Volume 175, Page 5 View pdf image (33K) |
MARVIN MANDEL Governor of Maryland Marvin Mandel was elected to a full four-year term as Governor of Maryland on November 3, 1970, by the largest margin ever recorded by a, gubernatorial candidate in the history of the State. In a land- slide election, he polled the largest number of votes ever cast for a candidate for Governor, winning every subdivision in the State except one, where he came within a mere 90 votes of making a complete sweep of the State. The only candidate for public office ever to receive more votes in Maryland than Marvin Mandel was Lyndon Baines Johnson in his overwhelming Presidential victory in 1964. In electing Governor Mandel to a full four-year term, the voters of Maryland gave him an overwhelming mandate, a mandate that re-affirmed the con- fidence and trust placed in him two years earlier when he became the fifty-sixth Governor of Maryland. Marvin Mandel was elected Governor of Maryland in a rare selection process that had occurred only several times before in the State's history. Because Maryland at that time had no direct line of succession to the governorship, Governor Mandel was selected overwhelmingly by the Maryland General Assembly when it met January 7, 1969, to pick a successor to Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned to become Vice President of the United States. Within hours after his election, Governor Mandel was sworn into office in a befitting modest ceremony; and in his inaugural speech he set the tone for his Administration, whose record of achievement has become one of the most successful and progressive in modern Mary- land history. In that address, his first as the State's new Chief Executive, Gov- ernor Mandel declared: "Let there be no mistake in anyone's mind, I shall govern." If there was ever any doubt in anyone's mind, Marvin Mandel has striven vigorously to live up to the challenge he set for himself. One of his first acts was to restore to Medicaid 22,000 persons who were cut from the rolls in an economy move by the Agnew Administration. No governor in recent history has enjoyed greater success in guid- ing through the Maryland General Assembly such a massive package of legislation as was enacted during the 1969 and 1970 Legislative Sessions. Significantly, 93 of the 95 measures sponsored by the Mandel Administration were adopted by the General Assembly. Governor Mandel's record of legislative achievement continued to grow in 1971 when the General Assembly enacted 34 of 37 measures sponsored by his Administration. The high points of Governor Mandel's 1969 Legislative program were eight Constitutional Amendments—including reform of the State's court system—and legislation launching the reorganization of the cumbersome Executive Department's 248 agencies and depart- ments into II modern departments headed by cabinet-level secretaries. Maryland thus became one of the few states in the nation to adopt the cabinet system. 5 |
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Volume 175, Page 5 View pdf image (33K) |
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