Lancaster Appointment to Orphans Court Latest in

Changing Political Landscape of Charles County

 

By Kenneth C. Rossignol

ST. MARY’S TODAY

COBB ISLAND — The longtime head of the most active Democratic Club in Charles County and a retired labor union official, Frank Lancaster, was notified on Friday by the office of Governor Martin O’Malley that he was selected by the Governor to fill out the vacancy on the Charles County Orphans Court.

"I am honored to be appointed to the court," Lancaster told ST. MARY’S TODAY on Friday after being notified, "and I will fill the position in service to the people of Charles County with dignity and integrity."

Lancaster’s appointment was delayed as Republicans challenged the ability of the Democrats to make an appointment of someone who was not a Republican to fill the position.

But local GOP officials gave up the quest of Kevin B. Wedding, a former Judge of the Orphans Court who was defeated in the 2006 election, when the Governor’s office was firm in the determination to appoint anyone of any party as the law does not specify that the appointment be made from the same party as that of the departing judge.

Judge Elizabeth Garner had served since 1982 on the Court and decided to retire. Her replacement by a Republican had been assumed and the Charles Republican Central Committee selected Wedding and sent his name to Sen. Mac Middleton (D. Charles). Middleton waffled on the appointment and appeared to be playing politics with the Republicans despite the drubbing they took at the polls in 2006. Middleton took the position that since Governor Bob Ehrlich had honored a Democratic vacancy on the Court with the selection of another Democrat that the "tradition" should be continued.

But when it comes to Maryland politics, the only tradition is that the Democratic Party runs things and plays hardball.

Lancaster, who has been the longtime president of the 4th and 5th District Democratic Club had the strong support of Sen. Roy Dyson (D. St. Mary’s, Charles, Calvert) and from organized labor officials, all of whom prevailed with letters of support to the Governor.

The post of Orphans Court Judge is basically an administrative post that is not generally hotly contested and incumbents often run together in a slate, blocking those who want to win a seat.

Both Lancaster and Middleton have long family involvements in Charles County politics with Frank Lancaster being the grandson of Sen. Spearman Lancaster and Middleton, a former commissioner president, also is the son of Orphans Court Judge Henry Middleton. Middleton went to the Senate when the elderly Jim Simpson retired after serving 4 terms starting in 1974.

Lancaster was a key supporter of Dyson when he first ran for office in 1974 when Charles and St. Mary’s Counties shared three delegates in the Maryland House. Dyson ran hard in Charles County and came out on top of the incumbent Speaker of the House John Hanson Briscoe and Charles Delegate Mike Spraque, a Bryans Road insurance agent. The Briscoe faction of Democratic politics was irked that the new kid in politics, as Dyson was only 24 years old, had shown up the veteran Speaker by winning more votes and the animosity was an undercurrent for years as Dyson went on to win a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives in 1980 and Briscoe became a Circuit Court Judge.

Years later, Dyson blocked the bond bill which would have funded a $23 million judicial center at the edge of Leonardtown, a pet project of Judge Briscoe and would have caused the historic courthouse to be abandoned.

All during Dyson’s campaigns Lancaster was a key supporter and in this battle for the Orphans Court, Dyson came to bat for his old ally and Middleton’s parking his political weight with the Republican position of filling the seat with a Republican, when there was no legal reason to do so, will continue infighting with local Democrats.

Middleton has had no serious opposition in the last 20 years he has been a Senator but Charles County has become seriously more liberal Democrat in that time period as the county’s voter rolls have been swelled with black Democrats from Prince George’s County in Waldorf. Middleton cooked up a Democratic slate in 2006 without consulting with party leaders, causing a rift.

The change in Charles politics appeared significantly in the Charles Sheriff’s race when Sheriff Fred Davis lost to Democrat Rex Coffey in 2006. Davis had been Sheriff since he beat Jim Garland in the GOP primary in 1994.

Republicans had also had a majority on the Charles Board of Commissioners until 2002.

The developers who brought townhouses by the thousands to Charles County along with the overwhelming crime and corruption in Prince George’s’s County created the demographic change of flight by middle class blacks from PG to Charles, setting up the political changes now underway.