I’ve written my own little field guides to elections in past years, and distributed them to some friends. But I figured this year, I’d make it public.

This year is a really contentious, terrifying, and potentially world-rending election. I could say I don’t care which side you’re on, but I’d be lying. I’m not a huge fan of our political system at all. A two party system forces people to choose the lesser of two evils, and things just get more evil.

This guide is opinionated. It explains how I’m going to vote, and how I’d like anyone reading to do the same. Take it with a grain of salt, and please do your own research if you can.

The questions on this year’s ballot are as follows:

Elections

State Questions

City Questions

Elections

President and Vice President

I hope you got your protest vote out in 2016 if that’s the sort of thing you’re tickled to do. You don’t have to be happy about how this came to be the only option (I’m certainly not), but grit your teeth if you have to, and vote for Biden and Harris. None of the secondary candidates have a chance of winning, and the current administration needs to go.

Baltimore City Council President

This is between Nick Mosby and Jovani Patterson. I’m frankly not a huge proponent of either person. If you haven’t followed Baltimore and Maryland politics, Nick Mosby has been around for a while, and actually has a decent record on paper. He was involved in getting Ban the Box legislation passed at the state and city level, worked to prevent homes from being sold out from under people due to unpaid water bills, and a number of other excellent policy changes.

His record isn’t perfect. He’s about as pro-police as most mainstream Democrats, and offered the typical double speak claiming that the Baltimore Uprising was “unproductive”, while also stating that there has been historic disinvestment in the communities where the outrage was most visible. He represented that district at the time.

His own good and bad aside, Marilyn Mosby, his wife, is the State’s Attorney for Baltimore. She has had some suspect expenses, a less than stellar record dealing with police corruption, and there was her mishandling of the trials of the police charged in the death of Freddie Gray. Even if she had a stronger record, as City Council President, Nick Mosby would control her budget. This is a pretty glaring conflict of interest, and should alarm people.

That said, Jovani Patterson is running as a Republican in an extremely blue city. His chances of winning are very unlikely.

Nick Mosby is definitely qualified, and has served on the city council prior to this seat. I have concerns about him, and electing him to the second most powerful seat in the city shouldn’t be done blindly. We, the electorate, need to keep an eye and pressure on him.

Comptroller

I actually had the pleasure to meet Bill Henry when he was running against then-incumbent Joan Pratt during the Democratic primary. Comptroller is a very important position in city government, despite many people not having any idea what they do. Think of them as the city’s main accountant.

I don’t make a habit of rubbing shoulders with bureaucrats, but Bill struck me as a genuine, honest person. He’s also running unopposed. Still, I would recommend voting for him. This is one of the few elections I feel no conflict about (and again, not just because he’s unopposed).

City Council Representative

I live in District 12, so you’ll need to look into this a bit more if you live in another. I gave the map a quick look, and about half of the districts even have GOP challengers to the Democratic candidates.

District 12 is a really cool race though! Robert Stokes, the incumbent, has been in this seat since

  1. The Democratic primary was a very close race, with Philip Westry tailing by 248 votes. By all accounts, he didn’t really have much of a campaign message besides not being Robert Stokes.

Despite being a fixture in Baltimore politics, by all accounts, Stokes is fairly worthless as a councilman, and is more or less expecting to coast through. Luckily, Franca Muller Paz is running under the Green Party.

Her campaign is specifically the sort of campaign I want to see from progressive candidates. She’s been a teacher for years, helped file lawsuits with the ACLU to better school conditions, and has had a phenomenal canvassing and ground game. I had the chance to chat with briefly when she was canvassing on my street (which, for some reason, the community association in my neighborhood regularly avoids). She’s passionate, engaged, and brings exactly the kind of energy we need in city government.

If you’re in District 12, vote for her. Even if you’re not, consider donating to her campaign. She’s received endorsements from the Metro Baltimore Council AFL-CIO, making her the first third party candidate to have received the endorsement.

This is the only competitive city council race in the city. If she wins, it could embolden more third-party candidates to run in the future, and really shake up what’s possible in the city.

Baltimore City Mayor

The primary races for Mayor were absolutely insane. Last time I made one of these guides, the Democratic primary alone took up most of my time, with upwards of 20 candidates.

The general election is much simpler, with essentially three viable options. I’ll go from least viable to most.

Shannon Wright (GOP)

Shannon Wright is running under the GOP ticket. If you look into her stances, they sound decent on the surface: focus on education, public safety, and job creation. These are pretty standard lines for any conservative candidate. Yet, if you try to dig beneath the surface, the ideas get quite sinister.

