Central committees often leave candidate vetting to others when filling vacancies

The Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee will meet Thursday night to name a new delegate to fill a vacancy in District 16. Photo by Bryan P. Sears.

Political central committees in Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions are charged with filling legislative vacancies and vetting the candidates to see if they’re eligible for the offices they are seeking. Those reviews, however, do not always include scrutiny of public records — including court records.

A whisper campaign against one candidate seeking to fill a House of Delegates vacancy has spotlighted the vetting procedures of state central committees charged with filling the positions. It is a process currently underway in Montgomery County, where the Democratic Central Committee on Thursday will recommend a candidate to Gov. Wes Moore (D) to fill a vacant House of Delegates seat.

Two of nine Democrats seeking to fill the District 16 seat vacated last month by now-Sen. Sara Love (D) were found to have had some contact with the courts involving criminal charges or other proceedings.

The criminal charges — and in one case a conviction nearly a decade ago — raise questions about how thoroughly political parties vet candidates. It also adds another wrinkle in an ongoing debate in Annapolis over moving to fill vacancies with special elections instead of an insular process involving party insiders.

In many cases, central committees do not ask about such matters. And when they do come up, it is rare that they are discussed in public forums.

Saman Qadeer Ahmad, chair of the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee, declined to discuss the specific candidates seeking the District 16 seat, or the degree to which the central committee has vetted the applicants. As a general rule, she said, the central committee checks whether applicants for legislative seats are eligible to serve — their age, whether they have been residents of the district for at least six months and whether they are registered Democrats.

“We’re looking at Article 3 of the Maryland Constitution, which lays out all the qualifications the candidates have to meet for a gubernatorial appointment,” said Ahmad, adding that the central committee, when needed, occasionally refers additional questions about candidates to lawyers for the Maryland Democratic Party.

‘A deep bench’

Nine Democrats declared their candidacy for the District 16 House of Delegates vacancy last month.

“We have an excellent slate of candidates,” Ahmad said in an interview Tuesday. “Montgomery County has a deep bench.”

Maryland Matters decided to review court records for all nine applicants after the publication received records related to a nearly 10-year-old case involving one of the nine.

Those certified court records, delivered late Monday to Maryland Matters, were collected by an unknown person in April — before the House seat was vacated, but when there was a pending District 16 state Senate vacancy that Love was expected to fill.

The identity of the person who retrieved the Frederick County court records, their motivations and reasons for holding the records for nearly three months — until days before Thursday night’s scheduled central committee vote — are unknown.

An unknown figure pulls a decade old case

In total, Maryland Matters found two of the nine candidates have been the objects of criminal or civil court cases in Maryland. The only other court record found was a recent speeding ticket for a third candidate.

Court cases are often fodder in heated campaigns. Even so, Diana Conway, one of the leading candidates for the District 16 House appointment, expressed surprise that a decade-old conviction for drunken driving would be raised now as an issue by an anonymous source.

Conway and her husband, Bill Conway, are civic and political activists who live in Potomac. (The couple were also early financial contributors to Maryland Matters and hosted two fundraisers in their home for the publication, in 2016 and 2022.) Diana Conway has twice been president of the Women’s Democratic Club of Montgomery County, one of the most influential groups in local politics, and is also a high-profile environmentalist in the county.

Bill Conway, an attorney, ran unsuccessfully for a Montgomery County Council seat in 2018.

The couple are also financial supporters of the county Democratic Central Committee and several other politicians, progressive causes and civic groups.

When offered a chance to review the records provided to Maryland Matters, Conway declined.

“It’s all true,” she said at the beginning of a brutally frank interview Tuesday night, which included a discussion of her 2014 arrest, her mental health and substance abuse issues — she said she is an alcoholic in recovery — and what has transpired in the nine-plus years since that incident.

Conway said she had not initially disclosed the incident to the central committee, but she expects it will now come up.

“This is not something I trumpet. It’s also not something I hide from,” said Conway, who said she practices “rigorous honesty” as part of her ongoing sobriety efforts.

In 2014, Conway was charged with driving while intoxicated, two counts of assault and two counts of malicious destruction of property related to an incident at a Frederick County car dealership.

Conway was accused of ramming a gate to a fenced-in lot at the Carmax in Urbana. She was also accused of ramming a golf cart employees used to keep her from leaving the parking lot before police arrived.

At least two employees had to flee the golf cart to avoid injury as Conway allegedly rammed it, according to court records. She also allegedly used her SUV to ram a fence several times, according to court records.

No one was seriously injured in the incident.

Court records showed her blood alcohol level at the time was 0.28%, more than three times the legal limit of .08%.

Conway later pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol. The agreement resulted in the dismissal of the other charges. She was sentenced to supervised probation, but violated probation when she unsuccessfully attempted to drive after consuming alcohol. Her vehicle had an ignition interlock device that stops the car from operating if the driver tests positive for alcohol.

