget, which is floated with federal dough.)  Seriously, if Obama wants the love, he’s gotta pay those “Bills, Bills, Bills.” To err:

can you pay my bills
can you pay my telephone bills
can you pay my automo’bills
then maybe we can chill
I don’t think you do
so you and me are through

When O’Malley delivers his State of the State Address tomorrow the theme will likely be “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.” But when he’s dialing for dollars from DC, the tune is likely “Bills, Bills, Bills.”

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.)

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.”