Particularly in regards to public safety, she makes fairly empty statements about police reform. No statements that she’ll work towards defunding, obviously. There are remarks about removing corruption within BPD, but no steps on how to move forward are given. Then things get really bizarre.

She advocates for forming neighborhood anti-crime patrols, ignoring the “civil rights” of drug dealers in public housing (I only use quotes above because she did on her campaign website), and advocating for DOJ and HUD to take further steps to stem violent crime.

It’s a very anti-poor stance, and doesn’t actually address root causes in any way. Hard pass.

Bob Wallace (Independent)

I’m not going to spend too much time on this guy, because there doesn’t really be much to go off of. He hasn’t held any office as far as I can tell, and is trying the tired “businessman-to-politician” shtick which never really works.

Government isn’t a business. It needs to be a good steward of tax funds, but it’s not meant to save money. It’s meant to improve everything, for everyone. I know, it already doesn’t work like that. But sticking someone in a representative office from a transactional one, and hoping things will somehow work out, doesn’t make any sense to me. That leaves us with…

Brandon Scott (Democratic)

The current City Council President, Brandon has been in city government for a third of his life, and he’s 36. I’ve never interacted with him directly, and while I don’t have any glowing recommendations, he’s definitely the best choice for Mayor.

I suppose I could lob some complaint about how if he’s been in office for so long, and things are the way they are, why not try someone new? Because this is a strong mayor city. Time for a little talk about how the Board of Estimates works.

The Board of Estimates is the body that effectively decides where city funds go. There are 5 seats in total. One goes to the Comptroller, one to the Mayor, and one to the City Council President. The remaining seats go to the City Solicitor, and the Director of the board. Those last two seats are appointed by the Mayor, so they effectively control those seats, too. The mayor has majority decision power on how funds are spent, and therefore, what happens.

I think Brandon would make a fine mayor. Give him your vote.

8th Circuit Court Judges

I’m sorry for mostly mailing this one in. Judges are not nearly as straightforward to get information about. I’m not a lawyer, and I try to stay as far away from the legal profession and anything connected to it. Everything I know about Baltimore City judges, I’ve gleaned from the Baltimore Courtwatch and BALT twitter feeds.

I can’t say much about most of them, but Sampson seems to toss out Held Without Bond (HWOB) judgements more than seems necessary, so I think he should probably go.

Again, talk to someone else about this.

US Congress

I’m in District 7, so it’s race between Kweisi Mfume and Kim Klacik. There are two other independent candidates, Amber Ivey and Gary Schuman. No offense to either of the independents, but I’ve never heard their names come up until I started doing more research for this. And in the case of Schuman, there’s not a lot to go on. Edit: Neither of these people ended up on the actual ballot. Ivey is planning a run in 2022, so she may be someone to keep an eye on for the future.

If I felt more confidence it wouldn’t be a vote tossed into the void, I’d suggest considering Ivey. She looks to have a decent professional background beneath her, working in private industry before transitioning to the public and non-profit sectors as a data and policy analyst. Definitely not the worst kind of person to have in Congress. Also, she’s not old.

I don’t say this to come across as ageist. I’m just pretty over the gerontocracy we’re currently in. Representative terms are only two years in theory, but I’m not about to elect anyone in their 70s unless their politics are radical. Sadly, Mfume’s do not appear to be, at least by current standards.

I would still recommend voting for him. The only other viable candidate is Klacik, and I have nothing good to say about her. She seems to have used her entire campaign to bash Baltimore. She seems to be running more of a fear-based mayoral or city council campaign than anything else. I don’t appreciate it. Hard pass on Ruin Porn Barbie.

If you’re in another Congressional district, and you might be, please do some research. It’s a general election, and if you’re reading this, you’re not likely to vote for a Republican anyway. But do your research. Third party candidates do exist, and can run solid campaigns.

Court of Special Appeals at Large

As with the above judges, I don’t really know how to find conclusive evidence one way or the other. However, looking at Judge Wells’ professional history, he seems to have a bent towards equal rights.

I’m voting yes, but I don’t feel comfortable saying what anyone else should do.

State Questions

Question 1

This is a state-level change, and an important one to vote FOR on. Currently, the General Assembly is only able to reduce the state’s budget. This would allow them to increase or redirect funding as well. They cannot exceed the total proposed budget put forth by the Governor.

Most state legislatures already operate like this, so this will give the legislature more control over state spending.

