This past Friday, State Senator David Brinkley (Frederick County) announced that he will relinquish his leadership position in the Republican Party caucus when leaders are chosen in September. Several names under consideration as his replacement include Senators Nancy Jacobs (Harford County), Allan Kittleman (Howard & Carroll counties) and Alex Mooney (Baltimore and Frederick counties).

So who should be the next Minority Leader of the Senate? First and foremost, the next Leader needs to build strength in the Caucus by strengthening and empowering fellow Senators to build consensus with their constituents on key issues.  This cannot occur by just taking a partisan roll-call.   Senators need help creating opportunities for dialogue with their constituents and building meaningful relationships with and among them in order to communicate clearly and represent accurately the issues facing the state and their constituents’ communities.

Second, this Leader needs to show the same energy level on partisan bills as any other issues. The Republican Party can only keep existing Senators and add to their ranks by strengthening their support at home by communicating clearly on topics of concern to their constituents.  It is hard for a Senator to constantly justify his value in Annapolis by simply counting all of the nay votes against Democratic-led bills.  Constituents want to know that their Senator is pro-active and involved, fighting to benefit their community and not merely grandstanding on partisan issues.

Third, the Leader needs to be a prolific fundraiser, not just for his or her own benefit, but also for the Caucus, helping senators work with each other for the benefit of the Republican Party. The Democrats pool vast resources from the party leaders, building loyalty, distributing power and creating alliances across multiple districts.  The Republicans need to learn from their example and build strength in alliances with other senators, businesses and entities that will support the Republican vision for the future of the State of Maryland.

Whatever personal issues Senator Brinkley is facing, he has and continues to be an asset to the Republican Party in Maryland.  The GOP would do well to keep him in a supporting leadership role so that it can continue to benefit from his experience as a leader and maintain the productive dialogues he established with the majority party.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 3:39 pm and is filed under Maryland Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.