Analysis: Call backs harder to get as legislators head home

Now that the legislative session is over, some lawmakers — last week’s bigwigs with aides and pages at their beck and call — must now answer to their own bosses.

Since Sine Die, most legislators have all returned to their home districts and “real” jobs. Lobbyists no longer stake them out, and fewer reporters are chasing them around for a story that absolutely must run today.

Last week, Dels. Tom Hucker and Warren Miller both had to work around their work schedules to return my phone calls. And some lawmakers who are in the legal profession have been so busy that they have not returned calls at all yet. In times like these, it pays to know a legislator’s cell phone number.

Reporters used to be able to catch legislators each morning after session, before committee hearings, or simply by walking to their offices. Now, they must call lawmakers’ offices and pray they get a call back that day.

And when that return call comes, it can be hard to get any follow-up information, as lawmakers must finagle ways to find it between meetings and projects.
-Erich Wagner
Erich@MarylandReporter.com

About The Author

Len Lazarick

len@marylandreporter.com

Len Lazarick was the founding editor and publisher of MarylandReporter.com and is currently the president of its nonprofit corporation and chairman of its board He was formerly the State House bureau chief of the daily Baltimore Examiner from its start in April 2006 to its demise in February 2009. He was a copy editor on the national desk of the Washington Post for eight years before that, and has spent decades covering Maryland politics and government.