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\\nPETER FRANCHOT is the Comptroller of the State of Maryland. Peter is also a\\nmember of the Board of Public Works. He\'s a former Democratic delegate\\nrepresenting District 20 in Montgomery County, Maryland, is a former Capitol\\nHill staffer, an attorney, and a veteran of the United States Army. He\'s a\\nformer delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2003, 2012, and again\\nin 2016, and is also a former Democratic nominee for the United States\\nCongress.

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\\nFranchot: I have been a warrior for\\npublic interest issues all my life. I think my mother taught me always to stand\\nup the police and in school and I always felt much better when I was sticking\\nup for some of the kids that were not good athletes, so that is the genesis of\\nmy altruism that I\'ve carried forward in my public career.

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\\nNow\\nthat I\'m Comptroller I find that every day I am working in the public interest\\nprimarily by helping individuals who are in financial situations that are\\ndifficult and complicated but also in being available as a state elected\\nofficial.

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\\nCooper: After college you enlisted\\nin the United States Army, which is associated with more politically conservative\\nindividuals, yet you made a career out of serving as a liberal elected official.\\nHow did you end up in the Army with such liberal views?

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\\nFranchot: Well I actually didn\'t\\nfinish college. I was at Amherst College and halfway through my sophomore year\\nI dropped out to go to New Hampshire to work on the \\u201cClean with Gene\\u201d campaign\\nwith Gene McCarthy who was running in the 1968 Democratic Primary on an\\nanti-Vietnam War platform.

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\\nIronically,\\nwhile organizing college campuses against the war for Gene McCarthy, I got a\\ndraft notice saying: \\u201cDear Sir, You no longer are protected by your college\\ninvolvement and you are to report for the draft law,\\u201d which was a shock to me.

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\\nCooper: You left college to join a\\npolitical campaign because of the anti-Vietnam war platform of those campaigns.\\nAnd by virtue of your civic activism you actually ended up getting embroiled in\\nthe war.

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\\nFranchot: My parents actually said I\\nwas pretty clueless that I didn\'t realize I was giving up my student deferment\\nbut such as it is it actually in retrospect proved to be a tremendous\\nexperience. I was drafted for two years. I spent 21 months not 24 months\\nbecause I was allowed to get out early to return to college. But the Army was a\\ngreat experience for me not in the sense that I enjoyed it but I was put on a\\ntroop train in New York City and sent down to Fort Jackson, South Carolina with\\nthe other draftees, who were a different group of people than those with whom I\\nwas previously associated in my life.

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\\nCooper: Despite your experience in\\nthe Army, you\\u2019ve never seemed to use your experience and your status as a veteran\\nto your political advantage as have others, most notably former Lt. Governor\\nAnthony Brown in his 2014 bid for Governor. Why?

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\\nFranchot:\\nI didn\'t have the kind of long-term career that Lt. Governor Anthony Brown had;\\nI was just a very ordinary cog in a very big machine. But I will say that the\\nmachine the military proved to be enormously beneficial to me as an individual\\nand I would recommend the military as a terrific stabilizing force for young\\npeople who are looking for direction in life.

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\\nCooper: So running off that idea,\\nPeter I\'d like to ask your opinion on a matter that you don\'t have jurisdiction\\nover as a comptroller but that you might have theoretically had jurisdiction\\nover the course of your 20 years representing the People\'s Republic of Takoma\\nPark in the Maryland House of Delegates.

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\\nAs\\nyou know, many nations in Western Europe and perhaps in other parts of the\\nworld have service requirements for their youth. Military conscription is\\nsomething that\'s widespread around the world and that clearly led to your experiences\\nin the U.S. Army. My question is do you think that there ought to be either mandatory\\nrequirements or guaranteed opportunities for all youth between certain ages to\\neither join the military or perform some other form of civil public service?

