Martin OMalley's Entrance into Presidential Race Tomorrow Raises the Bar for All 2016 Candidates

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Alliance4Citizenship ‏@Citizenship4All 17m17 minutes ago
@GovernorOMalley's Entrance into Presidential Race Raises the Bar for All 2016 Candidates on #Immigration

Newest Democratic Candidate Has Demonstrated Leadership on Immigrant Rights; Pushing for Maryland DREAM Act, Welcoming Refugee Children with Open Arms

WASHINGTON – Tomorrow at a rally on Baltimore’s Federal Hill, Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley is expected to launch his campaign for President in 2016. Jesus Perez, a local DREAMer and leader with CASA in Action will join him on stage for the announcement.

Below are remarks from Lupe Lopez, the Executive Director of the Alliance for Citizenship:

“True leadership often emerges in times of crises. Last summer, when thousands of children fleeing violence in Central America arrived at our southern border, many politicians, including prominent Democrats and the Obama Administration argued for their immediate deportation. Gov. O’Malley, however, stood strong on principle and argued, ‘We are not a country that should turn children away and send them back to certain death. I believe that we should be guided by…the power of our principles…hospitality to strangers is an essential human dignity.’

“Throughout his time as Governor, Martin O’Malley has taken political risks to establish himself as a fighter for immigrant rights. The debate over immigration in Washington has too long been held captive by politicians who lack the courage to take a bold stand on principle. So far, all three Democratic candidates have embraced the new politics of immigration and adopted strong positions that include a path to citizenship and the reduction of family detention centers. Meanwhile the GOP presidential field continues to push away vital Latino, Asian American, and immigrant voters with their shameless attacks and nativist rhetoric. We’re excited to see a real debate on immigration emerge with O’Malley’s candidacy.”

read: http://www.allianceforcitizenship.org/o_malley_raises?recruiter_id=9258

[Warren DeMontague]

1. Like it or not, O'Malley's gonna have a real Baltimore problem.

The more I read about his policies regarding the police there... I don't see how it's not gonna bite him on the ass, given recent events.

[bigtree]

4. didn't hurt politically him in my state

...or even in the communities affected which voted for him in overwhelming numbers in successive elections.

[Warren DeMontague]

5. Yeah, but that was all before the recent events.

[elleng]

6. He served as the 61st Governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015.

He was first elected in 2006, when he defeated incumbent Governor Robert Ehrlich, and again in a 2010 rematch. Prior to being elected as Governor, he served as the Mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007, having previously served as a Baltimore City Councilor from 1991 to 1999.

I've provided these dates for people who want to understand his record, ESPECIALLY in light of 'recent events.'

[Warren DeMontague]

7. I want to add that I am not personally pro or anti O'Malley, I look forward to hearing his positions

But I do think that "broken windows" policing under his tenure is going to come up as an issue.

[elleng]

8. It will surely come up as an issue,

and I look forward to his discussion of it.

[bigtree]

11. one thing that should be clear

...the protests are about police brutality, not zero-tolerance arrests which killed NO ONE in Baltimore.

O'Malley, as mayor, actually increased police accountability and oversaw a reduction in police killings, as well as a sharp reduction in killings, overall. When he gets a full hearing on the public stage, that's going to become clear. Will there be those who will look to conflate the issues? Of course, some have already made the stretch. Still, the facts show that Baltimore benefited greatly from his approach on crime. As O'Malley points out, there are hundreds alive right now as a result of his efforts. That should matter to people who look objectively at his complete record.

The record is much more complex than the policy of zero-tolerance arrests...from David Freedlander at Daily Beast:

From 2000 to 2010, the incidence of crime in Baltimore dropped 43 percent, outpacing by a stretch the 11 percent drop that the nation saw during that period. The crime rate dropped by 40 percent. Graduation rates rose. Median home prices doubled. A new biotech park was built on the city’s east side. A new performing arts center was built on the west side. O’Malley was obsessed with numbers and metrics, and set up a 311 call center to track citizen complaints. A program called Project 5000 enlisted volunteer attorneys to help deal with the city’s massive vacant home problem as titles to those homes was eventually transferred to individuals and nonprofits for redevelopment. The school system was pulled back from the fiscal brink. CitiStat, designed to track crime, helped bring the crime rate down and created a budget surplus of $54 million that was then reinvested in schools and programs for children. At last, the population stabilized. It was no longer necessary to flee, if you could. The number of college-educated 25-to-34-year-olds living within three miles of downtown Baltimore increased 92 percent in the 10 years after O’Malley became mayor, fourth among the nation’s 51st-largest metro areas.

Time magazine named O’Malley one of the five best big-city mayors in America. Esquire named him the best young mayor in America. CitiStat won Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government “Innovations in American Government Award.”

To be sure, change was both too fast and too slow. The blight and poverty remained. And although crime dropped, O’Malley’s zero tolerance policing policy created a backlash in the very communities it was designed to protect. But those policies were not as unpopular as the rioting now in the streets of Baltimore would suggest.

“I don’t recall O’Malley stating that he would do something about ‘black crime,’ just crime,” wrote liberal Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodericks toward the end of O’Malley’s time in City Hall. “Coming out of the long, dreary Schmoke years, Baltimoreans appreciated O’Malley’s almost singular focus, along with millions in increased funding dedicated to drug treatment for the city’s thousands of addicts who contribute, directly and indirectly, to 80 percent of crime.”

“He was trying to stop the crime on the streets. People were getting killed daily on Old York Road and in Park Heights,” Robert Nowlin, a Baltimore community activist, told The Daily Beast. “He did something a lot of these mayors don’t do: He walked with the small people. A lot of these mayors stay in the affluent areas. He walked the streets...”

...Tying O’Malley to Baltimore is an old political saw. When he tried to run for governor of Maryland, Republicans ran ads with flashing police lights, talked about how O’Malley would do for Baltimore what he did for Maryland. O’Malley won statewide twice though, boosted by those same Baltimore neighborhoods that he is now blamed for turning into powder kegs...

read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/06/you-have-martin-o-malley-all-wrong.html

[chillfactor]

2. I cannot wait for him to announce...

the more I hear about this man the better I like him! I believe he is a viable alternative to either Clinton or Sanders....

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

9. Me too, can't wait to hear what MOM has to say.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. This

I believe that we should be guided by…the power of our principles…hospitality to strangers is an essential human dignity.’

This is the Unitarian Chalice - we burn it to welcome other human beings into our hearts and homes.



Kindness counts.

[cyberswede]

10. Excellent!

I look forward to learning more about him.