More News

Transition becomes City Hall-State House axis

O’Malley surrounds himself with people he can trust to tell him the truth

Friday, Dec. 8, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Laurie DeWitt⁄ The Gazette Gov.-elect Martin O’Malley has appointed Michael R. Enright as his chief of staff. Click here to enlarge this photo Laurie DeWitt⁄ The Gazette O’Malley has appointed Ralph Tyler as executive director of his transition committee.

The city’s two deputy mayors — Michael R. Enright and Jeanne D. Hitchcock — have been appointed to powerful positions where they will promote the governor-elect’s agenda. City Solicitor Ralph Tyler is executive director of the transition team and a sure bet to find a permanent position after the inauguration.

And in Enright’s case, his ties to O’Malley predate his arrival in Baltimore politics; they begin in the men’s freshman year in high school. Enright was O’Malley’s best man 16 years ago when the mayor married Catherine Curran, daughter of Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. (D) and now a Baltimore District Court judge.

The rest of the state shouldn’t be concerned that O’Malley’s inner circle has such a Baltimore tilt, House Speaker Michael E. Busch said.

‘‘I think you have to give an executive an opportunity to select people they feel comfortable with,” said Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis.

‘‘Just give us time,” Enright said Thursday. ‘‘The government is going to reflect the diversity of the state. ... This is a work in progress.”

Enright has been named O’Malley’s chief of staff. Hitchcock will be his appointments secretary. Other Baltimore hands in the new administration include Peggy J. Watson and Matthew D. Gallagher as deputy chiefs of staff.

Watson was the city’s finance director. Gallagher managed Baltimore’s CitiStat program, which monitors government services. O’Malley has pledged to recreate the program at the state level.

Hitchcock will have input in all appointments, O’Malley said at a Tuesday news conference. The governor gets to select thousands for state jobs.

Hitchcock is politically connected and knows the players, said William Kress, an Annapolis lobbyist who worked with O’Malley in a Towson law firm. Kress was O’Malley’s field director in his 1999 mayoral campaign.

The Hitchcock appointment was an astute move for O’Malley because she has the ability to prioritize candidates who might be seeking the same position, said Donald Hutchinson, president and CEO of SunTrust Bank Maryland.

Hitchcock joined the O’Malley administration in 1999. She has been deputy mayor for intergovernmental relations, the city’s chief lobbyist. She oversaw city public schools and the health department.

She was chief operating officer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and an executive with the Southland Corp., which owns and operates 7-Eleven convenience stores.

Enright joined O’Malley after serving as legislative director for Benjamin L. Cardin when the Pikesville Democrat represented the 3rd District in Congress. He also worked at newspapers and in state government.

As chief of staff, Enright will have ready access to the governor and serve as his gatekeeper.

Despite years as an administrator in Baltimore, Enright might not be prepared for the number of lobbyists that will be seeking the governor’s attention, Kress said. ‘‘He’ll have to learn to deal with that.”

Hutchinson, a former Baltimore County executive and state legislator, said Enright inherently knows what O’Malley wants and needs.

‘‘It’s like he’s the brain inside the brain,” Hutchinson said.

O’Malley has better political instincts, but Enright knows what’s best for the new governor, Hutchinson said.

Enright said access will be based on urgency and relevancy. ‘‘Whatever the issue is ... they may be urgent to the person, but they may not be urgent to the governor,” he said.

Joseph C. Bryce, who will be O’Malley’s senior policy and legislative adviser, will have direct access, Enright said.

The Bryce pick drew praise from his former boss, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller. ‘‘If he’s going to have Joe Bryce with him, his first year is going to be a success,” said Miller (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach.

Bryce was Miller’s chief of staff. He also was in the legislative policy office of Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D). He now is the associate vice chancellor for Government Relations at the University System of Maryland, the system’s chief lobbyist.

Tyler has been the city solicitor for two and a half years. For a time before that, Tyler was deputy attorney general in Joe Curran’s office.

Tyler played an important role in O’Malley’s court challenge of a deal brokered by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) and Constellation Energy Group and approved by the Public Service Commission. The city argued successfully that the PSC had not reviewed whether the deal was best for consumers.

With the deal scotched, lawmakers returned to Annapolis for a special session on electricity rates, and that led to a showdown between Democrats and Ehrlich.

As the city’s lawyer, Tyler at times must give bad news or difficult advice to O’Malley.

‘‘He expects that we have given it serious thought and consideration. If we explain a problem and why our conclusion is what it is, he’s accepting of that,” Tyler said. ‘‘He lives in the real world, in a complicated world where law and politics and media and the rest of it come into play.”

Tyler called O’Malley a ‘‘sophisticated client,” one that is unlikely to accept recommendations without asking difficult questions.

‘‘He’s a lawyer for openers. He certainly understands in a very deep way not only the problems government faces but the opportunities that it has to solve those problems,” Tyler said.

O’Malley accepts that bad news is sometimes the only reality, Enright said. ‘‘If you try to make bad news into something that it isn’t. You sometimes end up in a deeper hole,” he said.

Presenting information is like writing a good term paper, Enright said. ‘‘I try to not dance around. You don’t have enough time to dance around,” he said.