Worst News for MoCo from the State Legislature

It’s been 116 years since a Montgomery County politician (ex-Rockville Mayor Spencer Jones in 1904) presided over the Maryland Senate, and 90 years since a county resident (E. Brooke Lee of Silver Spring in 1930) occupied the speaker’s chair in the House of Delegates. Notwithstanding Montgomery’s transformation from agricultural area to population powerhouse in the intervening decades, the county’s political dry streak in Annapolis shows little sign of abating. When longtime Speaker Michael Busch died last April, no contender to replace him emerged from Montgomery County before Baltimore County Del. Adrienne Jones got the job. And when Thomas V. Mike Miller—the longest serving Senate president in state history—stepped down in October, he was succeeded by Baltimore City Sen. Bill Ferguson, who, at 36, could surpass Miller’s record for longevity. Nancy King, the senior member of the Montgomery County delegation in the state Senate, mulled a bid to succeed Miller, but ultimately took a pass—while backing an unsuccessful contender from Prince George’s County. As debate on key issues such as future aid formulas for education loomed in 2020, King said she was “really worried” about the county’s clout, telling Maryland Matters, “We’re kind of left out in the cold, where we shouldn’t be.”