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\\nFranchot: I generally support that\\nconcept. I think it should be mandatory that every young person puts at least a\\nyear of their lives towards some constructive public purpose by serving in the\\nmilitary, teaching in a school, or being involved in some other fashion in\\nsupporting our infrastructure. And I would like to see veterans included in\\nsome leadership capacity. I don\'t suggest that everybody has to go through boot\\ncamp, but I do think it\'s an opportunity to install some structure, discipline,\\nand to give a sense of purpose to some young people\'s lives, [which is] particularly\\nimportant now [since] the economy is changing in front of our eyes [under the\\ninfluence of] globalization and modernization using technology. [As a result] a\\nlot of jobs are being eliminated, which is causing a tremendous amount of\\ndislocation in the country and around the world. I think that a mandatory one\\nor two year program for young people where they are involved in some kind of\\npublic interest activity would give them the chance to learn about the new\\neconomy rather than the old one.

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\\nCooper: And the one thing that kids\\nlack when they leave high school or college is professional experience and perhaps\\none of the greatest obstacles to finding entry-level employment is a lack of professional\\nexperience. A mandatory service project will give them the opportunity to do\\nthe give back to a state that has given them so much. This service experience\\nwill complement a free public education by providing youth with an opportunity\\nto gain real on-the-job experience that will make them more marketable in the\\nnew economy.

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\\nFranchot:\\nTo finance this national effort [taxes could be levied on industries composing\\nthe new economy] or it could be some kind of national or state equivalent of\\nwar bonds where you ask people to participate.

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\\nCooper:\\nBut the key is that such a program would include every person between 18\\nand 25. That would provide youth with one to two years of skill-building while\\nteaching them how to show up on time for a job and demonstrating what it takes\\nto hold a job in the private sector.

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\\nFranchot:\\nI think it\'s more imperative now because this whole job situation is\\nchanging. Driverless cars [may replace] taxi cab drivers and it may be possible\\nfor robot [drones] to deliver food at a restaurant. I know it\'s a little bit\\nfar-fetched but we\'re in the process of replacing people in the workforce with\\nmachines. So we have to come up with new jobs and new ways of employing people,\\nespecially young people. And so I think you\'re onto something there with the\\nmandatory service requirement but the jury\'s still out on how to pay for it, how\\nit\'s structured, and what exactly a job of the future will look like.

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\\nCooper: So I\\u2019d like to transition\\nback to the topic of you being Comptroller. We\'ve just been discussing how to\\nfind jobs, gain job experience, and how to pay for it. But once someone has a\\njob, they pay income taxes and the Comptroller collects those revenues. So I\'d\\nlike to ask you to define the role of the Comptroller?

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\\nFranchot:\\nThe Comptroller of the State of Maryland is a statewide elected position,\\nwhich makes it somewhat unique since many other states do not have elected\\ncomptrollers; instead most states have appointed budget officers. [The role\\nComptroller of Maryland] was established in 1851 to oversee the finances of the\\nstate. The state was in bankruptcy because the bank and the Treasury made all\\nsorts of unwise investments and so they created in the state constitution the\\nposition of comptroller. I\'m the chief fiscal officer of the state according to\\nthe Constitution. As [Maryland\\u2019s] fiscal steward I 1) collect all taxes, 2) process\\n3.2 million tax returns each year, 3) am heavily involved in issuing tax\\nrefunds, and 4) am responsible for fighting tax fraud, which is an emerging\\nproblem. Those are the core responsibilities of the office.

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\\nI\'m additionally\\na member of the Board of Public Works (BPW) which is an extremely powerful entity\\nin Maryland and is unique in the country as a three person panel that also\\nincludes the governor and the state treasurer. [The governor and I] happen to\\ncome from different parties. He\'s a Republican and I\'m a Democrat. The\\nTreasurer is elected by the legislature. This panel approves 9-10 billion\\ndollars in state contracts every year. We meet every two weeks and it\'s an\\nenormous kind of clearing house of taxpayer funding for different contracts.

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\\nCooper: You mentioned that you sit\\non the BPW and you alluded to the fact that you sit on the Board with the\\ngovernor and the Treasurer, the Treasurer being Nancy Kopp, a Democrat, alongside\\nyou, a Democratic Comptroller, with both of you being joined by Republican Governor\\nLarry Hogan. You previously mentioned that in the House of Delegates you\\nrepresented a very liberal, progressive, somewhat socialist-leaning constituency\\nin the Takoma Park and Silver Spring area of Montgomery County. Since Governor Hogan\\nwas elected in 2014 you and he have come, at least in the public eye, to have\\nquite a personal friendship and furthermore you seem to have forged a\\nsuccessful working relationship together.

