Edwards vs. Van Hollen: Maryland liberals clash for Mikulski’s Senate seat

Rep. Donna F. Edwards and Rep. Chris Van Hollen are two very competent, liberal Democratic candidates, seeking the same seat in the U.S. Senate from Maryland.

They are looking to replace Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who’s retiring after 30 years in the Senate and 10 years in the House, with a mixed record of public service. More about that topic later.

Rep. Edwards (D-4th) represents Prince George’s County in Maryland, which borders on the easterly end of the District of Columbia. Parts of Anne Arundel County are also in her bailiwick. She’s been in the House since 2008, and was also the first African-American women elected to the Congress in the state’s history.

Right next door, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, has represented the 8th District, mostly in affluent Montgomery County. Bordering the western side of D.C., it also includes smaller portions of rural Frederick and Carrol Counties. He’s been in the Congress since 2003.

Edwards versus Van Hollen

The clash of the Liberals. This hotly-contested primary election is set for April 26th. The polls have the candidates in a neck-and-neck race. Both campaigns are well-financed. However, a recent poll puts Edwards has a “lead in the single digits.”

At a debate on March 25th, at the University of Baltimore, the candidates sparred around such issues as trade deals, constituent service and Social Security. There were references by both candidates to something labeled, “Mikulski’s Legacy,” without giving any details. (Regretfully, the topic of funding “endless wars,” wasn’t raised.) It was on the trade deal question, however, where Edwards struck a telling blow against Van Hollen.

Edwards tore into Van Hollen for “supporting ‘nine’ free-trade agreements” in recent years – deals, she claimed were all opposed by organized labor because of its concerns that they lowered working standards and wages. The “Baltimore Sun put it this way,” Edwards added this broadside: “You cannot, on the one hand, vote for these free-trade deals and on the other hand say that you support the workers.”

Van Hollen didn’t directly answer Edwards’ specific charges. Rather, he said that he judged each of the trade agreements “on its merits.”

Van Hollen’s response reminded me of Sen. Mikulski’s reply to a recent accusation that she sold out union construction workers in the state to “foreign guest workers coming to take Americans jobs.”

Backstory: Sen. Mikulski had stuck, “in the dead of night,” a provision in the Omnibus Budget Bill, that “tripled the number of H2B visas for foreign workers.”

It also “nullified new regulations” and reduced the foreign workers to “nothing more than indentured servants,” the union ad spotlighted. The Souther Poverty Law Center condemned the program as a “sellout to corporate interest.”

How did Sen. Mikulski answer the criticism? She bragged, in part, about bringing over $1 billion to Maryland “over the past decade for military construction.” This is the same politico that when confronted by peace activists about her repeated votes to fund the Iraq War would say that she did so because, “I support the troops.”

Back to the Edwards and Van Hollen and their tight race for Senate. In addition to the candidates’ endless strategizing, a third party has stuck her nose into the fight.

On March 28th, Heather R. Mizeur, a Democrat, and popular former two-term member of the Maryland House of Delegates, was a losing, but gutsy candidate for governor in 2014, and the only openly gay candidate to ever run for that office.

Miser has zeroed in on the issue of constituent service. As a member of the state’s House of Delegates for eight years, she has had an opportunity to observe how the federal offices of Edwards and Van Hollen assisted concerned citizens in their respective districts. Her state area encompassed, and overlapped in places, their federal jurisdictions. Mizeur said that on that scorecard, “there is a huge difference between the candidates seeking to replace U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski, and Chris Van Hollen wins by a landslide.”

This hard swipe, too, at Rep. Edwards from Mizuer. She insisted: “Sen. Mikulski had left some mighty big shoes to fill. By showing a sincere regard for the people he serves, Chris Van Hollen is the only one in this race ready to step into them.” Edwards has’t replied to Mizuer’s claims.

In spite of the charges and counter-charges, it’s the voters who will decide. In this battle to the finish line, Edwards has an ace up her sleeve. Baltimore City, which is predominately black, is having the mother of all elections for the office of mayor. More than 20 candidates are in the race. Some of the top-rated Democrats in the contest are black. They are expected to get the vote out and this might just give Edwards the edge she needs to pull off a win. It will go down to the wire. Stay tuned.

Finally, just a word or two about “Sen. Mikulski’s Legacy.” There is pending in the Congress yet another potentially disastrous trade agreement. It is known as the “TPP.” It’s true that at the end of the day Mikulski may vote against this treaty, but where, in the meantime, is her leadership on this important matter?

When Mikulski entered the House of Representatives back in 1976, Bethlehem Steel was still one of the giant manufactures of steel in the U.S. One of its prize facilities was the Sparrows Point steelmaking, shipbuilding and dry docks located on the banks of the Patapsco River in Baltimore County. There, tens of thousands of union workers were employed. It was also home to the largest dry docks in the world. Today, it’s all gone. A victim, I suggest, mainly of the egregiously unfair trade agreements passed over the years by the U.S. Congress at the bequest of the Globalist schemers.

Let me further suggest that Mikulski by her lack of leadership in the Congress was one of Sparrows Point’s pallbearers! This, too, is part of her legacy. It’s important that the candidates wanting to fill her “mighty big shoes” understand this critical fact. Our America can not afford any further de-industrialization.