By John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 5, 2006; C07
On Tuesday, Maryland voters will do more than pick a winner in the governor's race. They will play a large role in setting the tone in Annapolis for the coming four years.
Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s tenure, by all accounts, has been a conflict-filled affair, marked by frequent clashes between the state's first Republican governor in a generation and entrenched Democratic leaders in the General Assembly.
The election of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley would hardly guarantee harmony between the executive and legislative branches. But both O'Malley's policy proposals and his record as a Democratic mayor working with a Democratic but often-fractious City Council suggest that his relationship with state lawmakers would be far different.
Whether that is a good thing is a matter of perspective: Ehrlich and his supporters argue that the governor has helped limit the excesses of a legislature dominated by Democrats. "I think the lesson has gotten through to the leadership in Maryland that you can't just go off and do your own thing," Ehrlich said in an interview.
His detractors, among them O'Malley, argue that Maryland deserves better than a state government "that only makes progress by overriding a governor's veto."
In his four years, Ehrlich vetoed 86 Democratic initiatives, including high-profile bills he considered a burden on the business community that would raise the minimum wage, force Wal-Mart to spend more on employee health care and provide doctors with insurance relief. Lawmakers have overridden about a quarter of those.
During his seven years as mayor, O'Malley has vetoed only one City Council bill, affecting access to a parking lot.
"Compromise is not a dirty word," the mayor told an audience of mostly senior citizens last week in Ocean Pines. "It is how a free and diverse people come together to find common ground."
O'Malley, who has never trailed in the polls since entering the race, has been criticized by some in his party for running a cautious campaign devoid of bold policy proposals. Little of the agenda he has put forth is likely to rile legislative leaders, provided he can find a way to pay for it.
The priorities O'Malley has identified include pumping more money into school construction, holding the line on college tuition, establishing an affordable housing trust fund and providing tax incentives for small businesses to join health insurance purchasing pools.
O'Malley has also voiced support for many of the Democratic initiatives that Ehrlich vetoed, including a $1 increase in the minimum wage and the so-called Wal-Mart bill.
Ehrlich has talked far less during the campaign about what he would do with another term, focusing instead on his record and trying to persuade voters that O'Malley has not done enough to tackle crime and education in Baltimore.
Some of the ideas Ehrlich has floated, however, are certain to run into resistance in the Democratic legislature, including adding a merit-pay component to teachers' salaries. Other ideas, such as promoting transit-oriented development and affordable housing, could lend themselves to bipartisan support.
"Just think what this governor could do with a little cooperation," said House Minority Whip Anthony J. O'Donnell (R-Calvert), calling the legislative leadership "a very hostile Democratic monopoly that doesn't like to share power."
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said relationships between the Ehrlich administration and Democratic lawmakers are so sour that he sees little chance for improvement. Both Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch said they would expect a different dynamic with O'Malley, one reminiscent of Ehrlich's Democratic predecessor, Parris N. Glendening.
"O'Malley will go through the traditional growing pains that any executive does," said Busch (D-Anne Arundel). "But people are looking for and expecting a higher level of cooperation."
After being elected mayor in 1999, O'Malley said, he sought to foster that kind of relationship with his former colleagues on the City Council. Although all of the then-18 members of the council were Democrats, they hardly had a reputation for marching in lock step with one another or with the previous mayor, Kurt L. Schmoke (D).
"There had been a lot of tension," recalled Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., a council member since 1995. "The council would try to rebel, and the Schmoke administration would say, 'It's my way or the highway.' "
Mitchell recalled one instance in which running afoul of Schmoke cost him Opening Day tickets to the Baltimore Orioles, which the mayor distributed to other council members. O'Malley, by contrast, has made a practice of acknowledging members' birthdays with books on Baltimore, umbrellas emblazoned with the city seal and other gifts.
The outreach is more than symbolic. Upon taking office, O'Malley sought to make the new council president, Sheila Dixon, an ally in tackling crime and other urban ills. The mayor sought her counsel on initiatives before making them public.
Dixon became one of O'Malley's greatest lobbyists with the council. "When we disagree, I don't go out and have a press conference," Dixon said. "We sit down and talk."
O'Malley's leadership style was on full display last year in deliberations over a downtown convention center hotel.
In a bid to bolster convention traffic, O'Malley pushed a plan to finance the construction of a 752-room hotel with $305 million in city-issued revenue bonds. The administration was sharply questioned about why a private investor wasn't borrowing the money -- and whether the city was equally committed to fixing Baltimore's blighted neighborhoods.
With the measure's fate hanging in the balance, O'Malley agreed to several sweeteners.
Dixon was brought on board by the addition of a $59 million affordable housing fund, which helped placate clergy and citizen groups wary of the hotel project. Council member Kenneth N. Harris Sr. (D) said that "a lot of negotiating back and forth" led to additional commitments from O'Malley for a $9 million bond issue for recreation centers and a promise from Hilton for a scholarship fund for city students. The project proceeded on a series of 9 to 5 votes.
There were signs early in Ehrlich's term of a willingness to engage lawmakers and compromise. He arrived in Annapolis familiar with its ways: Before winning a seat in Congress, Ehrlich had served as a state delegate.
As governor, Ehrlich initially hosted breakfast meetings with Miller and Busch. He invited lawmakers over to the governor's mansion to watch sports.
And in 2004, Ehrlich championed what many say remains his signature achievement -- a $2.50 monthly surcharge on every Maryland homeowner to finance the modernization of wastewater treatment plants and improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay.
Ehrlich at first opposed a move by lawmakers to extend the so-called flush tax to septic users in rural areas, arguing that they were less responsible for the bay's pollution. But he later accepted the provision, saying the bill was "too important to veto."
More common, Busch said, have been bills on which Ehrlich did not get engaged or seek compromise, often choosing to exercise his veto.
"I believe that Bob Ehrlich, if he'd brought an approach of being a consensus builder, would have been much more successful and had a much greater chance of reelection," Busch said.
Ehrlich allies bristle at such assessments, suggesting that Democrats sought to undermine the Republican governor.
"I think he came in with the same kind of approach as when he was delegate -- he would talk with anybody, work with anybody," said Senate Minority Leader J. Lowell Stoltzfus (R-Somerset). "Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership bent over backwards to be obstructionists whenever they could. They never respected the fact that there was a new sheriff in town."
They say Ehrlich's vetoes were vindicated when courts struck down some recent bills -- including the Wal-Mart measure, an early voting plan and an effort to effectively fire the state's utility regulators -- that were passed despite his objections.
Democrats said they found no issue more perplexing than medical malpractice insurance, and they say crafting legislation to address it was a turning point in their relationship with Ehrlich.
After spending months drumming up interest in doctors' rising malpractice insurance costs, Ehrlich called the legislature into a rare special session in late 2004 to provide relief -- only to veto the legislation that emerged. The bill, Ehrlich said, included several provisions he could not stomach.
The bill had two components: a fund to help defray doctors' rising insurance bills and provisions designed to hold down payouts to plaintiffs in malpractice cases.
Ehrlich objected to lawmakers' decision to pay for the fund with a tax on HMOs. And he said the bill did not go far enough in curbing payouts to plaintiffs.
The state's largest doctors' and hospital groups urged Ehrlich to sign the bill, calling it an imperfect step in the right direction. He chose to veto it, calling on lawmakers to produce a better bill.
Instead, they overrode his veto.
