Sen. Jamie Raskin.
With state Sen. Jamie Raskin all but certain to be elected Tuesday to represent Maryland’s 8th District in Congress, Montgomery County Democrats have wasted little time in setting up a process to fill Raskin’s seat in Annapolis before the 2017 session of the Maryland General Assembly convenes in January.
A Nov. 17 forum has been scheduled, at which candidates hoping to succeed Raskin as senator from the Silver Spring/Takoma Park-based District 20 will be given the opportunity to speak and answer questions. The forum, which will run from 6:45 to 8:30 p.m. at the Silver Spring Civic Center, will take place nearly a month before the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC) is tentatively slated to vote Dec. 13 on who to recommend as Raskin’s replacement.
Under the Maryland constitution, the county committee of the political party that controls the legislative seat in question makes a recommendation to the governor on filling the vacancy. The governor then makes the appointment, but that is considered little more than a formality. Although he is a Republican, Gov. Larry Hogan is required by the state constitution to appoint a member of the party that currently holds the seat.
As of press time, the Nov. 17 forum, sponsored by a half-dozen Democratic clubs and affiliated organizations, was slated to hear from three candidates vying for appointment to the seat, to which Raskin was first elected in 2006. But several more contenders may emerge before the MCDCC votes on its recommendation in mid-December.
Two of the aspirants who will appear before the forum, District 20 Dels. David Moon and Will Smith, have been quietly campaigning for the appointment since Raskin came out on top of a nine-candidate field in April’s 8th District Democratic congressional primary. Raskin is expected to succeed Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who is a heavy favorite to win election Tuesday to an open U.S. Senate seat.
Moon and Smith, both former Raskin campaign managers who were first elected to the General Assembly two years ago, are seen by party insiders as the front-runners to fill the last two years of Raskin’s current Senate term. If one of the two men is appointed, it would allow him to run for a full four-year term in 2018 with the advantage of incumbency.
A third candidate scheduled to speak at the forum, Silver Spring civic activist Darian Unger, has vowed that, if appointed, he would not run for a full term, creating a wide-open contest for the seat in 2018. Unger has been critical of the manner in which legislative vacancies are filled in Maryland, where, unlike a number of other states, the decision is left to a party committee rather than thrown open to rank-and-file voters in a special election.
Two other possible candidates for the prospective Senate vacancy, former Obama administration official Will Jawando and attorney Jonathan Shurberg, said they plan to attend the Nov. 17 forum. But neither has made a final decision on whether to seek the appointment.
Unless they indicate beforehand that they have decided to become candidates for the vacancy, Jawando and Shurberg will not be eligible to address the gathering and answer audience questions at the forum, according to Tony Hausner, who is among the gathering's organizers. The Greater Silver Spring Democratic Club and the Montgomery County Young Democrats organized the forum, with the county’s African-American Democratic Club and Muslim Democratic Club among the other sponsors.
Jawando and Shurberg, as well as Unger, were candidates for delegate in the nine-way District 20 Democratic primary in 2014 in which Moon and Smith came out on top. Raskin’s move to organize an informal slate that included Moon and Smith created strained relations with Jawando and Shurberg; Jawando subsequently was a candidate in this year’s District 8 Democratic congressional primary, clashing with Raskin during a couple of debates during that contest.
Another potential candidate, former County Council member Valerie Ervin, said she would not be present Nov. 17 due to an out-of-town commitment, while playing down the significance of the forum. “Although I am considering putting my name in the running for the appointment for the anticipated vacant Senate seat…I do not believe that attending this candidate forum will make the difference in who is appointed,” Ervin said in an e-mail. “It has been my experience that the people who put these forums together have already made up their minds about who they favor, and I don’t particularly believe that my being in attendance there will be the deciding factor.”
Like Unger, Ervin, who made a brief run for the District 8 congressional nomination in 2015, has indicated that she would seek the appointment on an interim basis, and not run for a full term in 2018. Another possible candidate who had previously expressed an interest in serving in a so-called caretaker role, former Del. Bill Bronrott, indicated last week he is no longer pursuing the appointment. Bronrott represented Bethesda-area District 16 for three terms in the General Assembly, but now resides in District 20.
Yet another candidate who had previously expressed interest in the Senate appointment, Yvette Butler, did not respond to requests for comment this week on whether she still plans to pursue the anticipated vacancy. Butler is founder of Silver Spring-based GapBusters, a group devoted to combating the so-called achievement gap in Montgomery County public schools.
In Tuesday’s voting in the 8th Congressional District, Raskin is expected to easily defeat Republican nominee Dan Cox, who has run a low-budget campaign in the overwhelmingly Democratic jurisdiction, as well as two minor party candidates. While the district extends into Carroll and Frederick counties, two-thirds of its voters are Montgomery County residents, and Democrats enjoy a nearly 4-1 registration edge in that portion of the 8th.
If, as expected, Tuesday night’s returns show Raskin winning by a margin that exceeds the outstanding number of absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted, sources said he is expected to submit a formal letter to Hogan this week resigning the Senate seat. The MCDCC would then immediately release an announcement advertising for the vacancy. Under MCDCC rules, such vacancies need to be advertised for 30 days, and this schedule would allow that requirement to be fulfilled prior to the committee’s Dec. 13 meeting.
Raskin’s resignation letter is likely to be conditioned on official certification of the vote electing him to Congress. Barring unforeseen developments, that certification is expected to take place by early December, in advance of the MCDCC vote on recommending a successor. Once the MCDCC acts, the governor will have 15 days to make an appointment.
The scramble to name a replacement for Raskin is, in part, an effort to ensure a new senator is seated by January, when Democratic leaders are expected to call for votes on several bills vetoed by Hogan during this past year’s legislative session. Democrats will need a three-fifths supermajority for an override.
However, if either Moon or Smith is elevated to the Senate seat, it would trigger what would likely be a crowded competition for appointment to the delegate seat that then would come open as a result. That slot would likely then be filled by the MCDCC in a separate vote in January, delaying the seating of a new delegate until several weeks into the 2017 legislative session.
The appointment of either Moon, who is Asian-American, or Smith, who is African-American, would mark only the second time in history that a minority group member has held a Senate seat from Montgomery County. The population of District 20 is nearly one-third black, and some insiders feel that may give Smith a boost in pursuing the appointment. At the same time, Moon was a long-time local campaign operative prior to his election as delegate, and, in the process, appears to have accumulated political IOUs from several current members of the MCDCC.
