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Last Updated June 29, 2005
Southern Maryland was first settled by Catholics, the Calvert family of the Lords Baltimore, who founded St. Mary's in 1634, not long after Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. Maryland became one of the two great Chesapeake tobacco colonies, and plantation houses were built on every inlet off the broad Potomac and Patuxent Rivers. For years, none of these towns grew much, and even today many people here are directly descended from the old families. This was never puritanical country: Liquor flowed even during Prohibition and slot machines were specifically allowed for years by Maryland law. But tobacco farming is nearing an end here, even if the area hasn't completely renounced its tobacco heritage: The highlight of the annual Charles County fair remains the crowning of Queen Nicotina. The area's economic base owes much to government installations like the Civil War Point Lookout prisoner-of-war camp and the Navy's Patuxent River complex, where many astronauts got their first training. And now metro Washington and Baltimore are spreading into southern Maryland, with rapid growth in the 1990s in Calvert County south of Annapolis--the fastest growing county in Maryland--and Charles County, south of Prince George's County; it is reaching even further south into St. Mary's County. The 5th Congressional District of Maryland includes those three counties, plus a large slice of Prince George's--most of the county beyond the Capital Beltway. Its lines were drawn to assure a large black percentage in the adjacent 4th District, but there are also large numbers of blacks in the 5th--30% of the population in 2002--both new suburbanites and descendants of old southern Maryland families. Many of its people live north of Washington, in College Park, home of the University of Maryland, and in Hyattsville, Greenbelt, Beltsville, Laurel and Bowie. The 5th also includes southern Prince George's, from Clinton south, southern Anne Arundel County and all of St. Mary's, Calvert and Charles counties. Historically, this is a Democratic area, but southern Maryland voted heavily for Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich in 2002, and newcomers in fast-growing areas seem to be leaning Republican. The congressman from the 5th District is Steny Hoyer, a veteran Democrat and minority whip, who was first elected to the House in 1981. Hoyer was elected to the Maryland Senate in 1966, at 27, just after graduating from law school. He was Senate president from 1975-78, the youngest in Maryland history; he made a misstep running for lieutenant governor on a losing ticket in 1978. But in 1981, after incumbent Gladys Spellman went into an irreversible coma, the 5th District, then entirely in Prince George's, was declared vacant. Hoyer won the special election by edging out Spellman's husband and several other Democrats in the primary and beating a well-financed, competent Republican candidate in the general. Interestingly, Hoyer is of Danish descent, like the original Prince George; his first name, he says, was his parents' adaptation of the Danish name Steen, and the only other Steny he has encountered is a man from Milwaukee whose full first name is Stenerup. He has fine political instincts, works hard and can speak in an old-fashioned patriotic style that is genuinely moving. A fast riser in Maryland politics, he was also a fast riser in Congress. He excelled at constituency service and soon won a seat on the Appropriations Committee, where he became a key player for the whole D.C. metropolitan area. When Democrats had control, Hoyer chaired what used to be the Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations subcommittee, which oversaw several major components of the federal work force and the White House budget. He has worked for higher pay for federal workers and in 2004 argued that federal workers, with the additional burdens of homeland security, should get the same 3.5% pay raise as military personnel. In 2004 he hailed passage of the Federal Dental and Vision Benefits Enhancement Act. Hoyer has pushed for funding for Chesapeake Bay cleanup and dredging the Bay for Baltimore harbor. He uses his Appropriations seat to fund programs and to see that local facilities are suited for them. Hoyer has worked indefatigably and shrewdly to maintain and increase jobs at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, at Pax River and the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head and to build the National Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park. He secured funding for local military bases in anticipation of the next round of base closings scheduled for 2005. "There are significant pressures to reduce infrastructure. We must be vigilant." In March 2004, work began on a $21 million complex to test and develop the Joint Strike Fighter; in July, Hoyer helped deliver $40 million for the Presidential Helicopter Program. Citizens Against Government Waste rated him among the top 10 members in obtaining local projects, such as a $90,000 parking facility for La Plata and $50,000 for the Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville to study the health benefits of barley. When the Pentagon handed down base closing recommendations in May 2005, Hoyer's efforts paid off: Patuxent ended up gaining 87 jobs and Indian Head lost just 95 jobs out of 3,600. Hoyer's voting record is fairly liberal, though less so than when he represented a near-black-majority district in the late 1980s. He broke with party lines by supporting the balanced budget amendment in 