By Adam Pagnucco.
Here is a tale of democracy in two sister states: Maryland and Virginia. And it revolves around one question:
What happens when a state legislator leaves office before the expiration of their term?
In Virginia, state law requires that a special election be held to pick the successor. § 24.2-216 of Virginia code states, “When a vacancy occurs in the membership of the General Assembly during the recess of the General Assembly or when a member-elect to the next General Assembly dies, resigns, or becomes legally incapacitated to hold office prior to its meeting, the Governor shall issue a writ of election to fill the vacancy.”
In Maryland, the state constitution requires an appointment to pick the successor. Article III Sec. 13. (a) (1) states:
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In case of death, disqualification, resignation, refusal to act, expulsion, or removal from the county or city for which he shall have been elected, of any person who shall have been chosen as a Delegate or Senator, or in case of a tie between two or more such qualified persons, the Governor shall appoint a person to fill such vacancy from a person whose name shall be submitted to him in writing, within thirty days after the occurrence of the vacancy, by the Central Committee of the political party, if any, with which the Delegate or Senator, so vacating, had been affiliated, at the time of the last election or appointment of the vacating Senator or Delegate, in the County or District from which he or she was appointed or elected, provided that the appointee shall be of the same political party, if any, as was that of the Delegate or Senator, whose office is to be filled, at the time of the last election or appointment of the vacating Delegate or Senator, and it shall be the duty of the Governor to make said appointment within fifteen days after the submission thereof to him.
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Legislative appointments in Maryland tend to be like bananas: they come in bunches. Back in 2007, four appointments in MoCo were made in four months: Senate District 39, House District 39, House District 16 and House District 18. That prompted freshman Senators Rich Madaleno and Jamie Raskin to introduce SB 693, which would have amended the state’s constitution to require special elections for legislative vacancies that would “coincide with the next ensuing presidential and congressional election.” Because the bill did not mandate separate, stand-alone elections, its fiscal note described its cost as “not expected to be significant.” But party central committees and the political bosses who control them jealously protect their power, so this bill died. Seventeen more such bills, most of them compromises like this one, marched off to the General Assembly’s guillotine through last year.
What has happened since the Madaleno/Raskin bill died?
Virginia
From 2009 through now, Virginia has held 18 special elections for its State Senate and 31 special elections for its House of Delegates. All but 3 of these elections had multiple candidates. The average number of voters in these elections was 19,568 for the Senate and 6,746 for the House. One of these special elections (Senate District 7 in 2023) saw a turnout of 39,184 voters as Democrat Aaron Rouse flipped a seat previously held by a Republican who had been elected to Congress. (In Maryland, vacant legislative seats cannot flip between parties because of the nature of its appointment process.)
Democracy is alive and well across the Potomac.
Virginia State Senator Aaron Rouse, winner of a huge 2023 special election that flipped a seat from the GOP.
Maryland
While the voices of Virginia voters were heard regularly, Maryland continued on with its party central committee appointment system after the Madaleno/Raskin reform bill died. From 2009 on, the General Assembly saw 25 appointments to the State Senate and 67 appointments to the House of Delegates. That’s an average of more than 5 appointments per year.
Many of the appointees to the House including four currently serving from Montgomery County (Pam Queen in District 14, Linda Foley in District 15, Jheanelle Wilkins in District 20 and Teresa Woorman in District 16) were central committee members at the time of their appointment. Another central committee member, Aaron Kaufman of District 18, had himself appointed to fill a vacant slot on an election ballot. Three years ago, Bethesda Magazine found that 35% of MoCo’s state legislators were originally appointed. (One note: Foley deserves respect for becoming the principal champion of special elections in the House.)
Some of these appointments occurred under questionable circumstances. One of the worst examples occurred in the City of Baltimore in 2020, when a delegate convicted of accepting bribes was replaced by the city’s Democratic central committee. The winner was the daughter of a long-time delegate. She also happened to be a committee member (a party chair, no less) and cast the deciding vote for herself on a 3-2 tally. A party official threw out a reporter right before the candidates began answering questions from the committee. Only after a firestorm of condemnation was the reporter allowed back in. The appointment winner told Baltimore Brew, “I’m a daddy’s girl, but I’m my own person and I won’t allow our relationship to interfere with my work,” as she entered the legislature along with her father.
Consider this stat: while Maryland politicians have protected their boss system after killing off reform, 561,344 ballots have been cast in Virginia special elections.
To their credit, many state elected officials have grown sick of boss politics. Last month, the Maryland Senate voted 43-1 in favor of a special elections bill by Senator Cheryl Kagan that resembled the ancient Madaleno/Raskin bill. Because Kagan’s bill schedules special elections to concur with already-scheduled general elections, the bill’s fiscal note finds that it has minimal costs, if any. Nevertheless, the leadership of the House of Delegates sabotaged the bill with unrelated redistricting language, possibly dooming its passage once again.
Marylanders have been waiting for nearly two decades for the right to vote, but political oligarchs have blocked it year after year. It is time for the era of boss politics to end. It is time for the era of voting, as Virginia residents have long enjoyed, to begin.