Down-Ballot Dealer—Inaugural Edition

Down-ballot items (local offices and referenda) can sometimes have as great an impact on the place you live and your quality of life as more familiar elections for governor, Congress, senator. Down-ballot votes count more in a way, because the electorate is often smaller. Few media outlets cover the issues adequately and the campaigns tend to be limited. Moreover, in a globalized world, many people find themselves voting in a community that is new to them. So, it’s common to skip these choices, or base one’s vote on minimal information. This unfortunately can allow small groups of people to impose decisions on whole communities by taking advantage of the information gap.

This Provinciapolitan hopes you all will take part and make your voice heard on those bond and ballot questions as well down-ballot races. So, during election season, this blog provides The Down-Ballot Dealer, a space to dig into these seemingly arcane questions. In this first issue, let’s look at the questions Marylanders are voting on:

Question 1: AMENDING THE STATE BUDGET PROCESS

Here’s The Deal: this amendment is long overdue. It will allow the Maryland General Assembly (State Senate and House of Delegates) to add funding to the state’s operating budget, and reallocate it more freely, so long as the total budget for the executive branch does not exceed the top line proposed by the governor. If, like This Provinciapolitan, you moved to the Old Line State from elsewhere, it’s understandable to wonder why the Assembly isn’t doing this already. Maryland has a “strong executive budget” system, which lets the governor set most of the budget’s terms with very limited input from the people’s representatives. The system is a relic of an overwrought response to a fiscal crisis over 100 years ago, before the state even had a unified state budget. As the wonks at Maryland Matters note, “Allowing the legislature to act like a typical American legislature for the capital budget and not for the operating budget can lead to some nonsensical results.”

The arguments against the amendment so far are the same as those used to adopt the system during the Wilson administration—get rid of checks and balances so that one man, the governor, has all the responsibility. It was a poor argument then, and it’s even worse now—diverse societies and diversified economies require more voices in decision-making.

This amendment will still not give citizens much voice over spending priorities, or bring Maryland in line with other American state’s practices (no matter what the Baltimore Sun says). Indeed, it will give the governor a line-item veto to deter overzealous use of the legislature’s new voice in spending—but this amendment should be considered a first step in the right direction.

Question 2: LEGALIZING SPORTS BETTING

Here’s the Deal: don’t double down on a mistake. The problem with this measure is not sports, it’s not gambling, it’s that the state is effectively investing in the success of a revenue source that succeeds by preying on its citizens.

Over the last two decades, the State of Maryland and its leaders have developed an unacknowledged addiction to gambling. How can you tell? Because, when faced with difficult situations, state leaders—from both parties—always ask the dealer for another card. Want to cut taxes? Legalize slots! Have an economic downturn? Let the big casinos in ! Stunned by the nearly $4 billion/year educational investment recommended for a decade to come by the Kirwan Commission? Let ‘em add sports books!

Perhaps even more telling of the gaming lobby’s power is the alacrity with which today’s lawmakers responded to the bookies’ call: Maryland’s leaders debated the Ballot Question 1 (see above), an effort to strengthen the state’s checks and balances on concentrated power, for at least 16 years before putting it to the people. Yet it took only a single election cycle from the Supreme Court’s Murphy v. NCAA case (which struck down a federal law against sports betting) for lawmakers to put the sports book on the ballot.

The state police have not been breaking up Super Bowl pools or confiscating Final Four brackets. Murphy was decided two years ago. So what’s the rush? As Senator Craig Zucker, one of the amendment’s major supporters, told the Washington Post, “We had to rush out of Annapolis [because of the pandemic]. Instead of going back and forth at the House [of Delegates] with five seconds on the shot clock, we just put it on the ballot.” In other words, there was no meaningful study or debate on the long-term impact of the decision before sending to the voters.

The rush is—everyone else is doing it. If Maryland it doesn’t follow suit, proponents argue, its casinos aren’t as attractive or competitive and that means less money for education (the earmark helped get past gambling legislation approved by voters). Put simply, the argument for this measure is simply that Maryland shouldn’t lose in a race to the bottom. That’s asking voters to take some pretty long odds.

Got a down-ballot story or question to share? Contact This Provinciapolitan here.