Maryland Senators In Last-Minute Jockeying For Leadership Slots

With the 2020 General Assembly session now less than a month away and the holidays just around the corner, presumptive Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) is expected to fill out his leadership team soon. One lawmaker said this week that Ferguson’s announcements are “imminent.”

A series of retirements and other moves have created an unusual number of mid-term vacancies in key positions — including open vice chair slots on three of the Senate’s four standing committees.

The man Senate Democrats turned to in October to take over for long-serving President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) has been pondering how best to take advantage of the opportunities he now has to reshape the chamber’s leadership for the upcoming session and beyond.

Two Baltimore-area lawmakers who serve in leadership — Shirley Nathan-Pulliam and Robert A. Zirkin — have recently announced that they are leaving the General Assembly. He has served as chairman of the Judicial Proceedings Committee; she was vice chairwoman of Education, Health and Environmental Affairs.

At a welcome home event for Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) — a Naval Reserve intelligence officer just back from Afghanistan — in Silver Spring last week, Ferguson announced that Smith, the JPR vice chairman, would take Zirkin’s place. But that leaves the number two spot on Judicial Proceedings open.

Click here to read the rest of the article written by Bruce DePuyt over at Maryland Matters