democratic

Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates Outline Housing Policies At Forum

September 22, 2021 by Maryland Matters

Six Democratic gubernatorial candidates laid out their plans to tackle housing insecurity and protect tenants at a Tuesday night forum, coalescing around reforms like access to counsel in eviction cases and rent stabilization.

Democratic gubernatorial candidates Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot, former Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, former Obama administration official Ashwani Jain, former U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr., former nonprofit CEO Wes Moore and former U.S. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez attended the Tuesday evening forum hosted by the Montgomery County Renters Alliance.

Maryland Matters Founding Editor Josh Kurtz, alongside Baltimore Sun reporter Pamela Wood and Washington Post reporter Kyle Swenson and attendees asked candidates about a wide range of proposed housing reforms.

Here’s what the candidates had to say about tenant protections, eviction prevention and affordable housing in Maryland:

Access to counsel in eviction cases

The Maryland General Assembly passed a bill from Del. Wanika T. Fisher (D-Prince George’s) during their 2021 legislative session to provide tenants access to counsel in eviction cases — but a separate bill that would’ve raised court filing fees and eviction surcharges to pay for that access to counsel didn’t pass before the session ended.

Candidates expressed their support for giving tenants the right to counsel in eviction cases at the forum.

King said his progressive advocacy organization Strong Future Maryland supported Democratic Attorney General Brian Frosh’s effort last year to raise court fees and summary ejectment surcharges to fund access to counsel.

“We have to have a right to counsel for tenants that is funded so that tenants are supported when they go to court,” King said in his opening remarks.

Perez said that Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) should use some federal rent relief funding to pay for the expanded access to counsel until the General Assembly passes a more permanent funding solution. He also said the state should include diversion programs as part of the eviction process.

“This governor can solve this emergency with a stroke of a pen,” Perez said.

Franchot, who pushed for the fast disbursement of rent relief funding at a recent Board of Public Works hearing, said federal rent relief funding needs to be used to fund the initiative in the short term. He said Marylanders at risk of eviction can’t afford to wait until the General Assembly reconvenes for assistance.

“Hundreds of thousands of low-wage earners who are facing eviction couldn’t care less about what the legislature’s doing and what might be done down the road,” Franchot said.

Moore said that while the vast majority of landlords have counsel in eviction cases, only a small number of tenants do. He said providing tenants with access to counsel is “the just thing to do and it is the right thing to do.”

Gansler said he supports a full right to counsel in civil cases including evictions, and said the state should promote legal aid services until such a law is passed.

“When both sides have counsel, you’re more likely to come to a satisfactory resolution for both sides,” Gansler said.

Just cause eviction laws

HB 1312, introduced by Del. Jheanelle K. Wilkins (D-Montgomery) during the 2021 legislative session, required that landlords provide a “just cause” to evict a tenant. Just cause eviction laws are meant to shore up housing stability and protect tenants from unnecessary evictions, according to the housing policy organization Local Housing Solutions.

Just cause provisions were removed from Wilkins’ bill in committee, and the legislation failed to pass before the end of the 2021 legislative session, but candidates praised the proposed reform Monday night.

“We have to have just cause protections to make sure that the landlord is required to provide you with a notice, a reasoning, and at least some sort of effort to remedy the issue before going straight to evictions,” Jain said. “And again, not only is that going to help more people stay in homes and housing, but it’s going to be better for the economy and better for the community as a whole.”

King said candidates need to be clear about their policy stances on issues like access to counsel and just cause eviction reforms — which he supports — in their campaigns.

“One of my fears is, if this campaign is waged in generalities, not in specifics, we will not have a clear mandate to act,” King said. “Just Cause Eviction laws, yes or no? If yes, say it in a campaign and let’s campaign on that.”

Gansler likewise voiced his support for just cause legislation.

“We have to have a governor who stands for the principle that people should not be evicted from their home, unless there’s just cause to do so,” he said.

