Author, columnist, speaker
Will Maryland and Virginia Become One-Party States?
By Robert Knight
When motorists cross the Potomac River from Virginia via the bridge at Point of Rocks, Maryland, they’re greeted by a Welcome to Maryland sign with a message from Gov. Wes Moore: “Leave no one behind.”
That might sound good if it meant something like the U.S. military’s daring rescue of the downed jet pilot in Iran.
But, coming from a liberal Democrat like Mr. Moore, it’s more like a vow to have government reach into every last aspect of people’s lives.
Democrats already control seven of the state’s eight congressional seats, but that’s not enough. Mr. Moore has called for gerrymandering the Eastern Shore district of Rep. Andy Harris, the lone Republican, and the chairman of the House Conservative Caucus.
In 2010, Democrats gerrymandered Western Maryland, which had been represented by 10-term Republican conservative Roscoe Bartlett. He didn’t fit into the Baltimore machine’s idea of a congressman, so they got rid of him in 2012. Now they want to finish the job of making Maryland a one-party state like Massachusetts or Rhode Island.
Baltimore is by far the state’s largest city. It was the girlhood home of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose father, Thomas d’Alesandro Jr., was a mob-connected three-term mayor.
Baltimore’s political culture is a classic urban mix of union power, identity politics, poverty, socialism, and high crime.
On the other side of the ledger, it has the Orioles, Ravens, Johns Hopkins University and some first-rate Italian and seafood restaurants. Plus, Fort McHenry and the Chesapeake Bay.
But then we come to education. According to the Maryland Comprehensive Assessment Program for 2024-2025, only 13 percent of students in grades 3-12 in Baltimore City schools were proficient in math and only 31 percent in English. SAT scores cratered to a new low.
Losing nearly 2,500 students between 2019 and 2025, Baltimore City Public Schools nonetheless added nearly 2,100 full-time staff.
Nearby Baltimore County added 531 employees during that period while losing nearly 3,800 students, according to Georgetown University data cited by Heritage Foundation research fellow Corey DeAngelis in The Washington Times.
You might think that parents are getting a better deal because there must be more teachers per student, but the number of teachers in Baltimore County decreased by 53, along with a drop in custodians, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers—the people who directly serve the students.
The staffing increase was 267 school bureaucrats, a hike of 21 percent.
On top of this, a new study by Lending Tree pegs Maryland as the third most expensive state in which to raise a child, trailing only Hawaii and Alaska.
Getting back to Mr. Moore’s promise of not leaving anyone behind, Maryland lawmakers are now taking aim at the state’s faith-based schools, which they don’t control but wish they did.
In March, the state House passed HB 649, which adds gender identity and sexual orientation to anti-discrimination law and applies it to all schools— including private and religious schools.
Now in the Senate, the bill would create a private right of action so that leftist groups like the ACLU or the Satanic Temple can sue faith-based schools that won’t bend their knees to Baal or Baphomet.
The tally was 100 Democrats voting yes and 35 Republicans voting no. Remember this the next time someone insists the parties are indistinguishable.
Once upon a time, Maryland residents who grew tired of the Free State’s leftist rulers could move to Virginia, but that option is closing.
Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who campaigned as a moderate Democrat but emerged as a flame-throwing radical upon taking power in January, is pushing a multi-pronged leftwing agenda, from tax hikes to gun grabbing.
After previously stating that she opposed gerrymandering, she threw her support behind a gerrymandering constitutional amendment. It would change the state’s congressional delegation from six Democrats and five Republicans to 10 Democrats and one Republican. Sounds fair, right?
The ballot language actually ensures voters that it would “restore fairness in the upcoming elections.”
Democrats, who say they want to counter Republican partisan redistricting in Texas, ignored constitutional rules by rushing it to the ballot, and the Virginia Supreme Court punted the case until after the election, set for April 21.
Early voting has been underway since March 6. For some reason, Democrats love “Election Month” instead of Election Day.
Turnout has been surprisingly strong in rural Republican areas that face disenfranchisement, but the outcome is anyone’s guess.
Although the amendment could well determine which party wins the U.S. House in November, Democrats are outspending Republicans by millions. That’s how they won another Wisconsin Supreme Court seat on April 7.
Somebody with deep pockets had better wake up.
If Virginia goes the way of Maryland, where will God-fearing, conservative Virginians and Maryland refugees go next? Joe Biden’s Delaware?
Or will they develop a strange new respect for longhorns and gators?
Illustration by Linas Garsys / The Washington Times.
