Editor’s Note: Welcome to “MoCo Politics,” a periodic column by MoCo360 contributing editor Louis Peck providing perspectives on the political scene in Montgomery County and Maryland at large.
Legislation to move toward a system of special elections that would allow voters – rather than the county committees of the two major political parties – to fill mid-term vacancies in the Maryland General Assembly will soon be reintroduced in Annapolis, in advance of the 2025 legislative session.
The bill sponsored by Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-Rockville) and Del. Linda Foley (D-Potomac) was also pushed by those two legislators during the 2024 General Assembly session. But, after passing the Maryland Senate by an overwhelming vote, it went nowhere in the House of Delegates – the same fate as similar legislation encountered in previous tries at passage in 2021 and 2022.
In all three of these instances, the bill died when it reached the House Ways and Means Elections Subcommittee where it ran into resistance from the subcommittee chair, Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Silver Spring).
However, it appears the legislation could encounter a happier ending in 2025, after Wilkins indicated she now favors moving forward with the bill during an online gathering this month of the Bethesda Chevy Chase Democratic Breakfast Club.
“It’s not a perfect solution, but I think it’s something that’s our best solution and I think it’s time for us to move forward with special elections legislation and reforms,” Wilkins declared, according to a recording of the breakfast club session.
Wilkins’ shift on the issue is short of an ironclad guarantee the bill will see passage in 2025, as she pointedly left herself some political wiggle room. “I think there will be so much that we’re dealing with when it comes to post-election advocacy and election law that I’m not sure where this will fall,” she said of the special elections bill. “However, I can see this as something that could happen in the upcoming legislative session.”
Wilkins also chairs the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus, whose 65 members make up more than one-third of the General Assembly. In recent years, she and other Black Caucus members have been skeptical of a move to special elections, contending the current appointment system has increased racial diversity in the legislature – even though several analyses of recent legislative appointments serve to question such arguments.
However, Wilkins this month acknowledged growing support for moving to special elections. This has particularly been the case within Montgomery County: When Foley introduced her special elections bill in advance of last year’s session, 13 other Montgomery legislators signed on as cosponsors – representing a majority of the county’s 26-member House delegation.
“I think this bill does have interest, and I think that interest is building on it,” Wilkins said. “Although our [party] central committees are elected members, there is a lot of discomfort from residents in central committees making those appointments.”
An incremental step
The Kagan-Foley bill is an incremental step: It would not move Maryland to a system of special elections to fill legislative vacancies throughout the four-year term of state legislators, as is the case in the three states bordering Maryland: Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
But the legislation would open the door to a special election process by ensuring that vacancies occurring in the first year following the regularly scheduled, off-year balloting for General Assembly seats be subject to a special election. In turn, this would preempt legislators appointed to fill vacancies from being able to serve most or all of a four-year term without having to face the rank-and-file electorate.
That’s what happened in early 2023 in Montgomery County, as newly elected Gov. Wes Moore (D) plucked four Montgomery legislators from the General Assembly for his administration. The resulting game of political musical chairs created an opening in one state Senate seat and four House of Delegate slots – representing a total of 15% of the county’s 35-member Annapolis delegation.
All five vacancies were filled by the 26-member Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee (MCDCC), and the appointees will serve until the end of 2026 — when a new General Assembly will be sworn in. More than 40% of the current county delegation – and nearly 25% of the statewide membership of the General Assembly — owe their initial entry into the legislature to appointment rather than election.
Had the bill being proposed by Kagan and Foley been law in 2023, the five county appointees that year would have been required to run in this year’s May primary and November general election in order to continue serving until the end of 2026.
Specifically, the Kagan-Foley bill proposes that any vacancy created 55 days or more prior to the filing deadline of a presidential year be subject to that year’s primary and general election. Vacancies occurring after that point would continue to be handled as they are now: The central committee of the political party that previously held the seat would make an appointment to fill the vacancy, with the appointee serving until the end of the term of that General Assembly.
In 2024, a bill introduced by Kagan made an initial attempt to extend special elections to vacancies occurring throughout the four-year term, no matter when they occurred. But that proposal was withdrawn after running into resistance due to cost: a legislative staff analysis suggested the cost of a single special election to fill a legislative vacancy could exceed $400,000, with more than $250,000 of that borne by local jurisdictions. Holding special legislative elections in conjunction with already scheduled presidential year primary and general elections served to neutralize the cost issue.
Does the appointment process increase diversity?
In detailing her past concerns about the pending special elections bill, Wilkins said it “has mainly been steeped in the fact that central committees have appointed so many diverse candidates, so many women, so many people of color. We pride ourselves on having a very diverse legislature.”
However, recent analyses of the General Assembly membership suggest the central committee appointment process has had no more than a modest impact on diversity. One such analysis shared with MoCo360 last year showed that, of nearly 115 appointments to vacancies made over the past quarter of a century, only about 15% increased diversity.
Montgomery County does appear to be an exception to this broader statistical trend. There are currently seven Black legislators (20% of the county’s delegation) as compared to just one a little more than a decade ago. Five of these legislators – including Wilkins, appointed in early 2017 – initially owe their seats to the central committee appointment process.
Another argument against changing the status quo has involved the General Assembly’s ban on campaign fundraising by incumbent legislators during its three-month annual session. Consequently, someone appointed at the end of the first year of a legislative term under the Kagan-Foley bill would have limited time to raise money prior to having to face non-incumbent primary opponents – who would be free to raise money during the session.
“If your vacancy is in December and you get appointed, you are banned from fundraising and you’re on the ballot in May or June,” Wilkins told the Bethesda Chevy Chase breakfast gathering. “How do we make sure that it’s not a situation where the established people who have money to mail, to have [campaign] materials … just automatically win every time?”
Even if the bill proposed by Kagan and Foley does finally gain approval this year, political party central committees would retain absolute power over appointments to vacancies for three of the four years of a legislative term. A bill to be reintroduced by Dels. Julie Palakovich Carr (D-Rockville) and Mike Griffith (R-Hartford and Cecil counties) in advance of the 2025 legislative session seeks to ensure the committee appointment process is transparent for Democratic and Republican central committees across the state.
The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Howard County Democrat Clarence Lam, also contains a clause that would bar central committee members seeking a legislative vacancy from voting for themselves – a practice that has stirred past controversy with the MCDCC. The Palakovich Carr-Griffith bill cleared the House of Delegates nearly unanimously last year but failed to advance in the Senate.
The special elections bill and the committee appointment reform measure will be among what Wilkins described as a “slew of election law bills” to be introduced in 2025. Also in the mix: A “local bill” to allow so-called ranked choice voting in Montgomery County, which has been introduced annually in recent years but has failed to emerge from committee.
Wilkins said the sheer volume of election-related bills makes it uncertain what will ultimately clear the General Assembly in 2025. “I’m sure there will be over 100 election laws bills, maybe 200 election laws bills — because we’re coming off an election, and there will be so many different ideas on ways that we need to change the election and make improvements,” she said.
She added that the “safety of our election officials … will be the top priority for us in the upcoming legislative session,” particularly in the wake of bomb threats aimed at local boards of election around Maryland several days after this year’s Nov. 5 general election.
