I tried to draw a majority-Republican legislative district in Montgomery. It no longer seems possible. This district went 62-36 for Obama in 2008 and 63-37 for O'Malley in 2006.
Showing posts with label Montgomery County. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Montgomery County. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2011
No Matter How You Slice It
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
MoCo Delegation Local Committee Assignments
Can be found on the delegation website here. Thanks to Aaron Kaufman for the link.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Republican Performance in the Democratic Big Three
Following are the percentages gained by Republican candidates in Baltimore City, Montgomery County and Prince George's County since 2002. Races with no GOP candidate or with incomplete tickets are not included. Together, these three jurisdictions accounted for 42% of Maryland's registered voters in 2010.
Montgomery County: The great GOP tidal wave of 2010 caused an average Republican gain of 2.9 points in MoCo. No Republicans were elected in 2006. No Republicans were elected in 2010. (The county does have six precincts in Congressional District 6 that vote for Republican Roscoe Bartlett.)
Prince George's County: The Republicans' vote percentage has declined steadily since 2002. They did not bother to contest the majority of elections in the county in 2010.
Baltimore City: Just as in Prince George's, the GOP's performance is so poor that they often do not bother running candidates in Baltimore City. And the chart below does not include the Republicans' losses in city government races, which are held in odd-numbered years.
Here is the GOP's record in the three Democratic strongholds together.
How are the Republicans supposed to compete statewide if they cede these three jurisdictions to the Democrats?
Thursday, September 30, 2010
MoCo Demographics and Voting, Part Four
Five top-tier candidates ran in the 2006 Council At-Large primary: incumbents George Leventhal, Nancy Floreen and Mike Subin and labor-backed challengers Marc Elrich and Duchy Trachtenberg. A host of less competitive candidates also ran, including four who were black and one who was Asian.
Did the demographic characteristics of the county’s precincts have any effect on these candidates’ votes?
Following are the vote totals of the five major at-large candidates by demographic category of precinct.
Overall, the rank order of finish in the 2006 Democratic at-large primary was George Leventhal, Marc Elrich, Duchy Trachtenberg, Nancy Floreen and Mike Subin, in that order. Those ranks did not change very much in different kinds of precincts. Leventhal had a great year and finished first in most places. Marc Elrich was a Takoma Park City Council Member and had run twice before in majority-minority District 5, so he did very well in heavily black precincts in those areas. Duchy Trachtenberg ran well in Bethesda since she had run for council there four years before. Her performance in white precincts was driven by her strength in Bethesda. Mike Subin ran fifth nearly everywhere. In none of these categories did a candidate of color break into the top four, though in precincts where blacks were 33% or more of the population, Hugh Bailey (who is African American) did edge out Subin for fifth.
The bottom line in our analysis is that we do not detect major race- or ethnic-based voting patterns in the 2006 at-large primary. Perhaps that was more of a factor in the 2008 and 2009 Council District 4 special elections, when Nancy Navarro was on the ballot. Perhaps things will work out differently in 2010.
And since we are now putting the finishing touches on the 2010 data, we will find out soon enough.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
MoCo Demographics and Voting, Part Three
Conventional wisdom holds that voters of color do not turn out at the same rate as white voters. How true is that in Montgomery County?
As we detailed in Part One, we have collected precinct-level data on population percentages of Hispanic, white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic and Asian non-Hispanic residents and merged it with precinct-level turnout and voting data. This does not allow us to see the turnout percentages for each group, or the voting behavior of each group. But it does allow us to see whether precincts that are dominated by each group tend to behave differently from other precincts.
Following are the turnout rates by different demographic category of precinct in the 2006 primary. These rates include all voters, not just Democrats.
The countywide turnout rate was 24.0%. In precincts with white population shares of more than 90%, that turnout climbed north of 29%. In precincts with Hispanic and Asian population shares of more than 33%, turnout dipped to below 20%. In precincts with black shares of more than 33%, turnout was 23.1% - not that different from the countywide average. That may be because African Americans are concentrated in District 20, and that district saw a barnburner of a Senate race (Ida Ruben vs. Jamie Raskin) in 2006.
The turnout rates differ by precinct demographic, but not that much. Compare these differences to turnout rates by raw geography.
There is actually more variation on geography than there is on demographics. Several Upcounty areas had turnout rates in the mid-teens, while Takoma Park topped 32%. Now perhaps the Upcounty areas had more Republicans and unaffiliated voters, who have fewer voting options in a primary, and that explains their lag. But at least in the 2006 primary, geography was as good – and maybe even better – a predictor of turnout than race or Hispanic status.
So did demographically diverse precincts vote differently from white precincts? We’ll look at the 2006 at-large primary to answer that question tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
MoCo Demographics and Voting, Part Two
As we saw in Part One, MoCo’s major demographic groups are not distributed evenly across the county. Here are the percentages of Hispanics, white non-Hispanics, black non-Hispanics and Asian non-Hispanics in every Congressional, legislative and council district as well as each locality in the county.
Two years ago, we demonstrated that Montgomery County was the most diverse jurisdiction in Maryland. But the county is essentially a group of smaller subdivisions, some integrated and some not. State Legislative District 20, Council District 5 and Takoma Park, East County, Downtown Silver Spring, Wheaton, Burtonsville and the City of Gaithersburg were all “majority-minority” areas in 2000. It’s reasonable to assume that since then, State Legislative Districts 17, 19, 39 and perhaps 18, Council Districts 3 and 4 and North Potomac and Germantown may have also become majority-minority. On the other hand, State Legislative District 16, Council District 1, and Bethesda, Chevy Chase, the Town of Kensington, Damascus and several other rural Upcounty areas are very heavily white.
So does any of this affect actual voting behavior? We’ll start investigating that in Part Three.
