My wife's family has deep Maryland roots. Both sides of her family are still mostly found there. Her mother's maiden name was Carroll — yes, those Carrolls, of Carrolton, of Carroll County, bearing the name of Charles Carroll, who signed the Declaration of Independence. My wife grew up in a suburb of Baltimore, but she always said she didn't like living in the city, so she left at age 16 to go to college in Blacksburg, Virginia. My in-laws left almost 30 years ago, though, and they live in Colorado now.
Maryland isn't doing well, not under its increasingly left-wing state government, and now we see one of the state's leading state attorneys is bailing, citing the state's increasingly woke policies.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Haven Shoemaker, state attorney for Maryland’s Carroll County, said that after decades in public service, he is "sick to death" of the policies that "emanate" from the state capital in Annapolis. He said he is especially disgusted with Maryland’s "sanctuary" policies and the high taxes he said are being levied in part to pay for more services for illegal immigrants.
"Maryland has become California on the Chesapeake," said Shoemaker. "It only gets worse. It's not getting better. And at some point, I just had to make a personal decision that it's time to throw in the towel and head for what I believe are greener pastures."
Carroll County, no less.
It seems Haven Shoemaker is one of those rare creatures, a Maryland Republican, so, understandably, he would be frustrated. But to listen to him, he's far from the only one joining the exodus, and it's almost certainly not just Maryland's few remaining Republicans.
Shoemaker is not the only one. He said that he sees Marylanders giving up on the state "all the time."
"The State of Maryland has one of the worst outward migration numbers of any state in the country right now," he said. "So, I don't know who’s going to be the last to foot the bill for the profligate spending that Annapolis likes to engage in, but it's not going to be me, I can tell you that."
Of my wife's immediate family, only her youngest brother remains in Maryland, and I understand he's considering leaving to join his parents and his brother in Colorado; how much better he will find that state remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the Great Sorting continues, and it must be tempting in some of these blue states to start putting up signs with slogans appropriate to the occasion, like, "Will the last person to leave Maryland please turn out the lights?"
The problem is, by the time it comes to that, the lights will likely already be out. The progressive era in these places will probably be dark, for several reasons.
A local outlet, WCBM, has Shoemaker's official statement:
"I want to say that serving as Carroll County’s State’s Attorney has been the honor of a lifetime,” Shoemaker, 60, said in a news release. “To lead such a dedicated group of professionals as we have in my office, and to go to work every day knowing that we are making a difference in the county that I love, has been an incredible experience that I will always cherish.
“However, at this point in my life, it’s time to let someone else have a try,” he said. “By the time I leave office, I will have been an attorney for 34 years and will have held political office for 30.”
We wish Mr. Shoemaker the best of luck.
Then, there's this:
(Democrat Governor Wes) Moore's office did not respond to Fox News Digital's questions.
You don't say.
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