[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 57 (Wednesday, May 11, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: May 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
THE RETIREMENT OF MARYLAND STATE SENATOR FREDERICK C. MALKUS--THE
LONGEST CONSECUTIVE SERVING MEMBER OF THE MARYLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY
______
HON. HELEN DELICH BENTLEY
of maryland
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, May 11, 1994
Mrs. BENTLEY. Mr. Speaker, on May 14, 1994, Maryland will pay tribute
to one of the most colorful political institutions in the Free State's
history. On this day, Marylanders will say ``goodbye'' to Senator
Frederick C. Malkus of Dorchester County, a Jeffersonian Democrat who
spent his 48-year tenure serving others in the Maryland General
Assembly. His recordbreaking years of distinguished service have
spanned nearly five decades. Senator Malkus' conservative hometown
touch and effective service has earned him an unforgettable place in
Maryland history. In honor of Senator Malkus, I am including a recent
article from the Baltimore Sun that outlines his historic career which
should serve as model for many of us who serve the American people at
all levels of government. Wishing Senator Malkus a happy and fruitful
retirement, I anxiously await the chance to read his memoirs which I
understand he soon will be writing.
[From the Baltimore Sun, Mar. 27, 1994]
Malkus Plans Memoirs on 48 Years in Assembly
(By William Thompson)
Cambridge.--Just because he's leaving public life when the
General Assembly recesses in April doesn't mean Sen.
Frederick C. Malkus Jr. plans to fade into the mist hanging
over his Dorchester County wetlands.
The white-haired lawmaker says he will write memoirs of the
48 consecutive years he has spent in the General Assembly--a
record tenure in Maryland and a period during which there
were eight governors and an increase in the annual state
budget from $60 million to more than $12 billion.
A Roosevelt Democrat when he first was elected to the House
of Delegates in 1946, Mr. Malkus was dubbed ``Muskrat''
because of his fondness for trapping and dining on the furry
marsh animal.
Since 1952, he has represented Eastern Shore countries in
the Senate, where his hair color and his deft use of
parliamentary rules to push his rural conservative agenda
earned him the nickname ``Silver Fox.''
At the reflective age of 80, Mr. Milkus is the first to
admit that his pace is slowing.
He can't trap as he once did. He keeps his walks brief to
avoid shortness of breath. And he has trouble hearing.
could win again
``When you get to be my age, you're not as good as you
were,'' he said, ``I don't care what some of these people
say. You're not as sharp as you were. I think I could win
again, but I'm not going to put that issue to question.''
Retiring from elected office, he said, will leave him with
the time and energy he needs to write his book.
``I'm not doing it for the money,'' he said during an
interview in his law office in downtown Cambridge, were he
still handles minor civil cases. ``I'm doing it maybe for
history. I can tell about the legislature over that period
better than anybody else.''
The senator is coy about much of what he will write, but he
said he will rate the men who have held the state's highest
office while he was in Annapolis.
At the top of his list is William Preston Lane, who was
sworn in as governor when Mr. Malkus joined the legislature
in 1947.
``He was a courageous governor,'' said the senator, who
voted for Mr. Lane's controversial sales tax--the first for
Maryland consumers. ``He came into the governship when
nothing had been done in the state except for the war
effort.''
Mr. Malkus credited Mr. Lane, whose tax measure later led
to his defeat, with providing Maryland with the money to
build roads and improve education and health.
After Mr. Lane, J. Millard Tawes and Marvin Mandel rank
highest on Mr. Malkus' list of the best governors in the past
five decades.
Mr. Tawes was a fellow legislator from the Eastern Shore.
Mr. Mandel, who did not always share Mr. Malkus' conservative
views, was a hunting enthusiast who sometimes come to the
senator's farm to hunt waterfowl.
And how does he appraise the current governor, William
Donald Schaefer? He won't say, although the two men have been
known to describe each other privately in uncomplimentary
terms.
``The only thing the papers ever quoted me as saying about
the governor was that he's an unusual man,'' Mr. Malkus said.
``And no jury will convict me on that''
The senator said he has fixed feelings about the efficiency
of the modern state legislature and the power wielded by the
people who work with the General Assembly.
``The biggest difference between now and 48 years ago is
the part the actual elected official played,'' he said.
``There isn't any question but that the nonelected officials
that are associated with the legislature are playing a much
greater part.''
staffs have grown
When he was chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings
Committee in the 1960s, he said, only two staff members were
assigned to work with him and the other senators. Now, he
said, committee chairmen have two lawyers and a half-dozen
other employees to help them.
``In those days, the chairman stood on the floor of the
Senate and explained a bill,'' he said. ``At the present
time, the chairman stands up and reads what the bill does,
which is prepared by the committee's two attorneys. So often
now, the philosophy of the bureaucrat replaces the philosophy
of the elected official.''
On the other hand, Mr. Malkus said, today's politicians are
better prepared to deal with complex issues facing them in
committee and on the floor. Stacks of reports and analysis of
bills await legislators each day, he said, and there are
fewer chances for even seasoned lawmakers to pull political
tricks with legislation.
