In miniature, August 26

• “Update on the Preakness Takings Case” [Ilya Somin, Volokh; AP/WTOP; earlier]
• Remembering Urbana’s historic Peter Pan Inn and its exotic Florida relations [Chris Haugh, “Stories in Stone” (Mount Olivet Cemetery)]
• Imperial capital will not relax its grip: Maryland senators aim to block relocation of USDA jobs to the Midwest [Bruce DePuyt, Maryland Matters]
• “Court Upholds Baltimore’s Cronyist Rules Limiting Food Trucks” [Scott Shackford, Reason]
• Abell Foundation: years of tough child support measures have backfired [Yvonne Wenger, Baltimore Sun, gateway to report, more]
• “Why Baltimore Abandoned Johns Hopkins’ Humane Vision” [Anthony Paletta, American Conservative]

Notes from the MACo summer conference

I was glad to attend the Maryland Association of Counties conference in Ocean City this past week, a grand opportunity to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. I attended sessions on topics from the 2020 census to affordable housing, and took some running notes in the form of the tweets below.

One of the most talked-of sessions was the town hall featuring Ben Cardin, Maryland’s senior U.S. senator. Cardin has a reputation as one of the more cautiously spoken and temperate members of the Democratic caucus, and some of his comments indeed struck a centrist tone:

“It starts with protecting our borders. We need to know every person who is entering our country.” – Sen. @BenCardinforMD (D-MD) at #MACo pic.twitter.com/DQKwSSbiDj

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 16, 2019

On firearms, Cardin forthrightly sides with liberals, and mentioned that he and his wife were soon to attend what he called an “anti-gun rally” in Baltimore:

Sen. Ben Cardin identifies “amount of gun ownership” in U.S. as problem needing to be solved. That’s not guns in hands of wrongdoers he’s talking about – it’s guns in the hands of law-abiding owners. #MACo pic.twitter.com/0JfLVTZKQh

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 16, 2019

What really lifted me out of my chair was when a questioner asked about redistricting and Cardin said “don’t blame the Maryland legislature” for gerrymandering. It would be “naive.” Yes, he stood right there before a bipartisan audience and said that.

Sen Ben Cardin: “don’t blame the Maryland legislature” for gerrymandering. That would be “naive.” Yes, he stood right there at #MACo just now and said that. #fairmaps #mdpolitics #tamethegerrymander

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 16, 2019

I had a back-and-forth with Todd Eberly about it:

If only. Cardin voiced an all-out defense of the gerrymander, opposing fair districting as “unilateral disarmament.”

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 16, 2019

Oh, so they were like the Office of Pre-Crime in Minority Report…

— Todd Eberly (@ToddEberly) August 16, 2019

On First Amendment issues, unfortunately, Cardin stuck to a theme that free speech should not be seen as unlimited. He sounded the alarm about foreign interference in elections and jumped directly to a scheme to outfit social media with legally mandated “guardrails”:

Sen. Cardin pushes federal bill to force disclosure of buyers of social media ads. Unmentioned: federal court struck down similar Maryland law as violating First Amendment. I wrote it up: https://t.co/gQ3QKuMJ8c #MACo

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 16, 2019

MACo posts big signs saying that it’s a nonpartisan group and campaigning at the event is forbidden, but as Danielle Gaines noted afterward at Maryland Matters, audience members during Q&A ignored this, especially after one questioner referred to the present Senate majority leader as “Moscow Mitch”:

Audience questions are blatantly ignoring the @MDCounties no-campaign rule, trying to turn the Q&A into a Dem campaign rally. #MACo

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 16, 2019

For most of the panels I attended, however, audience questions provided helpful focus. At the session on agritourism, for example, one audience member offered a cautionary tale from Anne Arundel County: well- meaning nonfarmers drew up rules laying out rules for many activities that farmers have been doing since time immemorial, such as hosting community picnics. Regulation got worse.

Agritourism regulation MACo panel with AgSec Joe Bartenfelder, Kevin Atticks, Del. Charles Otto, Lucille Walker of Southern Maryland Heritage Area. pic.twitter.com/m1R3aaRaEG

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 15, 2019

Apparently the electrified third rail of agritourism politics is “the W word” — farmhouse weddings. Heaven forbid people should get married and be happy if it means more vehicle traffic!

The food safety and packaging regulation panel included a discussion of how the state’s modest new cottage-food law opens up room for home-kitchen providers of a relatively short list of super-safe products, including cookies, jams (but not pickles), and baked goods. There may be some connection here with MACo’s celebrated “Taste of Maryland” reception, in which cookies, along with locally made beer and wine, were the stars. (I liked Cynthia Ann Desserts’s Black-Eyed Susan shortbread cookies at the Charles County booth.) A long line snaked up to the booth of Talbot County, which more ambitiously than its sister counties offered oysters on the half shell.

The Q&A at the food safety panel also led to a back-and-forth on the regulation of kids’ lemonade stands. Jessica Speaker, an assistant commissioner with the Baltimore City Health Department, had some warnings:

Baltimore health official Speaker: kid’s lemonade stand “would need a license” if ice was scooped or lemons sliced. #MACoCon

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 16, 2019

The discussion of the state’s Styrofoam ban seemed to take for granted that it would be the jumping-off point for many further restrictions in years to come:

Del. Lorig Charkoudian, on Maryland’s first-in-nation polystyrene container ban, says she would get asked: “‘Why don’t we get rid of all plastic?’ And I’m like, yes, let’s do that too.” #MACoCon pic.twitter.com/WJq5LTryzj

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 16, 2019

State pre-emption of local legislative power is the sort of topic I really warm to (and talked back on):

Of course the same progressive coalition has next to no interest in expanding local control in many areas like schooling where uniform state laws put progressives in the driver’s seat.

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 15, 2019

Audience Q: why not ask lawmakers to be explicit each time about whether they intend preemption? (Generally a good idea in my view to do this.) LSSC’s Haddow opposes: they’d pick preemption too often. Revealing!

— Walter Olson (@WalterOlsonMd) August 15, 2019

While I disagreed with some of the policy perspectives (as I expected to), the conference was an invaluable chance to learn about multiple and varied aspects of Maryland government up close.

Montgomery County eases building of accessory dwelling units

As population and the job base in the Washington, D.C. area continue to expand, households face a crunch in the price of housing, made worse by the reluctance of local governments to permit residential construction near most of the major employment centers. A unanimous county council in Montgomery County, Md. has now made it slightly easier for homeowners to create in-law units or backyard cottages, but along the way had to face down noisy opposition. I tell the story in a new Cato post (cross-posted from Overlawyered)

Baltimore’s high tax rates

Baltimore is a city with really high tax rates, much higher than those in most of the cities it competes with. “What are city officials doing with all that money?” asks my Cato colleague Chris Edwards. Accompanying graphic: