Ida Ruben is the problem, not the solution

Wednesday, June 21, 2006
by Jonathan Shurberg, Silver Spring
Letter to the Editor

More than any local Democratic senator at the time, Sen. Ruben is responsible for the current mess. She voted, not once but seven times, for legislation pushed by energy companies. She was virtually alone among local Democratic senators in voting for this bill. Sens. Brian Frosh, Jennie Forehand, Paul Pinsky, and current Congressman Chris Van Hollen, all voted against the bill. Apparently, despite everything that has happened since then, Sen. Ruben wants the voters of District 20 to think that she was right and everyone else was wrong.

Then, even more incredibly, Ms. Myers-Nelson tells us that Sen. Ruben ‘‘knows what needs to be done to correct the problem.” If that’s the case, where has Sen. Ruben been on this issue for the past seven years? No real competitive market in energy has ever developed — yet Sen. Ruben speaks out only after the announcement of massive electricity bill increases for both Pepco and Baltimore Gas and Electric. And her spokeswoman has the temerity to tell us that all of this is evidence of Sen. Ruben’s superior qualifications? Wow. If this is an example of Ida Ruben’s ‘‘effective leadership,” I don’t want to think what the results of bad performance would be.

Ms. Myers-Nelson chides Jamie Raskin for his supposed lack of involvement on the energy issue back in 1999. I have two responses. First, may I remind Ms. Myers-Nelson that it was Ida Ruben who was the elected representative of District 20 charged with getting this decision right, and she botched it. Second, while Jamie Raskin may not have addressed this particular issue back in 1999, the voters of District 20 can look at Mr. Raskin’s long record of dedicated service to consumer and public interest issues and reach their own conclusions as to whether Jamie Raskin would have sided with the energy companies or with consumers. I think that answer is clear, and I suspect, so does Mary Myers-Nelson.

Sen. Ruben dropped the ball on the energy deregulation issue in 1999, and we the voters of District 20 are quite literally paying the price for her mistake. Her actions in siding with energy companies is emblematic of her ineffectiveness and failure of leadership. While other Montgomery Democrats saw the pitfalls of energy deregulation, Ida Ruben chose differently.

For this and so many other reasons, the Democratic voters of District 20 should similarly make a different choice on Sept. 12, and vote for Jamie Raskin for state Senate. On this issue and so many others, we quite literally can’t afford four more years of Ida Ruben.