Beware of the Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
By Robert Knight
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear appears to be readying for a presidential run in 2028.
The telegenic Democrat was on a speaking tour last year in early primary state South Carolina. In September, he has a book coming out entitled, “Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country,” a reference to Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan.
His publisher summarizes it this way: “By regrounding faith in compassion and kindness, he believes we can start to heal as a country.”
Compassion and kindness are God-given, but I thought we were in the midst of healing from the nightmare of the Biden years, with its promotion of atheism, illegal immigration, sexual anarchy, and attacks on Catholics and pro-lifers.
Mr. Beshear, like Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, identifies as a Christian and a moderate and gets priceless media cover while supporting the Democratic Party’s radical social and economic agenda.
In 2023, for instance, he tried to block a state bill protecting minors from “gender affirming care.”
The law prohibits doctors from subjecting gender-confused teens to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible, disfiguring surgeries.
The law also bans males from competing on girls’ sports teams. Most people think this makes sense.
Beshear insisted that such a law “would hurt kids and their families” and violate “parental rights.”
He claimed there was no evidence of widespread harm. To which I would say one butchered child is too many and that evidence of harm is voluminous, including the growing number of suicides and trans-related violence.
On the same day of Mr. Beshear’s veto, both houses of Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature overrode it. Naturally, a federal judge, Rebecca Grady Jennings, issued an immediate injunction halting enforcement. The case is still in litigation.
A year earlier, Ms. Jennings, one of President Donald Trump’s few clunker appointees, struck down a Kentucky law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks and requiring medical oversight for abortion pills.
Gov. Beshear also vetoed that bill, and the legislature overrode him.
In South Carolina, which went for Mr. Trump by 30 points, Mr. Beshear emphasized his Christian faith while boasting that he was “a proud, pro-LGBTQ+ governor.”
This is a stance that ignores Jesus Christ’s clear restating of God’s creation of male and female and God’s marriage-based sexual morality from Genesis.
According to the Washington Post, Mr. Beshear said, “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God, and I didn’t want people picking on those kids.” How about protecting them from quacks who sterilize them and turn them into lifetime medical cases?
By the way, politicians love to haul out the term “children of God” like a magic amulet. The Bible says we’re all created in the image of God, but that we’re not children of God unless we believe in Him and submit to God’s authority. Until then, we’re on the other team, and I don’t mean the New Jersey Devils.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name,” John 1:12 says. If we’re automatically children of God, we wouldn’t need to be, as Jesus said, born again.
Anyway, Mr. Beshear is not the only wolf in sheep’s clothing. Democrats have become quite adept at using Christianese and buzzwords to fool people. President Barack Obama often gave biblical scholars heartburn over his misappropriating Jesus’s words to justify sexual sin and confiscatory redistribution of wealth.
In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico is battling hard-left U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator. Like Mr. Beshear, Mr. Talarico touts his Christian faith while cleaving to a radical agenda.
“He delivers left-wing orthodoxy in centrist packaging and fights Christian nationalism with Scripture,” the Wall Street Journal explains.
If you’re a patriotic Christian, he’s talking about you and your family as a threat to America.
Much of his rhetoric revolves around Marxist class envy, such as, “Make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.”
During remarks opposing a bill protecting kids from transgender treatments, he said, “Jesus never once condemned transgender people.”
Well, Jesus didn’t need to, and He welcomed all repentant sinners. The Hebrew Scriptures are crystal clear on sexual morality. Sexual confusion is the province of paganism, which historically often involved child sacrifice as well.
Any comparison to the pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ Democratic Party inferred by readers at this juncture may not be coincidental.
In a 2024 interview with MSNBC, Mr. Talarico said, “Christian nationalism is dangerous. … When politicians use the Bible to push division and hate, they’re not following Jesus; they’re using His name for their own agenda.”
This is classic projection, accusing your opponents of exactly what you’re doing.
At the University of Texas on Feb. 6, Mr. Talarico said, “I’m a Christian progressive. I believe the Gospel is inherently radical—it challenges the powerful, lifts up the poor, and calls for justice in every sphere of life.”
When progressives talk about “justice” they mean “social justice.” This is envy, disguised as compassion and politicized to enable governments to redistribute income and rewrite society’s moral code.
In the first six weeks of 2026, Mr. Talarico raised $7.5 million to Ms. Crockett’s $2 million, even though she still has a lead in polls. He has raised $20 million since September.
Will Texas, like Mr. Beshear’s Kentucky, fall for a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.) in Frankfort, Ky. on June 8, 2025. (AP photo in The Washington Times.