Capital Article
Yeager, Amanda, Former school board member to run for Anne Arundel County Council, May 17, 2017.
Snider Comment
According to Open Secrets, for the 2016 electoral cycle the top five contributors to Emerge Maryland were:
LEG PAC: $7,500
Building A Majority PAC: $7,500
National Education Assn: $5,200
Van Hollen for Senate: $5,000
Cummings for Congress: $5,000
Two former AACPS Board of Education Members were among the 23 accepted for Emerge Maryland’s 2017 Class: In addition to Allison Pickard, Deborah Ritchie.
“This year, she enrolled in a course with Emerge Maryland, an organization that educates Democratic women about the ins and outs of running for office.”
The quotes in this article do indeed suggest a candidate who has learned well how to present herself to the press. But this is an odd choice of courses to mention. MSEA ran the major course for Anne Arundel Democratic candidates for the current election cycle.
Capital Article
Yeager, Amanda, Group aimed at training Democratic women yields 6 Anne Arundel candidates, May 20, 2017
Snider Comment
As I argued in my comments regarding the Capital’s profiles of former school board members Allison Pickard and Debbie Ritchie, it is important to provide campaign finance information about the organizations that support candidates. Good government groups go to great efforts to make campaign finance information publicly available, yet local newspapers like the Capital often fail to make use of it.
Emerge Maryland is relatively new, so it’s appropriate that it is highlighted. But it’s one of only several major players recruiting local candidates, and those other players should also be covered. This is especially important in the upcoming school board elections, where party labels won’t be placed next to the candidates’ names on the ballot and special interest groups will fill the vacuum.