Politics

Many in Baltimore Community React with Skepticism to O’Malley’s Claims of Progressive Bona Fides

Published

10 years ago

June 9, 2015

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley speaks before signing a bill abolishing capital punishment in the state during a ceremony in Annapolis, Md., Thursday, May 2, 2013. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

by Roberto Alejandro
Special to the NNPA from the Afro-American Newspaper

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley officially entered the presidential race May 30 with a speech in Baltimore’s Federal Hill, but many in Baltimore are skeptical of both his chances as well as the idea that he is a legitimate liberal alternative to Hillary Clinton, the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“[O’Malley’s candidacy] is still a long shot,” wrote John Bullock, professor of political science at Towson University, in a statement to the AFRO. “He is trying to present himself as a credible alternative to Clinton, but that may not be successful unless she falters. In his announcement, he attempted to appeal to progressives, but Bernie Sanders has the strongest record in that area.”

Indeed, O’Malley made his case for the Democratic nomination during his announcement speech on the strength of a series of supposedly progressive accomplishments during his time in city and state government.

“Together, we made our city believe again and we invented a better and new way of governing called CitiStat, and we got things done. Together, we made our state’s public schools the best in the nation. We made college more affordable for more families. . . . We led our people forward through a devastating recession and we took greater care to protect the land, the air, and the waters of our Chesapeake Bay. And we passed the DREAM Act and we passed marriage equality. Together, we raised the minimum wage and we maintained the highest median income of any state in the nation,” said O’Malley, according to a video of his announcement speech on his campaign website.

But it is not only Sanders’s progressive record that O’Malley will have to overcome, but the skepticism of those who lived through the era of these alleged progressive accomplishments and remember it differently.

“It’s the job of people like myself and others who know O’Malley, who directly engaged and challenged his policies as it relates to Black people to elevate the stories about the things that he did during his time as governor, his time as mayor, to push back against that idea (of O’Mally as a progressive),” said Dayvon Love, public policy director for Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, referring, in part, to O’Malley’s institution of zero tolerance policing during his time as Baltimore City mayor and the O’Malley administration’s support for a $100 million youth jail that was halted by grassroots efforts a number of years ago.

For Leo Burroughs, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Citizens, that history of pursuing policies that were often deleterious to persons of color makes O’Malley more of a “blue dog Democrat” than a tried-and-true liberal.

“[O’Malley is] extraordinarily good at wheeling and dealing in ways that are not in the best interest of the poor, Blacks, or the middle-class. Horrible thought this guy running…but he knows how to reconfigure and reinvent himself,” said Burroughs. “He feigns being some kind of a liberal—this guy was never a liberal; he was always Mr. Zero Tolerance and he’s still Mr. Zero Tolerance.”

To media consultant and political strategist Catalina Byrd, the persons speaking in support of O’Malley at his announcement event were representative of the alleged disconnect between the politician’s rhetoric and policies, of which Burroughs and Love spoke.

“The people that he had speaking for him . . . either weren’t here (in Baltimore City) when he was mayor, or lived outside the city and don’t know what type of mayor he was, or were not impacted—based on their social status, or their fiscal status—by the type of governor that he was, and can’t make the connection and the correlation to how he has failed at every level besides just winning every election. He’s failed in terms of leadership and new direction for both the city and the state,” said Byrd.

In his announcement speech, O’Malley said his accomplishments in Maryland were a function of new leadership and perspective, but it seems he will have to do a better job of convincing the nation this is what he brings to the table than he has some of his previous constituents.

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Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

15 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

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California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

16 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.

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California Holds the Line on DEI as Trump Administration Threatens School Funding

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

Published

16 hours ago

April 28, 2025

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By Joe W. Bowers Jr
California Black Media

California education leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration’s directive to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in its K-12 public schools — despite threats to take away billions in federal funding.

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

According to Trainor, “DEI programs discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”

On April 3, the DOE escalated the pressure, sending a follow-up letter to states demanding that every local educational agency (LEA) certify — within 10 business days — that they were not using federal funds to support “illegal DEI.” The certification requirement, tied to continued federal aid, raised the stakes for California, which receives more than $16 billion annually in federal education funding.

So far, California has refused to comply with the DOE order.

“There is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote David Schapira, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an April 4 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators. Schapira noted that all of California’s more than 1,000 traditional public school districts submit Title VI compliance assurances annually and are subject to regular oversight by the state and the federal government.

In a formal response to the DOE on April 11, the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond collectively rejected the certification demand, calling it vague, legally unsupported, and procedurally improper.

“California and its nearly 2,000 LEAs (including traditional public schools and charter schools) have already provided the requisite guarantee that its programs and services are, and will be, in compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” the letter says.

Thurmond added in a statement, “Today, California affirmed existing and continued compliance with federal laws while we stay the course to move the needle for all students. As our responses to the United States Department of Education state and as the plain text of state and federal laws affirm, there is nothing unlawful about broad core values such as diversity, equity and inclusion. I am proud of our students, educators and school communities who continue to focus on teaching and learning, despite federal actions intended to distract and disrupt.”

California officials say that the federal government cannot change existing civil rights enforcement standards without going through formal rule-making procedures, which require public notice and comment.

Other states are taking a similar approach. In a letter to the DOE, Daniel Morton-Bentley, deputy commissioner and counsel for the New York State Education Department, wrote, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”