governor, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend announced her support
Monday for the Intercounty Connector across the traffic-choked Washington suburbs so long as the new highway is built in an
environmentally sensitive way.
In another step away
from Gov. Parris N. Glendening, Townsend said in an interview
she would be “open” to a moratorium on the death penalty, an idea the
governor has not supported.
Her backing of the ICC
was cheered by businesspeople — who have lobbied heavily for
it since Glendening rejected the $1 billion project in 1999 — and decried by environmentalists, who say it will destroy
open space while doing little to ease traffic.
“Let
me make my position clear,” Townsend told about 200 business leaders at
a breakfast in Rockville to rally support for her nascent gubernatorial candidacy. “I believe that we should build the ICC in an
environmentally sound way.”
The statements came during a daylong swing through Montgomery County, where Townsend
laid the framework of her platform and scooped up endorsements
and good will for her campaign, which she plans to officially
launch after the General Assembly wraps up April 8.
Glendening has been a strong opponent of the highway
for environmental reasons, and tried unsuccessfully to block its
eventual construction by selling off the land where it would run.
Three years ago, Townsend vigorously defended the
governor’s position, though more recently she has said she would
support the completion of an environmental impact study of the
project.
Her backing for the ICC, which would
stretch across Montgomery County to Prince George’s County,
linking Interstate 270 with Interstate 95, could neutralize the
issue during the campaign. Republican U.S. Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich
Jr., a Baltimore County Republican who announced his own candidacy Monday, already backs the ICC.
“I think it
takes it off the table as a topic for Bob Ehrlich,” said Steven A.
Silverman, president of the Montgomery County Council, who endorsed
Townsend Monday. “What case is he going to be making that would
convince Democrats and independents to cross over and vote for him?”
Townsend said the decision came from a longstanding
conviction that it was the right thing to do. She added that she was
confident the road could be sensitively constructed, and that she
would also push for other ways to relieve traffic, such as extending
the Metro, increasing bus usage and promoting work-at-home programs.
Environmental advocates were nevertheless dismayed.
Dru Schmidt-Perkins, executive director of 1000
Friends of Maryland, said she was stunned by Townsend’s apparent
turnaround, and called the notion of an environmentally sound ICC
“the ultimate oxymoron.” She added that money for the highway and
for other transit options would come from the same pot. “You can’t
have both,” she said.
Both Townsend and Ehrlich
visited Montgomery County Monday, an indication of the impor
tance of the state’s largest jurisdiction in the governor’s race this
year. With traffic at “crisis” levels, according to most residents
surveyed in a poll conducted for The Sun in January,
no politician can appear there without mentioning the infamously
clogged roadways.
But her remarks also signaled an
important departure for Townsend, who has been criticized recently
for remaining too long in Glendening’s shadow, and not speaking her
own mind.
“Obviously it means she’s her own person,”
said David R. Paulson, spokesman for the Maryland Democratic Party.
“She’s an independent thinker. So if people were worried about that,
they shouldn’t be.”
Townsend also differentiated herself from Glendening Monday
during an interview by saying she might support a moratorium on the
death penalty if a study now under way showed racial bias in its
application.
“We have a real obligation to make sure
that it is used fairly,” she said. “I would be open to a moratorium.
I would look at what the study says.”
Last year the
House of Delegates passed a moratorium bill but the measure died in
the Senate. This year Glendening has refused to consider enacting a
halt on executions by executive order.
During
her packed itinerary Monday, Townsend talked to high school
students, congratulated participants of a HotSpot crime-reduction
program, racked up endorsements from local, state and national
firefighters unions, and took questions from residents at Leisure
World, a huge senior housing center in Silver Spring.