Returning Governance to Annapolis

Maryland's government changes hands on Wednesday from a Republican governor to a Democrat. To be sure, this change in party affiliation is significant. But there is another, equally striking change: A governor with a legislative personality is being succeeded by a governor-elect with an executive personality.

Having served eight years in the Maryland legislature, followed by eight years in Congress, Bob Ehrlich brought an essentially legislative disposition to the governorship. Although Martin O'Malley served on the Baltimore City Council, his formative experience has not been in legislative chambers but in running the city of Baltimore since 1999.

The difference is profound. The legislative culture, whether in Washington or Annapolis, focuses on politics and policy, not governance. While the legislative role is important, the conduct of any single legislator on any given day rarely has lasting significance to the daily operations of the government.

In contrast, the day-to-day management of the executive branch has lasting consequence, and that may ultimately shape the real difference between the next four years and the past four in Annapolis. Although he was averse to serious governance, Ehrlich's four years were not without accomplishment. The "flush tax" financing systemic sewer-system upgrades is nationally recognized. He jump-started planning for the intercounty connector after his predecessor abruptly terminated it. And he leaves a legacy of generally excellent judicial appointments.

But Ehrlich also leaves a legacy of confrontation with the legislature, a fundamentally weakened executive branch and a deep structural deficit in both the state's general fund and its transportation trust fund.

O'Malley and his lieutenant governor, Anthony Brown, have been working assiduously since Election Day to build relationships with the General Assembly, a somewhat easy job since the legislature is starved for leadership and for partnership with the executive branch.

But fixing the deficits and restoring governance will require sustained executive leadership. O'Malley inherits a general fund budget with a projected structural deficit of $5 billion over the next four years. The transportation trust fund has been depleted. The aging Metro subway system will require major investment, as will construction of the intercounty connector.

Program funding can be cut, but buildings, like people, age inexorably. Bringing the state's public-school stock up to current standards and taking 28,000 students out of portable classrooms will cost $5.9 billion. Many state buildings, including older facilities at the University of Maryland, are in shockingly poor condition, but there is a $5 billion backlog of requests for state capital projects. Meeting this demand will be difficult; Maryland is already at 93 percent of its debt capacity, a historic high.

The cost of the state's Medicaid program continues to increase, yet 133,000 children in Maryland lack health insurance, and half of those children live below the poverty line. Health costs of retired employees have also risen at an alarming level. Avoiding the record tuition increases that occurred during Ehrlich's tenure would also require a significant increase in student aid.

O'Malley's biggest challenges, however, may not involve money. Maryland has experienced an alarming drain of professional managers from the executive branch in the past four years. The politicization of the career service caused thousands of state government experts in transportation, environment and health care to flee to the private sector. The state has lost enormous expertise and irreplaceable institutional knowledge.

Attracting top-flight managers to state service, where salaries are low and morale is even lower, is the most pressing job facing the new administration. O'Malley's appointments of two nationally renowned administrators, John Porcari as transportation secretary and John Colmers as health secretary, show he is serious about governing. T. Eloise Foster, the experienced budget secretary-designate, is helping O'Malley navigate the budget shortfall. Competence attracts competence, and a strong O'Malley Cabinet could attract the next generation of competent government leaders.

O'Malley's most immediate legacy may be restoring a culture of professionalism to state service. Most voters simply want their government to work for them, which is why, ultimately, the best politics is performance.

Ehrlich has called the November elections a victory for "the hard left." In the long run, though, O'Malley's win may be a victory for hard governance.

The writer, a lawyer in Greenbelt and a former state delegate, serves on the O'Malley-Brown transition team.