Maryland Senate District 41

A: In 2026, I was the chair of the House Capital Budget Subcommittee. An important part of that job is to dig in and ask hard questions.

I uncovered $194 million in community college construction funds that had been authorized but never spent. When the explanations fell short, I pushed the committee to reject a $150 million future funding request until we got real transparency. You don’t ask families to pay more while you let nine figures sit on the shelf.

That’s the discipline I’d bring to closing the structural deficit. Maryland has done this work before; we closed a $3.5 billion shortfall in 2025 with a balanced, deliberate approach, and we’ll need that same discipline going forward.

That means three things. First, audit what we’ve already authorized before we authorize anything new. Second, modernize a tax code that still gives multistate corporations easy ways out. They do business here; they should pay here. Third, hold the line on what Marylanders actually depend on — health care, public education, and public safety. Those are not bargaining chips, especially as the Trump administration in Washington works to gut the federal workforce that the Maryland economy depends on.

Our state Constitution requires a balanced budget. The question isn’t simply whether we balance it. It’s who pays. My answer hasn’t changed: working families have carried enough.

A: 1. Economic opportunity that reaches every block — not just the corridors that already have it.

2. Public education that delivers on the promise we made when we passed the Blueprint.

3. Public safety that holds people accountable and keeps families whole.

A: For most Marylanders, the cost of living comes down to three numbers: housing, the energy bill, and what it costs to see a doctor. I’ve worked on all three in Annapolis.

HOUSING: I championed extending the Live Near Your School program so educators can afford to live in the communities where they teach. I sponsored alterations to the Catalytic Revitalization Tax Credit to prioritize workforce housing. And I established a state task force on deed fraud, which is a wealth-stripping scam that has emptied homes across West Baltimore for decades. We need more housing supply, we need protections again displacement, and we need to stop letting predators take what families built.

ENERGY BILLS: BGE is booking record profits while families choose between heating and groceries. That’s a policy failure. We need stronger oversight of multi-year rate plans, faster build-out of cleaner in-state generation, and a clear answer to who pays for the infrastructure data centers require. The answer is not Maryland citizens via sky-high utility bills.

COST OF HEALTH CARE: Maryland’s total cost of care model is one of the best tools any state has, and we have to defend it. And we need to give the Prescription Drug Affordability Board the teeth to actually limit what life-saving medications cost the people who need them.

A: When you invest in children, you don’t pull the money out a few sessions later because the market wobbled. We are playing a longer game than that, and the early returns are real. In Baltimore City this year, for the first time in years, we didn’t lose population. The Blueprint is part of why. Stay the course in Baltimore, and the model works everywhere else in Maryland, too.

The investment is concrete. This year alone: $122.4 million for the teacher collaborative time that retains good educators, and $605.8 million in increases to local school aid in every county in the state. Those are the dollars that pay for the things our kids actually need — and the things they shouldn’t have to live without. There are still children and teachers in Baltimore City schools without heat. There are children and teachers in classrooms hitting 100 degrees with no air conditioning. We are not going to look those kids in the eye and tell them we changed our minds.

So the honest answer to a structural funding gap is to fund it. That means modernizing Maryland’s tax code to reflect a 21st-century economy — making sure the digital and corporate sectors that profit from this state contribute their fair share before we ever ask working families to carry more. The Blueprint comes with built-in evaluation checkpoints; we should use them honestly, keep what’s working, and sharpen what isn’t. But the basic principle does not move: public dollars belong in public schools. My opponent, Sen. Dalya Attar, secured $500,000 in the 2024 state budget for Maryland’s first direct state investment in private school transportation. That is the wrong direction. Every dollar Maryland sends to private alternatives is a dollar that does not reach the public schools we made a Blueprint commitment to.

A: By showing up. That’s the standard, and District 41 has every reason to demand it.

This seat has been held by giants — Clarence Blount, Lisa Gladden, Jill Carter — stewards who treated it as a public trust. It has also been held by people who treated it as something else.

Within the last decade, one former senator left this seat after a federal corruption conviction. The current senator faces a federal indictment. District 41 has lived through both, and the people who live here know the difference between a leader and a headline.

So my standard is simple: show up, follow through, and tell the truth. That means being in the district, not just in Annapolis. It means office hours that people can actually get to. Meeting people in town halls that take the hard questions, not just the easy ones. It means a constituent services operation that picks up the phone and follows through.

It also means a public record that people can audit. Watch the votes. Read the bills I put my name on. Check whether the funding I’ve secured for District 41 — including the $4.28 million to begin building Baltimore’s first state park at Gwynns Falls/Leakin — actually shows up on the ground.

The seat doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to District 41. The review doesn’t wait until the next election. I expect it every day from the 129,000 residents of District 41, for whom I work.