Democrats collected from an impressively diverse candidate field, an array of firsts this election that simply must be putting a smile on our readers' faces. Massachusetts elected its first openly lesbian governor in Maura Healey. Florida elected its first Generation Z member of Congress in Maxwell Frost. Pennsylvania elected its first Black woman to Congress in Summer Lee.
And that hardly ends the list of historic Democratic wins this election. The New York Times reported that election night netted “more women nominated for governorships and state legislatures, more Black people nominated for the Senate and more L.G.B.T.Q. people nominated for the House than ever before.”
There were several opportunities to celebrate. But with each victory came a shadow of skepticism. Two days after Maryland elected its first Black governor, Wes Moore, The Washington Post had already assembled a team to question whether he was up to the job, citing “high expectations of the Democrat” and lofty campaign promises.
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Writers Erin Cox, Ovetta Wiggins, and Lateshia Beachum listed those promises in what they denoted was only a "partial list”:
“Universal prekindergarten. Ending child poverty. Raising teacher pay. Launching a statewide paid family-leave program. Accelerating the minimum-wage hike. Reviving the canceled $1.6 billion Red Line transit project. Closing the racial wealth gap. Subsidizing child care. Extending historic tax credits for the working poor and some undocumented immigrants. Buying electric school buses. Creating a service year. Fortifying a hollowed-out state workforce. Starting more ambitious renewable energy projects. Building job training programs.”
Even with a $2 billion budgetary surplus and Democratic control of the legislature and governors’ offices, the tone of the Post article was doubtful at times. Mine is less so; for many of the promises Moore made, there is already a rubric for how to get it done.
Three states and the District of Columbia have universal pre-K programs. Eleven states and the District of Columbia have paid family leave programs. California and Connecticut have enacted legislation to increase the state minimum wage to $15 by 2023. Maryland already has a plan to phase in pay increases to reach a minimum wage to $15 for most hourly workers by 2025.
The changes needed to shrink the racial wealth gap are not impossible, though Republicans would have us believe that. It takes supporting leaders who are committed to making those changes.
“You have to tell people like, ‘look, this is not going to be easy,’” former U.S. Sec. of State Hillary Clinton told Moore during a virtual fundraiser last month. “’We’re trying to change a lot of things. But if you stick with me, we’ll get through it together and we’ll actually make something happen. No big razzle-dazzle promises, just kind of we’re rolling up our sleeves — I need you as my partner.’”
Moore, a combat veteran, Rhodes Scholar, and former chief executive officer of the Robin Hood anti-poverty foundation, gave an election night speech that suggested he understands quite clearly that partnership will be required to drive home his goals.
“I want to make sure that our long-term legacy is not that I have made history,” he said. “I want that to be something that gets brought up after people talk about the other things that we have accomplished.”
Moore said in an interview on Wednesday that he is getting together a team that “will look like the state of Maryland” to ensure the state is “more competitive but also more equitable.”
Outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan met with Moore on Thursday in Annapolis, which Moore told CBS News gave him every confidence that his would be "a smooth and orderly transition."
"I think the key priorities - that we are going to be establishing a transition and transformation team that is going to ensure that come January - come Inauguration, we're ready to go," Moore said. "And that means having pieces in place that's going to show a measure of not just continuity of government, but showing the frame in the way we are approaching government."
Part of Moore’s plan to kick off his time in office is to work toward the option of a service year for high school graduates, which would make Maryland the first state in the country to do so. He also wants to start tackling child poverty this winter.
”Our Maryland will be more competitive and more equitable, and we are not going to choose between those two things,” Moore said. “We can and we will do both.”
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