Monday, September 27, 2010
MoCo Demographics and Voting, Part One
Like many of you, we are eagerly entering the precinct-level counts from the recent primary. (OK, we know that not all of you are on the edges of your seats about that – just the really nerdy ones. But we love all of you data dorks on MPW!) While we work on that task, we offer our readers a new layer of electoral analysis. In our prior work, especially on the Council At-Large race, we focused on precinct-level geography in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of candidates. Now we are ready to integrate something new: demographics.
As part of the ten-year Census, the U.S. Census Bureau collects data on race and Hispanic status on a variety of geographic levels, including all the way down to election precincts. State and local governments as well as courts are supposed to consider that data as part of redistricting. We have collected and crunched distributions of Hispanic, white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic and Asian non-Hispanic and merged it with Democratic primary results at the precinct level for 2006. That allows us to determine turnout and voting patterns for different demographic categories of precincts.
There are some limitations with this technique. First of all, if we can show that eight precincts with a concentration of a particular demographic group voted heavily in favor of Candidate X, we cannot necessarily conclude that that particular group was directly responsible for that outcome. Such an analysis may suggest that, but it does not necessarily prove that. Second, the demographic data is ten years old. We used data for all residents as opposed to voting residents because we believe the teenagers of 2000 may well be the voters of 2010. But that does not truly fix the time lags associated with using ten-year-old data. Our hunch is that non-white population shares have increased all over the county, but we will not be able to see that at the precinct level for 2010 for another couple years. Third, a few of the precinct definitions have changed since 2000. Some have merged and others have split up. We have tried to compensate for that by redistributing demographic results across split districts. So, for example, if Precinct A is 40% white, and is then split up into Precincts B and C, we assume that both B and C are 40% white. That is FAR from perfect, but if A, B and C remain in the same council district, legislative district, zip code and locality, it won’t matter very much. Finally, there are sample errors associated with the Census data. Even with high citizen response rates, the Census Bureau cannot collect demographic data on every single human being in every precinct.
The above caveats shows that our analysis is not perfect, but it’s the best we can do.
Let’s start by acknowledging that the county’s demographic groups are not distributed evenly across its land area. Here is the percentage of residents who were white in 2000 by census tract.
Here is the percentage of residents who were African American in 2000 by census tract.
Here is the percentage of residents who were Asian in 2000 by census tract.
And here is the percentage of residents who were Hispanics in 2000 by census tract.
Keep these maps in mind as we start looking at demographics and geography in Part Two.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Editor's Note
One popular feature of this blog that has evolved over the last couple months has been our printing of campaign materials. They probably became excessive at the end because we strived to print as many of them as we could. But our sources delighted in comparing and critiquing them, and some candidates will inevitably learn from the ones they liked the best.
Campaign season is mostly over in MoCo, but our fascination with the county's politics never ends. Accordingly, we have accumulated a vast archive of MoCo political mailers from the past. And as a tribute to our county's political history, we will begin running some of the best of these lit pieces on a regular basis for the foreseeable future.
See your favorite (or least favorite) politicians wearing strange haircuts, embarrassing clothes or hideous facial hair! Enjoy the cheesy graphics! Laugh at the hokey messages! It's all part of our history, and now we offer it to our beloved readers. Keep visiting, folks!
On Montgomery County’s Plummeting Turnout
Tuesday’s turnout rate was so low that it may signal a threat to the state of Montgomery County’s democracy. Here’s why.
Consider these turnout results in MoCo primaries since 1978.
Even though the 2010 results currently exclude absentees and provisionals, it is obvious that this year’s turnout will be BY FAR the lowest in at least thirty years.
The rate is even worse when comparing the number of actual voters to the number of people who are eligible vote. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Montgomery County’s population aged 18 or over totaled 722,033 in 2008. Not counting absentees or provisionals, that means 14.7% – or about one person in seven of the voting age population – has decided the makeup of our county government and state delegation.
Why has this happened?
1. Democratic disillusionment
MoCo is an overwhelmingly Democratic county. Some spies have suggested that Democratic euphoria at Barack Obama’s election last year has been replaced by Democratic apathy given the state of the economy. That may be true, but 1994 was a tough year for Democrats too, and MoCo’s primary turnout rate was about 50% higher then than it will be this year.
2. Negative campaigning
There is no question that this was the most negative primary in MoCo history. One theory holds that all the negative mail disgusted voters and kept them away from the polls. We don’t believe that has accounted for all the turnout drop, but we will assess turnout rates for different districts when we see them to test that hypothesis.
3. No top-ticket races
There were no premier Governor, U.S. Senate, Congress or County Executive races this year, and that was definitely a factor in keeping turnout low. But that was also the case in 1998, and turnout that year will wind up being about five points higher than this year.
4. No media coverage
The mainstream media unquestionably did an abysmal job in covering our primaries this year – especially the Washington Post. That may have depressed turnout if many of our voters did not even know that there were elections. But the magnitude of this factor is impossible to measure.
5. Demographics
As of 2008, 401,047 of MoCo’s 722,033 citizens aged 18 or older were white non-Hispanics. That works out to a voting-age population percentage of 55.5% white non-Hispanic. For the total population, the white non-Hispanic percentage was 53.4%.
Of the county’s forty-two state and county-level elected officials, thirty-two (76.2%) will be white non-Hispanic. That percentage is about twenty points higher than the voting-age population. And consider the respective win rates of white and non-white candidates in this year’s contested county and state elections.
In all contested elections, the winning percentage for white candidates (45.6%) was fourteen points higher than for non-white candidates (31.6%). Removing the District 16 House race, which was full of losing white candidates, from the statistics produces a 53.3%-27.8%, or 25.6-point, spread. On the positive side, every non-white incumbent who ran for reelection (County Executive Ike Leggett, Council Members Nancy Navarro and Valerie Ervin and Delegates Susan Lee, Kumar Barve, Ana Sol Gutierrez and Al Carr) won.
