Here's a preview of an editorial we're working on. Let us know what you think. The best comments will appear alongside it in the print edition.
Mayor Sheila Dixon deserves every right of due process the court system provides -- post-trial motions, appeals and arguments about the meaning of the state constitution's clause on the removal of elected officials who have been convicted of crimes. But Baltimore needs stable, strong leadership it can trust. Homicides spiked last month, and the city's budget is in crisis -- with the worst likely yet to come. Mayor Dixon's response to the guilty verdict against her Tuesday has been the same one she has employed at every step of the way in the investigation against her: a pledge to continue the work of the city as if nothing had happened. That is no longer possible.
Former Mayor Kurt Schmoke had it exactly right when he said that Mayor Dixon needs, finally, to recognize that she has a duty greater than protecting her legal options. He said Tuesday that the mayor need not admit legal guilt but must apologize.
"She needs to do something that is more than issuing a statement saying, 'We will continue on.' The time requires more of her," Schmoke said.
Indeed it does. It requires more than a vague statement from the city solicitor decreeing that the verdict did not necessitate any change in leadership. And it requires more than a vow by the mayor's private attorney that he will be exploring all options.
As much as Mayor Dixon might like to be seen as soldiering on, the verdict has created a leadership crisis at City Hall. She must acknowledge that and let the public know exactly what her plans are for attempting to maintain her office or to facilitate the orderly transfer of power to City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake.
The state constitution specifies that a public official shall be suspended from office without pay or benefits if convicted of a felony or "a misdemeanor related to his public duties and responsibilities and involves moral turpitude for which the penalty may be incarceration in any penal institution." The charge on which Mayor Dixon was found guilty was a misdemeanor for which the penalty is one to five years in prison. The language of the charge stipulates that she misappropriated gift cards "in violation of her fiduciary duty to the city and citizens of Baltimore." Will she and her lawyers argue that the crime does not fit the standard in the constitution? If so, on what grounds?
The Maryland attorney general's office opined in the wake of former Gov. Marvin Mandel's guilty verdict in 1977 that "conviction" in the sense it is used in that clause of the constitution means the point at which the official has been sentenced. Does the mayor plan to seek a sentence that might somehow void the conviction -- such as probation before judgment -- or is the purpose of waiting until sentencing merely to hold onto power for as long as possible?
And finally, a question that has been hanging over the proceedings from the beginning is now more pertinent than ever: How is Mayor Dixon paying her seven attorneys? Does she have a legal defense fund, and, if so, who has donated to it? Does she harbor hope that, if her conviction is overturned on appeal, that taxpayers will pick up the ever-increasing tab? Are the attorneys working pro bono?
Now is the time for Mayor Dixon to be forthright about what she has done and what she plans to do next. She cannot treat this solely as a private legal matter, because much more is at stake than her political future and her pension. The city needs a strong mayor, and it cannot wait in limbo for months while Ms. Dixon pretends that nothing is wrong.
