Editor’s note: This story was updated on June 14 at 12:38 p.m. to clarify why committee member Seth Grimes cannot participate in voting.
Gaithersburg city councilmember Ryan Spiegel was selected by Montgomery County’s Democratic Central Committee at a meeting Tuesday night to fill a vacant seat in District 17 of the Maryland General Assembly House of Delegates.
Spiegel will be the fifth legislator in the Montgomery County delegation to be appointed by the committee this year alone in a process that some legislators and observers have criticized as undemocratic. Once Spiegel is sworn in, 14 of 34 state delegates and senators in the county will have been appointed by the committee.
The seat was vacated by Kumar P. Barve, who joined Democratic Gov. Wes Moore’s administration as a member of the Maryland Public Service Commission.
County and state law dictates that, in the case of a vacancy, the county’s central committee must run the process for selecting a prospective candidate in the district. The committee will submit the name to Moore, who is required to make an appointment within 30 days after the vacancy. Spiegel will serve the rest of Barve’s term, ending in November 2026.
District 17 includes parts of Rockville and Gaithersburg.
During a forum last week, Spiegel said he wants to focus on affordable housing, gun violence prevention and financial empowerment.
Spiegel ran in the 2006 Democratic primary for House District 17 and in the 2014 Democratic primary for County Council District 3. He’s partner at Thompson Hine LLP business law firm
Spiegel won the nomination with a majority of 12 votes, beating out 11 other applicants. Twenty-three members voted.
The other applicants included:
- Josh Fischer: Child Welfare Services for Montgomery County Government, member of the Board Of Directors of the Montgomery County Renters Alliance
- Susan Hoffmann: former mayor of Rockville, ran in the 2014 Democratic primary for House District 17, development manager at the Fund for Montgomery
- Jennifer Hosey: current MCDCC member
- Tiffany Kelly: community planning & development specialist at U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, anti-poverty advocate
- Matthew Lee: member of the board of directors of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp., chief executive officer at A-Tech Systems Inc. in Rockville
- Johvet Lopez: political action specialist for Montgomery County Education Association
- Kevin Redden: civil litigation associate at Joseph Greenwald & Laake P.A., chair, Montgomery County Commission on Juvenile Justice
- Sabria Still: former staffer for County Councilmember Will Jawando (D-At-large), cannabis industry consultant
- Rebecca Smondrowski: Montgomery County Board of Education member for District 2, ran in the 2018 Democratic primary for House District 17
- Keith Vance: software engineer at The Knot Worldwide
- Karl Van Neste: director and developer at KFVN Software, LLC, vice president of the Muddy Branch Alliance
In the first round, Spiegel received eight votes, Lopez received seven votes, Kelly received four votes, Lee received two votes and Hosey and Smondrowski each received one vote.
In the second round, Spiegel received 12 votes, Lopez received 10 votes and Kelly received one vote.
Housey recused herself from entire process, and member Seth Grimes is not allowed by Maryland ethics law to participate in votes on vacancies because he is a registered lobbyist with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.
Two applicants, David Fallick and Julian Haffner, withdrew from consideration. Fischer was not present Tuesday night, and Vance did not attend the June 7 forum or the Tuesday night meeting.
“One of the things I want to do is take the financial empowerment program model that we’ve really grown in the city of Gaithersburg and see if we can scale it up on a state level,” Spiegel said in an interview. “The idea behind this program is to break the cycle of poverty by giving people access and opportunity where systemic barriers have traditionally prevented them from having that to help improve their credit to help reduce their debt to help build their savings.”
Spiegel said he also wants to figure out ways to give local governments more authority to go farther in addressing gun violence. And he’d like to work on some legislation to that effect. He’s also interested in funding projects to invest in community centers and recreation centers in the district.
Greg Wims was appointed as District 39 delegate last month. The seat was vacated in March by Kirill Reznik, who left to join Moore’s administration as the new assistant secretary for inter-departmental data integration for the state Department of Human Services. Reznik began his General Assembly career when he was appointed by the central committee in October 2007.
Former District 16 Del. Ariana Kelly was appointed to the District 16 Senate seat, which became vacant after former Sen. Susan Lee was named secretary of state for Maryland by Moore on Jan. 10. As a result of Kelly’s selection to the Senate, her House seat was vacated.
Sarah Wolek, former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity and professor at University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business, was nominated by the committee and appointed to Kelly’s house seat in March.
Bernice Mireku-North was nominated to fill a vacant seat in District 14 of the House of Delegates in January, after former Del. Eric Luedtke resigned the seat to become Moore’s chief legislative officer.
The recent slew of vacancies and appointments has put the process under greater scrutiny. Last month, MCDCC rejected the proposed rule that would have restricted members from voting to appoint themselves into the legislature. Some members of the committee argued that it would be unconstitutional for the committee to change the rules, citing guidance from the Maryland Democratic Party. Other members argued it is not an overstep to encourage members to recuse themselves from their own appointment process.
At an event in Silver Spring on Monday, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D) said any changes to the state law in that regard would have to be made by the legislature, but that she believes Moore would sign any legislation passed to make those changes. She also said she believes central committee members should have to recuse themselves from voting if they are applying for a vacancy.
Del. Julie Palakovich Carr (D-Dist. 17) sponsored a bill this General Assembly session that would have required central committee members who apply for state legislative vacancies to recuse themselves from voting for the vacancy. However, the bill didn’t make it far in the legislative process.
Another bill from Del. Linda Foley (D-Dist. 15) would have set a special election for any legislative vacancy that occurs in roughly the first year-and-a-half of a legislative term. It would first be filled via the current appointment process, and then special elections would occur in the scheduled presidential midterms. She’s said she plans to bring the legislation back in 2024.