Perez said his “biggest disappointment” of the 2021 legislative session was that a package of housing reforms, including Wilkins’ bill, didn’t pass. He said he hopes the General Assembly will try again when they return to session.

“Success is about persistence and it’s not just just cause, but it’s other things,” Perez said. “I’d like to deal with appraisal issues in the home purchase context and some real barriers to entry for people who are trying to buy a home.”

Moore said conversations around eviction reforms like just cause legislation need to go beyond housing policy.

“We’re talking about things like how do we make rent more affordable and how do we think about preventing eviction and just cause, all really important things,” Moore said. “The other thing we must also couple that with is how are we making sure that people are getting paid a fair wage.”

Rent stabilization and affordable housing

Candidates also discussed rent stabilization, a reform highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic when some local jurisdictions in Maryland, including Prince George’s County, placed temporary restrictions on rent increases and late fees. They also touched on how they would increase the state’s stock of affordable housing as governor.

Maryland has no statewide rent stabilization or rent control, although the city of Takoma Park has a longstanding stabilization law.

Jain said he supports rent control — but said such a program should only be undertaken if the state limits its property tax increases.

“Rent control is really important in terms of providing people a sustainable way of paying their bills, knowing what bills are going to come up,” Jain said. “The only exception is, we can only do that if we’re not raising property taxes.”

Franchot agreed with Jain, and said he was concerned about small landlords’ property taxes if rent stabilization rules are enacted.

“The devil’s in the details,” Franchot said.

King said Maryland needs a “statewide approach” to rent stabilization and other tenant issues. He advocated a holistic approach to housing policy by funding public transit and building up communities in addition to housing, and said he supports building the Red Line in Baltimore.

“By not building the Red Line project in Baltimore City, Gov. Hogan set Baltimore back 20, 30, maybe even 40 years,” King said, adding that he supports building light rail in southern Maryland. “We have to invest in transit as we invest in housing.”

He also argued for reforming zoning laws in order to make affordable housing easier to develop.

Moore said building affordable housing also needs to mean investing in education, transit and access to medical services within communities.

“This is not about how we move people to opportunity, this is about how we move opportunity to people,” Moore said.

Gansler advocated for renovating existing buildings into affordable housing rather than building entirely new units, citing concerns about urban sprawl.

“I don’t think the answer is to build more houses,” Gansler said. “There’s plenty of houses out there.”

Franchot echoed Gansler’s concerns about urban sprawl.

Speeding up rent relief funding

Maryland has received hundreds of millions in federal rent relief funding, but that money has been slow to get to tenants and landlords. While state and local governments’ disbursement of rent relief funding has increased in recent months, candidates said the state should be doing more to speed up the process.

Franchot reiterated his calls for streamlined rent relief throughout the forum.

“It is held up in a kind of pattern of incompetence that results in the very meager allocations that are made,” Franchot said.

Moore said the state government needs to work more closely with local jurisdictions to get out rent relief funding, and cautioned against putting all the blame on local governments for slow rent relief disbursement.

“The state can do a better job, and the state can actually take leadership and work in partnership with a local jurisdiction,” he said.

King said the state could be learning from local programs, like some jurisdictions’ partnership with United Way to bundle rent relief applications by working directly with landlords.

The current administration has a broader pattern of not coordinating with local governments, King said. “You talk to county executives and they’ll tell you they heard about some of the COVID policy changes at the governor’s press conference,” he said.

Perez said state officials should be working with the judiciary and sheriffs to find out which tenants are facing eviction in order to expedite rent relief funding to them.

“We should know, every person in this state, who is about to get evicted, so that we can provide that relief. We can move them to the front of the queue, so that doesn’t happen,” Perez said.

