Ex-Franchot Aide Resigns as Chair of State’s New Alcohol and Tobacco Commission

Less than two months after becoming chairman of a new regulatory entity called the Maryland Alcohol and Tobacco Commission, Len N. Foxwell, the former chief of staff to Comptroller Peter V.R. Franchot (D), has resigned.

In a letter sent earlier this week to Maryland Appointments Secretary Chris Cavey, Foxwell said he planned to step down following the commission’s next meeting on Thursday to avoid potential conflicts of interest between his volunteer state position and his recently-launched communications and political consulting business.

Foxwell became chairman of the commission, the state’s new regulator of the alcohol and tobacco industries, at its first meeting in late January.

The very creation of the commission was the product of a years-long, high-profile dispute between Franchot, who as comptroller was until recently the state’s leading regulator of alcohol and tobacco, and the General Assembly. Legislation passed by the Assembly in 2019, over the objections of Franchot and despite a veto by Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R), stripped the comptroller’s office of its regulatory duties.

The law created a commission under the governor’s purview to oversee the same liquor and tobacco inspectors and law enforcement officers who had worked for the comptroller — and Hogan, as a favor to his frequent ally Franchot, nominated Foxwell to the panel. Franchot and Foxwell, his longtime top aide and adviser, parted company last fall — though by that time, Foxwell’s nomination to the commission had been officially submitted to the state Senate for consideration.

The Senate has yet to move on Hogan’s five nominees to the commission, but the panel began its official work at a meeting on Jan. 29 — during which Foxwell’s fellow commissioners appointed him chairman. Now, Foxwell said, his business interests, whether it’s advising a likely candidate for comptroller, Bowie Mayor Timothy Adams (D), or potential work for players in the alcohol industry, would make his duties on the commission untenable.

“As my business has grown, it has become abundantly clear that the nature of my work as a private sector consultant is irreconcilable with my responsibilities as an objective and impartial state regulator and that — in the absence of a resolution — conflicts of interest will inevitably emerge,” Foxwell wrote to Cavey.

The four remaining members of the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission are likely to turn to the panel’s vice chair, Barbara Wahl, chief operating officer of Concerted Care Group, a substance abuse treatment center in Baltimore, to take the top slot. It will be up to Hogan to nominate a replacement on the ATC for Foxwell.

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