By John Wagner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 7, 2007; C01
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who has shown an abundance of caution during his first year in office, is now facing the biggest gamble of his governorship: whether to summon the legislature to Annapolis for a special session on his $1.7 billion deficit-reduction plan.
In public pronouncements, O'Malley and his aides have continued to say the governor will call a session by early next month to seek quick action on a complicated plan rolled out during two weeks of choreographed events last month.
But as O'Malley met privately with lawmakers last week, it became clear that he has yet to bring enough legislators on board to ensure a special session would be a success.
House leaders publicly questioned the need for such a session. Senate Republicans announced they were abandoning the governor on his proposal to legalize slot-machine gambling, a key component of O'Malley's package. And leading Democrats from Montgomery County told O'Malley privately that his proposed overhaul of the income tax would be too onerous for their upper-end constituents.
"For the governor, this is a huge roll of the dice," said Barbara A. Hoffman, an Annapolis lobbyist who chaired the Senate budget committee during her tenure in the General Assembly. "I think he has a long way to go. This has so many moving parts that there's real danger to going in without all the pieces in place. At some point, he may figure out he can't do it."
Pulling the plug on a special session would be a political setback for O'Malley. But some lawmakers interviewed last week suggested his leadership would be tarnished far more by a session that ended in a stalemate or dragged on until mid-January, when the legislature is scheduled to convene for its annual 90-day session.
"That would be a disaster," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert). "It would be like Bush in Iraq."
O'Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said that nothing that transpired in the past week has deterred the governor.
"His thinking hasn't changed," Abbruzzese said. "He feels we need to move forward in a special session. We're looking at early November."
O'Malley plans to continue lobbying for his plan, both publicly and privately, in the coming week. His schedule includes a luncheon for freshman lawmakers in Annapolis and a public forum in Salisbury. And aides are working on drafting bills that they say will soon be circulating among legislators.
From the governor's perspective, there are both practical and political benefits to solving the state's budget problems in a special session this fall, aides said.
To balance the budget in coming years, O'Malley is counting on increased collections from income, sales, corporate and tobacco taxes starting in January. If the legislature waits until next year to raise those taxes, O'Malley will be forced to propose more than $500 million in additional spending cuts or tax increases.
Beyond that, aides said, O'Malley is eager to put the politically perilous task of fixing a largely inherited problem behind him. If the legislature acts in a special session, O'Malley would still have three regular sessions of the General Assembly left in which to push his priorities before standing for reelection in 2010. Moreover, his aides said, Democrats will not benefit from dragging a public debate over tax increases well into next year.
Debate over Maryland's $15 billion general fund budget would probably dominate the legislature's 90-day session next year, which is scheduled to end in mid-April, lawmakers said.
Still, O'Malley does not have far to look to find examples of politically disastrous special sessions.
His Republican predecessor, Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., called two special sessions during his four-year tenure: one to help doctors with escalating medical malpractice insurance costs and the other to blunt a spike in electricity rates.
Ehrlich and lawmakers had not reached full accord before either special session started, and Ehrlich lost control of the agenda in both. He vetoed the bills that lawmakers sent him, but those vetoes were overridden each time.
"Ehrlich had no clue what was going to happen, and what he wanted to happen didn't happen, and he looked foolish," said Del. Curt Anderson (D-Baltimore). "I don't think this governor wants to look foolish."
Anderson, who is chairman of the Baltimore House delegation, said he believes prospects for a successful special session this fall are "dim," in large part because of divisions over legalizing slot-machine gambling among Democrats.
Ehrlich's session on medical malpractice, which took place about halfway through his term, was widely viewed as a turning point in his soured relationship with leaders of the General Assembly.
O'Malley has the benefit of sharing a party label with Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel). But politics in Annapolis can be driven as much by personality as party affiliation, and Miller and Busch's deep-seated distrust of one another has complicated O'Malley's efforts to build consensus.
Underscoring the difficulty of the task ahead, some lawmakers and legislative aides have started talking about the possibility of passing part of O'Malley's plan in a special session while putting off more difficult decisions until next year. Enacting a one percentage point increase in the sales tax this fall, for example, could generate about $1 billion that could be used to balance next year's budget. O'Malley's aides have played down the governor's interest in a partial solution, however.
If O'Malley convenes a special session, its success will ultimately rest largely on the ability of Democrats, who dominate both chambers, to pull together as a party, Miller predicted.
"The Democrats in the General Assembly need to step up and deliver for him, which means voting for things you don't like," he said.
Miller, who has been a leading advocate of a special session, said O'Malley told him as recently as late last week that he intends to call one.
"He indicated he's going to go forward, and I wish him well," Miller said.
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