Maryland leaders ready for their close-up at Democratic convention to anoint Harris

Posters promoting Kamala Harris for president on sale at an arts festival in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood on Sunday. Photo by Zoe Kurtz.

CHICAGO – Marylanders are poised to play a prominent role at this week’s Democratic National Convention – both inside the United Center, where the convention itself is taking place, and at events throughout the Windy City.

The convention officially kicks off Monday and runs through Thursday night.

Across the country, Democrats’ enthusiasm has been turbocharged since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Biden at the top of the ticket less than a month ago – and that’s no different for the 106 members of Maryland’s convention delegation.

“The bump we’re going to have from this convention is just going to be tremendous, that we’re going to take with us” through Election Day, Montgomery County Councilmember William Jawando, a Democratic delegate, said on a call with his donors Saturday.

Maryland’s delegates began assembling at their hotel along the Chicago River over the weekend. It’s just a few blocks from Lake Michigan, and nine other state delegations are staying in the same building.

Preliminary events for the Marylanders included a Sunday evening welcome reception at an Irish pub around the corner from their hotel. Some of the lucky delegates were also able to hit an Italian-American Democrats reception at a highly rated Italian restaurant in town earlier in the day (Maryland state Sen. Jim Rosapepe is a vice president of the group, and Brenda Lucchi, of Bowie, is the executive director).

Gov. Wes Moore (D) and Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, are among those expected to speak on the convention floor – though their speaking slots have not been locked in yet.

“Maryland’s important,” state Democratic Chair Ken Ulman said on the Jawando donor call Saturday. “Maryland plays an important role this year.”

Maryland’s convention delegation features most of the state’s Democratic heavy hitters – including much of the congressional delegation; Comptroller Brooke Lierman; Attorney General Anthony Brown; the presiding officers of the General Assembly, Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) and Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City); several county executives, state lawmakers and local officials; political up-and-comers; wannabes; old-timers; and a handful of Moore’s top aides.

Beyond the action in the United Center, convention week for delegates is a combination of Mardi Gras and a national reunion of political junkies and wonks, with action from sun-up to the wee small hours of the morning. Many of the delegates came to Chicago straight from the Maryland Association of Counties summer convention in Ocean City, adding to the traveling circus-like atmosphere.

The delegation will meet for breakfast every day this week at their hotel. Some delegates will then hit caucus meetings or other events throughout town – the Democratic National Committee has 15 caucuses, from the Asian-American Pacific Islander Caucus to the Veterans and Military Families Council.

After the action on the convention floor each night, the Marylanders can attend after-parties near their hotel. And on Wednesday afternoon, they have the option of taking an architectural boat tour along the Chicago River.

Monday’s breakfast is billed as a tribute to Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D).

Wednesday’s breakfast is being sponsored by the three Democratic nominees in open-seat races for U.S. House: Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr., former U.S. Commerce Department official April McClain Delaney and state Sen. Sarah K. Elfreth (D-Anne Arundel). Olszewski and Elfreth are heavily favored to win their races in the 2nd and 3rd districts, respectively. Delaney is in a tighter race in the 6th District with former Del. Neil C. Parrott (R).

Thursday’s breakfast has been billed as a tribute to Alsobrooks.

After-parties for the delegation are being sponsored by Moore and U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-8th), among others.

Lobbypalooza

Just as lobbyists, advocacy groups and special interests are ubiquitous in Annapolis during General Assembly sessions and at other gatherings of the Maryland political tribe, they will be heavily in evidence during the Democratic convention. According to a paper being handed to Maryland convention delegates when they check in at their hotel, event sponsors for the week include:

• Harris Jones Malone, a Baltimore and Annapolis lobbying firm
• E. Harrington & Sons, a Baltimore-based utility contractor
• RISE Investment Partners, a Prince George’s development company headed by former state Del. Justin Ross (D)
• Venable LLP, the mega-law firm based in Baltimore
• CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, the health insurance giant
• S. Proctor & Associates, Inc., an Annapolis and Prince George’s County lobbying firm
• The Laborers International Union of North America
• The American Federation of Government Employees
• Baltimore Gas & Electric
• Pepco
• The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, an electric power line proposal proposed by PSEG, a New Jersey energy company
• McDonald’s
• Allegis Redwood Maxim, a Catonsville public affairs firm
• Reworld Waste, known until recently as Covanta, the operator of a waste-to-energy plant in Montgomery County
• Lockheed Martin, the defense contractor
• Constellation Energy
• Baker McKenzie, a global law firm
• Diageo North America
• Education Reform Now Advocacy, a nonprofit think tank
• United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400
• Rice Consulting, a Democratic fundraising firm in Maryland
• Compass Advocacy, an Annapolis lobbying firm
• International Association of Firefighters Local 964
• MariMed Inc., a Massachusetts cannabis company
• Somerset Mayor Jeffrey Slavin, a prominent Democratic donor
• Mid-Atlantic Pipe Trades Association
• Mizrahi Enterprises, a Maryland technology firm
• Young Men’s Democratic Club of Prince George’s County
• Bellamy Genn Group, an Annapolis lobbying firm
• Emerge Maryland, an organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for political office

Bold-faced names

Alsobrooks, who is bidding to become the third Black woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate – Harris, a mentor and personal friend of Alsobrooks’, was the second – is also expected to appear at events around town, possibly in tandem with U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, another Black woman, who is strongly favored to win a Senate seat there this fall.

