All posts by: Dinah Winnick

In the wake of Maryland’s recent vote to expand gambling locations and allow table games, Capital News Service asked Donald F. Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, if sports gambling is in the state’s future. “It’s always possible that somebody could pursue it,” Norris said, “I just can’t foresee that happening.”

Norris further commented, “I’m willing to guess that the current governor is so fed up with the gambling issue that I’m sure he will not support anything.” To move sports betting forward, he suggests, there would have to be more active support for such legislation across the state. The full article is in the Afro, Washington Times and other local papers.

Canadian newspaper The Windsor Star has featured new research from UMBC’s Eric Zeemering, assistant professor of public policy, on how government and NGOs in Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan form cross-border cooperative relationships to promote economic development and create sustainable communities (see full article in the Journal of Urban Affairs).

Zeemering told reporter Dave Hall that although there are great opportunities for collaboration between Windsor and Detroit, the international border often serves to keep the communities apart and “there needs to be a concerted effort to forge those relationships.” Zeemering notes, “The danger in creating cross-border relationships at the political level is that those people change, and the best way to forge those relationships is to establish them at the ground level with city employees.” He cites the Windsor-based International Joint Commission, which focuses on water quality in the Great Lakes, as a strong example of lasting cross-border cooperation.

In the latest post on Governing magazine’s blog “Better Faster Cheaper,” John M. Kamensky, senior fellow with the IBM Center for the Business of Government, reports on compelling new findings from a study by UMBC’s Eric Zeemering, assistant professor of public policy, and co-researcher Daryl Delabbi.

Zeemering and Delabbi have found that more than half of county officials across the country are either participating in or delivering shared services or are in active discussions to do so. Why counties? Kemensky writes, “Typically, small local governments jealously guard their independence. County government is a natural place to turn to coordinate or deliver common services, whether they are police investigative services, road paving or group-purchasing contracts.” To learn more, read “The Accelerating Movement to Share Services” or see the full study, “A County Manager’s Guide to Shared Services in Local Government” (pdf).

“Now that the governor’s proposal to expand gambling in Maryland has passed at the ballot box, some state senators and delegates who backed the controversial measure are looking to collect,” writes reporter Annie Linskey in today’s Baltimore Sun.

The idea that those legislators who backed Gov. O’Malley in his support of the gambling legislation would seek benefits in return for its passage is not a new concept to Donald F. Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy. “I think it is a nearly universal phenomenon in legislative bodies,” he says. “It is a matter of bargaining and cooperation among people. It is human nature.”

Linskey suggests that Baltimore City and County would like to access additional funds for school renovations, while Montgomery County’s top funding priority is transportation.

Donald F. Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, has offered insight on topics from Maryland ballot measures to the advertising wars throughout the election season.

He recently commented in a Patch article on early voting, stating: “There is little or no evidence that early voting matters in overall turnout or in overall turnout among sub groups of voters—elderly, young, minorities, etc. So I am not inclined to say anything about this except that turnout is up.”

Why the increase in turnout of early voters? Norris told WBAL, “We’ve got at least three ballot questions that are very emotional in nature.” Norris will provide election commentary tomorrow night on WBAL.

Update (11/8/2012): Norris appeared on WJZ, where he commented that voter turnout will likely not be as high as the last presidential election, but, “that prediction could be upset…by the fact that we’ve got ballot questions that people are very, very invested in.” He also provided election night commentary for WBAL as the returns came in and commented on the election results in the Daily Record (on Governor O’Malley’s plans and on the gambling referendum).