We do not intend to denigrate any candidates, whatever their race or ethnicity, for having the campaign savvy and work ethic to run and win. But when the county is about to turn “majority-minority” and the win percentages between white and non-white candidates are this different, some reflection may be in order. It seems that the county’s political life has not yet integrated many of its newest residents.
Montgomery County has long had an elite that has guided its politics. Many years ago, Gazette columnist Blair Lee coined the term “the Glorious Five Thousand” to describe the county’s political class of office holders, staffers, lobbyists, developers, business people, advocates and activists who collectively determine the direction of the county. Most localities all across the world have such a class. But in MoCo, the Glorious Five Thousand seem to be increasingly disconnected from the rest of the local population. That may have dire consequences for the county’s democracy in years to come.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Meanest MoCo Primary of All Time, Part Two
Montgomery County is a special place. Its enlightened voters and their leaders are dedicated social progressives who work in harmony to promote justice and change. By standing together against reactionary elements, Montgomery County serves as a model for other liberal communities and is leading the way to a better future for all.
Yeah, riiight!
Deprived of competition from the GOP and, for the most part, meaningful policy differences, many of MoCo’s primaries have degenerated into slime-drenched mud wrestling. This blog has chronicled negative attacks in Council District 1, Council District 2, the Council At-Large race, the Senate races in Districts 14, 17, 19 and 39 and the House race in District 16. That’s the majority of contested primaries in this county, folks. Almost every kind of issue, and every means to convey it, has been thrown onto the butcher’s table for split and splatter. Party unity is an old maid’s dream as the daggers are drawn and the Iron Maidens are snapped shut. Somewhere in Dante’s Inferno, Lee Atwater is flapping his wings with glee.
In all the blood-soaked infamy, three events stand out from the rest. These are the three wildest negative attacks of the year, and three of the most unforgettable in MoCo of all time. Start your chainsaws!
The District 19 Reporter
Perhaps no MoCo character assassin has ever had a longer knife than Ginger Ramsey, a former employee of Senator Mike Lenett’s who started a one-person jihad to take him down a year ago. Ramsey’s efforts began as the anonymous “District 19 Reporter,” a venomous Lenett critic who sent out periodic emails skewering him on an endless variety of topics. Frustrated that she had not broken through to the press and fearful that she was viewed as a creation of challenger Roger Manno, Ramsey finally unmasked herself and was covered by the Gazette.
As Lenett’s former legislative aide, Ramsey was certainly in a position to know about his sins. But her year-long practice of using anonymous emails and her mixing in items like Lenett’s hair coloring and references to his children destroyed any credibility she may have had. Ramsey’s bitterly personal rantings actually made Lenett, who has since proven himself as one of the state’s most brutal politicians, appear to be something of a sympathetic figure. But that would not last.
Mike Lenett’s Nuke
Late in the campaign, we believed Lenett had a slight edge over Manno. He had dramatically outspent Manno and shared both a district and an Apple Ballot with former MCEA President Bonnie Cullison – thereby indirectly benefiting from the union’s efforts to elect her. Manno had struggled to concoct a rationale for Lenett’s removal and had sent out a comical negative mailer that looked like it might backfire in Leisure World. And Lenett did nothing to stop the rumors that the “District 19 Reporter” was a part of Manno’s campaign team – a totally unverifiable allegation that nevertheless helped the incumbent.
But Mike Lenett does nothing halfway, a personality trait that is both a blessing and a curse. And so to secure victory, he launched what will forever be known in MoCo as “the Nuke,” a fearsome website listing every single speck of dirt his operatives had dug up on Manno. Some of the points made by the Nuke were legitimate, such as questions about Manno’s ethics form disclosures. But they were peppered with purely personal criticisms of Manno’s original name, his history tending bar and playing blues and his wife’s professional career. The legitimate material was submerged by outrage against the personal attacks. And Lenett lost whatever sympathy he had earned as the victim of the District 19 Reporter. The race has gone from a leaner for Lenett to a toss-up that Manno could conceivably pull out.
Light Saqib, Dark Saqib
The original purpose of Senator Nancy King’s sixth anti-Saqib Ali mailer was to point out that Ali was no longer abiding by his 2006 pledge to not take PAC money. Indeed, Ali said on his website: I have pledged not to accept a single penny from any corporation or special interest Political Action Committee (PAC). It is the only course that will allow me to remain completely independent of special interests and entirely focused on the best interests of District 39 citizens and business owners. I urge my opponents to take a similar pledge.
Going after a politician for abandoning a campaign finance pledge is 100% legitimate. We have done that ourselves, notably when we spanked County Council candidate Ben Kramer HARD for violating his pledge not to take developer money last year. But then someone inside the King campaign made the disastrous decision to flip and darken an image of Ali and leave it on the same mailer page as the original image. That led several commenters, including Kim Propeack, Oscar Ramirez, Guled Kassim, Sam Arora and Council Member Valerie Ervin, to question that action. King’s campaign manager compounded the mistake by denying ANY photo alteration, a claim that no one viewing the pictures could ever believe. And King herself made it even worse by contradicting her manager.
And so an entirely legitimate argument against Ali has been eclipsed by suspicions of ill intent and serious questions about the credibility of King’s campaign. Now that the story has been picked up by the Washington Post, the Huffington Post and Fox 5 News, the image below has been immortalized in MoCo political folklore and as part of Senator King’s political legacy.
What do all three of the negative attacks above share in common? All of them may have had at least a tiny bit of truth buried under the sludge. But all went overboard through illegitimate methods (like anonymous emails or altered photos) or irrelevant personal attacks that looked petty and mean. Let this serve as a lesson for any candidate looking to go negative: make sure your facts are iron-clad and appropriate for consideration by the voters, and NEVER let problems with their mode of conveyance overwhelm the legitimate message they contain.