Baltimore tech entrepreneur and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Rosenbaum, who along with former Clinton administration official Jon Baron was not invited to the forum, said in a statement that “despite millions of dollars being available to keep people in their homes, the vast majority of funds still haven’t made it into the pockets of struggling Marylanders. This is what frustrates people about government, and it spotlights why we need new leadership who understands how to make these systems work for regular people.”

Former Prince George’s County Executive and gubernatorial candidate Rushern L. Baker III (D) withdrew from the forum following the death of his wife, Christa Beverly Baker, on Sept. 18.

Watch the full forum here.

By Bennett Leckrone

Wes Moore Launches Bid for Governor With Vow to Eliminate Racial Wealth Disparities

June 9, 2021 by Maryland Matters

Wes Moore launched his highly anticipated bid for governor Monday, blending his personal and inspiring life story with a full-throated call for a more equitable Maryland.

Moore, the 42-year-old military veteran, best-selling author and former CEO of an anti-poverty organization, formally joined the Democratic primary race by releasing a campaign video that’s heavy on biography and his desire to close the wealth gap in Maryland.

“One thing has become clear to me: Opportunity is readily available to some and dangerously absent to others,” Moore says in the campaign ad.

In an interview, Moore said that even though he’s seeking the Democratic nomination against seasoned Maryland officeholders and potentially two former members of President Obama’s cabinet, he believes that after holding leadership positions in the military, in business, and with a high-profile philanthropy, he has the right experience to prevail in the primary and the general election — and to achieve his ambitious policy goals.

“There is nobody who is more experienced to tackle the challenges of today and lead a forward-facing conversation about the future,” he said.

Moore, who rose from poverty to become the CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, a New York-based philanthropic organization that distributed $600 million during Moore’s tenure, has resisted entreaties to run for public office before. But he said he was moved to do so this time because of the unequal devastation in Maryland wrought by COVID-19.

“Coming out of the pandemic we have got to focus in this state on closing the wealth gap in a way that we haven’t before,” the Baltimore resident said, adding that he planned on “being very deliberate about using the power of the second floor [of the State House] in Annapolis.”

Moore said his ultimate priority as governor would be to make Maryland the first state to “eliminate the racial wealth gap.” He noted that despite great pockets of affluence in Maryland, 45% of children live in poverty.

“This should not be allowed to stand,” he said.

With that goal in mind, Moore said that on the campaign trail he plans to emphasize issues like education, economic opportunity, wages and workforce development, entrepreneurship, equitable loan and investment programs, public transportation, and affordable housing.

Moore knows a thing or two about emerging from poverty and achieving great success. It’s long been part of his narrative as he’s made his way through a business career, his philanthropic work and becoming a best-selling author. Now he’ll attempt to use his biography as a potent political weapon.

A recent poll on the nine-candidate Democratic primary field found Moore in fifth place, with 2% of the vote. Significantly, he was unknown to 76% of the likely Democratic primary voters surveyed.

But Moore said that since he began traveling the state to explore a run for governor earlier this year, he discovered that through the coverage of his career and the books he’s written on the criminal justice system, poverty, and the aftermath of Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore, voters seemed to know his story. “On name recognition, people’s acknowledgement and knowledge of our work is bigger than people think,” he said.

The campaign’s two minute and 48 second introductory video of Moore reinforces his narrative and aims to show that the candidate is equally fluent and effective in the halls of power and on city streets. The ad was produced by SKDK, a leading national Democratic media firm, and except for a brief segment where a man is talking in a barbershop that Moore is visiting, the candidate narrates throughout the entire piece.

“My name is Wes Moore,” he says as the ad begins. “When I was 3, I watched my dad die in our home. By 11, I felt the feeling of handcuffs on my wrists. My life could have gone a different way. But I was lucky. I had a mom who believed in me before I believed in myself. Kids like me, we didn’t think there was a world where anything was possible. We liked to say that my mom wore sweaters so we could wear coats.”

