Click here for Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV & Part VI

Building connections between Maryland’s businesses and the people who represent them in government

Scott Dorsey is the CEO and chairman of MBRG—Maryland Business for Responsive Government. Duane Carey is the organization’s president. Since 1985, MBRG has educated the members of Maryland’s political and business communities on the questions, challenges, and opportunities facing the state’s private companies, with a focus on holding elected officials accountable to the overall goals of an improved business climate and sustained job growth. A nonpartisan institution, MBRG is supported by corporations, trade associations, chambers of commerce, and individuals.

EDWIN WARFIELD: Tell us about MBRG’s PAC.

DUANE CAREY: The Maryland Business Leadership PAC—political action committee—is the PAC associated with MBRG where, like other political PACs, we support candidates that are pro-business, pro-economy, and don’t support those who are not. Straightforward. What we do is we use the results from Roll Call, and first and foremost look at which of the legislators that are running. There are 188 legislators in Maryland in the state House and the Senate. We look to see what races they are in, of the pro-business legislators: How many of them are in tight races where they actually need some help? Those are legislators we are likely to get behind in support both by endorsement and also by giving some money for their campaigns.

On the other side of it, where there’s a legislator who’s not scoring well from a pro-business standpoint—they’re scoring in the 30 percentile, 30% and 40%—if there is a challenger that is stated to be pro-business, we’ll often get behind that challenger. So really all the races we get behind are in the state legislature, and in the last election in 2014 we supported 21 different candidates and 18 of them were successful. We were thrilled, obviously, with that winning percentage—86%, you’re never going to be upset with that.

This gubernatorial cycle, we have very lofty goals. We only had $35,000 in the bank in the last election, 2014. In 2018, we are going to have ten times that. That is going to do a lot to help send that message loud and clear, that it’s time for some changes. The business community is very disparate. It’s represented by so many different groups: different economic alliance organizations, different chambers of commerce, all the vertical market industry groups—you have the realtors, and the manufacturers, and the petroleum industry—all these different groups—and we’re not really doing a good job of speaking with one voice.

We all think exactly the same thing. We all understand all of these issues, and we don’t do a really good job of speaking with one voice. Our PAC is the one thing that really brings us all together, because ours is the only PAC in the state that’s focused exclusively on the business climate in Maryland. As all of these other groups help us to raise money for that, and we successfully demonstrate to the legislature that—I almost want to say “by God, we’re not taking it anymore.” It’s time for us to stand and speak with one voice.

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Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

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