Most Annapolis insiders know Vinnie DeMarco as the indefatigable advocate for universal health care, beloved by progressive Democrats and dismissed by conservatives. As executive director of the nonprofit Maryland Citizens Health Initiative, he's a familiar face to reporters, a friendly nudge, always looking for publicity for his causes.

Now comes a book by Michael Pertschuk, a consumer advocate and former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, that immortalizes DeMarco and his story as a template for successful grassroots organizing.

"The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will into Political Power," to be published next spring by Vanderbilt University Press, chronicles DeMarco's successful campaigns against the National Rifle Association, the tobacco lobby, Wal-Mart and the health care industry.

Pertschuk explains how DeMarco, a former leader of Maryland Young Democrats, has organized since the 1980s broad coalitions of health policy advocates, unions, churches and faith communities and even some business interests to help defeat the state's gun and tobacco lobbies with tougher gun control laws and higher cigarette taxes. In 2007 he worked with General Assembly leaders on a major expansion of Medicaid in Maryland.

The timing was good: House Speaker Mike Busch (D-Anne Arundel) made the legislation his priority and Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) was eager to sign it. Enrollment in the state-federal medical insurance program for the poor has exceeded predictions.

According to DeMarco, the book will be fun reading for Maryland political junkies, with appearance by lawmakers, governors, reporters, industry players, advocates and policy wonks.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller (D-Calvert) has long said that Maryland will probably need to raise its gas tax in the next legislative term if the state has any hope of meeting its transportation priorities. But as election year approaches, he's getting push-back from Republicans, with the loudest criticism coming from his likely GOP opponent next year.

On Tuesday, Miller told business leaders in Frederick that if Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) is reelected, raising the tax will be a big order of business during in the first year of the new term. He acknowledged that it would be a political unpopular vote for the General Assembly. Miller said federal stimulus money can't come close to covering the state's road and transit needs.

Maryland's gas tax has stayed at 23.5 cents a gallon since 1992.

"We're paving I-270 with stimulus money," Miller told the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce, according to an account in the Frederick News Post. "All we're doing is repaving. All we're doing is maintenance,"

Republican Ron Miller, a conservative blogger who has said he plans to file papers next month to run for Miller's Southern Maryland Senate seat in the 2010 election, didn't miss a beat.

"The fact he's continuing to push for it as an election year approaches, and the word "tax" is an expletive given the double whammy Marylanders are getting from the federal government and the one-party monopoly in Annapolis, shows he's got a lot of chutzpah." Miller wrote on Red County, a conservative blog.

Mike Miller is the country's longest-serving Senate president, and it's hard to imagine him being vulnerable in his Prince George's-Calvert County district. But things are already getting interesting.

Democrats representing Montgomery and Prince George's counties in the legislature top the list of "Heroes of working Families" of the 2009 legislative session released this morning by Progressive Maryland, a liberal advocacy group. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) made the list for the first time.

Sens. Jamie B. Raskin (Montgomery), David Harrington (Prince George's) and Richard S. Madaleno, Jr. (Montgomery) took the top three spots in the Senate, while Dels. Roger Manno (Montgomery), Cheryl D. Glenn (Baltimore) and Sheila E. Hixson (Montgomery) were the top three House members to make the list.

The legislative scorecard, compiled by the Progressive Maryland Education Fund, the group's research arm, assesses how each state lawmaker voted on nine bills of interest to working families during the 90-day session--and their general support for issues the group cares about.

Some of those bills include new regulations to crack down on workplace fraud (passed), re-regulation of Maryland's electricity markets (failed), stronger enforcement of prevailing wage laws (failed) and a requirement that contractors on big state public works projects participate in training for apprentices (passed).

House members scored better than senators, with 70 points out of 100 on average compared to 60. Miller

"Lawmakers are tugged in two directions," Sean Dobson, Progressive Maryland's executive director, said. "On one hand they're elected to represent regular voters. On the other hand, they can become captives of special interests" that thwart legislation to help blue-collar families.

Topping the list of "Champions of Special Interests" are Sen. Alex Mooney (R-Frederick) and Del. Richard Impallaria (R-Anne Arundel) in the House. All of the lawmakers on that list are Republicans.

While Miller made the Senate's "heroes" list for his support for voluntary public funding of campaigns, Progressive Maryland's top priority this year, House Speaker Michael Busch (D-Anne Arundel) missed the House list by a hair, with a score of 94 out of 100, Dobson said. The campaign finance bill did not pass. Miller got a 95.

Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has taken his battle with Constellation Energy into cyberspace.

The governor emailed a video called "Protecting Maryland Consumers" to thousands of constitutents and users of Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Linked In and MySpace. A year before his reelection campaign will be at full throttle, it's a message to Baltimore-area voters that O'Malley is fighting for them against the energy company that raised their electricity rates.

"For too many of our families, it's become a monthly exercise to figure out whether to pay the BGE bill, or to pay the grocery bill," the governor tells the camera, referring to customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric, a regulated utility owned by Constellation. "That's why it's so important for your state government to do everything we can to protect our hardworking families .."

Sound like a campaign commercial? In effect it is, an early effort to gain control over an issue that vexes voters and could make O'Malley vulnerable next year.

O'Malley has been fighting a public relations war with Constellation since he took office and pledged to lower high electricity bills across Maryland, the result of the legislature's switch to deregulation. Now Constellation wants to sell half its nuclear plants to a French company, and the Public Service Commission has ruled that it has a say in determining whether the deal is in the public interest.

The concern of the PSC and the O'Malley administration is that electricity rates will edge up further still. O'Malley has proposed a menu of givebacks, including a 10 percent rebate on the bills of BGE customers. But Constellation is fighting his plan, saying the door on givebacks was closed last year, when the company agreed to give BGE customers a one-time rebate of $170.

The Maryland state lottery and the Baltimore Ravens have signed a deal to offer Marylanders a new $5 scratch-off game, with $1 million as the top prize and other Ravens-related prizes, including season tickets, game-day suites, game-worn jerseys and autographed footballs.

The deal announced this morning will cost the state $800,000 in prizes and license fees, but the lottery hopes to draw $3 million in net profit from Ravens fans who buy tickets.
It's the first time the lottery has offered a game with sports-related winnings. The NFL approved such deals in May for every team in the league.

"We're a very young NFL franchise," Ravens President Dick Cass said. "We're trying to build our franchise."