The video features footage of actors playing a young Moore and his mother, and there are frequently split-screen images of run-down areas and desirable neighborhoods. Some of the most arresting images come when figures on one side of the screen appear on the other, to make points about Moore’s background and success story or about the challenges facing the state. One features a woman cleaning a window on the left side of the screen who then appears on the right side in a white lab coat, completing a complex mathematical equation on a whiteboard.

“I believe no matter what roads you start down, you deserve a path to success,” Moore says in the ad. “Unlike most who run for office, I know what it’s like to struggle, and I know what it’s like to achieve dreams my parents couldn’t even have imagined.”

Moore joins a crowded Democratic primary field that already includes former Prince George’s County executive Rushern L. Baker III, former Clinton administration official Jon Baron, state Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot, former state attorney general Douglas F. Gansler, former Obama administration official Ashwani Jain, former U.S. Education Secretary John B. King Jr., and Baltimore tech entrepreneur Michael Rosenbaum. Former Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez is also pondering the race.

Moore has assembled a seasoned team of campaign staffers and advisers that includes several with prior Maryland experience.

“We’re going to have the best team in the field,” Moore said. “It’s a team that knows how to win.”

Moore declined to say what his campaign’s fundraising goals are, but said, “I have a full degree of confidence that we’re going to raise what we need to be successful. It has already started and it’s already exciting.”

By Josh Kurtz

Gansler Launches Gubernatorial Campaign With Call to Legalize Marijuana

May 25, 2021 by Maryland Matters

Former state Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) launched a second bid for governor on Tuesday with an embrace of “progressive” policies aimed at addressing long-simmering inequalities.

He also said the time has come for Maryland to legalize and tax marijuana.

A former two-term A.G. who served eight years as Montgomery County State’s Attorney, Gansler lost the 2014 gubernatorial primary to then-Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D).

He has been out of politics for seven years, serving as an attorney in private practice in Washington, D.C. One of his current clients, an international consortium of road-building companies, is suing the Maryland Department of Transportation.

Gansler said his loss in the 2014 primary was “really tough. I had never lost an election before. It was like getting a bucket of ice water poured over my head. It was a very humbling experience.”

The prep school and Yale-educated former prosecutor rubbed some people the wrong way early in his career. Many considered him too brash.

But Gansler said his defeat “made me a better person. … It’s made me a better listener.”

If elected, he will seek the legalization and taxation of recreational marijuana. He also said it’s important that the state expunge the records of people who’ve been convicted only of recreational use.

“Look, it’s time,” Gansler said. “It will allow us to regulate the product for safety [and] educate people on how to consume it responsibly.”

He enters an increasingly crowded Democratic primary field that includes Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot, former Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III, entrepreneur Mike Rosenbaum, former U.S. Secretary of Education John King, philanthropist Jon Baron, and Ashwani Jain, who served in the Obama White House.

Gansler said that as attorney general, his staff worked with every agency in the state, giving him a working knowledge of government that the political newcomers in the field lack.

“People are thirsting for experience, somebody who has a progressive record of getting things done,” he said. “And I would argue that that’s unique to my candidacy in this race.”

Gansler entered the 2014 race having won back-to-back statewide races with 61% and 98% of the vote. But his campaign for governor was tripped up by multiple controversies, including one involving a photograph of him at a party that one of his underage sons attended in Dewey Beach, Del.

Political science professor Mileah Kromer said Gansler will have twin challenges — re-establishing his political persona and dealing with issues from his last race, like the “red Solo cup” flap.

“It’s not starting from scratch, in terms of name recognition,” the Goucher College of Maryland pollster said. “He’s not coming out of nowhere. But he’s going to have the same sort of uphill battle as everybody else to reintroduce himself to voters.”

Gansler raised $224,300 in the filing period that ended on Jan. 13. He reported $428,241 cash on hand.

During the same period, Franchot (D) raised $770,631. His war chest stood at a formidable $2,216,592.

Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz is running in the Republican primary, as is Robin Ficker.

By Bruce DePuyt

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