Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks—Her Election is Key to Keeping the Senate “Blue” –June 2, 2024
“Money can’t buy me love.” So sang the “Fab Four” Beatles. In politics as well, “money can’t always buy one elections.” Exhibit A—the May 14, 2024 Maryland Democratic primary. In that contest, Prince George’s County’s Executive Angela Alsobrooks, in a stunning double -digit victory, won the Old Line State’s nomination for the U.S. Senate. She handily defeated three-term Congressmember David Trone, a wealthy wine executive, who loaned his own campaign at least $61.77 million, a record- breaking sum for self-funding a Senate primary (cnn.com, Pathe, S., 5/14/24, nytimes.com, Broadwater, L., 5/14/24). Trone outspent Alsobrooks on the airwaves about $47.5 million to $4 million (cnn.com, Pathe). In the general election, Alsobrooks will be facing former GOP MD Gov. Larry Hogan who easily won his primary. The MD general election will be a key one in determining who controls the U.S. Senate. Alsobrooks and Hogan will be in a contest to replace the open seat created by the retirement of Democratic incumbent Ben Cardin. With GOPers poised to flip retiring Democrat Joe Manchin’s seat in Republican West Virginia, “Team Red” needs only to pick up one or two more seats, depending on who wins the White House to secure the majority. Hogan was a popular governor among Democrats in normally “Blue”-leaning MD. Should Alsobrooks win this Senatorial race, she will be only the third Black woman elected to Congress’s upper chamber and the first African American woman elected to this office in MD. The only Black woman currently serving, CA’s Democrat Laphonza Butler, was appointed to replace Dem. Dianne Feinstein who died in September 2023, and Butler is not running again. Many of Alsobrooks’s supporters wanted to see a woman in Maryland’s 10-person congressional delegation which is presently all male. The last woman to hold a U.S. Senate seat in MD was Dem. Barbara Mikulski who served from 1986-2017 (cnn.com, Pathe, wiki, nytimes.com). Meet MD Democratic Senatorial nominee Angela Alsobrooks.
Angela Alsobrooks (53) is a native of MD’s Prince George’s County where she was raised. Her father worked as a distributor for the “Washington Post.” Her mother was a receptionist. Her family moved from Seneca, South Carolina to Maryland, in July 1956 shortly after her great-grandfather was killed by a police officer for resisting arrest (wiki, Hernandez, A., washingtonpost.com, 7/31/17WJLA -TV, Ford, S., 6/22/20). Alsobrooks attended D.C’s Benjamin Banneker High School, and then earned a 1993 Bachelor’s in public policy at NC’s Duke University. She received her law degree in 1996 from the University of Maryland (Alas, H., dbknews.com, 11/07/18).
Alsobrooks is well versed in politics. She first got involved in politics when she served as president of her high school’s student government. She later worked as an intern for D.C. House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. Alsobrooks attended the 1992 Democratic Convention and volunteered for Bill Clinton’s campaign (McQueen, afro.com, 7/01/23). She clerked for a prominent law firm and for two Circuit Court Judges (marylandmatters.org, Kurtz & Zorzi, 3/15/23). In 1997, Alsobrooks began to work as an assistant state’s attorney in Prince George’s County where she handled domestic violence cases. She worked on VP Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. In 2003, she was appointed executive director of the county revenue authority (wiki).
Alsobrooks was motivated to run for Prince George’s state’s attorney in 2010 after reading a profile about San Francisco, CA District Attorney Kamala Harris as well as a book that Harris, now Biden’s VP, wrote. Harris supported her campaign (Wilkins, T., nbcwashington.com, 8/19/20). Alsobrooks was elected Prince George’s state’s attorney in 2010 and re-elected in 2014. She is the first women to serve as MD’s state’s attorney (Barclay, 19thnews.org, 4/25/24).
As state’s attorney, Alsobrooks took a tough-on-crime approach while also supporting rehabilitative treatment for juveniles. While she was in office, violent crime declined by 50%. She created a Special Prosecution’s unit within her office that handled crimes, public corruption, and police misconduct (baltimoresun.com, Bishop, 2011). In 2017, Alsobrooks announced that she would run for County Executive. She handily won her primary and general election. In 2018, she became the first Black woman to serve as County Executive in MD (Ianneli, wtop.com, 12/03/18). In this office, she took a strong stance against fighting COVID-19 and warned GOP Gov. Hogan not to reopen businesses too quickly. She opposed removing school resources officers from Prince George’s County public schools and supported harsh sentences for juveniles who committed violent crimes. However, she advocated programs that made it easier to divert juveniles from the criminal justice system (Barclay, 19th news.org). She was a supporter of increasing pre-kindergarten education. She stood strongly in favor of Israel’s right to defend itself in its war against Hamas and attacked opponents of Israel as being more “interested in talking about problems than fixing them.” She has visited that country and has spoken with many of its leaders. She supported Ukraine in its war against Russia and stated she would give that country aid in the Senate (wiki). She is for reasonable gun control. She has endorsed expanding the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2023 and wants to cap the price of insulin. She is in favor of LGBTQ rights and criticized the overturing of “Roe v. Wade” in the “Dobbs” opinion by the Supreme Court. Should she win a Senate seat, Alsobrooks wants to immediately cosponsor the Women’s Health Protection Act which would overturn “Dobbs” (wiki, Peck, L., moco360.media, 11/23/23). She is a strong pro-choice voice, not a waffler on this key issue.
