By Richard E. Otten
This past April, as the Maryland state legislative session came to a close, adjunct professors and community leaders held a rally in Annapolis. They came to deliver a simple message: “Take a hike, Mike.” That “Mike” is Mike Miller, who has now been Senate president for three decades.
Miller has consistently stopped important policy ideas from coming to a vote in the Senate—including a bill that would give community college instructors the right to unionize. After working for years to pass the bill, only to be blocked by Miller, activists announced the formation of the Take a Hike Mike campaign, seeking to bring about change in the leadership of the Maryland General Assembly.
I was proud to serve as emcee of this rally. The speakers included Michael Feldman from the Fight for $15, Howard County Community College adjunct instructor of studio art Joan Bevelaqua, Not Without Black Women founder Brittany Oliver, and SEIU Local 500 President Merle Cuttitta.
Feldman discussed what’s it’s like to live on poverty wages in Maryland, one of the wealthiest states in the country, and Miller’s failure to pass a new minimum wage bill. Bevelaqua, who has been fighting for collective bargaining rights in Annapolis for as long as I have, described Miller as petty, aloof, and irrational for refusing to allow our collective bargaining bill to reach the floor of his chamber. Oliver told us that she does not feel safe when she lobbies the legislature for issues of social justice because Miller does not take allegations of sexual harassment seriously. President Cuttitta closed the event by announcing, “If you’re a worker, a woman, a person of color looking for a flag to rally around, we just planted this one.”
In the June primary election, the Take a Hike Mike campaign endorsed an informal slate of senate candidates challenging incumbents, and claimed two massive victories. In Baltimore City, MICA adjunct instructor of sociology Del. Mary Washington defeated the longtime chair of the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee Joan Carter Conway, who had served in the senate since 1997, and in Charles County, Air Force veteran Arthur Ellis shocked 32-year incumbent Senate Finance Committee Chair Thomas M. “Mac” Middleton.
Even if insurgent senators do not manage to unseat Miller as Senate President, the senate will look very different: younger and less white. With Chairman Middleton defeated and Vice Chair John Astle retired, activists lobbying to expand collective bargaining rights for Maryland’s public employees will face a new, less entrenched Finance Committee, beholden to a less powerful president.
We look forward to rejoining the fight in the 2019 session of the Maryland General Assembly.
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