In miniature, January 22

• Hey, I’m in the news again on gerrymander reform [WBOC, video of governor’s press conference, more information and portal to apply for citizen seats]
• Comptroller Peter Franchot urges lawmakers to “back off” Kirwan override: “They don’t know where the $4 billion…is going to come from, other than ‘maybe this’ and ‘maybe that.’ ” [Bruce DePuyt, Maryland Matters]  Kirwan bill “is far more about grabbing political power than improving the quality of education.” [Sen. Bob Cassilly, Maryland Matters]
• Maryland bill would enact only-in-the-nation tax on digital advertising. General Assembly should sustain Hogan’s veto of this bad measure [Rebecca Snyder, Matthew McDermott and Lisa Reynolds, Frederick News-Post]
• In fatal no-knock raid shooting of Duncan Lemp, “clouded by the conflicting accounts and the lack of video evidence,” MoCo state’s attorney’s office issues report excusing police from blame [C.J. Ciaramella, Reason]
• Less latitude for bullies to file speech-deterring lawsuits: “Decision breathes some life into Maryland’s weak anti-SLAPP statute” [Paul Alan Levy]
• As if restaurants in Prince George’s County haven’t suffered enough this past year [Baylen Linnekin, Reason on nannyish children’s meal measure]

Franchot’s bad idea: sanctions against Alabama

Comptroller Peter Franchot is normally one of the more level-headed Maryland electeds, but this latest idea of his, to adopt state sanctions against Alabama after its enactment of a sweeping ban on abortion, is quite bad. (Included in the sanctions would be restrictions on pension investments and travel by employees of the Comptroller’s office.) Boycotts by states of other states damage national unity, operate like internal trade barriers, invite retaliation, and these days nearly always fail. (Admittedly, they might make sense as a tactic for use in scenarios of impending civil war.)

For those of us who favor lifting trade sanctions against, say, Cuba, a regime that is 1) anti-American, 2) Communist, and 3) not even part of our own country, the wrongness of official sanctions and divestment against other U.S. states should be an easy call. See more at Overlawyered here, here, and here.

Culture War Tomorrow, Comity Tonight.

Alcohol restrictionists plot against Franchot; Flying Dog scraps Frederick expansion

Public health nannies, big alcohol lobbyists and intraparty rivals are all gunning for Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot, so I figure he must be doing something right. Danielle Gaines reports.

To spell out what Franchot is doing right, he’s been pursuing a pro-consumer, pro-market, pro-competition agenda that would ease the way for craft beer and wine producers and other newcomers to offer buyers more choices at lower prices. Public health nannies like those at Hopkins’s Bloomberg Center don’t like that because they think drinks should be more expensive and harder to get, for your own good you understand. Big alcohol lobbyists don’t like it because their business model is premised on maintaining scarcer and more expensive choices with less competition. And intraparty rivals don’t like it because Franchot — though a Democrat of a rather liberal stripe — is happy to cooperate with Republicans like Gov. Larry Hogan to get things done.

Meanwhile, faced with intractable resistance among the majority legislative leadership in Annapolis to modernizing and easing craft beer regulations, Flying Dog Brewery has bailed out on its plans for a big expansion in east Frederick and put the land up for sale. Bad law has consequences.

Weaker oversight for school construction?

Good for Comptroller Peter Franchot: if the school systems are trying to wriggle out of budget oversight, it’s time to make that oversight stronger, not weaker. Note that it was Frederick County Public Schools Superintendent Theresa Alban, “who also serves as president of the Public School Superintendents Association of Maryland,” who sent the letter to Mike Miller and Mike Busch asking them to limit the power of the Board of Public Works to check and balance the demands of the school construction lobby. More: Frederick News-Post.

“Montgomery County is the last bastion of a medieval state system”

“We’re probably the worst, most regulated county in the entire country” on alcohol sales: Comptroller Peter Franchot has a thing or two to say about the need for Montgomery County to ditch its county-run liquor system (via). The Seventh State has run an illuminating exchange on the subject lately, and Bethesda Magazine has details of a partial privatization plan.