Outgoing Md. Gov. Talks About 8 Yrs. In Office, Future Plans
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ)--Governor O'Malley reveals challenges he faced during his 8 years in office. Maryland's outgoing chief executive also outlines his plans for the future.
Pat Warren has more on the governor's final news conference on Friday.
In Governor O'Malley's 8 years in office he's had his share of ups and downs.
"Sure there's always the work in progress making and the work of governing is like other work. You have your good days and you have your bad days," said Governor O'Malley.
The good days include keeping the ship of state afloat during the recession. The bad days were the sleepless nights over the recession.
"When the recession hit, that things that gnawed at me day and night were all of the real stories of people who were struggling to keep their home and keep a roof over the kids head when they had no prospect of getting their job back for a long time. That was really dark and difficult stretch for a lot of people," O'Malley said.
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The governor includes in his list of accomplishments restoring a sense of bipartisanship that he encourages the General Assembly to build on.
"Clearly there were times like on the gun vote when things broke down on very very partisan lines. In 70% of our priorities received republican majority consent in either the Senate or the House," said O'Malley.
This was the Governor's final news conference and he recorded it with good humor.
"We'll do a panorama," O'Malley laughed.
While the governor did steer away from commitment to a presidential run, he did say no single element would deter him from running, and you can take that to include Hillary.
The O'Malley family is moving back to Baltimore. The governor will be a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and speak around the country on ways to make government more accountable.