Martin O'Malley

Yes, exactly.

So you would have an ex-mayor of Pittsburgh, Tom Murphy, or the ex-mayor of Baltimore, who would be Martin O'Malley, matching it with experts in investment, in retail, in planning, in city leadership.

And that whole mix really gave me that rich experience in understanding how cities work from leadership to technical expertise by bringing a very multifaceted approach of professionals across the built environment that makes a city work.

yeah yeah and just to talk about some of the logistics of what we're doing today I don't want to dwell on this but I think there'll be some people listening to this and I think I've asked you the same question when I first met you is this is obviously an audio podcast we're not filming it although I know you're going to do a BSL version given you were born deaf how are you able to understand me and talk in such an eloquent way I mean you talk more eloquently than 90% of the guests I We've had on this podcast over the last eight years.

Yeah.

Noted inspiration for the mayor in The Wire, Martin O'Malley, is a late convert rugby fan, so I'd get him involved too, especially if Ireland show up.

Anyway, um, Alan talked, was, it's not really in detail in the piece, but he was interesting about the challenges of drop-in pitches and how much they-

Mm

I could think of one term, you know, where they have raised taxes, you know, after reelection.

But did Martin O'Malley start out like that? I got to take a look.

I mean, it's egregious, but they don't care.

They don't care.

But I did note that there's some conversations happening where Governor Wes Moore is basically admitting that he could possibly raise taxes in 2027.

I'm not surprised to hear that from the governor.

I mean, he makes Martin O'Malley look like a fiscal conservative throughout his last four years.

I mean, I saw that article where he refused to say, no, we will not raise taxes.

And I think they always will because, quite frankly, it's what they've always done.

And if you don't believe me, you can go back and listen to what Martin O'Malley said under oath in a deposition.

about what his goals were, and that was to shut out Republicans.

And they almost did it with a seven-to-one met, which many people felt at that time was unconstitutional.

um including one chief justice six associate justices the uh the chief justice is matthew fader we're all learning about the maryland supreme court because we normally don't you know we don't these guys are care too much about them um it is not the same as the u.s supreme court where you do have very partisan um judges who are there you kind of know where they're going to go just because somebody was nominated by larry hogan doesn't necessarily mean they're growing aside with the Republicans.

And we do have two judges, one appointed by Martin O'Malley, the other appointed by Wes Moore.

But if you are to take a look at just... who the governor, I mean, Larry Hogan does have, I mean, five of the seven judges are Larry Hogan appointed.

So you brought up Jimmy the Greek.

So let's start there, that these judges don't just pop up.

Hogan put them in, but Democrats voted on them.

Now, the judge on the Eastern Shore, Dorchester County, Judge Sarbanes was appointed by Governor Martin O'Malley.

What do you have to say about that? Right.

...

That's Martin O'Malley ratio right there.

Geez.

Okay.

We were talking last week, the Anne Arundel County judge, Judge Thompson, was appointed by Governor Hogan, and people were, oh, well, that's a Hogan appointment.

Well, this judge was appointed by Governor Martin O'Malley.

So you can't make the claim that somehow there might be a tie-in here.

This is Governor Martin O'Malley's appointee, and he pretty much wrote a lot of the same things, Brian, that Judge Thompson wrote, not only about the ballot question itself, but about them negating a law that they had just passed— In January.

And Judge Sarbanes talked about the lack of a comment period or an ability to have folks weigh in before this actually got made into law and signed by Governor Wes Moore.

So it's a two-for-two, but it's a stinging two-for-two, is my point, because of the very law— The law parts of this that both judges bring up that I think is you can't ignore if you're in the highest court.

Because Maryland has been gerrymandering for decades.

You had former Governor Martin O'Malley admit it in an interview.

And so Senator Bill Ferguson said, look, Governor Westmore, I know you have higher aspirations.

I know you want to be on the national scene, but I can't deliver this for you, my friend.

I'm guessing at that time he was also talking about the redistricting and, you know, trying to raise his profile on the national level.

Here's the thing, and I'm going to go ahead and call it now.

Governor Wes Moore, as far as a presidential candidate, is actually least attractive than Martin O'Malley.

And that is because at least Martin O'Malley can say that he tried to accomplish a few things.