Madaleno Surprises Many (Part II)

(See here for Part I). How are Senator Madaleno’s votes and statements playing in District 18? Is he in serious trouble at home?

As a constituent of Madaleno’s, I have been completely surprised by his votes and his statements on this issue. Like many others in District 18, I am a strong supporter of progressive taxation and of paying the taxes that are necessary to meet our societal needs (including transportation). I imagine that if I were in Annapolis, I would have been pushing hard for the millionaire-tax increase.

Not only that, but I am past president of the Forest Estates Community Association, whose Crossing Georgia committee has been lobbying hard for our own little transportation project at the Intersection of Death (formerly known as the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Forest Glen Road). We’ve been pushing that since 2003. The governor’s budget did not fund this project, but Madaleno got the Department of Transportation to cover it as part of another project. But a massive cut in transportation funding doesn’t exactly bode well for our project, at least in the short term.

So I’m none too pleased at this turn of events. And I’m probably not the only one in District 18 feeling this way.

Nevertheless, I seriously doubt that Madaleno is in serious political trouble at home. He certainly isn’t in trouble in my home.

In the five years that I’ve known him, I have seen that Sen. Madaleno is one of the strongest advocates Annapolis has for progressive taxation. During the months leading up to the special session, he pored over the budget numbers and tried to come up with a tax package that didn’t rely so much on raising the sales tax. He worked with a small group of other liberal Democrats in the legislature to push a far more progressive program long before the special session began. Unfortunately, the rest of Maryland isn’t like District 18, and his efforts were not successful.

But they were noticed - by me, and by other people who want a more progressive tax structure. I have no doubt as to his commitment to progressive taxes. His entire political history is one of someone who is in government not to help the wealthiest who need it the least, but to help those who need it the most.

And on the Intersection of Death, Madaleno has been an amazing advocate on this issue since 2003, when I first met him and my community association first proposed the idea. He regularly raised the issue with officials in the Ehrlich administration when no one else was paying attention to this issue. Many other pols have joined this cause in the last 18 months, but Madaleno was there at the beginning.

For this and many other reasons, I have no doubt at all to Madaleno’s commitment to the Forest Glen project specifically, and to transportation funding in general.

So when a legislator who is so clearly in agreement with me on these basic issues and who has such a sterling record of service takes a turn I don’t expect, I highly doubt that he’s doing this to protect millionaires. And he’s not doing this out of hostility to transportation (or any other) government spending. This isn’t some 60s sitcom where someone gets hit on the head and suddenly changes personality. Rich Madaleno has not gone over to the political dark side any more than he thinks he’s King Tut out to kill Batman.

More than any other legislator I've ever had, Rich Madaleno has earned the right not to be accused of bad motives, but to instead be given the benefit of the doubt.

One of the other things I know about Madaleno is that he is one smart cookie. He understands budget and tax issues in a way that I know I never will. So that, combined with the things I know about his politics, makes me feel quite comfortable that he knows what he’s doing. He has the same goals that I do, and he feels that the position he is taking is the best way to reach those goals.

After the session is over, I plan to sit down with him and ask him to explain it all to me. Maybe I’ll agree with him. Maybe I won’t. And maybe I won’t even understand. But whatever the case, I know that he is honestly doing what he thinks is best to achieve the goals that we both share. I find myself in much the same situation as when he voted for slots in the fall.

It’s a rare politician who can earn that kind of respect from me. And I have seen evidence that others feel the same way. After all, it’s not every politician who could have run unopposed in a primary for an open senate seat.

So I expect that most of the constituents who are upset by Madaleno’s actions this week will nevertheless judge him not by the actions of one week, but by the greater backdrop of five years.