Rock the Senate! On Progressives' Getting and Using Political Power

The year 2006 pushed me into electoral politics. Not only did right-wing Republicans control the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the public agenda, but in my very blue home state of Maryland, too many establishment Democrats had grown cozy with corporate predators like Enron and collaborationist with the degraded politics of the Bush era.

My own state senator in eastern Montgomery County (Silver Spring and Takoma Park) was the powerful president pro tem of the Maryland Senate, chair of the Montgomery County Senate delegation in Annapolis, and the widely feared boss of our local Democratic political machine. After she voted for the death penalty, introduced a pro-Iraq War resolution, and co-sponsored legislation to deregulate the state’s electric utilities, I decided to run against her.