Progressive Maryland

Progressive Maryland has announced the first web-ad in its continued campaign to create a voluntary public campaign finance option by highlighting the influence of energy utilities in Annapolis.

The ad contends that campaign contributions to legislators by electricity companies have sustained the industry’s deregulation nine years, leading to a $1.15 billion windfall for them and an 85% increase for ratepayers. It specifically calls out Senate President Mike Miller and Senate Finance Committee Chair Thomas “Mac” Middleton, both Democrats, for receiving the largest amount of the utilities’ $1.1 million in contributions.

This web-ad was sent to 35,000 state activists and Progressive Maryland says more are on the way, to be accompanied by “tough” direct mail. On Wednesday, the group and Common Cause ran a full page ad in the Baltimore Sun.

ANNAPOLIS- Sen. Richard Colburn (R-Cambridge) would likely have voted against deregulating the electricity industry in 1999 “knowing what he knows now,” according to Jessica Stewart, the senator’s chief of staff.

Colburn, who voted for the 1999 bill, has received $7,615 in campaign contributions from the utility industry, the eighth highest among members of the current General Assembly, since deregulation, according to a report conducted by Progressive Maryland and Common Cause Maryland.

The senator chose not to comment when asked if the contributions created the appearance of impropriety or undue influence, as members of Progressive Maryland and Common Cause suggested.

Stewart said that if Colburn knew that electric rates would eventually be unfrozen, he “probably wouldn’t have voted” in favor of deregulation.

Nine years after the General Assembly voted to deregulate the electricity industry those members who remain in office and who voted in favor of the measure are still receiving much of their campaign contributions from the utility industry, a new report from the advocacy groups Progressive Maryland and Common Cause, finds.

“There are presently 88 members of the General Assembly who were in office when the energy deregulation bill was passed in 1999—65 of whom voted in favor of the legislation,” the report said. “Those who voted on that bill have received at least $280,000 combined in campaign contributions from the electric utility industry since 1998. Those who voted yes received 93 percent of that total.”

Del. Tom HuckerEnvironmental Matters Committee member Tom Hucker will fundraise in Silver Spring this Sunday afternoon for his 2010 re-election to House of Delegates.

Hucker, who is in his first term from District 20, is the founder of Progressive Maryland, and came to the legislature with many powerful friends.

On expected list are Speaker Mike Busch, Comptroller Peter Franchot, Attorney General Doug Gansler, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, and several other legislators and councilmembers.

According to organizers, Gov. Martin O’Malley had confirmed his attendance, but his public schedule now places him spending the weekend canvassing in New Hampshire on behalf of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.