Robert Leroy "Bob" Ehrlich, Jr. (born November 25, 1957) is an American politician who served as the 60th Governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007. A Republican, he became governor after defeating Democratic opponent Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a member of the Kennedy family, 51%–48% in the 2002 elections. Prior to serving as governor, Ehrlich represented Maryland's 2nd Congressional district in the House of Representatives and was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates.
Bob Ehrlich | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 60th Governor of Maryland | |
| In office January 15, 2003 – January 17, 2007 | |
| Lieutenant | Michael Steele |
| Preceded by | Parris Glendening |
| Succeeded by | Martin O'Malley |
| Personal details | |
| Born | November 25, 1957 Arbutus, Maryland |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Kendel Sibiski Ehrlich |
| Profession | Attorney |
- For the entrepreneur and businessman, see Robert Ehrlich.
Early life, career, and family
Bob was born in the small community of Arbutus, Maryland, located southwest of Baltimore and was raised in a Lutheran environment. After attending the Gilman School on a scholarship in Baltimore, he received degrees from Princeton University (1979), where he was the captain of the football team and a member of the Cap and Gown Club, and Wake Forest University Law School (1982). After he obtained his degrees, Ehrlich went to work for the Ober, Kaler, Grimes and Shriver law firm of Baltimore. In November 1986, Ehrlich won a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates, representing parts of Baltimore County from 1987 to 1995.
Ehrlich married Kendel Sibiski in 1993. They have two sons, Drew Robert Ehrlich and Joshua Taylor Ehrlich.
Congress
In 1993, 2nd district Representative Helen Delich Bentley announced she would be vacating her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Ehrlich decided to pursue the seat and announced his candidacy in November of the same year.
Ehrlich won the seat by a substantial margin, making himself one of the few leading Republican figures in the heavily Democratic state. During his term, he introduced legislation aimed at helping disabled people maintain employment, and supported harsher gun violence penalties.
While in Congress, Ehrlich served on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, where he further served on the subcommittees on health, telecommunications and the Internet, and environment and hazardous materials; the Congressional Biotechnology Caucus, where he served as cochairman; and the Congressional Steel Caucus.
Governor of Maryland
2002 Gubernatorial Election
In 2002, Governor Parris Glendening’s (D) second term was coming to a conclusion. While Glendening had been reelected by a substantial margin in 1998, the final years of his term were plagued by a personal marital crisis, and a large state budget deficit. The rural areas of Maryland—largely Republican—had long criticized Glendening for what they perceived as overzealous environmental regulations as well as ignoring their budgetary needs (bridges, highways, etc.).
On March 15, 2002, Ehrlich announced his candidacy for the governorship. He attacked Glendening's record and his Democratic opposition, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, and, if elected, promised to increase school funding, balance the budget, and to protect the Chesapeake Bay. Ehrlich chose as his running mate the attorney and Republican politician Michael S. Steele, an African American.
During the election, Townsend was criticized for her choice of running mate; she picked retired Admiral Charles R. Larson, a novice politician who had switched parties only a few weeks before. The Townsend campaign was also hurt by the unpopularity of Governor Parris Glendening, who had implemented a redistricting proposal that was overturned by Maryland's highest court. Townsend's popularity continued to fall when it was reported that much of her campaign money was given by out-of-state donors; Ehrlich remained quiet while the Lt. Governor's poll numbers declined.
Even though Maryland traditionally votes Democratic and had not elected a Republican governor in almost 40 years, Ehrlich won the race, becoming only the sixth Republican governor in state history, and the first since Spiro T. Agnew in 1967. Ehrlich won by 52% of the vote to Townsend's 47% and Libertarian Spear Lancaster's .68%.
Tenure as governor
Ehrlich has styled "fiscal responsibility, education, health and the environment, public safety, and commerce" as the "Five Pillars" of his administration.
Ehrlich's stated policy opposes sales and income tax increases. However, critics have derided the state-wide surcharge on water and septic services imposed by the Chesepeake Bay Restoration Act, as a "flush tax." [1]. The Chesapeake Bay Restoration Act was described by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation as the best thing for the Bay in a generation. Maryland's budget has been balanced every year during his tenure, and the state forecasts a $1 billion surplus for the 2005 fiscal year. [citation needed] The $1.8 billion state budget deficit left by the previous administration has been eradicated during Ehrlich’s tenure. [citation needed] The unemployment rate has dropped significantly during this time, from 4.5% in 2003 to 4.1% in 2005, with a net increase of 76,000 jobs. [2]. Under Ehrlich's tenure Maryland has stayed a .5% or more below the national unemployment average.
Ehrlich has endorsed the Thornton Plan, which was passed by the Legislature in 2002 and named after Dr. Alvin Thornton. In part, this plan would grant extra money to poorer school systems and those in areas with a higher cost of living. [3] Ehrlich has funded k-12 education at the highest allocations in Maryland's history and has been an ardent supporter of education which has earned him an “A” from Education Week for public school standards and accountability. Opened the first ever public charter school, and funded the construction of 45 new schools, and full scale renovation of an additional 52 schools. He has invested record funding in Maryland Community Colleges as well as to Maryland's Historically Black Colleges. During the first budget deficit Ehrlich tried to gain more funding for education through slots revenues so that he would not have to make tough discretionary cuts to higher education (cuts he later restored when the fiscal storm cleared) [4].