Alsobrooks and Raskin are scheduled to speak to the Virginia delegation on Wednesday morning. And Alsobrooks is addressing an AAPI Caucus meeting on Wednesday.

Moore will be busy throughout the week.

“You will see a lot of our governor in Chicago,” Ulman said.

Beyond his expected floor speech, Moore on Thursday will be the featured speaker at the veterans’ caucus meeting. He’s also scheduled to talk about racial income disparities at a meeting of the Black Economic Alliance. And he said he expects to talk to Gen Z groups and other organizations throughout the week.

“I don’t expect to get much sleep,” the governor said in an interview.

Although Moore is a relative political newcomer, this is not his first convention address.

On Aug. 28, 2008, at 3:40 p.m. local time, a man introduced to the crowd as “Captain Wes Moore,” gave a 2 ½-minute speech at Invesco Field in Denver on the last day of the convention there, extolling the virtues of the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, who gave his acceptance speech that evening.

Moore was just 29 years old at the time, but he sounded some of the same themes then that he has since entering politics.

“The election is not about history,” he said at the time. “This election is not about making history. This election is about seizing history and forging a proper course for our country for the next century.”

Moore said that despite that experience, “this convention really feels like my first.”

The governor said he too feels a surge of optimism among Democrats, in Maryland and across the country. But he added a note of caution.

“I hope we don’t enter into the convention or leave the convention with a false sense of exuberance,” he said. “There’s still a lot of work to do.”

Raskin, a hero to progressives across the country, also has a busy schedule, with commitments to speak at six state delegation breakfasts, at a Climate Crisis Council meeting and at a Brennan Center discussion on the Supreme Court.

A conflict Sunday night kept Raskin from a scheduled appearance at a tribute to the Rev. Jesse Jackson at the South Side headquarters of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the civil rights and community services organization he founded in the 1970s. Raskin, a former general counsel to the coalition, would have joined a program of speakers that included Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Rev. Al Sharpton and four of Raskin’s House colleagues, including U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), the son of the civil rights icon.

Despite suffering a mild stroke on Aug. 11, U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-5th), the longest-serving member of Congress in Maryland history and the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives, is planning to be in Chicago this week, according to his office. Hoyer is 85. He is scheduled to address the Maryland delegation on Tuesday.

“I can’t imagine Steny not being here,” said former Maryland Secretary of State John Willis.

Maryland’s two U.S. senators, Ben Cardin (D) and Chris Van Hollen (D) also plan to be on hand – though Cardin must first preside over a pro forma session of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday morning before heading to Chicago.

Like many of the dignitaries in the Maryland delegation, most members of Congress were still piecing together their convention schedules as the festivities began.

Abortion rights on the delegation’s agenda

While it isn’t unusual for high-ranking Maryland officials to raise money at national political conventions, two state lawmakers have decided to do so this week.

Del. Andrew C. Pruski (D-Anne Arundel) has a midday event scheduled Monday at an Irish pub in downtown Chicago. It’s a joint fundraiser for him and Conor Curran, a member of the Anne Arundel County Democratic Central Committee.

Just as Willie Sutton, the notorious thief, reportedly said he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is,” Pruski said he decided to hold a fundraiser during the convention because that’s where the political people are.

“Similar to MACo or other events, there are numerous Democratic leaders, volunteers and others that will be in Chicago,” he said. “We are looking forward to a great event.”

Another Anne Arundel County lawmaker, Del. Dana Jones (D), is also holding a joint fundraiser in Chicago on Tuesday afternoon, with Melissa Cerrato, a Pennsylvania state representative. The fundraiser, at a women’s clothing boutique, is being hosted by Anne Caprara, who happens to be Cerrato’s sister, a longtime friend of Jones’ – and the chief of staff to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D).

“We’re her two favorite state legislators,” Jones said of Caprara, noting that Caprara also hosted Jones’ baby shower when she was expecting her first child. “We’re just old politicos from Capitol Hill.”

Jones described the fundraiser as “a great pro-choice women’s event.”

Adrienne Jones, the Maryland House speaker, and Joanna McClinton, her counterpart from Pennsylvania, will be the featured speakers.

Abortion rights will also be the topic of a fundraiser Monday afternoon featuring Ferguson, the Maryland Senate president, and his Illinois counterpart, Sen. Don Harmon (D). They’re gathering in a restaurant in Chicago’s hip Fulton Market district for an event to benefit Freedom in Reproduction – Maryland, one of the organizations pushing the ballot initiative to enshrine abortion rights in the Maryland Constitution.