[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.''

                          ____________________