Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is catching heat for vetoing a historic $577 million funding bill for Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
The veto is drawing a lot of reactions nationally, but locally, the political and economic considerations and more complex than the headlines may give away. Here are a few things to consider:
The vote for the bill was veto-proof…
Only two lawmakers in the Maryland House of Delegates voted against the bill, and all in the state senate voted to affirm it. If the history of the largely Democratic chambers provides any indication, the next session will yield a seamless override of Hogan’s veto.
Maryland State Senator Charles Sydnor III, who authored the original bill on the HBCU funding which evolved into the historic bill that ultimately passed, spoke about the veto with Roland Martin.
…but it doesn’t mean the politics are.
Lawmakers throughout Maryland gave near-unanimous support for the $577 million funding package for the four black colleges, a sign that under usual circumstances would signal that the bill would become law regardless of Hogan’s action. But under a pandemic, those same lawmakers will have to answer to their individual districts and constituents about funding initiatives which in reality, or perception, do not restore jobs or help families to pay bills.
HBCU funding wasn’t the only thing Hogan vetoed
The governor also refused investments in K-12 education, corporate taxes on tobacco, digital streaming, pharmaceutical companies, and resources for fighting crime in Baltimore City. That across-the-board rejection of revenues and services through a number of industries suggests Hogan may have some cover from lawmakers who would’ve had an argument for discrimination had the vetoes been exclusively against black colleges.
Hogan is protected by his leadership on the pandemic response…
Hogan has emerged as a national voice on how governors are providing national leadership in the absence of the same from the White House. Usually, targeting a Republican governor for HBCU sabotage would be an easy case to make, but when the governor leads an overwhelmingly blue state, was among the first to address racial disparities in coronavirus infections, and built a local mini hero-legend on securing COVID-19 tests from South Korea, his supporters have a lot to work with to reject any claims of discrimination or racism against HBCUs or black people.
…but it doesn’t mean he’ll be protected in his political future.
A year ago, Hogan lowballed the HBCUs with a $200 million, ten-year offer that was about a tenth of what the state estimated it would cost to resolve the generations of program duplication and the channeling of black and white students to HBCUs and PWIs in a modern-day ‘separate but equal’ system of higher education.
With three years left in his gubernatorial tenure, the last thing Hogan wants on the backend of a pandemic response and in the waning days of the first Trump Administration and its close ties to racism, is charges of racial divisiveness on an issue proven in several court opinions. For a governor who has hit nearly every right chord on how to manage a global crisis with local urgency, it would seem that his political calculus mirrors the playbook he debuted before the bill was ever introduced.
In the end, Hogan isn’t the target
No one among the legislature or the HBCU advocates wants a case that was filed in 2006, adjudicated in 2013, and failed mediation for six years before reaching a statehouse solution to be derailed by a global health crisis. Hogan may be working to protect his Republican ‘spend less, no racial favor’ brand with a veto, and when the legislative session resumes lawmakers override it and everyone walks away politically well-served and with the price tag as an afterthought.
Hogan is on the wrong side of history, but not his own political story. The mark for HBCU advocates is the legislative body which may or may not override the veto. Criticizing Hogan is easy when you consider the full context of his decision, but it is the Maryland delegates and senators who must commit now to passing this bill as designed upon the opening of any legislative session.
