Edward Ericson Jr.
Baltimore (CN)
Former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon announced today that she is running to regain her old job, which she left in disgrace after less than one full term in 2010 after pleading guilty to stealing gift cards earmarked for the poor.
Dixon, widely regarded as the city’s most effective mayor of the past two decades, served as City Council President from 1999 to 2007, earning a reputation for cutting through the city’s sclerotic bureaucracy, before taking over the mayor's office from Martin O'Malley after he was elected governor. As the city's first black woman mayor, she was followed in office by another: Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who did not seek reelection after riots rocked the city in 2015. In 2016 former city councilwoman Catherine Pugh beat Dixon in her first comeback attempt, only to resign after being charged with fraud in a bizarre children’s book sales scheme that ultimately sent her to prison, giving way in 2020 to City Council President Brandon Scott, a young former Council aid who bested Dixon by two percentage points in the crowded 2020 primary race.
As mayor, Scott has struggled with the city’s stubbornly high murder rate and other perennial issues. This week it was revealed that the city's homeless services agency missed a deadline to spend and account for most of a federal grant, losing $10 million.
Dixon, who preserved her city pension in her 2010 plea deal and went to work for the Maryland Minority Contractors Association, struck a contrite tone in a Baltimore Sun op-ed this morning, apologizing for the perjury and theft that truncated her political career. “I’ve been told that my prior efforts to apologize for the past have fallen short,” she wrote. “I write to you today to eliminate all ambiguity or questions of where I stand and have stood since I left office. I let matters of the heart lead me astray once before, and for that, and the pain that it caused to my beloved Baltimore, I am truly sorry.”
The "matters of the heart" involved her affair with the city contractor who had purchased the gift cards Dixon took.
She reminded voters that when she was mayor, 100 fewer people were murdered in the city each year: "Trash was collected every week, potholes and streetlights were generally fixed within a 72-hour window, and 311 [the city's complaint troubleshooting hotline] was functional."
Baltimoreans have traditionally shown tolerance for official corruption. Last month the city's inspector general admonished city building inspectors for taking bribes and recommended a policy change to prohibit it. Her close second-place finishes against Scott and his predecessor suggest she's still a potent political force.
Dixon will challenge Scott in the Democratic primary scheduled for May 14 which, in heavily Democratic Baltimore City, is expected to decide the race. Three relatively unknown have also filed their candidacies. The deadline is February 9, 2024.
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