Matt, may I suggest adding "D-14" to your references to Delegate Taylor in your post, and conforming the spelling of his name to the above? Delegate Taylor is from Montgomery County's northeastern border with Howard County and includes Damascus, a conservative alcohol-free town within an otherwise liberal District 14 and a very liberal county. The district is moderate, conservative by Montgomery standards. A lot of Donna Edwards' voters came from this district.
It's a 3-member district. My site Crablaw Maryland Weekly did not follow District 14 intensely this election season, but it would not surprise me if having a pro-life Democrat in 14 helped keep down the influence of the religious right in the northern corner of the district near Damascus. One of Taylor's fellow Democratic Delegate in 14 is openly lesbian, which works fine in much of Montgomery but less so in Damascus. This paragraph is speculative on my part, I did not follow the race.
Frankly, it may well be a Democrat with some conservative instincts who can get this thing sold. I don't know how well you know local Maryland politics, Matt, but I will assume you know it well. For other readers, there is a lot of tension growing between Peter Franchot, a sapphire-blue newly elected State Comptroller from a sapphire blue speck in sapphire-blue Montgomery County, and the relatively conservative old-school Senate President for Life Thomas "Mike" Miller who is from the distant ex-urb/tobacco country of lower Prince George's and Calvert Counties. I suspect the two won't come to blows, but arrogance and ego are the only things they have in common.
It is perhaps helpful that a bill like this one should come from a Democratic delegate who is not from lower Montgomery and who catches flak for being, for example, pro-life.
Enough local "inside baseball."
Senate President for Life
he's gone in 2010.
What are you implying? Not clear to me.
What the bill does is establish reporting to the PSC by zip code on broadband usage/availability of service.
Broadband is currently not a regulated public utility. The initiation of reporting requirements by zip is due to heavy complaints in minority/rural areas on lack of access/availablity.
Here is what the bill does specifically:
[1] breakdown by zip on where service is offered [2] %household offered, %household accepted by zip [3] available bandwidth up/down by zip [4] price/meg by zip [5] report new services/upgrades by zip [6] make above available at PSC site.
The relationship of Damascus to this bill is complaints of slow roll-out as compared to down-county.
1) Miller is out - by his recent decision - in 2010. So if he lives another 47 months, you are right. No one can force him out. Technically, Castro is not President for Life either. Technically, you are correct. Mike Miller works in the Mike Miller building; I think Castro works in the Castro building too.
2) Broadband is not a publicly regulated utility, but the utilities and their parent companies have a stake in killing it, because even the regulated utilities can profit from the power to control access and delivery based on content.
3) The utility companies throw around a lot of money on State Circle, and the less radical the proponent of a bill, the fewer reasons that the Senate President for Life (he keeps the title even if he retires, since no Democrat can take it from him without killing him) will deliver it a swift kick. (Miller is Senate President, not Speaker of the House, but if it's dead in the Senate, it's dead.)
If I were a utility lobbyist, I would do my best to smother this one in the nursery, even though the bill is indeed cautious. If I wanted to smother it, I would call Mike Miller on his cell phone and ask him how I could help his people kill this unnecessary, tie-dye hippie driven bill, preferably in committee. (In real life, I am the tie-dye hippie, but I digress.) Miller and Speaker Busch are having difficult relations, but killed later or killed earlier is still killed.
4) Mike Miller and Sen Brian Frosh (D-16) are butting heads as we speak on the death penalty bills, Miller supporting Norman Stone's pro-death penalty bill while Frosh's bill is about to die 6-5 in committee. Miller's likely to have trouble with uberliberal Jamin Raskin (D-20), whose election involved a successful and nasty primary challenge against a long-time Miller ally Ida Ruben. Sen. Madaleno (D-18) and Miller get along somewhat better, but in part because Madaleno is known as easy to work with and a sharp shot on budget matters. But all of these Senators come from or near the part of the county that Miller derides as the "Chevy Chase/Kensington liberal agenda" i.e. mostly Madaleno's district 18 and nearby Takoma "Granola" Park, Bethesda and Forest Glen.
Mind you, I am the dirty hippie that Miller is often worrying about.
Taylor's sponsorship has nothing to do with masking a 'Chevy Chase/Kensington liberal agenda' or a 'radical proponent'.
Del. Taylor is a member of the Economic Matters Committee and more specifically, the Business Regulation and Public Utilities Work Group(s).
The co-sponsors are from areas where there are complaints of alleged redlining, including Cumberland and a significant chunk of Prince George's.
Naturally the companies involved in broadband delivery will want no part of reporting requirements -- but Taylor is not playing a trojan horse role in an ideological conflict here.
Re: Taylor not being radical - exactly my point - agreed - but you said it better.
Your analysis of this district is completely erroneous. It is a very safely Democratic district. Two of the other 6 districts are more conservative-15 and 39. Damascus is a very small part of the district. This district becomes more safely Democratic in every election.
If I may ask, if the district is so blue, and greater Damascus area is such a small part of the district (lower density but a large chunk of land), how did a pro-life Democrat, of all things, prevail over other Democrats? Taylor is African-American, and Burtonsville has a substantial African-American community, but where is the pro-life base that moved Taylor into third place over other Democratic choices in the primary?
It's like hearing that a pro-gay marriage Republican beat out the religious right, but that the district is very, very red.
Because abortion issues are not an election driver in MD unless the politician in question makes it so (1).
I don't understand why you would expect one unresponsive, no-name challenger to beat an incumbent on the D14 team.
(1) There are three bills in the House right now that are anti-choice: 2 parental notification bills & one fetus=person bill. Taylor is not a co-sponsor on any of them.
If Taylor were standing at the corner of New Hampshire Ave and Rt 108 with an aborted fetus poster, well, then his pro-life position might become an election issue.
Finally: nobody's up-in-arms about these bills they're going nowhere, one way or another.
I ask not to challenge, but for information; as stated, I did not follow this race, and I do thank you for your correction.