He said that when he joined the General Assembly, freshman
lawmakers often knew no more about what are going on during
floor sessions than spectators seated in the galleries.
``It was difficult,'' he said. ``You had a book with the
bills inside, but you never knew when the bills were coming
up until you sat in your seat and they were read across the
desk.''
During a particularly confusing day in the House, he said,
cheeky lawmakers managed to transform an education bill for a
Western Shore county into a gambling bill for Ocean City
without the knowledge of the resort's representative.
Mr. Malkus was born in Baltimore but raised from an early
age on the Eastern Shore. He said he was a soldier in the
U.S. 1st Army in Belgium when he started thinking about a
political career.
``I was sitting in a apple orchard voting for President
Roosevelt on an absentee ballot,'' he said. ``It was raining
like the devil. I came to the conclusion that if I ever got
out of this mess, I was going to get into politics.''
A few months after he left the Army in 1946, he filed for
the Dorchester seat in the House and won. He has won every
race for the General Assembly since, although he lost a
special election to Congress against Republican Robert E.
Bauman in 1973.
``That really hurt him--for about two weeks,'' said Maggie
Malkus, the senator's wife of 36 years.
Mrs. Malkus, who is 17 years younger than her husband and
married him when he was 45, said he seldom lets problems
bother him. ``He can handle things pretty well,'' she said.
``He can fall asleep five minutes after an argument while I
stay up for a couple of hours.''
One of the senator's greatest political disappointments
came in 1982 in a power struggle for the Senate leadership.
Mr. Malkus backed incumbent Senate President James Clark Jr.
against then-Sen. Melvin A ``Mickey'' Steinberg.
Lost his power
Mr. Clark's forces lost and Mr. Steinberg replaced most of
the committee leaders. Mr. Malkus lost his position as vice
chairman of the Senate Economic and Environmental Affairs
Committee. He held on to his ceremonial title as Senate
president pro tem, but he never regained the power he once
had.
He said that after 1982, he decided to focus on the needs
of his Eastern Shore constituents. ``I did not want to be a
state senator,'' he said. ``I wanted to be a county
senator.''
Voters apparently liked what they saw, because they kept
re-electing him--a record he attributes to a simple political
axiom:
``The elected official should bear out the philosophy of
the people he represents. That's what I have done and that's
the reason I have been elected over these years.
``I am basically conservative and so is the area I
represent. A lot of things have been used against me in my
elections, but my basic conservative philosophy has never
been questioned.''
Despite his early years as a New Deal Democrat, Mr. Malkus'
political positions made some people wonder about the
appropriate political party for him.
``I've asked him to change his party affiliation,'' said
Richard F. Colburn, a Republican who once represented part of
Dorchester County in the House and is now seeking Mr. Malkus'
Senate seat. ``He said he wouldn't. He said he's still an FDR
Democrat.''
Perhaps the most sensitive spot in Mr. Malkus' career is
his record--or lack of record--on civil rights.
``I didn't see him go to bat for these causes,'' said
Lemuel Chester, a black activist during the 1960s racial
turmoil in Cambridge and now a Dorchester County
commissioner. ``Fred Malkus didn't go out of his way to
torpedo civil rights, but he lost a lot of credibility with
us.''
But relations between Dorchester's minority community and
their state senator improved, said Mr. Chester, who gave Mr.
Malkus credit for the appointments of blacks to some local
commissions. ``He became accessible,'' he said, ``and as long
as it wasn't radical, I could talk to him about civil rights
issues.''
Mr. Malkus said he questions whether government can be
effective in improving race relations.
a matter of the heart
``My position on race has always been the same,'' he said.
``This whole subject matter can be settled only through the
hearts of the people. Putting it in the books doesn't do the
job.''
The senator said he is most proud of his fight in the
legislature to defend what he sees as unnecessary government
intrusion upon the rights of property owners. And although he
often is seen as a thorn in the side of environmentalists, he
said he cares about the Dorchester marshes and wildlife.
For instance, he said, he opposes the use of chemical spray
to combat the voracious mosquitoes that appear in the summer
on the Eastern Shore.
``Most of the people who've lived here a long while are
willing to continue living with them,'' he said. ``The people
who gripe the most about the mosquitoes are the newcomers.
When you take away the mosquito, you take away the food that
young ducks have to eat.''
Refused judgeship
Mr. Malkus said he could have entered retirement with a
hefty pension from a court bench. Years ago, he said, a
governor offered him a judgeship, but he turned it down
because he felt more comfortable in the legislature.
``I've never been a great student of the law anyway,'' he
said. ``You understand, that to get elected as many times as
I have been, you don't have a hell of a lot of time to get
real serious about other things. I've sacrificed a real good
law practice for an average law practice because politics has
always come first. That's what my wife has accused me of to
this day: I put politics first. Maybe it's because I liked
it.''
____________________