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\\nYour relationship is especially striking when juxtaposed\\nto the tenuous and slightly acrimonious relationship between the legislature\\nand Governor Hogan and when juxtaposed to your previous stances while a part of\\nthe legislature under the previous Republican Governor, Bob Ehrlich. To many it\\nwould seem that your views have evolved into more moderate positions. Could you\\nelaborate on the gradual evolution of your political identity and how that\\noccurred within the confines of realpolitik requiring you to work across party\\nlines on the BPW?

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\\nFranchot:\\n[As] Comptroller I have some independence from the political machine\\nto which I ordinarily [would] have had allegiance [as a legislator]. [I hold] a\\nstatewide [elected] office [and voters] expect someone who [holds this office\\nto be] fiscally moderate and independent of normal political machinations. [That\\nof course comes with caveats;] if you become someone who is harmful to and\\nopposed to your own party\'s values [then] I suppose you might be subject to\\ndefeat in a primary election.

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\\nBut\\nI follow two truths. One truth that I hold very strongly is that [in elected\\noffice I must always be] working in the public interest, as [being] an elected\\nofficial is a noble profession. And the second truth [that] I follow is that\\nthere\'s nothing wrong with bipartisanship. And so during my tenure as Comptroller\\nI have actively tried to drop the partisanship except when it gets around\\nelection time. I have tried to be independent, which I guess is the word that I\\nwould use to describe myself.

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\\nAnd\\nsince the election of Governor Hogan two years ago, yes, [he and I have] formed\\na friendship but it\'s mostly around moderate fiscal policies where we have a\\nstrategic partnership on the Board of Public Works. I think it\'s single-handedly\\nbeen a relationship that has resulted in the fiscal house of the State of\\nMaryland being put into much better shape. I don\'t want to take too much credit\\nfor doing things on the Board of Public Works, but on things such as state\\nprocurement we have significantly reduced single-bidder procurement awards.\\nThis is that important because [without this reform] the incumbent vendor [generally\\nwins state contracts], taxpayers [have no sense of whether or not] they\'re\\ngetting a good deal, [and] there\'s no transparency, there\'s no competition, and\\nthere\'s no accountability.

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\\nSo\\ntogether, Governor Hogan and I significantly cut down on the number of single\\nbidder contracts and that\'s good for the State of Maryland. Unfortunately it\\noften gets mischaracterized as sleeping with the enemy. [I\\u2019ve been focusing on]\\ngetting results [that benefit] the people and I think [that] it\'s [been] well\\nreceived by the public. [And I\\u2019ve been] elected three times and each time I\'ve\\ngotten more votes than anyone else in that election. And I\'m now going to be on\\nthe ballot again in 2018.

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\\nCooper:\\nI\'d like to ask about your work as comptroller where you try to\\nidentify and penalize tax cheats, reduce cigarette smuggling, and the illegal sale\\nof alcohol and fuel. As Comptroller, you\\u2019re fond of claiming that you\'re\\nclosing corporate tax loopholes and of characterizing yourself as a fiscally\\nresponsible, independent fiscal watchdog. However these were not the manner in\\nwhich you characterized yourself when you campaigned for or worked within the\\nHouse of Delegates. Given those differences, how has it come to pass that you\\ndecided to run for comptroller against the incumbent former Governor of\\nMaryland, William Donald Schaefer?

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\\nFranchot:\\nWell let me be really honest and say that the iconic former Mayor of\\nBaltimore, Governor of Maryland, and two-term Comptroller didn\'t very much like\\nme running against him and, ironically, I ran against him on a [platform] that\\nI was a real Democrat and that he wasn\'t because he had gotten so close to President\\nGeorge H.W. Bush and other national Republicans.

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\\nI\\nhave moved to the center on fiscal issues because of the nature of the job. The\\nexpert briefings that I receive on economic issues have caused me to come more\\nin the center on fiscal issues. And have been very well received by the voters\\nnot just around the state but frankly also in District 20, my old liberal\\ndistrict, [proving] that it is a myth that liberal Democrats are somehow not concerned\\nabout fiscal matters; they are and they\'re very concerned about their own\\nbudgets, their own small businesses, and about fiscal matters in politics. [However]\\nthe state Democratic Party does not focus on [fiscal responsibility] and\\ninstead focus on issues that are very important like discrimination and gun\\ncontrol, which are issues that I\'ve worked on, but those are more cultural\\nissues than they are economic issues. And so that\'s the reason that I\'ve moved\\nto the center on fiscal issues but I remain an absolutely rock solid Democrat my\\nentire life.

