Letters
Letters The Governor Raiseth Thomas Edsall in “Maryland: The Governor Raiseth,” (February, 1972) suggests that political reform in Maryland has failed. He claims that reformers, seeking to...
...He implies that the election was bought and that the people were hoodwinked, yet he spends no time at all explaining how the money was spent...
...The appearance is definitely there of engaging in the kind of activities that Edsall describes, but it needn’t be so...
...rank and file...
...How does one build sufficient party control to assure passage of the executive program and yet assure adequate debate...
...The Houston Chronicle did not demand Gus Mutscher’s resignation (it did publish a story that reported the Dirty Thirty’s demand for his resignation...
...Sissy Farenthold did not lose the majority of the Smith-Barnes vote to Dolph Briscoe in the run-off election...
...The total after the run-off was 55-45, Briscoe’s favor...
...In short, the Democratic Party began reforming itself and won a major electoral victory in 1970...
...Edsall concludes that the Governor has forged an alliance with Maryland business interests, and that the State Executive is run for the benefit of the Governor and their interests to the exclusion of the broader interests of Maryland society...
...Admittedly, the success of the reforms is still being tested...
...He claims that reformers, seeking to displace the machines and bosses of old, have been beaten by special interests who recognize and use the power of money...
...For example, since 1970, party meetings are publicly announced and attendance of all party members is encouraged...
...Because of this control and because of the inherent difficulties in dealing with complex problems on a part-time basis, the legislature voluntarily relegates itself to those problems with which it can deal...
...If Mr...
...Perhaps, then, the final step in reform lies in continual strengthening of the Republican Until a stronger legislature emerges, however, Maryland politics will function within a Party...
...However, in the last few days, a barrage of Briscoe hate literature emphasizing and distorting Sissy’s stands on marijuana, abortion, and busing apparently turned the tide...
...Tydings with the defeat of Maryland political reform is simply incorrect...
...First, Edsall does not explain how Governor Mandel won over 67 per cent of the vote in 1970...
...Bertone calls the “resilience of the Democratic Party in the midst of reform...
...Rather, they represent the conditions for responsive and accountable government in a pluralistic society...
...A dependence upon the interests which profit from state programs as an almost exclusive source of campaign financing necessarily results in concessions to those interests...
...THOMAS L. BERTONE I Charleston, W. Va...
...Midway through the last week of the campaign, most pollsters were calling the race a toss-up...
...He does not tell us how it is that a governor today can fail to be responsive to the people and continue to hold his job...
...Edsall’s interpretation, it was a year of triumph rather than tragedy...
...Second, the election of Mandel does not indicate the failure of reform but rather the resilience of the Democratic Party in the midst of reform...
...Tydings ever attempted to reform Maryland politics...
...These concessions may not require an outright rejection of “the needs of the people,” but they do require a maintenance of the practices and procedures from which those interests have profited...
...in the active support of legislation highly favorable to the racing industry...
...Letters The Governor Raiseth Thomas Edsall in “Maryland: The Governor Raiseth,” (February, 1972) suggests that political reform in Maryland has failed...
...Although Sissy Farenthold will not be governor of Texas next year, there is every reason to believe she will be a major political force in the state during the 1970s...
...There are two critical omissions in this argument...
...In the Mandel Administration this is reflected, in part, in the creation of a banking commission which has demonstrated no real interest in changing the existing role of lending insitutions...
...I did not characterize the defeat of Senator Tydings in the general election of the same year as the defeat of the reform movement in Maryland...
...First, there is no evidence that Mr...
...Instead, I described it as a symptomatic example of a liberal whose ignorance of the political forces in his own state compelled him to alter his position in an attempt to be identified with the party regulars running for the remaining state-wide offices...
...Control was taken out of the hands of professional politicians and opened to the...
...As a consequence, he concludes, the people have less control now than before and money reigns supreme...
...To equate the defeat of Mr...
...While not perfect, this system is one of executive strength and responsiveness...
...Dick Cory is a beer lobbyist, not a liquor lobbyist (lobbyists are sensitive about such things...
...Until a stronger legislature emerges, however, Maryland politics will function within a gubernatorial-centered system...
...Traditionally, the answer is the two-party system...
...State Representative Jake Johnson is not a “liberal-turned-banker.’’ As far as I know, he has never had any banking interests...
...At the state level, where grassroots movements are rare, the simultaneous rising cost of elections and the growing inability of organizations to produce bloc votes for specific candidates have created a situation in which a candidate who has a lock on available political money can prevent the development of any powerful opposition...
...The near unanimous recognition among ambitious politicians not only of these incidental practices, but also of the dangers of pressing for legislation which disrupts the interests that pay the cost of elections, produces an atmosphere in which any constituent demand beyond patronage is likely to be neglected, an atmosphere which is endemic not only in Maryland, but in a majority of legislatures and city halls across the country...
...The involvement of reformers with the alteration of a powerless bureaucracy reflects a larger failure to perceive the logic of the financial base of political power, and the failure to perceive the consequences of other supposed reforms...
...candidates to the national convention are selected by party election...
...William S. James, party chairman, and Charles 0. Fisher, counsel, argued that the party has no control over slate-making organizations...
...The new coalition she formed is a true extension of the Dirty Thirty-disparate in ethnic, social, and ideological composition, committed to the cause of public government, infused with Populistic zeal...
...in the payment of over $20 million in state money in noncompetitive awards to major campaign contributors...
...Using complete domination over campaign contributors as the major vehicle to elective victory may well demonstrate what Mr...
...Contrary to Mr...
...With Mandel at the helm, party machinery underwent major surgery to explicitly recognize and deal with ideological and constituency differences prior to primary elections...
...The heart of the matter, however, lies elsewhere...
...Instead, the issues are: what are the bases of his power and what concessions were forced by his acquisition of this power...
...While Governor Mandel did have access to political money in the 1970 election and does have unchallenged political influence today, these phenomena do not of themselves indicate the failure of reform...
...Edsall is correct, liberals should slump in dejection...
...HARVEY KATZ Washington, D. C...
...The Dirty Thirty I would like to correct several errors in the excerpt from my book Shadow on the Alamo, that appeared in your magazine [“How the Dirty Thirty Cleaned Up Texas,” July, 19721...
...Second, Edsall describes in great detail how the money for the 1970 campaign was collected...
...Farenthold entered the run-off campaign with 26 per cent of the vote to Briscoe’s 44 per cent...
...After the election, however, Mr...
...Edsall’s perceptions are weak on two counts...
...He asserts that past party bosses had to be responsive to the people in order to retain the people’s allegiance and to hold their jobs...
...and a regular newsletter describing party activities is distributed to party members...
...However, he is only partially correct in his analysis...
...Today the governor seems to have too much party control over the legislature...
...Governor Mandel was unopposed in the 1970 primary because he and his supporters were so effective in tying up the available cash that there were almost no financial resources left for challengers...
...It gives this particular political skeptic considerable hope for Texas...
...He did indeed run against the organization candidate in the primary...
...It is precisely at this point that we meet one dilemma of American government...
...A final point: There is nothing wrong with a strong executive in principle...
...Tydings stood aside from Maryland politics, choosing instead to channel his reform energies into progressive federal legislation...
...The author, Thomas Edsall, reples: Reform effort in Maryland over the past four years has centered on the structure and the procedures of the Democratic Party bureaucracy-a bureaucracy which is prohibited by its own constitution from participation in primary elections, and which has little or no influence in a legislature dominated by Democrats, The relative unimportance of the party structure became apparent recently during chillenges to the state’s delegation to the convention...
Vol. 4 • September 1972 • No. 7
