This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
With remarkable dispatch, the House Rules and Executive Nominations Committee voted unanimously Thursday morning to reject Republican Del. Daniel L. Cox’s attempt to impeach Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R).
The proceedings lasted all of six minutes, and House Minority Leader Jason C. Buckel (R-Allegany) made the motion to dismiss his fellow Republican’s impeachment resolution.
“I do not feel it meets the standards of impeachment in the state of Maryland,” Buckel said. A unanimous voice vote to support Buckel’s motion followed.
Cox, a Frederick County lawmaker who is running to succeed Hogan in this year’s Republican primary for governor, introduced the impeachment resolution on Feb. 10, arguing that Hogan’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic was corrupt and violated Marylanders’ personal freedoms.
Given four minutes to make his case for impeachment Thursday, Cox told the Rules panel that Hogan had trampled Marylanders’ constitutional rights, damaged businesses, ignored the constitutional role of the General Assembly to provide checks and balances, and “intentionally misled the legislature” on the state’s procurement snafus during the height of the pandemic.
“No man, not even the president of the United States, is above the law,” Cox asserted. “…There is no king here in Maryland.”
The lawmaker quoted the governor’s father, the late U.S. Rep. Lawrence J. Hogan Sr. (R), on abuse of power. The elder Hogan had been a pivotal Republican vote on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in 1974, as it approved articles of impeachment against President Nixon.
Cox attempted to read the entire six-count impeachment resolution but was cut short by Rules Committee Chair Anne Healey (D-Prince George’s).
“We can read it,” she snapped.
One witness signed up to testify in favor of Cox’s measure at the early morning virtual hearing, but he did not appear.
The brief hearing and vote on Cox’s resolution followed public hearings on a trio of other conservative Republican proposals: A bill by Del. Sid R. Saab (R-Anne Arundel) to impose term limits on state lawmakers, a resolution by Del. Mark N. Fisher (R-Calvert) for Maryland to participate in a constitutional convention to limit the powers of the federal government, and a resolution by Cox commemorating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Cox is competing in the Republican primary for governor with former Maryland Commerce Secretary Kelly M. Schulz and anti-tax gadfly Robin Ficker. Cox has been endorsed by President Trump, while Schulz is running with Hogan’s support.
