I had a hunch Gov.-elect Larry Hogan was going to make waves on issues of crime and punishment, and now he has selected Sen. Christopher Shank of Hagerstown as the new executive director of the Governor’s Office of Crime Control and Prevention. While Shank is among the most conservative Republicans in the Maryland Senate, he has also been a leader in finding common ground with liberal Democratic lawmakers to rethink old policies on surveillance and civil liberties issues, with a mind to keeping the law enforcement process from trampling on the constitutional rights of individuals. Here’s a post I did last year at Cato on a promising package of reforms endorsed by Sens. Shank and Jamie Raskin (D-Silver Spring) on topics that include email surveillance, location tracking, drones, and automatic license plate recorders. Definitely an appointment that will bear watching.
Free State Notes · Walter Olson on Maryland life and politics
Free State Notes 
Does this mean that Senator Shank will join Senator Getty and Delegates Schulz and Vitale in leaving the legislature and thus creating a vacancy to be filled by a central committee appointee who will get a four-year free ride before there is a vote by the electorate on the position? If what’s happened with the Schulz and Getty replacement situations is an example, the Republican Party caucus in Annapolis is going to lurch even further to the extreme right.