2022 Voter Guide: Jon Baron, candidate for Maryland Governor

Why are you running for office?

I’m running for governor because Maryland isn’t making progress on problems that damage millions of lives, and I’m offering a fundamentally different approach. More than 1/4 of Maryland eighth graders can’t read at basic level — these and other achievement numbers are no different than 20 years ago. Moderate-income Marylanders have seen stagnant wages since the 1980s as income inequality has soared, and we’ve made no progress reducing the poverty rate in more than 30 years. Our state can’t just keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing for decades — rolling out one unproven government program after another — and expect a different result, because unfortunately, many programs just don’t work. To make progress, we must expand solutions that don’t just sound like good ideas, but have actually been tested in the real world and shown to make a big difference in people’s lives. Let’s do what works!

What is the most pressing issue in Maryland and what are your plans to address it?

Too many Maryland children and adults don’t get the education and training needed to succeed in the workforce. When I’m governor, we’ll do what’s proven to work — like providing high-quality tutoring to every struggling first and second grader in Maryland, moving them up toward grade level early, before their problems become serious. We’ll do this by recruiting an army of tutors from the community, including retirees and recent college graduates. We’ll also provide proven job training programs to every adult who wants to advance. If done right, job training can be extremely effective — raising wages as much as 40%. The key is to focus the training on fast-growing industries, like IT and healthcare, and to work closely with employers who provide paid internships to the trainees. Under my plan, the state will pay for the training, employers pay for the internships, our economy gets skilled workers, everyone benefits.

What should the state do to reduce violent crime in and around Baltimore?

Baltimore has seen seven straight years with over 300 homicides — levels not seen since the crime wave of the 1990s. Reducing violent crime in Baltimore and elsewhere will be a top priority of the Baron-Williams administration. We’ll fund crime-fighting strategies that are shown to produce big reductions in violent crime while building community trust. As one example, we’ll expand Focused Deterrence — an approach which recognizes that most violent crimes are committed by a relatively small number of individuals who are repeat violent offenders. These individuals are invited to meet with community leaders, social service agencies, and law enforcement. The meetings offer positive support, such as jobs and counseling, while also making clear that continued violence will prompt a strong, focused response from law enforcement. This strategy has been found extremely promising in other cities, including Oakland, California — where it was associated with a 50% reduction in homicides.

What are your top three priorities for transportation in Maryland, and how would you fund them?

I support policies that will enable all Marylanders to get from Point A to Point B in a safe and efficient manner, especially through rail and mass transit. For example, when I’m governor we’ll implement an effective East-West transit solution in Baltimore (i.e. the Red Line), and complete the Purple Line in Montgomery and Prince George’s County. More generally, the Baron-Williams administration will ensure state highways and public transit systems have the funding needed to support the communities that rely on them. Importantly, we’ll reform the state’s process for procuring major transit projects to ensure we only select contractors with a demonstrated record of completing major infrastructure projects on time and within budget. The Purple Line is more than $1.5 billion over budget and four years delayed because we chose a contractor with a history of poor performance. Through smarter procurement, we can save taxpayers billions of dollars.

What should Maryland schools do differently during the next pandemic?

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from this pandemic it’s that, except under dire circumstances, we must do everything possible to keep students in the classroom and avoid remote learning. The costs to students of being out of the classroom — in learning loss and mental health — are enormous, especially for young kids and students from disadvantaged backgrounds who may not have access to technology needed for remote learning. The most effective action we can take to ensure schools stay open during possible future waves of COVID is to increase vaccinations — which are extremely effective in preventing serious illness. That’s why I was the first candidate to call for vaccine requirements for school staff and students age 16+, and for vaccine clinics at all public schools to encourage students age 5+ to get vaccinated with parental consent. Similar clinics have proven very effective at increasing flu vaccination rates.

What are your plans for the state’s property taxes?

The overall state and local tax burden in Maryland (10.5% of personal income) is roughly the same as the national average (10%), and very similar to that of neighboring states. I’m not advocating an increase in state spending or taxes — I’m advocating smart spending on programs and policies that actually deliver results and improve people’s lives. In fact, some of the reforms I’m proposing — such as negotiating lower statewide prices for prescription drugs, and preventing unnecessary hospitalizations — would produce substantial savings for taxpayers as well as individual patients. I also strongly support the recently-enacted tax break for retirees, and would seek other ways to ease property and other taxes for low- and moderate-income Marylanders in a budget-neutral way — for example, by closing corporate tax loopholes.

How equitably do police officers treat people of color?

The murders of George Floyd and Freddie Gray, and many similar incidents around the country and in Maryland, have exposed deep racial inequities in our justice system. This is a fundamental issue of human rights and, as we’ve seen, life and death. Addressing it effectively will be a top priority of our administration. I’m proud that Maryland has led the country in enacting major police reforms, such as independent investigations of police misconduct, revised use-of-force standards, and expanded use of body-worn cameras and police training. But there’s a critical missing piece I would bring as governor to the implementation of these reforms: rigorous testing to determine which are most effective (and should be expanded), and which are not (and should be revised or ended). For example, there are many types of police training, and we urgently need to determine which work best to reduce misconduct and building community trust.

What would you do to make sure Maryland’s voting system is secure and accurate?

By all indications, Maryland’s voting system is secure and accurate. I have full faith in our state’s electoral process and, as governor, will work with the Secretary of State’s office and the legislature to ensure that our state continues to have the financial and administrative resources needed to run safe and secure elections. I also support making voting as accessible and convenient as possible for eligible voters, through policies such as automatic voter registration and automatic mail ballots. As governor, I will work with the legislature and with vote-by-mail experts to ensure Maryland’s vote-by-mail system is fair, equitable, and easy for all voters to understand and adapt to.

What are the right goals and deadlines for Maryland to reduce carbon emissions and develop renewable energy sources?

Setting goals and deadlines can be helpful for tracking decarbonization efforts, but they mean little if we don’t have a comprehensive strategy to reach those goals. I’m the only candidate who has proposed an ambitious, concrete, systematic strategy to significantly cut carbon emissions. I’m proposing a regional approach, building on the successful Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) — an 11-state cap-and-trade program that has cut carbon emissions from power plants by 47% since its launch in 2009. We’ll expand this approach to other economic sectors — beyond just power plants — by joining the new Transportation and Climate Initiative Program (TCI-P). TCI-P, like RGGI, is a multi-state initiative to lower greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade approach. TCI-P focuses on cutting emissions in the transportation sector, which currently accounts for 36% of Maryland’s greenhouse gas emissions. TCI-P aims to reduce transportation-related emissions in participating TCI-P states by 26% by 2032.

What are Gov. Larry Hogan’s best and worst policies?

Like many Marylanders, I was proud of the way Hogan stood up to Donald Trump. Few Republicans did what he did — it took moral courage, and he deserves a great deal of credit. And in a political era defined by polarization and dysfunction, our state politics remain largely civilized and productive. Gov. Hogan and Democratic legislative leaders deserve great credit for our largely civil political discourse. In many other areas, Gov. Hogan has fallen short — especially when it comes to carrying out certain basic functions of government. Unacceptable delays in disbursing unemployment assistance and rent relief during COVID hurt thousands of families across the state. Gov. Hogan also has not addressed major, longstanding problems in our state, such as stagnant wages, stagnant education, and stagnant poverty. The Baron-Williams Administration will bring a very different approach.