In 2023, Alsobrooks announced she was running in the 2024 U.S. Senate race. She was seen as an early front-runner and was endorsed by Dem. U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, Dem. Cong. Steny Hoyer, Dem. Gov. Wes Moore, and many other MD politicians. She successfully ran on a platform emphasizing “kitchen table issues” and emphasized her career as a prosecutor (wiki).
And now, let’s look at Alsobrooks GOP opponent, former 2-term MD Gov. Larry Hogan Jr., another self-described GOP “press release moderate,” but not one according to his legislative record. He was personally recruited by Mitch McConnell, George W. Bush, and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) far from liberal or even moderate politicians (nytimes.com, wiki). For a time, Hogan was also interested in the “No Labels” third-party bid, which would have probably hurt Biden’s re-election chances. Hogan endorsed Nikki Haley in her prior presidential bid against Donald, but again, Haley is far from a MD “Blue” State liberal. Please understand that condemning Demagogue Donald now and then, as Hogan Jr. has done does not make you a strong liberal or even some moderate. Mere talk against Donald remains hot air.
D.C. native Larry Hogan Jr. (68) grew up in MD and attended Catholic schools there. After his parents divorced, he moved to FL with his mother. Hogan’s father had served in the House as a GOPer from 1969-1975 where he represented MD’s 5th Congressional District, CD. His father sat on the House Judiciary Committee and voted for impeaching Richard Nixon over Watergate (Wenger, Y, 3/22/15, baltimoresun.com). Hogan Jr. graduated from Florida State University and while in college worked in the FL state legislature. After graduation, Hogan Jr. returned to D.C. and worked as a congressional staffer. When Hogan Sr. was elected Prince George’s County executive in 1978, Hogan Jr. was hired as his father’s intergovernmental liaison. Hogan Jr. ran a real estate firm. This firm went bankrupt, but Hogan Jr. rebuilt this business in the mid-1990’s (Cohen & Cook 2022 Political Almanac). In 2002, Hogan Jr. helped GOP Rep. Robert Ehrlich become Gov. of MD and became Ehrlich’s appointments secretary. He won a four-way 2014 GOP primary for Governor. In heavily Democratic MD, Hogan Jr. won election because his Democratic rival Anthony Brown ran one of the worst gubernatorial campaigns in recent MD history. Brown did not define himself and wrongly counted on MD voter registration favoring Democrats to bring him victory. In 2018, former NAACP head Ben Jealous lost to Hogan Jr. because he had little money left after the primary and was politically inexperienced. He only appealed to MD progressives and did not try to expand his base (Cohen & Cook 2022).
Again, although he constantly yammers about being a “moderate,” Hogan Jr.’s record tells a different story. Sure, he talks about being pro-choice. To be anti-choice in 2:1 “Blue” MD would constitute political suicide. However, here is his real record. In April 2022, before the Supreme Ct. overruled “Roe v. Wade” in June 2022, Hogan Jr. vetoed a bill to increase the number of abortion providers throughout the state and to allocate $3.5 million for a training program to perform this procedure safely. After the Democratic state legislature overrode this veto the very next day, Hogan withheld $3.5 million in state funds to increase the number of abortion providers in MD. Only when Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, Hogan’s successor took over in 1/2023, was that money restored and the program to add more abortion providers put in place (Witte, apnews.com, 2/19/24, wiki). During his Senate primary, Hogan called an 11/2024 referendum on enshrining “Roe” in the MD Constitution “not really necessary.” Although he said he would not vote for a national abortion ban in the Senate, he declined to say if he would support bills to codify “Roe” and protect access to in vitro fertilization (Fortinsky, S., 3/07/24, thehill.com). He stated he “understood why this (reproductive rights) is such an important and ‘emotional’ issue for women across MD and across the country.” Translation: “Emotional issue” for Hogan equals an “hysterical” issue that bothers women too much. Hogan stated that MD had already protected abortion rights in 1991 and Democrats are making this a “political issue.” Message to Hogan. After the “Dobbs” decision, Marylanders must once again show that “Roe” has to be protected as strongly as possible. IMHO, Hogan can’t be trusted on his pro-choice talk, and should he suddenly decide to codify “Roe” and support in vitro fertilization, this is just election conversion talk that MUST be discounted.
