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Marvin Mandel at age 90

Originally published in the Daily Times

Education

by The Daily Times Editorial Board

MPPI IN THE NEWS

We missed a milestone of sorts last month -- the 90th birthday of one of the last of the greats to occupy Governor's Mansion in Annapolis.

On April 16, feisty Marvin Mandel became a decade short of a century. Tuesday evening in College Park, the who's who of Maryland's political and lobbying universe gathered to honor a man few people involved with the mechanisms of state leadership will forget.

Mandel was speaker of the House of Delegates when he was literally thrown by the General Assembly into the governor's chair, vacated by Spiro Agnew, just-elected vice president. Maryland, in those days, had no lieutenant governor. Back then, Maryland was the Wild West of political deal-making and two-timing. Money was known to change hands in the halls of state power; kickbacks were a way of doing business. Agnew ultimately became snared in a payoff scandal; Mandel himself would eventually find himself surrounded by scandal, too -- he would serve 19 months in prison, only to have his wrenching, headline-blasting mail fraud/racketeering conviction overturned years later.

In the end, Maryland's 56th governor would enjoy a retirement career as a high-powered lobbyist. Over time, he would evolve into a beloved figure of towering influence and almost-wholesome public appeal. A conservative Democrat, Mandel managed to keep close friends on both sides of the political divide, making himself all the more influential.

While scandal headlines have endured as Mandel's legacy, there was much more to the man who was elected to gubernatorial terms of his own in 1970 and '74. His reorganization of the executive branch changed Maryland government forever, providing his successors with better management models and more influence. His commitment to public education was considered unique for its time: Mandel made spending commitments that improved the state's then-backward funding models, improving the entire educational system.

Mandel's memoir, "I'll Never Forget It," is being released this week, published by the Maryland Public Policy Institute.

Mandel's followers in the governor's chair pale in charismatic comparison. Other than an eight-year thrill ride courtesy of William Donald Schaefer, Maryland seems destined to a succession of boring, plodding, offend-no-one, spin-meistering policy wonks -- men who appear to spend more time coiffing their hair than engaging in the rough and tumble ward-style politics that defines the state.