“Think Again: A Decade of Calvert Institute Colloquies”

Think again
George Liebmann hopes his book will give new life to a decade’s worth of Calvert Institute colloquies
BRENDAN KEARNEY
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
August 19, 2007 6:39 PM
Established in 1995 as a conservative counterweight in left-leaning Maryland, the Calvert Institute for Policy Research ruffled feathers and got people talking with reports that spotlighted the size of the state’s debt and Baltimore’s government work force.

Even while its founders, Dr. Ronald W. Dworkin and Douglas P. Munro, were criticized for being too cozy with their funding sources or favored politicians, they continued to comment on public policy under the think tank’s imprint and on newspaper opinion pages.

But Munro, who had hosted the organization in his home, grew weary of raising money and took up other work. The Calvert Institute went “dormant”in 2001.

Enter George W. Liebmann, a Baltimore lawyer who first intersected with the Calvert Institute in 1998 when it published his study of Maryland’s teacher’s union contracts.

“I got together with the board and we revived it, which we’ve been
able to do since I do it on a volunteer basis,”Liebmann said in an interview last week. “We don’t have anyone who gets paid, which makes a difference in the budget.

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