Maryland’s General Assembly is also predominantly Democratic (32 vs 15 in the Senate, 99 vs 42 in the House). This would act as a strong counter to Maryland’s frequent Republican governors.

Question 2

Question 2 is to allow an expansion of commercial gaming to allow betting on sports and events, ostensibly to raise money for education. I remember back when the casino expansion happened. They said the same thing about that, but in reality, then ended up siphoning money out of education, so it ended up being net neutral. While also bringing up the inherent issues with gambling and casinos.

I’m voting AGAINST this one.

I don’t care one way or the other. This isn’t a moral issue for me. If people want to bet on sports, that’s their business. I don’t want to invite a situation where schools with get even less funding than they already do.

City Questions

Question A

Question A is on an ordinance to allow the Mayor and the City Council to borrow up to $12MM for affordable housing initiatives. Having spent a few years here, and seen the prevalence of luxury condos go up (with paltry if any affordable housing units), while there is a dearth of general affordable housing, and a large volume of vacant buildings throughout large swathes of the city, this will almost always be something I support. I think you should too. Vote FOR.

Question B

This is on an ordinance to provide up to $38MM for building new schools, as well as making renovations to existing ones. Baltimore schools suffer from several deficiencies. While facilities are only a part of it, they are a huge factor. Lead in the water and a lack of proper climate control both make for inhospitable environments for the city’s children. Vote FOR.

Question C

Voting FOR on this ordinance would allow the Mayor and City Council to borrow up to $38MM for economic and community development projects. This sounds a bit vague, but basically, this is money for small businesses, parks, and other infrastructure that allows communities to thrive. I personally think these are the sort of funds local municipalities should be dispersing, as opposed to that development being placed in non-profit and private hands.

Question D

The final bond issue, this provides up to $72MM for public infrastructure. This is anything from public parks and fire stations, to library buildings and tree placement. Vote FOR.

A note on the bond issues: I don’t know where the city would be borrowing this money from. While this is a topic worth investigating further, it is money well spent. All of these projects would be public goods. That alone is something worth aspiring to. Private investment, while a source of capital, comes with a lot of strings, and tends to exclude certain people.

Question E

This is the first of a number of procedural issues for the city council. This requires a Charter Revision Commission to meet at least once every 10 years. Currently, the city charter is reviewed on an ad-hoc schedule. With the new requirement, the process would be apolitical. Vote FOR.

Question F

This question is analogous to Question 1 at the state level. Currently, the Baltimore City Council has the ability to decrease expenditures, but not reallocate or increase funding. This would allow them to have greater control over the budget, serving as an important check against the mayor. Vote FOR.

Question G

This resolution would change the threshold for overriding a mayoral veto from 3/4 of the council to 2/3. In actual terms, this is a change from 12 people to 10. Importantly, it would also separate the veto process for appropriation bills (changes to the budget), requiring separate bills to be written as opposed to being added as line items to existing bills. Another powerful check on the executive. Vote FOR.

Question H

Currently, if the mayor wants to veto a bill, they can choose to do so at a time when the full council may be unable to convene. This resolution allows for extra time for the council to convene and counter a mayoral veto, if no council meeting was scheduled during the normal veto period.

Given that Baltimore is a strong mayor city, we should opt for as many checks on the executive as possible. Vote FOR.

Question I

This measure is on the removal of certain elected officials (council members, city council president, mayor, and comptroller). It would allow 3/4 of the council to vote to remove any of the listed officials for incompetency, misconduct, willful neglect of office, or a felony or misdemeanor brought against them by relevant parties.

Given our unfortunate history of corrupt or neglectful politicians, I think this is an incredibly important measure. Let’s hold our elected officials to task. Vote FOR.

Question J

This measure would give the city auditor more power to force government employees to produce documents for the purposes of an audit. This is a pretty straightforward one to me. Vote FOR.

Question K

I’m conflicted on this last one. If you haven’t gathered from my previous recommendations, I have serious concerns about executive and, more generally, unelected power. I’m not sure I fully understand what the Chief Administration Officer is supposed to do, but it seems a lot like the CEO at a for-profit company.

Given that this is an appointed, and not elected position, I’m personally against it. However, I’ll admit my ignorance. It might be a useful addition. But with a strong executive already, I don’t feel good giving more power to positions that can’t be controlled by the electorate. I don’t know what the removal criteria is for this role (I assume the mayor or city council president would remove them if needed).

I’m voting AGAINST.

Hopefully this guide was somewhat useful to anyone who read it. I’ll work on making these more thorough and less editorial in the future. But it’s hard to be objective in our current timeline.