And guess what? Just 48 hours after he won his primary, Hogan started his abortion election flip-flop conversion. In what the NY Times describes as a “remarkable leftward pivot,” Catholic Hogan who personally opposes abortion and had vetoed a state law two years ago to expand abortion access in MD which allowed people who were not doctors to perform abortions stated he was “pro-choice.” He now declared he would vote to enshrine abortion rights in MD, a major issue on MD’s Nov. 2024 ballot which he previously called “unnecessary.” He now claimed he would supposedly support abortion rights in the Senate and “codify” legislation to do that should he be elected. However, let’s read his comments carefully. How would he support or codify such rights? By working on a “bipartisan Senate compromise” to restore “Roe.” What bipartisan compromise? Right after “Roe” was repealed, such efforts fell through. Such “compromises” would probably only protect abortion if the states imposed “undue burdens,” a toothless standard that often prohibits many abortions. True, Hogan has stated he would not support a national abortion ban. However, if Trump was elected and nominated federal judges who were anti-choice, Hogan admitted he would not use those rulings against them because that was a “litmus test (Broadwater, nytimes.com, 5/16/12).” Translation: Hogan would pack federal courts with anti-choice judges. Some “pro-choice” advocate! In addition, while Dem. Alsobrooks said she would sponsor the Women’s Health Protection Act, legislation that would outlaw an array of abortion restrictions, on her first day in office, Hogan stated he wouldn’t back that bill because it would “expand abortion rights beyond Roe.” Ridiculous! When asked after his new flip-flop, whether he was actually “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” Hogan gave a mealy-mouthed answer, “I would say that’s pro-choice (Broadwater, nytimes.com).” Alsobrooks has no such qualms. MD Democrats were immediately skeptical about Hogan’s latest flip-flop election conversion. Former MD Attorney General Brian Frosh, wrote aptly on social media, “If you believe that, I’d be happy to sell you the (D.C.) Key Bridge (Broadwater, nytimes.com, 5/16/24).”
In April 2022, Hogan rejected a measure that would require companies to offer 12 weeks of partially paid medical leave for their employees. In 2020, Hogan blocked legislation to mandate background checks on private rifle and shotgun sales. Throughout his time as governor, Hogan vetoed bills to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour (time.com, Cortellessa, E., 2/14/24). He vetoed bills to allow voters to fix mistakes on their mail-in-ballots and to ban employers from asking job applicants about their criminal history (time, Cortellessa). “Press release moderate” Hogan Jr. brags that MD is a “national model” of a “divided government that does not have to be a divisive government. We have found a way to disagree without being disagreeable (Cohen & Cook 2022).” Democrats in MD’s state legislature take issue with Hogan Jr.’s “rose colored” view. They have criticized Hogan for either ignoring them or attacking them. In 2019, when the MD Democratic legislature did not go along with Hogan’s plan to reduce crime in Baltimore, Hogan snapped, “This seems to be like the most pro-criminal group of legislators I’ve ever seen (Cohen & Cook).” Such a comment by Hogan Jr. sounds like it came from the mouth of a hard-right southern politician, not a so-called “moderate.” Some have likened Hogan Jr.’s tough talk to that of ex-NJ GOP Gov. Chris Christie, an early Trump supporter and a mentor of Hogan to whom he still talks frequently. Hogan mentor Christie is no “moderate.”
And there is more. In April, 2021, the MD legislature unanimously passed a tough ethics law to enhance disclosure for public officials. This legislation followed after a “Washington Monthly” expose that found that after Hogan cancelled a planned $2.9 billion rail line through Baltimore, he routed the freed- up funds to road and highway infrastructure projects near properties that his real estate investment firm owned, a development that could boost the value of those properties. In his first three years in office, Hogan made $2.4 million, far exceeding his annual office government $180,000 salary (time.com, Cortellessa). And Hogan, who brags about his own record as an administrator suffered embarrassing episodes of bureaucratic mismanagement. In April 2020, Hogan announced that his office had purchased 500,000 Covid test kits for $11.9 million from South Korea at a time when tests were in short supply. However, these test kits didn’t work. Two months later, MD returned them to S. Korea, and had to spend $2.5 million on a second batch. The “Washington Post” reported that the test kits themselves had been available at the time for a far cheaper price from a domestic manufacturer (time.com, Cortellessa, 2/14/24). And Hogan thinks he can tackle government waste on a national level in the Senate? Give me a break!
Several Democratic voters in MD indicated that with a closely divided Senate and the possibility that Trump might win, they will not vote for Hogan even though they liked him as MD Governor (apnews.com, Witte, 2/19/24). However, some early polls had Hogan beating Alsobrooks. Millions of more Democratic voters will have to be constantly exposed to the real Gov. Hogan. His abortion and in vitro record alone is far too iffy for millions of pro-choice Democrats to take a chance on what he would do should the GOP win the Senate and Trump return to the White House. Former Democratic MD Secretary of State John Willis said it all, “He’s (Hogan) got on a mask—and the mask is about to be lifted (time.com, 2/14/24, Cortellessa).” MD Democrats must come out in droves plus to protect choice and other kitchen table values. When Hogan entered the MD U.S. Senate race, the Cook Political Report lowered the race from “Solid Democrat” to “Likely Democrat (thehill.com, Vakil, C., 2/09/24).” The MD race is not, therefore, anywhere “in the bag.” Democrats in MD must vote, vote, and vote to keep the Senate “Blue” with stellar candidate Angela Alsobrooks, re-elect President Biden, and, once again, enshrine pro-choice as the law in their state. Staying home would constitute political malpractice.
Comments