Four years from now, we’ll find out if the candidates learn anything from the mud-spewing hell pit of 2010. We are not optimistic that they will, but at least it will make for fun blogging!
Monday, September 13, 2010
The Meanest MoCo Primary of All Time, Part One
Montgomery County’s political community is much more diverse than it appears to be from the outside. While nearly all political players here are Democrats, they often disagree on issues of development, budget, transportation and the appropriate pace of change. But one thing almost every one of them will say today is that this election has been the Meanest MoCo Primary of All Time.
We do not come to that conclusion lightly. MoCo has a long history of negative campaigning. The two traditional tools of political slime here have been the whisper campaign and, much less frequently, the mail.
MoCo is a large county but its local political community is relatively small – perhaps numbering only a few hundred people. That makes our jurisdiction ideally suited for whisper campaigns alleging all manner of sleaze and smut. If we believed every whisper we have heard, we would think that the state and county governments are populated exclusively by perverts, drunks, crooks, racists, floozies and (gasp!) closet Republicans. OK, maybe there is a small bit of truth in this, but we will not be naming names since some of these people are great anonymous sources. The virtue of whisper campaigns is that they do not need authority lines. But few of them break through to the mass media and most of them remain the Chardonnay gossip of insiders.
Candidates who have wanted to elevate their charges to the attention of the general public have occasionally gone into the mail. Most negative MoCo mailers are actually contrast pieces, which tout positive things about one candidate and bad things about that person’s rival. Here’s an example from 2002 in which Council Member Phil Andrews took on his challenger, Rockville City Council Member Bob Dorsey.
Most purely negative mailers in MoCo have been issue-based and not character-based. Here’s a 2002 mailer from the End Gridlock slate going after then-Council Member Blair Ewing for opposing the ICC.
The End Gridlock slate’s approach was logical. According to them, the ICC was necessary. Blair Ewing opposed it. So Ewing had to go. This says nothing about Ewing’s character, only that he was wrong on an issue.
Prior to this year, direct character attacks in MoCo campaigns have been uncommon. Two instances stand out.
1. Delegate Dana Dembrow (D-20)
Sharp-elbowed Delegate Dana Dembrow had been feuding bitterly with the rest of his delegation, Senator Ida Ruben and Delegates Sheila Hixson and Peter Franchot, for years. In 2002, Ruben and her allies tried to get him redistricted out, to no avail. But then Dembrow was charged with hitting his wife and all hell broke loose. The rest of his delegation endorsed Delegate challenger Gareth Murray and a wave of anti-Dembrow flyers discussing the domestic violence rushed through the district. Dembrow lost by 524 votes to Murray. After the election, the two PACs that funded the mailers were revealed to have received thousands of dollars from Ruben, Franchot, Hixson and Murray.
Dembrow was later hired by Governor Bob Ehrlich and fired a year later. In 2006, Ruben and Murray were defeated and Franchot was elected Comptroller, leaving Hixson as the sole survivor.
2. The County Council Can Can
In 2002, Neighbors for a Better Montgomery (Neighborspac) formed to oppose Doug Duncan’s End Gridlock County Council slate. End Gridlock swept the at-large election that year, but Neighborspac returned with guns blazing four years later. The group supplemented its traditional activity of tallying campaign finance data with this video of the End Gridlock Council Members, which it posted on its website.
Campaign contributions are always fair game for negative messaging. But this video went further with its depiction of five Council Members as marionettes dancing on a developer’s strings. (Its demented nature made it even more effective.) Two of the marionettes were defeated – one because he ran against Ike Leggett for Executive – and three survived. The video lives on in MoCo infamy.
The anti-Dembrow campaign and the Can Can stand out in county history because they were a bit unusual for their time. They would fit right in this year. 2010 has seen a large number of contested one-on-one primaries between candidates who do not like each other. It is also occurring in the context of a great number of technological platforms for delivering negative messages, like blogs, Facebook, email and attack sites, that did not exist or could not have been effective in the past. But what will truly be remembered about 2010 is the rip-roaring nastiness with which this year’s stinking mud has been sprayed. We’ll reminisce about the worst of the worst tomorrow.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Does MoCo Have Any Leverage Over O’Malley or Ehrlich?
Examiner reporter Alan Suderman recently wrote an article based on an interesting question: does Bob Ehrlich’s interest in MoCo and the presence of a great number of Democratic voters for Martin O’Malley in the county give MoCo’s elected officials any leverage over the candidates? According to Suderman, some county officials think that might be the case.
And our reply is: are you kidding?
First, the county has never acted in a concerted way to pressure O’Malley. In the wake of his 2006 victory over Ehrlich, the vast majority of the county’s elected officials and Democratic activists were elated to help defeat the first GOP Governor in a generation. They regarded O’Malley as something of a golden boy. That sense interacted with the normal problems of cooperation between county leaders and the MoCo delegation, as well as divisions within each body. And as a result, every time the county has had an issue with O’Malley, he has rolled right over us.
You don’t believe us? The first time MoCo had a problem with O’Malley was during the 2007 special session, when some delegation members resisted his progressive income tax proposal. County Executive Ike Leggett even presented an alternative proposal, but he did not clear it with the delegation first. That proposal went nowhere, the delegation could not achieve a common position and O’Malley got his way. Next came the Governor’s failure to keep his promise of $55 million in school construction money for MoCo, which he made during the special session to secure our delegation’s votes for his tax and slots proposals. O’Malley allocated $46 million instead. A couple state legislators complained but there were no consequences. Then there was the 2008 millionaire tax, which O’Malley supported but some delegation members as well as Leggett opposed. The delegation split again and the tax passed. Finally, in 2008 the Governor cut transit planning funding by 7% for the Red Line, 19% for the Purple Line and 47% for the CCT. A couple of County Council Members squawked but the delegation was silent. Even Action Committee for Transit said nothing.