Ehrlich established a position in his cabinet for people with disabilities. The Secretary of Disabilities became the first cabinet level disabilities office in the nation. [citation needed] In 2006, he vetoed the "Fair Share Health Care Bill," also known as the WalMart Bill which required businesses with more that 10,000 employees in the state (effectively only WalMart) to either spend 8% of payroll on employee health care, or pay that amount to a state health program for the uninsured. [5]On Wednesday July 7, 2006, the Maryland law was overturned in federal court by U.S. District Judge Frederick Motz who ruled that the law would "hurt Wal-Mart by imposing the administrative burden of tracking benefits in Maryland differently than in other states." [1]
In 2004, Ehrlich signed the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Act, which funds upgrades of water treatment plants to reduce pollution discharge by a surcharge on business and residential water and septic bills. The resulting reduction in pollution into the bay is expected to meet approximately one-third of Maryland's obligations under the 2000 Chesapeake Bay Agreement.
Ehrlich has appointed a cabinet-level Homeland Security advisor. [citation needed] He opposed President Bush's 2006 approval for a U.A.E. firm to take control of six U.S. port operations, including those at the Port of Baltimore. [6]. (See Dubai Ports World controversy).
In 2004, Ehrlich effectively ended the moratorium on executions that was instituted by his predecessor in May 2002. (See capital punishment in Maryland.) Since then, two men have been executed by the State, with Ehrlich denying clemency in both instances.
In 2003, Ehrlich abandoned the policy of his predecessor precluding persons serving life sentences from eligibility for executive clemency and promised to evaluate each request on a case-by-case basis.
He is a member of the National Governors Association, the Southern Governors' Association, and the Republican Governors Association, though he is not actively involved in these groups.
In 2006, he became a member of the Capital-to-Capital Coalition.
Controversy
Veto of the "Wal-Mart" Health Care Bill
In January 2006, the Maryland Legislature passed the controversial "Fair Share Health Care Bill", over Ehrlich's also-controversial veto. The bill attracted national attention because it made Maryland the first state to require very large corporations to either spend 8% of their payroll on employee health care, or pay that amount to a state health-care fund. It became known as the "Wal-Mart Bill" because while it nominally applied to any corporation with more than 10,000 workers, in practice Wal-Mart was the only employer which met that threshold that did not already pay at least 8% of their payroll on employee health care. [7][8] Critics of the international discount chain claim that Wal-Mart's low wages force employees and their dependents to rely on state healthcare assistance. (See Wal-Mart Employee and Labor Relations).
Supporters of the bill claimed that this veto showed Ehrlich, whose official biography describes him as "unapologetically pro-business," had sided with "big corporate interests rather than Maryland's working families." [9] For his part, Ehrlich called the bill the "first step toward government-run health care" by "anti-jobs lawmakers." He claimed that it would hurt low and middle-income consumers and was unfair to Wal-Mart. [10]. In the summer of 2006, a federal judge struck down the law as violating current Federal Law.
Slot machines
In light of Marylands' budget deficit and Ehrlich’s staunch opposition to raising taxes, he has pursued slot machines as a means for raising revenue for the state. Ehrlich initially met with little success on the issue, and the House of Delegates continually voted down legislation. In early 2005, however, both the House of Delegates and the State Senate passed different sets of legislation allowing slot machines. Both bills varied too much for compromise, however, and died at the end of the legislative session.
Ehrlich cited his reasons for needing slot machines in Maryland by examining the surrounding states of West Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania, all of which have slot machines legalized. He claims that hundreds of millions of dollars are lost to those states that could be kept in Maryland. Furthermore, most of the money that was expected to be generated from the slot machines was earmarked towards education, although often the state reduces education funding from the amount it would have spent by the amount the lottery brings in, cancelling the lottery's purported goal [11]. Much of the remaining funds were intended to support the state horse racing industry and retain the Preakness at Pimlico Race Course.
State House speaker Michael E. Busch (D) has steadfastly opposed slot machines in Maryland and has regularly clashed with State Senate president Thomas V. Mike Miller, Jr. (D). These actions divided both chambers of the Assembly as well as the Maryland Democratic party. Busch permitted passage of a bill allowing 9,500 slot machines.[12]
Following the failure of the slots initiative, Ehrlich predicted that no further slots bills would be passed during the next legislative session, and that the issue will remain under the table until after the 2006 gubernatorial election. [13] Some legislators tried to call a special session of the General Assembly to address slot machines. A referendum has also been discussed.
Bob Ehrlich also previously accepted campaign contributions from lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Ambramoff recently pleaded guilty to conspiracy, mail fraud, and tax evasion. He is a proponent of casinos and pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from his 2000 purchase of SunCruz Casinos.[14] After significant pressure from the media in the wake of Abramoff's multiple indictments, Ehrlich ultimately returned the disputed campaign funds.[citation needed]
2006 gubernatorial election
On November 7, 2006, Ehrlich was defeated for re-election in the 2006 gubernatorial election by Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. [15] Ehrlich's term as governor expired at noon on January 17, 2007.[16] He was the only incumbent governor to be defeated in 2006.
Life after the Governor's Office
Ehrlich stated on WBAL Radio that, at the present time, he does not have any interest in running for political office again. He has purchased a home in Annapolis which he and his family will move into when his term as governor expires in mid-January. However, recently Ehrlich has stated that he will be active in campaigns and has been approached by possible Presidential campaigns of Republicans Rudy Giuliani of New York, and Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. [17]
Ehrlich portrayed a Maryland state trooper in an episode of the HBO drama The Wire. The episode was broadcast December 3, 2006.
Election history
References
See also
External links
- ^ "Md. 'Fair Share' law loses in court". United Press International. 2006-07-19.
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