Candidate watch: Lunchtime brings filing watchers
Del. J. B. Jennings filed months ago to run for the state Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Andy Harris, who is running for Congress, but he is hanging out at the elections board today anyway.
"It's exciting," he said, comparing today's candidacy filing deadline to the NFL
draft. "Who's in, who's out. I want to see what happens." Jennings, a Baltimore County Republican, has been planted in the second-floor office for an hour, checking out the sometimes-frantic final day filers. (Jennings is on lunch break from his job at an IT consulting company in Annapolis.)
Omnipresent lobbyist Bruce Bereano just popped in to check out the action, saying he's a political junkie who pops up here every cycle.
Among last-day filers we've spotted are Sen. Nancy Jacobs, a Republican in Cecil and Harford counties, who said she filed today because she'd been on vacation last week, and Del. Hattie Harrison, a Baltimore Democrat who has served for 36 years.
(Pictured right are Bereano and Harrison. Photo by Annie Linskey.)
Kathy Szeliga filed today because she said she needed her paycheck. Becoming official, as some readers might remember from a legislative session debate, meant she had to resign her day job as a legislative aide to Sen. Andy Harris.
Also, Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy and freshly chosen Mike Ryman just made their partnership official. More on that shortly.
Comments
Good Lt. Governor candidate for the Murphy campaign. What Mr. Murphy really needs, though, is to get his name out there with the public. He does differ greatly in his message from O'Malley and even Ehrlich, but if no one knows he exists, no one will ever realize this...
Posted by: CA Motti | July 6, 2010 1:37 PM
As a taxpayer I'm offended that Kathy Szeliga delayed filing her candidacy until the last minute so she could remain on the state payroll long after her employer, Sen. Andy Harris, announced his own bid for Congress.
Unless Andy Harris can demonstrate that he's been busy with interim legislative work, his job as a state senator ended soon after sine die, and certainly when he announced his candidacy for Congress.
Andy Harris and Kathy Szeliga need to prove that Kathy Szeliga has been doing state work to earn her taxpayer funded salary from mid-April through today.
- Steve Lebowitz, Annapolis
Posted by: justdafacts | July 7, 2010 12:38 AM