Baker Making Campaign Promise to Move Governor’s Office to Baltimore
Gubernatorial candidate Rushern L. Baker III (D) will announce Friday that, if elected, he will move the governor’s office to the city of Baltimore for much of the year.
Baker’s campaign said it was a “clear commitment to making Baltimore City his administration’s top priority.”
“For the state to prosper, we have to turn Baltimore City around. Right now, the city faces profound adversity: broken, underfunded schools; the highest gang and gun violence rates in the country; and an economy in reverse as the city continues to lose population even as the rest of Maryland grows and thrives,” Baker, a former legislator and Prince George’s County executive, said in a statement released by the campaign. “The Governor of Maryland needs to treat these challenges as Maryland’s challenges, not just Baltimore City’s challenges. That has not been the approach from the State House for many years.”
He is expected to give additional details on the plan at an 11 a.m. press conference in the city.
Baker said his office would move to the city for most of the year, except when the General Assembly is in session.
“Moving the Governor’s Office to Baltimore is not just a symbolic gesture. It means my staff and I will be here every day, seeing for ourselves the challenges the city faces and the solutions that are needed to address them,” Baker said in a written statement. “It means my staff and I will be listening to residents of Baltimore every day, hearing their stories and what they believe are the solutions. It means my staff and I will not be doing our job if we are not leading the charge every day to improve conditions in Baltimore City.”
Baker’s announcement comes after tech entrepreneur Michael Rosenbaum ended his gubernatorial campaign, leaving only one Baltimore-based candidate in the race, author and former foundation CEO Wes Moore.
So far, two candidates in the Democratic gubernatorial primary have named running mates, Baker and Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot. All four lawmakers on those tickets come from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
Danielle E. Gaines
Contributor
Danielle Gaines worked for Maryland Matters from September 2018 to January 2024. She covered government and politics for Maryland Matters for two years before moving into an editing position, ultimately serving as editor-in-chief for nearly three years. Previously, she spent six years at The Frederick News-Post ― as the paper’s principal government and politics reporter for half that time, covering courts and legal affairs before that. She also reported for the now-defunct The Gazette of Politics and Business in Maryland and previously worked as a county government and education reporter at The Merced Sun-Star in California’s Central Valley.
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