If Bob Ehrlich had cut school construction or Purple Line money, our elected officials would have gone banana-cakes. But since they are all good Democrats and O’Malley is the current Dem-in-Chief, they are willing to overlook these things and make nice with the boss. In fact, every one of them except Council Member Phil Andrews and Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-18) fell all over themselves to endorse O’Malley last September – long before he released his final budget proposal of the term. That is not a way to build leverage. Rather, it is a way to get the Governor to pat you on the head and say, “Good boy!”
As for Ehrlich, he is focused on the 122,000 Republicans and 110,000 unaffiliated voters who live in MoCo. Both groups are ignored by the vast majority of county elected officials because they do not vote in Democratic primaries, which decide virtually all elections here. But they helped put the 2008 Ficker Amendment over the top and will be fertile ground for Ehrlich’s anti-tax message. Most critically, Ehrlich will not have to go through any local politicians to get to them.
One more item is worth noting in any discussion of leverage: money. Over the last ten years, O’Malley has raised $2.6 million in MoCo, 13% of his total take. Ehrlich has raised $2.7 million in MoCo over the same period, which was 9% of his total take. Both candidates can swoop in and raise hundreds of thousands more from MoCo residents without relying on any local electeds as gatekeepers. In fact, local Democratic politicians love to have O’Malley attend their fundraisers because it helps them raise cash. Who’s holding the stick in that relationship?
If county leaders want to have any leverage over any Governor, they need to hang together and play hardball regardless of the Governor’s party affiliation. Otherwise, a big bowl of poodle treats is waiting for them in Annapolis.
Friday, April 09, 2010
Population, Jobs and Commutes in the Washington Region, Part Seven
Differing rates of population, employment and real wage growth have resulted in greater rates of cross-border commuting since 1970. That commuting, which is often skewed towards the west in the morning and the east at night, is stressing the region’s transportation network. This sets up a range of challenges for each of the Big Four jurisdictions that they must meet in the future or face continued congestion without end.
First, let’s summarize the statistics on the Big Four that we gathered earlier in the series.
Population Growth, 1970-2007
Fairfax: 111.9%
Montgomery: 79.5%
Prince George’s: 23.9%
District of Columbia: -22.1%
Employment Growth, 1970-2007
Fairfax: 475.1%
Montgomery: 178.1%
Prince George’s: 120.3%
District of Columbia: 20.8%
Average Wage per Job, 2008
District of Columbia: $74,771
Fairfax: $70,147
Montgomery: $61,757
Prince George’s: $50,417
Real Wage Growth, 1970-2008
Fairfax: 67.9%
District of Columbia: 53.1%
Montgomery: 43.8%
Prince George’s: 29.4%
Number of Commuters to Jobs in D.C., 1970
Prince George’s: 96,482
Montgomery: 66,967
Fairfax: 47,802
Number of Commuters to Jobs in D.C., 2000
Prince George’s: 126,135
Montgomery: 99,675
Fairfax: 92,238
Average Commute Time, 2006-08
District of Columbia: 29.5 minutes
Fairfax: 30.8 minutes
Montgomery: 32.9 minutes
Prince George’s: 35.9 minutes
Percentage of Commuters Traveling at least 30 Minutes to Work, 2006-2008
District of Columbia: 48.9%
Fairfax: 51.8%
Montgomery: 56.0%
Prince George’s: 61.3%
On almost all of these measures, the rank order is the same: Fairfax first, Montgomery second, Prince George’s third and the District varying. Why? Our best guess is that it is a function of two factors that heavily impact economic development: taxes and schools.
Here is a tax comparison of some of the Washington area’s jurisdictions, helpfully (and perhaps not coincidentally) supplied by Fairfax: 
Fairfax has relatively moderate taxes and excellent schools. It is no surprise that they lead on most of our economic performance measures. MoCo’s schools are also excellent (though not decisively better than Fairfax’s) and its taxes are relatively high. Both the District and Prince George’s County suffer from twin problems: high taxes and poor schools. D.C. is partially protected from the economic development implications of those facts because of its location, but Prince George’s is not.
Each of the Big Four now faces a different set of challenges.
Fairfax will have to deal with the consequences of its success: crowded schools and roads. It is virtually inevitable that Fairfax will have to raise revenues to finance more infrastructure. In fact, it is already heading down that road with toll hikes and a commercial property tax district to finance the Silver Line and a special commercial property tax to pay for other transportation projects. MoCo went through similar problems after explosive growth in the 1980s. Its development impact taxes never recovered the full cost of paying for new infrastructure, but MoCo’s growth did slow significantly in later years.
Montgomery is now number two. It can no longer pretend that businesses and residents will come here simply because “we are Montgomery County.” MoCo will have to maintain its school quality and moderate its tax increases – not an easy feat in these days of perpetual budget deficits. If it does not make an effort to compete, MoCo’s growing wage gap with D.C. and Fairfax will cause its residents to increasingly commute to jobs elsewhere and face the staggering travel times suffered by inhabitants of Prince George’s County.
The District’s high taxes and poor schools have caused a great hollowing out of population over the past few decades, although that trend may be easing. While D.C. politicians often call for commuter taxes, it is the city’s own ineffective government that has caused many workers to buy houses across the border. The single most important determinant of whether D.C. can attract new residents over the long term is the success or failure of its current effort to improve its public schools. It’s too soon to judge whether Superintendent Michelle Rhee’s changes will be successful, but to have any chance of producing real change, she must greatly outlast the average superintendent tenure of three years. If D.C. goes back to its rotating cast of in-and-out school leaders, its population growth will stall and the morning backups on its streets to the suburbs will continue.
