Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s annual address to lawmakers laid bare the dust-ups and bruises after three years of working with a branch that serves as a check on his governing and the intractable forces bearing down on his state from Washington.
Moore cannot control the federal government. He cannot bend the General Assembly to his will.
These last three years have shown Moore the limits of his office, and himself, as a singular force. But they’ve also shown his desire to push forward with his agenda anyway.
Moore’s nearly one-hour State of the State speech celebrated the highs and lows of his first three years in office.
At times during his speech, the CEO-turned-politician seemed contrite, acknowledging he’d learned some lessons and that his success depended on lawmakers with collectively far more knowledge of state government than him. The speech felt at times like a family meeting, almost confessional.
“It’s taken time to build relationships and to learn Annapolis,” he said. “I am an outsider at heart — I don’t see that changing.”
Moore named his most pressing and high-profile battle, redistricting. His call for a vote on new congressional maps in the Senate was met with loud boos, mostly from Republicans, and applause from supporters.
He conceded such disagreement was part of the lawmaking relationship and common in his experience.
“We battle ideas in this building. Often passionately. Then, we go across the street, share a drink at Harry Browne’s,” he said, referencing a popular Annapolis watering hole. ”And get back to work!”
It’s unclear how soon Moore and Senate President Bill Ferguson will be clinking glasses, as the two are at loggerheads over the contentious national issue of whether to redraw the state’s congressional lines.
“I don’t think the governor’s speech landed the way he thinks it did,” Ferguson said in a statement.
Redistricting stalls in Senate
At the top of his speech Moore mentioned his well-publicized push to redraw the state’s congressional districts to improve the chances of a Democratic sweep of all eight seats. The map remains parked in a Senate committee, with no signs that it will move forward.
While Moore can attempt to influence and lobby and cajole senators, he cannot force them to act. And he has been unable to budge Ferguson from his anti-redistricting position. Moore acknowledged that reality early on in his speech, saying the two men had a “principled disagreement” over redistricting.
“We diverge on this particular issue,” Moore said. When it comes to influencing senators, Ferguson may have more leverage than Moore.
So far, only two of the Senate’s 34 Democrats have broken ranks with Ferguson and publicly advocated for a vote on the map in recent days.
Rather than appeal to Ferguson to change his mind, Moore directed his request to the Senate at large, asking the body to take a vote on the proposed map.
“Debate it, discuss it, make adjustments if necessary. And put it to a vote,” Moore said. “Because that’s how we settle our differences in Maryland.”
D.C. targets Maryland
Moore has also had to confront an even bigger and more immovable opponent: an unrestrained federal government under the second Trump administration.
President Donald Trump’s gutting of federal agencies has cost Maryland tens of thousands of jobs, and the Republican administration’s deployment of masked federal immigration agents has come to Maryland. The administration has also ripped away a planned move of the FBI to Greenbelt, threatened funding for key transportation projects, and forced states to pay a greater share of food and health benefits formerly covered by the federal government.
Moore and lawmakers have been relatively powerless to halt the damage. But the governor has offered what the state can provide to make up the yawning gap left by Trump’s policy decisions.
Immigration
Moore introduced help for noncitizens. Under a new initiative he coined “Citizenship Maryland,” the state will help connect people who are close to achieving American citizenship with legal resources.
One of Moore’s invited guests was a pastor from Easton who was arrested and detained by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement and kept in a Louisiana detention center for nearly a month.
Speaking in Spanish, Moore told Daniel Omar Fuentes Espinal that he will always be welcome in Maryland.
After the speech, the pastor said that hearing support from the governor before an audience of the most powerful people in Maryland was “very special.”
At the same time, he said he was saddened by the loss of two members of his congregation who were taken by ICE last week. And despite their legislative efforts, Maryland lawmakers have little control over federal immigration policy.
A mother and children are missing their loved one and struggling to pay bills “because the poor husband, they catch him,” the pastor said.
“We try to help,” he said. “It’s just so difficult.”
Moore’s optimism remains on display
Even with all the limits to his power and influence, and his Trump problem, Moore continues to be optimistic.
His confidence can, in part, be attributed to his outsider status, which has been both an opportunity and a headache.
Whether it’s redistricting, reparations, the Orioles lease, budget difficulties — the list goes on — Moore has run into walls that someone more seasoned may not have. And at the same time, his lack of prior political baggage has allowed him to continue to take big swings.
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of Moore’s optimism and confidence can be found in the way he declares that whatever is next will be better than what has come before.
Take how he closed his speech Wednesday: “I know we will build the kind of future that those who came before us fought for and those who come after us — that they deserve,” he said.
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