Gov. Larry Hogan is the second Republican in Maryland history to be sworn into a second term. The first was Theodore McKeldin, whose second inauguration occurred in 1955.
When he took his oath during his inauguration ceremony Wednesday, Hogan placed his hand on the same Bible McKeldin used in that 1955 inauguration.
Speaking during Wednesday’s ceremony, former Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett, a Democrat, attributed Hogan’s reelection — and his record number of votes — to his bipartisan governing habits.
“Our residents are tired of the bickering and the failures that we experience daily from our nation’s capital just a few miles south of where we are gathered,” Leggett said. “I am proud to say that despite the inability to effectively govern in some other jurisdictions around the nation, here in Maryland, under your leadership and that of the leaders of the General Assembly, we have avoided that problem.”
It was a point that was echoed repeatedly throughout the ceremony.
“What’s happening here in Annapolis is the antithesis of what’s happening in Washington, D.C. these days,” said former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who introduced Hogan during the ceremony. “Washington is not just our nation’s capital. It’s also the capital of gridlock and dysfunction.”
Hogan’s own remarks seemed to pick up where the others left off. He said Maryland elected leaders should strive to be different from those in Washington, “where insults substitute for debate, recriminations for negotiation, … and neither side really wants to make progress.”
Hogan touted policy achievements such as investments in education and infrastructure, a lower health insurance premiums, which were the result of the reinsurance fund the General Assembly created and Hogan approved last year. He promised to continue what he described as four years of reaching across party lines to strike bipartisan compromises.
“I come from the get-to-work and get-things-done school of politics, and I’ll work with anyone who wants to do the people’s business,” he said.
Hogan said he looks to Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush, as a role model, as well as to the late Arizona Senator John McCain. But he said he especially admires the legacy of his own father, Congressman Larry Hogan, Sr., the first Republican on the House Judiciary Committee to vote to impeach President Richard Nixon.
“’Party loyalty,’ he said, ‘and personal affection and precedents of the past must fall before the arbiter of men’s actions: the law itself. No man, not even the President of the United States, is above the law,’” Hogan recalled.
But more than politics, the day was about observing traditions and celebrating, complete with a 19-gun salute and a flyover by four A-10 planes.
Between the speeches, there were also musical performances. The U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club performed the Star Spangled Banner, and Sergeant First Class Erin Betz performed America the Beautiful with the Maryland Army National Guard.