The consequence of the poor schools in Prince George’s has not been to hamper population growth, but rather has been to discourage the creation of high-paying jobs. Prince George’s residents benefit from relatively low-cost housing stock compared to D.C. and the other inner suburbs, but they pay for it greatly with long commutes across their borders. Prince George’s may have the toughest challenge of all: attracting good jobs, improving its schools and restraining its taxes, all in times of budget austerity.
The difficulties above are immense. But the Washington region contains many of the world’s smartest people, is one of the wealthiest places on Planet Earth and benefits mightily from the presence of the federal government. It must succeed in correcting its imbalances as a region. If it does, residents of every jurisdiction will benefit from less stress of long commutes on the region’s transportation network. If traffic flowed evenly in both directions – or better yet, if people lived closer to their jobs – there would be no need for multi-billion dollar projects like the ICC or widening I-270 or the Washington Beltway. But if the Washington region continues to see lopsided growth in some places alongside stagnation in others, then no amount of tax increases or project construction will ease the traffic congestion that is sure to follow in coming years.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Population, Jobs and Commutes in the Washington Region, Part Six
In the first five parts of this series, we examined differing rates of growth in population, employment and real wages across the Washington region and explored historic shifts of commuting patterns among its Big Four jurisdictions: D.C., Fairfax, MoCo and Prince George’s. Today we will look at what those patterns mean for people traveling to work.
Below are the percentages of people traveling less than or more than thirty minutes to work, as well as mean travel times, for every jurisdiction in the region from the U.S. Census Bureau. 
It comes as little surprise that the jurisdictions with the longest travel times are all outer suburbs: Charles and Calvert Counties in Maryland and Stafford, Spotsylvania, Warren and Prince William Counties in Virginia. Small cities (like Fairfax and Fredericksburg Cities) and inner jurisdictions like D.C., Alexandria and Arlington have the shortest commutes. But Prince George’s County is an outlier. It has a higher percentage of its people traveling 30 minutes or more (61.3%) than many outer counties including Stafford, Spotsylvania, Calvert and Warren. It also has a longer average commute (35.9 minutes) than does Frederick (33.8 minutes). The failure of Prince George’s County to create high-wage jobs for its residents is exacting a stunning cost on them in their daily commutes.
There is also a notable difference between the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. In the five Maryland counties, 57.7% of commuters traveled thirty minutes or more. In Virginia, that percentage was 52.8%. Maryland commuters had a mean travel time of 34.8 minutes while Virginia commuters had a mean travel time of 33.3 minutes. Let’s remember that our dataset includes very distant outer suburbs in Virginia (like Stafford, Warren and Spotsylvania) while it excludes distant Maryland suburbs like Washington and St. Mary’s Counties.
Here are the average commute times for the Big Four in 2006-08:
District of Columbia: 29.5 minutes
Fairfax: 30.8 minutes
Montgomery: 32.9 minutes
Prince George’s: 35.9 minutes
And here are the percentages of commuters traveling at least 30 minutes to work:
District of Columbia: 48.9%
Fairfax: 51.8%
Montgomery: 56.0%
Prince George’s: 61.3%
For the three suburban jurisdictions, the rank order of travel times - Fairfax first, Montgomery second and Prince George’s third – is an exact match for the rank order in population growth, employment growth and real wage growth. This is not a coincidence. Creating abundant high-wage jobs near where residents live, which has been a specialty of Fairfax for the last few decades, pays off in lower commuting times.
We’ll wrap up our findings tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Population, Jobs and Commutes in the Washington Region, Part Five
In Part Two, we saw that Fairfax County was adding population and employment, and seeing increases in real wages, at much higher rates than MoCo or Prince George’s County. And in Parts Three and Four, we saw how the commuting patterns to jobs inside each of the Big Four had changed since 1970. Here’s a summary of those changes.
D.C. was a larger jobs magnet in 2000 than it was in 1970, drawing in 271,803 net commuters – a 52% increase – from Fairfax, MoCo and Prince George’s. While it is true that there has been a slight rise in the number of reverse commuters, or D.C. residents working in the suburbs, that has been utterly swamped by suburban growth. The biggest source of commuters for the Big Four is Prince George’s County, which now has about as many cross-border commuters to the rest of the Big Four as Fairfax and MoCo combined. Following are two maps that show net flows among the Big Four in both 1970 and 2000.
Finally, consider the percentage of employed residents in each jurisdiction who worked inside that jurisdiction in both years.
Percentage of D.C. employed residents who work in D.C., 1970: 67%
Percentage of D.C. employed residents who work in D.C., 2000: 73%
Percentage of Fairfax employed residents who work in Fairfax, 1970: 40%
Percentage of Fairfax employed residents who work in Fairfax, 2000: 58%
Percentage of MoCo employed residents who work in MoCo, 1970: 51%
Percentage of MoCo employed residents who work in MoCo, 2000: 59%
Percentage of P.G. employed residents who work in P.G., 1970: 40%
Percentage of P.G. employed residents who work in P.G., 2000: 39%
Prince George’s County’s role in this system is obvious. Because it has not had robust employment or real wage growth, its residents are forced to work elsewhere. That fact combined with the jobs explosion in Northern Virginia is impacting our transportation network, creating a system of congested, one-way flows.
We’ll see what that means for commuting times in Part Six.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Population, Jobs and Commutes in the Washington Region, Part Four
Yesterday, we examined commuting patterns to jobs inside the District of Columbia and Prince George’s County. Today, we’ll look at who holds jobs inside MoCo and Fairfax.
Montgomery County
In 1970, MoCo had 164,948 jobs. Of those jobs, 110,587 (67%) were held by MoCo residents. Prince George’s residents held 19,454 (12%) of MoCo-based jobs and D.C. residents held 16,201 (10%). No other jurisdiction’s residents accounted for more than 3% of jobs in MoCo.
