Martin O'Malley

Martin O'Malley is Governor of Maryland. He is currently running for President on the Democratic ticket.

Party leaders

As of 2012, party leaders of the Democratic National Committee were;

• Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee Chairman
• Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, Democratic Governors Association Chair
• Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), Democratic Congressional Committee Chair
• Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair

Backing Baker

Progressive unions, groups and allies are taking on Democratic Party regulars in the June 26 Maryland Democratic gubernatorial primary. But whoever wins faces an unenviable task, even in the deep-blue state: Trying to dislodge popular GOP Gov. Larry Hogan in November.

On the party regulars’ side, former Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley became the latest regular backer of the other leader, Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker. O’Malley joined former Gov. Parris Glendening, state Attorney General Brian Frosh and U.S. House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer in backing Baker.

Blue Green Alliance

The Blue Green Alliance sponsors the annual Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference. The 2009 conference was held from Feb. 4-6, 2009.

Conference speakers included:

• Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
• U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, Ohio
• U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
• U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, Michigan
• Governor Martin O'Malley, Maryland
• Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Kansas
• Congressman Keith Ellison, Fifth District, Minnesota
• Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director, United Nations Under-Secretary General
• Cathy Zoi, CEO, Alliance for Climate Protection
• Richard Trumka, Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
• Leo W. Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers
• Larry Cohen, President, Communications Workers of America
• Van Jones, Founding President, Green For All

Center for American Progress speech

Staking out a stand that says restoring the middle class should be the first objective of government, Gov. Martin O'Malley, laid out a comprehensive platform, building on accomplishments he touted in his state, to do so.

In a May 30, 2013 speech to the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, O'Malley said his platform includes increased emphasis on and aid to education, retooling job training programs to emphasize skills important to high-tech industry, a new commitment to infrastructure, and civil rights moves, including the right of gay, lesbian and transgender couples to legal and marriage equality.

The O'Malley speech is important because the two-term governor is considering whether to throw his hat in the ring for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination. The former Baltimore mayor's speech made it quite clear that if he does so, he will run on his record, including gay marriage, joint labor-business economic development and the state's high standing in job creation, education and entrepreneurship.

Unions view O'Malley as generally pro-labor, even though he admitted in the speech that he had to cut the state workforce after Maryland, like the rest of the nation, lost revenue when the Great Recession began in 2008. Despite that loss, Maryland has plowed more money into schools and infrastructure, he said. And he signed measures allowing unionization among groups of Maryland state workers.

O'Malley's labor support was reflected in an enthusiastic introduction from Hector Figueroa, president of Service Employees 32BJ, the 125,000-member property service workers union whose locals stretch from Connecticut to Virginia.

Human rights includes the rights of immigrants, the governor said. O'Malley touted both the same-sex marriage law and the statewide Dream Act, legalizing young people without papers. He pushed both through the overwhelmingly Democratic legislature.

Mayors for Peace

The agenda of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' annual meeting June 19-22, 2015, in San Francisco ran the gamut of issues mayors must deal with every day - water, technology, climate, energy, transportation, law enforcement, jobs, education, housing - to name a few.

But one issue kept resurfacing: how to confront and deal with the virulent racism that remains a current in U.S. life, whether expressed in last week's killing of nine African Americans engaged in bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, S.C., or killings by police that recently took the lives of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray and others.

A series of demonstrations, including a Friday "arms are for hugging, not policing" action and a Saturday morning march of several hundred protesters, kept up a relentless drumbeat about the meeting's heavy corporate sponsorship (read Wells Fargo, Walmart, Google and a couple dozen more). Protesters called on the mayors to end racist police brutality, demilitarize the police, and work to solve the crises of gentrification and affordable housing.

Speaking before the march, Jackie Cabasso, North American Coordinator for Mayors for Peace, called the USCM "a real mixed bag. Some good things are going on in there, and some really bad things." Since the mayors are "more diverse, more approachable, more progressive and more subject to citizens' pressures than members of Congress," she said, "It's a good thing we are out here today, telling them what we think and telling them that arms are for hugging."

Reminding demonstrators that this year marks 70 years since the U.S. atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Cabasso called the bombings "the bedrock of the military industrial complex ... at the center of a process that goes onto the streets through the widespread availability of guns and translates into wars around the world and the militarization of the police."

Founded in 1982 by the mayor of Hiroshima, Mayors for Peace has over 6,700 member cities in 160 countries, over 200 in the U.S. In the last decade, Mayors for Peace has introduced and the USCM has passed increasingly strong resolutions for worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons.

Netroots Nation 2015

Speakers at Netroots Nation 2015, in Phoenix Arizona, one of the largest gatherings of progressives and the Democratic activist base, included Bernie Sanders, Martin O'Malley, Elizabeth Warren, Rosa DeLauro, Donna Edwards, Keith Ellison, Ruben Gallego, Raul Grijalva, Hank Johnson, Robin Kelly, Mark Takano.

References

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