By Gary Bennett
Quick, can you name Maryland’s two democratic U.S. senators? If you came up with Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen without much effort, then you have better recall than me. And I’m a lifelong democrat who voted for both of them—and in Cardin’s case, multiple times.
There can be no doubt that neither Maryland U.S. senator goes out of his way to seek the limelight. It is difficult to recall the last time either was interviewed on the network news or even prime time cable news, which has hours of content to fill. Van Hollen has been a bit more vocal than Cardin, especially lately, but not by much. Even a search of this newspaper, the respected daily that covers the second largest city in Maryland, yields very little news coverage of either. And surprisingly, despite Frederick County slowly turning blue, neither Cardin nor Van Hollen currently has a Frederick office.
While Maryland’s other statewide office holder, Governor Larry Hogan, has dominated the local airwaves and print media with his management of Maryland’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Senators Cardin and Van Hollen seem to be satisfied to stay in the background. Indeed, the pandemic and opposition to former President Trump has raised the visibility of Governor Hogan to levels not seen for a Maryland governor since Spiro Agnew in 1968 who was on his way to becoming Richard Nixon’s vice president.
Certainly U.S. senators are not responsible for administering policy at the state level like the governor, but it is perplexing that neither have provided a more vocal public stance in helping to convince Marylanders to do the right thing with masks, social distancing and vaccinations.
And, there hasn’t been much of an opportunity for either senator to shine during the last two years of the Trump presidency. During that time, not much got accomplished in the Senate except the nomination and approval of federal judges. A look at Cardin’s and Van Hollen’s 2019 and 2020 day-by-day voting records shows a series of no votes for almost all federal judges nominated by Trump and not much else. With a new democratic president and a democrat-led Senate in place now, there should be more opportunity to legislate and lead, but we’ll have to see.
With his unobtrusive and low-key persona, it is surprising to find that Ben Cardin is rated as a very effective U.S. senator. According to research conducted by the Center for Effective Lawmaking at Vanderbilt University in 2018, Ben Cardin was ranked as the sixth most effective democratic senator out of 45. At the other end of the spectrum, Chris Van Hollen ranked forty-second, owing mostly to his relatively short time in the Senate and junior status. The democratic senators rated as most effective are Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Jon Tester (D-MT), and Gary Peters (D-MI).
To be sure, ranking the effectiveness of U.S. senators is at best a subjective exercise that you are free to discount. After all, the rankings did not take into account important but hard to measure activities such as constituent pride in having them as a senator, loquaciousness, leadership qualities, combativeness toward the other side, constituent service and performing oversight of the executive branch.
But what the study did attempt to do was evaluate the effectiveness of each senator in moving their agenda through every step of the legislative process. The resulting effectiveness scores were based on the number of bills a legislator sponsored, how far each of those bills advanced, and its relative substantive significance. Full rankings, methodology and an executive summary may be found at thelawmakers.org.
Without a doubt, Mr. Cardin’s longevity in the Senate drives his perceived effectiveness. He has been a U.S. senator since 2007. Unless he retires—Mr. Cardin is currently 77 years old—he’ll stand again for reelection in 2024. He is chair of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee and a senior member of the Foreign Relations, Finance, and Environment & Public Works Committees. Among his accomplishments are helping to write the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), sponsoring laws guaranteeing dental care to children under CHIP and prohibiting racial profiling at all levels of law enforcement.
Mr. Van Hollen was elected in 2016 and will stand for reelection in 2022. He has not reached chair or senior member status of any Senate committee yet. He is a member of the Appropriations; Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs; Environment & Public Works; and Budget Committees. He has been unable to make much headway into his stated priorities: ensuring more and better jobs, strengthening small business, and increasing educational and job training opportunities. But there is potential for him to be successful in the Senate. A member of the House from 2002 to 2016, he is credited with pushing through substantial legislation in areas such as protecting the Chesapeake Bay, fighting childhood cancer, and assisting families of children with disabilities.
It’s too early to see what the future holds for either Cardin or Van Hollen. While some senators run for president to simply raise their profiles, it seems unlikely that Van Hollen and especially Cardin will mount such an attempt in the near future. Cardin is 77 years old and may retire at the end of his term in 2024. Van Hollen is 61 and very ambitious. But relatively unknown democratic presidential candidates from Maryland tend to not get too far. Just ask Martin O’Malley and John Delaney.
It seems more likely that Van Hollen will face Larry Hogan in an epic match up for senator in 2022 even though Hogan has said publicly that he is not interested in running for that office after his term as governor ends. After flirting in 2020, he seems more interested in a longshot run for president in 2024. But with his ability to win democratic votes in an overwhelmingly blue state, the pressure for him to run for Senate to help tilt it red may be too strong to turn down. As for Cardin, if he does retire in 2024, the odds-on favorite to replace him has to be our new rising political star, Representative Jamie Raskin, fresh off his star turn in the second Trump impeachment trial.