PG-Politics Endorses and Opposes: General Assembly

Comments (recommendations below):  PG-Politics opposes the reelection of every incumbent member of the General Assembly who claims to represent Prince George's County.

Members of the General Assembly have all taken an oath of office promising to uphold the U.S. and Maryland constitutions--and they have broken their solemn oaths.  While working to find implied constitution rights (like gay marriage), they have stomped on the explicit rights that are supposed to be guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

Over the past few years, they have passed, or passively approved, some 40 increases in taxes and fees. 

They allowed to go into effect a disgustingly obscene redistricting plan making Maryland the most ridiculously Gerrymandered state in the nation.

Once again, they acted anti-democratically to dilute the voting rights and voting effectiveness of Prince Georgians by providing for the addition of partisan political patronage jobs to the non-partisan Board of Education.

They passed pro-criminal laws protecting the lives of killers and providing special benefits to violators of federal immigration and drug laws.

At the same time, they passed numerous authoritarian nanny laws aimed at controlling our lives and/or banning or criminalizing what had been normal everyday behavior.

They failed to provide effective oversight of the botched rollout of Maryland's health exchange, thus allowing Lt. Gov. Brown to oversee wasting millions and millions of taxpayer dollars..

While severely criticizing a Republican drunk, our delegates hypocritically retained a Democratic drunk driver as their majority leader.

None of the incumbents deserve reelection.

Recommendations: 

General: PG-Politics recommends not voting for incumbent delegates and senators.  Withholding your vote from unopposed incumbents in the primary election, and voting for one of the few Republicans or writing in names in the general election, are about the only ways of indicating a lack of confidence in the performance of incumbents who are unopposed in the primary election..

Senate races:

District 21: Democrat: Don't vote.  Republican: No candidates.

District 22:  Democrat: Don't vote.  Republican: Janice Fountaine is unopposed.

District 23:  Democrat: Vote for David Grogan.  Republican: No candidates.

District 24:  Democrat:  Vote for Bobby Henry.  Incumbent Joanne Benson is known to have lied to community groups on key issues.  Republican: No candidates.

District 25:  Democrat: Vote for Terry Goolsby rather than too-dumb-to-be-a-crook Sen. Ulysses Currie, or Del. Melony Griffith, who had a white waiter fired on racial grounds and supported taxpayer welfare  subsidies for multi-millionaire sports moguls.  Republican:  Kory Boone is unopposed.

District 26:  Democrat:  Vote for Brian Woolfolk rather than Sen. Anthony Muse, Del. Veronica Turner, or Jerry Mathis (convicted of campaign violations from an earlier race).  Republican:  Kelley Howells is unopposed.

District 27:  Democrat: Don't vote.  Republican:  Joe Crawford is unopposed.

District 47:  Democrat: Vote for Bladensburg Mayor Walter James rather than Sen. Victor Ramirez.   Republican: No candidates.


Delegate races:
District 21: Democrat: Don't vote. Republican:  There are three seats, but Katherine Butcher is the only candidate.

District 22: Democrat: Don't vote.  The primary qualifications of the lone democratic challenger (Rushern Baker IV) to the three incumbents are his name and his father (serial-campaign-promise-breaker Rushern Baker III).  Republican:  There are three seats, but Lynn White is the only candidate.

District 23B:  Democrat:  Vote for Thea Wilson and Ron Watson over Del. Marvin Holmes and misogynist, interest conflicted Del. Joe Vallario.  Independent:  Shukoor Ahmed will be on the general election, but not primary, ballot.  There are no Republican candidates.  Republican:  There are two seats, but Mike Hethmon is the only candidate.   

District 24: Democrat:  Vote for Erek Barron for one slot.  The other two slots are a difficult choice.  None of the three incumbents (Howard, Swain, Vaughn) or the criminal former delegate (Alston) deserve election.  Philip Raines may be the best of the remaining crew.  Greg Hall seems likable and understands the needs of small business, but his gunslinging, drug dealing past is a problem.  Note that challenger Marva Jo Camp was a leader in past attempts to repeal or modify TRIM.  The other candidates don't seem to be campaigning for the job at all.  Republican:  There are three seats, but Cy Okoro is the only candidate.

District 25: Democrat: Don't vote.  The challengers mounting real campaigns are too closely linked to the incumbents.  Several of the other candidates have either no campaign information online or have sent out bad links.  Note that former Del. Juanita Miller was also a controversial WSSC commissioner who considered ability and performance to be of secondary importance in selecting WSSC contractors.    Republican: No candidates.


District 26:  Democrat:  Vote for Tamara Davis Brown, Xavier Aragona, and Keith Gray.    Republican: No candidates.

District 27A: Democrat:  Don't Vote.  Republican: Joe Crawford is unopposed.


District 27B: Democrat: Vote for LaRhonda Owens.  Republican: Phil Parenti.  (Note that the Washington Post made no Republican endorsement in this race claiming that there were no contested Republican races).

District 47A:  Democrat:  Vote for Malcolm Augustine and Jimmy Tarlau.  Republican:  There are two seats, but Fred Price is the only candidate.

District 47B:  Democrat:  Will Campos is unopposed.  Republican: No candidates.