1995, but worked hard in 1996 to support Democratic stands on the minimum wage and health insurance portability; he backed NAFTA, GATT, fast track and normal trade relations with China. He was the chief House sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; in January 2002, he criticized the Supreme Court for what he considered an overly narrow interpretation of it. In October 2002, he voted to authorize military action in Iraq. Later he said, "I think the execution of the policy has been bad. It alienated our allies." He argued that the administration didn't send enough troops to Iraq and that the United Nations "has shirked its own responsibility." He is a former chairman of the Helsinki commission and has been a champion of human rights around the world. As ranking minority member on House Administration, he took the lead in October 2001 in hammering out bipartisan election reform legislation; it passed 362-63 in December 2001. Hoyer and Chairman Bob Ney have worked in a bipartisan manner on other issues as well and especially after September 11. On September 11, 2001, it was Hoyer's idea to have rank and file members stand behind the leadership in front of the Capitol in the evening, when members long-locked in partisan battle sang out together, "God Bless America." In a not very bipartisan House, Hoyer works closely with Republicans on Appropriations and has monthly lunches with Majority Whip Roy Blunt. Ney, with whom he has worked remarkably amicably, said, "Steny is well regarded by his colleagues as a fair-minded person. He's always held to his beliefs and party principles, but he's never injected unfair politics into his decisions." In 1989, Hoyer was elected chairman of the Democratic Caucus, a term-limited position that he left in 1994. When he tried to move up in June 1991, he was beaten for majority whip by David Bonior, who had the support of liberals and committee chairmen, 160-109. He then became chairman of the Democratic Steering Committee and has been Parliamentarian at the 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 Democratic National Conventions. During much of 2000 he conducted a campaign for majority whip against Nancy Pelosi, all premised on the notion that Democrats would win control of the House. He ran as the candidate with the more moderate voting record, but that contest was mooted by the 2000 election. But in 2001 Bonior, faced with unfavorable redistricting, began running for governor of Michigan; Hoyer and Pelosi both sought to replace him as minority whip. Hoyer argued that he had greater experience in leadership positions and could do a better job of unifying the caucus; he cited his support from such different members as John Dingell, John Lewis and Charles Stenholm. Pelosi had more publicly committed votes going into the October 2001 caucus--100 versus 77--and she won 118-95 (both did less well than predicted, as often happens in secret ballot leadership races). Looking ahead, it was plain to Hoyer that there might be another whip contest soon. If Democrats failed to win a majority in November 2002, Dick Gephardt might well resign as minority leader, which is what happened; if they succeeded in winning a majority, Gephardt would have been in line to be Speaker and Pelosi majority leader, leaving the majority whip position open. So Hoyer kept collecting commitments for a race that was likely but not certain to happen. In April 2002 he announced he had 141 pledges of public support from incumbent Democrats; in May he announced he had 19 more. After Gephardt announced his resignation as leader after the November election, Pelosi was easily elected to replace him; Hoyer was unanimously elected minority whip. As minority whip, it is his job to be partisan, and he often has been. In June 2004, after 11 Democrats voted for the rule to consider the corporate tax bill, Hoyer sent a letter to all House Democrats admonishing them for supporting a procedure that prevented Democrats from offering amendments. This is standard procedure: both House Democrats and House Republicans when they have been in the majority have taken a dim view of members of their party who vote against the leadership's rule. Since 1997 the two parties have had an ethics truce in which they have promised not to file politically inspired ethics complaints against the other parties' members and particularly leaders. But in early 2004 Hoyer called for consideration of complaints that Tom DeLay or other Republican leaders offered undue inducement to Nick Smith to vote for the Medicare/prescription drug bill in November 2003. Hoyer once again contributed to and campaigned indefatigably for Democratic House candidates in 2004 and issued his own denunciations of the Bush administration. "I think this is the most fiscally irresponsible administration in history. We have undermined our ability to invest in things that have a big payoff." He made it clear that he was willing to raise taxes to finance more government programs. "Unlike John Kerry, I am not prepared to make an absolute pledge" not to raise middle class taxes, he said. After the 1992 redistricting added southern Maryland counties to his district and subtracted black precincts in Prince George's, Hoyer had some serious Republican competition; he won by only 53%-44% in 1992. But he increased his margins as the decade went on, and his district was the only one in Maryland substantially unchanged by the 2002 redistricting. He won easily in 2002 and 2004, although his margins in fast-growing Calvert County and southern Anne Arundel County were not overwhelming.
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