It’s no secret that the tech bros and billionaires who have surrounded the President over the last six weeks aren’t big fans of democracy. I understand their frustration. It’s inefficient. Its policy swings make business planning difficult. The voters want consumer protections, and they want profit.
So they invest in politicians. They invest in media. They invest in whatever it takes to bend government to their will, or silence it completely. It’s always been that way, in the United States and across the world. The concentration of wealth and democracy are not compatible. But the people eventually come together and take back their government.
My own conclusion as a county executive, a former community organizer, and a student of transitions in Latin America between democracy and authoritarianism, is that democracy can function when the governed are engaged and aligned in their values.
That’s why I measure success in my work not by legislative victories or infrastructure built, but the same way I measured it as a community organizer. Success to me is the mobilization of the people in common pursuits, and the formation of coalitions. And I’m lucky that in my job, I see it happening every week.
On Saturday, I joined three hundred of our most engaged county residents at the Watershed Stewards Academy annual day-long conference. It’s an extraordinary organization that has trained more than 375 county residents over the last 17 years to take care of the land and the biodiversity that absorb and filter the water that flows to our rivers and Bay. They not only plant the right plants and remove the invasives, but they install best management practices on private land, monitor progress, and engage with public officials.
I thanked them for their work, reported on county efforts, and encouraged them to grow a countywide coalition to hold me, the County Council, the Maryland General Assembly, and our Congressional Delegation accountable. I hope my words fueled their passion, because they strengthen democracy, and we need them to grow.
On Monday night, I celebrated Women’s History Month by hosting our annual Michelle Obama Awards at Maryland Hall. We recognized fourteen local history-making women, and heard from some luminaries, like my hero and political mentor Delegate Joseline Peña-Melnyk, State’s Attorney Anne Colt Leitess, and my wife, Erin Pittman.
I interviewed our State’s Attorney earlier in the day for my podcast, Pittman and Friends, which you can catch on Tuesday or any time after. But her very personal message at Maryland Hall to women, especially young women making their way forward in careers dominated by men, should be watched, shared, and watched again by everyone. We are so lucky to have a woman who combines bravery, brilliance, and empathy enforcing our laws on behalf of we, the people. That’s why I always refer to her, even publicly, as Bad-Ass Anne of Anne Arundel.
It was co-host and emcee Carl Snowden who proposed asking Erin Pittman to speak, and while he introduced her as First Lady of Anne Arundel County, she started out by saying that she was speaking not as a First Lady, but as a genealogist.
She shared some women’s history, the history of her second great-grandmother whose paltry salary as a schoolteacher in rural Virginia was based on how many children she could recruit to attend each month. She noted that education was dominated by women through most of our history, and that to this day, they and their trade are undervalued. She concluded with the words, “Value women. Value teachers. Value the future.” Yes, my wife is bad-ass too.
It was a good night, because good people came together for no reason other than to celebrate the engagement and action of a group of history-making women. Join us next year.
On Wednesday, I was interviewed by WJZ for a special they are doing for the anniversary of the Key Bridge collapse. They asked how it felt when I got the first calls that night from Mayor Scott and Governor Moore, how it impacted our community, and what I learned from the experience.
Answering those questions was therapeutic for me. The incident itself was like a death - the sudden taking away of something that we’ve known and relied on for a very long time. It leaves an empty space. The death of six men, each of whom left behind a family, friends, and coworkers, made that sense of loss real.
But the gatherings of people that followed that night were what I stressed to the reporter. There were the first responders from all jurisdictions gathered that day to help where they could. There was a series of meetings led by Governor Moore with Maryland Department of Transportation, US Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, and so many others - all united to accomplish a very specific task, to recover the bodies, remove the debris, and reopen the Port of Baltimore. There was the meeting with President Biden, Secretary Buttigieg, and the whole recovery team, with the eyes of the world upon us, and the hearts of America with the victims.
And then there was the most impactful part of it all for me: the memorial service and burial of Miguel Angel Luna, a resident of Glen Burnie whose brave wife Maria Del Carmen operates a food truck, and whose Salvadoran community gathered to mourn his loss.
Miguel and his co-workers all came here across our southern border. After their sacrifice, nobody cared about their immigration status. They were American heroes, working through the night to make our bridge safe for travelers, safe for people crossing a river. They were doing a job that most of us wouldn’t want to do, but that needed to be done, and we all understood that.
People came together, in person and in spirit, when the Key Bridge collapsed, and now we will rebuild that bridge, because we need it.
It’s what we do. It’s what people always do, everywhere. And because we do that, democracy works.
Until next week…