In 2000, MoCo had 419,168 jobs, an increase of 154% over 1970. Of those jobs, 267,130 (64%) were held by MoCo residents, 40,245 (10%) were held by Prince George’s residents and 22,860 (6%) were held by Frederick County residents. The percentage of MoCo jobs held by MoCo residents has not changed very much since 1970, perhaps because MoCo has seen similar levels of population and employment growth over that period. The percentage of MoCo jobs accounted for by D.C. residents has fallen from 10% to 5% because of D.C.’s absolute decline in population.
Fairfax County
In 1970, Fairfax had 115,137 jobs. Of those jobs, 78,126 (68%) were held by Fairfax residents. Prince William County residents held 7,835 (7%) of Fairfax-based jobs, Arlington residents held 6,758 (6%) and Alexandria residents held 6,400 (6%). No other jurisdiction’s residents accounted for more than 3% of jobs in Fairfax.
In 2000, Fairfax had 543,213 jobs, a staggering increase of 372% over 1970. Of those jobs, 155,675 (53%) were held by Fairfax residents and 56,124 (10%) were held by Prince William residents. MoCo, Alexandria and Arlington residents all accounted for around 4% of jobs based in Fairfax. The percentage of Fairfax jobs held by Fairfax residents has slipped since 1970 because Fairfax’s job growth has been so rapid that it cannot be met domestically. And in Part Two, we saw that Fairfax’s real wage growth was 68% between 1970 and 2008 – significantly higher than many nearby jurisdictions. That attracts residents of nearby counties to commute into Fairfax.
Tomorrow, we’ll put all of the Big Four’s commuting patterns together to show how their differing rates of population, employment and real wage growth are affecting regional commutes.
Monday, April 05, 2010
Population, Jobs and Commutes in the Washington Region, Part Three
In Part Two, we demonstrated significant differences between jurisdictions in the Washington region in population growth, employment growth and real wage growth since 1970. Those differences have impacted the region’s commuting patterns in very large ways since then.
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) offers many data series at the national, state and county levels. One series it offers is a matrix of commuting patterns by county. For each county, BEA estimates both the residence of job holders inside the county as well as the job locations of county residents. We gathered the former measure – residence of county job holders – for each of the Washington area’s Big Four jurisdictions in 1970 and 2000. Here is the story for each of the Big Four in both of those years.
District of Columbia
In 1970, D.C. had 504,611 jobs. Of those jobs, 220,277 (44%) were held by D.C. residents. Prince George’s residents held 96,482 (19%) of D.C.-based jobs, MoCo residents held 66,967 (13%) and Fairfax residents held 47,802 (10%).
In 2000, D.C. had 668,739 jobs, an increase of 33% over 1970. Of those jobs, 190,560 (29%) were held by D.C. residents, 126,135 (19%) were held by Prince George’s residents, 99,675 (15%) were held by MoCo residents and 92,238 (14%) were held by Fairfax residents. The drop in D.C. residents’ job-holding percentage of D.C. jobs is due to the absolute drop in D.C.’s population over that period of time. The percentage of D.C. jobs held by residents of the outer suburbs (defined as excluding MoCo, Prince George’s, Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria) increased from 4% in 1970 to 14% in 2000.
Prince George’s County
In 1970, Prince George’s had 153,808 jobs. Of those jobs, 111,239 (72%) were held by Prince George’s residents. D.C. residents held 12,553 (8%) of Prince George’s-based jobs and MoCo residents held 11,027 (7%). No other jurisdiction’s residents accounted for more than 4% of Prince George’s jobs.
In 2000, Prince George’s had 293,883 jobs, an increase of 91% over 1970. Of those jobs, 155,675 (53%) were held by Prince George’s residents, 26,825 (9%) were held by MoCo residents and 26,264 (9%) were held by Anne Arundel County residents. The combined percentage of Prince George’s jobs accounted for by residents of Howard, Anne Arundel, Charles and Calvert Counties rose from 7% in 1970 to 21% in 2000.
The percentage of Prince George’s jobs held by Prince George’s residents has declined substantially since 1970, as it has in D.C., but for a different reason. D.C. has seen falling population since 1970, but Prince George’s has grown. In the case of Prince George’s County, since its real wage growth from 1970 through 2008 was a minuscule 29.4% - or less than one percent per year – its residents are commuting outside of the county for work in much larger numbers. As other jurisdictions create high-wage jobs, they are increasingly drawing Prince George’s County residents to fill them. And at the same time, residents of other Maryland counties are taking Prince George’s jobs in rapidly growing numbers. The implications for the region’s transportation network are significant.
We’ll examine MoCo and Fairfax tomorrow.
Friday, April 02, 2010
Population, Jobs and Commutes in the Washington Region, Part Two
Everyone knows that both population and employment have grown by significant amounts in the Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) since 1970. But the jurisdictions in the area have grown at very different rates.
From the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), here are the populations for every jurisdiction in the Washington MSA in 1970 and 2007.
The “Big Four” Jurisdictions – Fairfax County in Virginia, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland and the District of Columbia – accounted for 77% of the MSA’s population in 1970 and 64% of the MSA’s population in 2007. Consider their rates of population growth over those 37 years.
Fairfax: 111.9%
Montgomery: 79.5%
Prince George’s: 23.9%
District of Columbia: -22.1%
Again from BEA, here are the employments for every jurisdiction in the Washington MSA in 1970 and 2007.
The Big Four accounted for 77% of the MSA’s employment in 1970 and 71% of the MSA’s employment in 2007. Consider their rates of employment growth over those 37 years.
Fairfax: 475.1%
Montgomery: 178.1%
Prince George’s: 120.3%
District of Columbia: 20.8%
Here are the shares of the Big Four and the other counties of the region’s population and employment in 1970 and 2007.
