Middle of the Spectrum Politician

Yesterday, on our podcast, Senator Ed Kasemeyer described himself as a “middle of the spectrum” Democrat. He pointed out that the Baltimore County/Elkridge portion of his district tends to be conservative while the Columbia half of the district is more liberal. Consequently he’s always walking a thin line between the two opposing ideologies.

Ed’s district is rather convoluted.

Ed is a rather understated politician. While he comes off as sort of a good old Baltimore boy he is well aware of the power he wields as chair of the Budget and Taxation committee in the state senate. When I suggested that some believe his committee to be the most powerful committee in the General Assembly he responded that “it is the most powerful.”

I asked Ed how he reconciles his generally pro business approach to governance with his opposition to the proposed intermodal terminal in Elkridge. He said that there are three hundred homes within a couple hundred feet of the site which widely overstates the true situation. There are about three hundred homes within a half mile of the site but only about ten or so within a couple hundred feet. He said he "wasn't sure about" how long the site had been zoned M2 which sort of surprised me. I did note that he seemed to hedge his opposition some saying that he really didn’t know why CSX might prefer one site over another adding that he was "all for having CSX come" to HoCo. He did suggest that, in his opinion, the Montevideo Road site was a better choice.

About that point in the interview there was a long “bang bang” in the background. I can assure listeners that it wasn’t some disgruntled Elkronian taking a shot at me. These types of noises come with the territory when you’re podcasting in the middle of The Mall.

You can listen to the 48^th episode of “and then there’s that…” here.