Hogan’s ‘Green Bag’ Includes Appointees to State Board of Elections, Education, Regents

The customary “green bag” of gubernatorial appointees arrived in the Maryland Senate on Friday afternoon, just as it has for decades ― but this time it was via video.

As a pandemic precaution, Republican Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr.’s appointments secretary, Chris Cavey, delivered the names of 154 appointees to 55 boards virtually on Friday.

“I am especially proud of this group, who volunteered under very awkward circumstances. They have proven to me that even under current pandemic conditions, it does not affect the volunteer spirit of the citizens of Maryland,” Cavey said in the video, wearing a green tie as he customarily does when delivering the nominations.

The appointments, most of which are subject to Senate confirmation, are to dozens of state boards and commissions, including the State Board of Education, State Board of Elections, University System of Maryland Board of Regents, and others.

Many of the appointments include prominent former officials and candidates.

Hogan nominated his former Commerce secretary, R. Michael Gill, for reappointment to the Maryland Clean Energy Center Board of Directors.

Former House Minority Leader Anthony J. O’Donnell was reappointed to the Public Service Commission for a second five-year term.

Aris Melissaratos, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich’s secretary of Business and Economic Development, was appointed to the Maryland Economic Development Commission, along with 14 other appointees. Other appointments to that board include former Baltimore city councilman Leon F. Pinkett III, former Anne Arundel County Executive Laura A. Neuman, and former Baltimore mayoral candidate Robert Wallace.

Wallace was also appointed to the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, where he previously served. Ellen R. Fish and James N. Holzapfel were reappointed to new terms as Regents and Gary T. Gill was appointed to finish a five-year term that started July 1, 2019.

Hogan also made one new appointment to the State Board of Education, Chuen-Chin Bianca Chang, a Howard County resident, whose term would begin July 1, if confirmed. Hogan nominated Warner I. Sumpter and Joan A. Mele-McCarthy for reappointment to the board.

Sky Woodward, an attorney from Anne Arundel County who works for Bradley in D.C., is nominated as a Republican member to the State Board of Elections. Woodward was previously appointed to the Maryland Appellate Courts Judicial Nominating Commission by Hogan. She is a former president of president of Maryland Defense Counsel, Inc., a statewide organization of trial lawyers who devote their practices to defending business in civil litigation.

Woodward is the second recent Republican appointee to the board. She replaces former board chair Michael Cogan, who presided over his last meeting of the board last week. Kelley Howells, a Republican member who resigned in January, was replaced by Severn Miller, who is counsel for a Towson-based transportation and infrastructure consulting firm.

Hogan also reappointed five members to the University of Maryland Medical System board of directors, after an overhaul of that panel last year in the wake of a self-dealing scandal. Legislation passed in 2019 ended the tenure of all previous board members, though it allowed them to re-apply for newly staggered terms if they were not term-limited. The appointments for all five nominees reappointed ― James C. DiPaula, Jason S. Frankl, R. Kent Schwab, R. Alan Butler and Keith McMahan ― would run a full five years.

The full list of Green Bag appointees can be found here.

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