The story of the last 37 years in terms of population and employment is simple. All of Virginia, including Fairfax, is on the rise. D.C. has hollowed out. Prince George’s County has slipped, especially in relative population. Montgomery County has held its own and the outer Maryland counties (Calvert, Charles and Frederick) have gained.
Finally, here is the average wage per job in 2008 dollars from BEA in 1970 and 2008.
Arlington and the District were the two highest wage jurisdictions in both 1970 and 2008. Let’s put aside both of them for a moment as their unique proximity to the Capitol and the Pentagon give them both labor market advantages that no other jurisdiction in the country enjoys. Here are the real wage growths for the remainder of the Big Four over the 38-year period.
Fairfax: 67.9%
Montgomery: 43.8%
Prince George’s: 29.4%
Whether we measure population growth, employment growth or real wage growth, the story remains the same: Fairfax first, Montgomery second and Prince George’s last, with the District varying. These realities impact the region’s transportation network in ways that we will begin examining in Part Three.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Population, Jobs and Commutes in the Washington Region, Part One
The story of growth is an old one. Cities create jobs and attract residents, who eventually empty out into the suburbs. Those residents then drive back into the cities for work, loading roads with in-out traffic flows. As inner suburbs mature, produce their own jobs and become more dense, growth spills to the outer suburbs to create sprawl. Soon the entire regional transportation network becomes jammed, necessitating expensive new road and transit projects, endless congestion or both. Such is the inevitable result of decades of population and employment growth.
This is the conventional wisdom. For the Washington area, this paradigm holds but only up to a point. Why? Because it’s incomplete.
In a major new research project, MPW looks back on the history of population and employment growth, wage increases and transportation commutes in the Washington region from 1970 on. We examine these phenomena in every jurisdiction in the Washington Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes the District of Columbia; Calvert, Charles, Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland; Arlington, Clarke, Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, Spotsylvania, Stafford and Warren Counties and Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Manassas and Manassas Park Cities in Virginia and Jefferson County in West Virginia.
The Washington MSA from Wikipedia.
We find that the patterns of growth have defined employment opportunities and commutes across the region, creating winners and losers. Some jurisdictions have seen significant growth driven primarily by jobs. Others have become teeming bedroom communities. Some have seen strong wage growth while others have not. Some have emerged as major players in the D.C. area while others are struggling to keep up. And the unevenness of growth, both in type and magnitude, has impacted the region’s transportation flows perhaps even more than the sheer volume of new residents and jobs.
All of the above illuminates very different challenges in coming years for each of the area’s major jurisdictions. There may even be grounds for a potential common agenda across the region to balance growth, reduce its impact on our transportation network and spread the benefits of expansion more evenly around the area. With their fragmented structure, this is a difficult challenge for the state and local governments in our region. But if they cannot take it on and the imbalances of the past forty years carry forth into the future, no amount of transportation spending will be enough to remedy the unimaginable congestion that will follow.
We’ll start looking at population and employment counts in Part Two.
Friday, March 26, 2010
How the Counties Spend Your Money, Part Five
Today, we examine public school spending and look at Montgomery County’s per capita budget in detail.
In FY 2009, Maryland’s twenty-four public school districts received a combined $11.2 billion. Of that sum, $5.3 billion came from state aid, $529 million came from federal aid and $5.4 billion came from county taxes. Aid to public schools is the single biggest line item in the state’s budget and accounts for over a third of its general fund expenditures. But school aid is not distributed evenly. Instead, like almost all other forms of state aid, school aid is apportioned based on a wealth formula that favors jurisdictions with lower property values and lower incomes over counties that perform better on those measures. That has real consequences.
Here is total and per capita school spending by source for each county.
In per capita terms, the leaders on local school spending are Howard ($1,654), Montgomery ($1,592), Worcester ($1,474) and Calvert ($1,135). The lowest spender of local money on schools is Baltimore City ($326). But the city makes that up by being the biggest beneficiary of state aid ($1,417 per capita) and federal aid ($178). In terms of per capita funding from all sources, Baltimore City ($1,922) is very close to the state average ($1,994).
The wealth formula creates enormous disparities on the local burden of funding public schools. In FY 2009, here are the percentages of public school district budgets paid by state and federal aid.
On one hand some jurisdictions have overwhelming percentages of their school budgets covered by the state and federal governments, including Baltimore City (83%), Caroline County (80%), Allegany County (78%), Somerset County (76%) and Wicomico County (72%). All of these jurisdictions contribute much less than the state per capita average in local funding to their schools. On the other hand, other jurisdictions largely go it alone, such as Worcester County (28%), Montgomery County (28%), Talbot County (31%) and Howard County (36%). Taxpayers in Worcester, Montgomery and Howard pay very large amounts to maintain their own schools as well as the schools everywhere else in the state.
And what of Montgomery County? The county’s colossal FY 2011 budget deficit is prompting questions by many elected officials and staffers as to where the county’s spending is going and whether it is justified. Here is how Montgomery’s per capita spending compared to twenty other counties around the state for which we have data in FY 2009.
On a per capita basis, Montgomery spends more than the vast majority of other counties on pretty much everything. The only major items in which it is middle-of-the-pack or lower are the Board of Elections (on which it ranked 11th), economic development (11th) and the State’s Attorney office (19th). But in terms of total spending, the county ranks high for one big reason and one less important reason.
The big reason is schools. As we have seen above, Montgomery is a big-time loser in school aid due to the wealth formula. The county has chosen to overcome that handicap through massive local spending on its schools. The less important reason is the county’s health and human services spending. As we saw in Part Three, Montgomery spends almost seven times as much per person on health and human services as does Prince George’s County. Montgomery is effectively subsidizing Prince George’s on that measure by paying for the needs of the latter county’s poor.
If Montgomery wants to get more state aid, there is a quick way to do it: get poor – the faster, the better. Given the calamitous state of the county’s economy, that option is not completely out of the question.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