The court then sentenced her to 12 months in jail with all but two days suspended.

“It was a terrible incident that taught me something and gave me a community that I can turn to at any moment, and I urge others to take advantage of that community,” said Conway, adding that it was a moment when she realized she needed to get help for both her alcoholism as well as what was then an underlying but undiagnosed depression disorder.

“My goal here is not to minimize my record but to turn it into an opening for others” to seek help, Conway said.

Conway said she had no idea who would go to the trouble of pulling the court records in April and circulating them months later.

“If the intention was that I’d back out of the race, it backfired,” she said.

But such charges can have an effect on lawmakers’ committee assignments in Annapolis.

In 2013, then-Del. Don Dwyer (R-Anne Arundel) was removed from the House Judiciary Committee after he was charged with operating a boat under the influence of alcohol. A year later, his conviction on that charge resulted in his being stripped of all committee assignments.

In 2015, then-Del. Jay Jalisi (D-Baltimore County) was moved off the Judiciary Committee after his daughter was granted a protective order following an altercation with her father. The disciplinary action came two months after Jalisi was sworn into office.

If Conway were to be appointed the House, her background could potentially be considered in any committee assignment.

“That’s not up to me to decide,” she said Tuesday.

Another candidate’s history with the courts

Another candidate seeking the District 16 appointment is Scott Webber, a licensed Realtor and vocal progressive activist in Montgomery County. Court files show a domestic violence charge against Webber in 2006 that has since been closed. He has also been involved in numerous complicated foreclosure cases.

Webber, who has been associated with myriad progressive organizations and causes in Maryland for years, acknowledged his court history. He said the 2006 domestic violence case that was filed in Montgomery County Family Court came about because “I was involved in a messy domestic situation.”

Webber, who also applied to the fill the vacancy when former District 16 Sen. Susan C. Lee (D) resigned in early 2023 to become Moore’s secretary of state, said he sent emails Monday seeking meetings with the 23 central committee members because he felt the candidates did not have enough time to make their cases during last week’s candidate forum and the upcoming central committee meeting.

Webber said insider candidates and current elected officials have an unfair advantage when they apply for legislative vacancies, because they have easy access to the decision-makers.

“To me, there’s a problem with choosing the candidates before [all] the candidates are known,” he said, adding that he expected to have private conversations with half a dozen central committee members before Thursday evening’s vote.

Webber has been highly critical of certain Democratic leaders and has been part of a group of activists who have shadowed Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D) at public events, suggesting she has ties with brutal leaders in India.

“It puts a big target on your back as an individual,” he conceded.

Webber said the foreclosure cases against him have made him one of Maryland’s leading experts on foreclosure law. He acknowledged that he is a long shot for the appointment but said he was unsure about running for the legislature in the 2026 election.

Leave the vetting to the governor

While the governor has the final say on approving replacements for legislative victories, the party central committees currently hold most of the power in the process, as their nominees are usually approved. And such appointments are common.

Of the 188 legislators in the Maryland General Assembly, nearly 25% were initially appointed to their seats. Many go on to be re-elected. Some appointed to the House are later appointed to fill a Senate vacancy.

The person who is picked to replace Love in the House will become the 15th Montgomery County lawmaker — in a 35-member delegation — who first won their seats through the appointment process.

Under current law, when a vacancy arises, the central committee of the party that held the seat interviews candidates and recommends a replacement to the governor. An effort to move away from that system to one that relies more heavily on elections died in a House committee this year.

The current process has also resulted in some candidates with questionable backgrounds being sent to the governor for approval.

In 2013, the Prince George’s County Democratic Central Committee recommended Gregory Hall to fill the vacancy left by then-Del. Tiffany Alston (D), who was ousted after being sentenced for misconduct when she stole $800 from the General Assembly to pay an employee at her law firm.

Then-Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) rejected Hall because of a conviction years earlier related to a shooting incident that left a middle school student dead.

Alston was re-elected to the House in 2022.

Similarly, then-Gov. Larry Hogan (R) rescinded the appointment of Democrat Gary Brown Jr. to a Baltimore City House seat. The former aide to disgraced former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh (D) was indicted on state campaign finance charges two days before he was to be sworn in.

Ahmad said it is unusual for Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee members to routinely examine court cases involving applicants for legislative seats. If cases are brought to her attention, she will share them with colleagues. The central committee also looks at letters of support and opposition to the candidates, though those are not made public.

“Our main concern is, will that candidate be able to carry out that work with full integrity?” Ahmad said. “Our mandate is to try to focus on what their experience has been and their leadership abilities.”

Ahmad said the fact that the governor’s office also vets the central committee’s recommended candidate adds another level of scrutiny.

“At the end, it really is up to the discretion of the governor and the due diligence that his office does,” she said.

– This story was updated on Thursday, July 11, to correct elements of Scott Webber’s court history in paragraphs 38 and 39.

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