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\\nCooper:\\nI\'d like to ask you a final question Peter, which is to speak to the\\ntaxpayers of the State of Maryland and explain why being a politician is a\\nnoble profession. Elaborate upon how you have managed to become independent, act\\nin accordance with what you believe is in the best interest of the public, and why\\nyou\'ve been motivated to serve the public interest for the past three decades.

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\\nFranchot:\\nWell I enjoy the opportunity to make a difference. And I\'m very\\nhonored and very privileged to have been the comptroller for the last 10 years.\\nIt\'s a large statewide office and there are very few of them in Maryland. [Being\\ncomptroller] gives me an opportunity to do the right thing for people and I\'m\\ngrateful to the voters for letting me do that.

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\\nRecently\\nwe helped an elderly woman in western Maryland who we found had fallen way\\nbehind on her taxes and she owed quite a sum of money in back taxes. We put her\\non a payment plan, which I believe [came out to] five dollars every other week.\\nAnd my staff came to me and said, \\u201cSir with all due respect, the woman is going\\nto have to live to be 142 to pay off all of her back taxes.\\u201d And I said that\'s\\nfine. I understand that but we\'re not here to make her life miserable. She\\ndoesn\'t feel right about falling behind on her taxes but we\'re not going to [extract]\\na pound of flesh from her because she didn\'t have very much money. We\'re simply\\ngoing to put her on a payment plan that she can afford. It\'s that ability to\\ninject myself into situations where the bureaucracy might otherwise be harsher than\\nI would be where I can supply some of the empathy that I value so highly. [Regarding\\nyour question about whether] politics is a noble profession, [my answer is]\\nabsolutely, and it\'s harder than you think.

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\\nNow\\nwhat happened recently in politics [with the 2016 Presidential election] is a\\nlittle troubling to me because the hyper partisans on either side have [taken]\\ncontrol of their [respective] parties. [While] I do not believe that Donald\\nTrump should be President of the United States because he is a reckless, impulsive,\\nvolatile, and frankly a dangerous individual, I do not believe that his\\nfollowers should be punished, confronted, orshouted at by [the Democratic\\nParty].

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\\n[Instead]\\nwe need to get [Trump] supporters and Hillary Clinton supporters together and\\nhave them talk more to each other so that we don\'t end up having neighbors\\nhating neighbors because of who they support politically. And I am positive that\\nI can play a positive force in urging people to fight the emotions of the day and\\nto try to be rational, level headed, and empathetic. And I\'ve already indicated\\nmy opinion that no one should be treated with disdain or hatred simply because\\nthey are Republican; we can either support or oppose the President and still\\ninteract with your neighbors and friends. I hope to play a calming role [in the\\ncurrent political environment].

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\\nCooper:\\nThat has been Peter Franchot, the Comptroller of the State of\\nMaryland who speaks about a noble tradition of public service through elected\\noffice or otherwise, from his time on the front lines as a campaigner, as an\\nadvocate for environmental issues alongside Ralph Nader, and who speaks about\\nthe importance of having empathy for those with whom one differs. He calls for\\ngreater civility and respect in the national dialogue as together turn to face the\\nmany challenges facing our great nation. Peter is a man who is willing to be\\npragmatic when it comes to advancing the public interest and he\'s willing to\\nput aside any sort of reservation he may have with another\'s approach to the\\npublic interest and find compromise because, for Peter, as we\'ve heard before\\nwith other interviewees half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. And making\\nsure that everyone gets a fair shake and that we humanize the political process,\\nfor example by enabling a woman of limited means to feel like she is\\nresponsible and she\'s being fair and that she\'s being treated fairly by the\\nstate. Peter is someone who seeks to raise the path of public service to\\nsomething of a noble calling and that is why he touts the benefits of\\nbipartisanship and empathy as he recounts his lifelong path of public service.