With piercing blue eyes, a near photographic memory and enormous attention to detail, O’Malley could leave a deep impression on anyone he met, whether a restaurant waitress or a corporate CEO. For years, religious leaders, business executives and university presidents would gather each summer at Obrycki’s Crab House in Baltimore, where they simply celebrated their friendship with O’Malley. In 1988, then-Del. Nancy K. Kopp came back from her first meeting with O’Malley and said simply, “Now I know what all the shouting is about.”
O’Malley was also exquisitely sensitive. This made him a wonderful friend and mentor, but it also left him totally unsuited for elective politics himself. When he was 29, he was elected to the county’s charter-writing board, but he never ran for office again (though he briefly flirted with running for governor).
Even the hint of media criticism could drive him to distraction. In 1989, one generally favorable newspaper profile contained an unattributed quote suggesting that O’Malley was a brilliant strategist and businessman but not really a courtroom lawyer. Part of the quote was something like “if you want to hide something from Peter, put it in the law library.” O’Malley suspected (correctly) that it came from me, confronted me, and then found himself a case in Maryland’s highest court to argue (and win) to prove (again, correctly) that I was wrong.
O’Malley was taught in high school by the Xaverian brothers whose Latin motto is “Concordia Res Parvae Crescunt” (roughly translated, “In unity, small things grow”). He abhorred disunity and disorganization in his law practice, his county and the Democratic Party, and he sought to impose discipline and structure on all of them, winning both admiration and bruised feelings in the process. He himself was famously self-disciplined, and his real genius lay in reforming disorganized institutions and attacking ideas and plans that lacked analytical rigor.
To those of us who railed against O’Malley’s organization politics in the late ’70s, he would ask: “Are you advocating disorganization?” He aggressively pursued civic consensus in an era when it led to big things, such as Metro expansion, the modernization of the University of Maryland and construction of public arenas. Today, O’Malley’s question about political disorganization seems more relevant than ever, as our fragmented political culture seems less capable of responding to regional challenges, whether at Metro or in our transportation and education systems.
After he spearheaded the construction of Verizon (then-MCI) Center in the mid-’90s, O’Malley, at only age 58, largely withdrew from the public stage. Many assumed he had retired young, a man with no worlds left to conquer. But in fact he became more active than ever, working with Jan to expand their quiet lifetime ministry of helping others in need to achieve self-sufficiency.
O’Malley approached his charitable works with the same intensity he applied to organizational politics. Adopting destitute families, teaching English to immigrant workers and counseling prisoners became virtually his full-time occupation for the last 15 years of his life. The list of O’Malley beneficiaries, running into the thousands, would surprise his critics from ancient political wars.
The program distributed at O’Malley’s funeral closed with a quote often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” Some might be tempted to see O’Malley’s later years as a model for life after great power. Peter F. O’Malley would certainly disagree. “It’s about real power,” he would say, “the power of love.”
Yes, it certainly was that, but also the power of organization.
The writer, a lawyer, was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates (D-Prince George’s) from 1979 to 1995.
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