Commentary

U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, the 65-year-old anesthesiologist and former Baltimore County state senator who backs Donald Trump’s fraudulent election claims, once pledged to serve no more than six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Given that he is winding up that sixth term in the 1st Congressional District, it’s time to hold him to that long-ago promise. Fortunately, voters have an outstanding choice to replace Harris. Heather R. Mizeur, the Democratic nominee, has campaigned on a trait wholly foreign to her opponent: She has promised to listen, and she has our endorsement.

A recent letter to The Baltimore Sun (”Student loan bailout a slap in the face,” Sept. 26) has stayed on my mind. I’ve heard the sentiment that was expressed in the letter so many times lately. I understand the writer’s view, and I’m not unsympathetic. My wife and I scrimped and saved to pay college tuitions for our kids just like the writer. But I’m for loan forgiveness. Not because it will benefit me, my wife or my sons, but because I believe that removing the onerous burden of those loans from millions of my fellow citizens will be good for our country.

Marylanders were fortunate this year in that both candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for attorney general during the primary race were highly qualified. Each also stood to break a barrier as being the first elected to that statewide office if victorious in November: retired Baltimore District Court Judge Katie Curran O’Malley as the first woman, and U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown as the first African American. While we endorsed O’Malley in the primary contest, we are not in the least disappointed that Brown won. It was an extremely difficult choice then, and we now enthusiastically put our support behind him in the general election. Anthony Brown has our endorsement.

No woman has ever been elected to the position of Maryland comptroller, a job that essentially amounts to serving as the state’s chief accountant and tax collector. In fact, no woman has ever been elected to statewide office, outside of lieutenant governor — a glass ceiling that can be shattered with the choice of Del. Brooke Lierman to be our next comptroller. Setting that historic opportunity aside, voters can be assured that Lierman is the best qualified person for the job. The 43-year-old Baltimore attorney and mother of two has developed an expertise on state fiscal matters during her two terms in the House of Delegates and a track record in Annapolis of bipartisan consensus building, a skill that’s desperately needed in these politically polarized times.

The prospect of redemption is a hope dashed time after time, so it is worth celebrating when someone lives a redeemed life after a life of crime — and a decade in a federal penitentiary. That was the life of Rocky K. Brown Sr., who died Aug. 8 in Baltimore at 68. His stature in the community is clearly evidenced by two murals in East Baltimore’s Bocek neighborhood, which he helped transform after his stint in prison. A dramatic, two-story mural adorns the side of a rowhouse just off Monument Street, the major east-west thoroughfare bisecting the neighborhood. Brown’s likeness stares intently into the distance as a lion looms over his shoulder. The mural was created in 2018 by artists Elise Victoria and Justin Nethercut of the Baltimore-based Arts & Parks organization. The pair painted a similar image of Brown’s sister, Maxine Lynch, on a rowhouse at the other end of the block.

The number of women’s colleges in the United States has declined since the 1960s, leading some to question if there is still a need for them. Women’s colleges started in the 1800s to provide women access to higher education. However, a women’s college education provides many benefits that go far beyond providing the simple access once denied. Women’s colleges provide safe spaces, allowing young women to find their voices and to fill leadership and other extracurricular roles that are often filled primarily by men. The Women’s Colleges Coalition notes more women graduate in four years or less from women’s colleges than from coed institutions. Other benefits typically include small class sizes, faculty using student-centered teaching styles, collaboration with other women, and opportunities to be mentored by women.