ANTHONY'S VISION
FOR DISTRICT 34B
MY PRIORITIES
MORE
RESOURCES
Harford County is too often overlooked by our state government. Each session, our state delegates go up to bat for bond bills to reinvest tax dollars in their districts. Many of our schools are past their sell by date and our roads and infrastructure are strained by irresponsible growth. As your Delegate, I will fight for the resources and capital funding we deserve in Annapolis to improve our schools, roads, green spaces, and more.
LOWER COST OF LIVING
Maryland has one of the highest costs of living in the country, which is causing young professionals and retirees alike to leave our state. I feel it too every time I grocery shop, fuel up, pay my rent, and check my paystub. Our General Assembly must do more to reign in energy prices and its own reckless spending that’s led to an increase in taxes and fees. A housing shortage is also driving prices through the roof. Without overriding local control, our legislators need to bring construction costs down through cutting red tape and overregulation.
RESTORE
CIVILITY
I’m running to turn the temperature of our politics down because polarization is taking away from actual results. Stamping out the divisiveness starts with improving how we talk about the “other side” and making genuine attempts at finding common ground through face-to-face conversation. From my organizing experience and background in both major parties, I know that this is possible, and it’s made me a leader who emphasizes what we share instead of how we’re different. Substantively, I support allowing independents to vote in our primaries to moderate the candidates nominated from the two major parties and scaling back the money in politics that pours fuel on the fire.
MY POSITIONS ON:
EDUCATION
Maryland’s students are our future, and we entrust much to our schools’ faculty and staff that serve them. We need to attract the best and brightest to prepare our students at a time when they and their classes have been dragged into the political tug-of-war. The top education issue I’ve heard about from parents and teachers is about unsustainable class sizes.
I support hiring more support staff in the classroom to provide students with more personalized instruction, but these positions may need a pay increase to attract more candidates. Career readiness and home economic coursework are also important for preparing our students for the workforce and adulthood.
DEVELOPMENT
I believe firmly that development and zoning decisions rest solely with Maryland’s counties and municipalities, not with our state government. One of the most frequent concerns I’ve heard from voters is that Harford has developed too quickly, and I agree. To our local leaders, I will advocate for responsible development that respects our county’s open space. In Annapolis, I will lobby for more funding to improve our roads and other infrastructure. I'm proud to be a Protect Perryman Peninsula (3P) recommended candidate, signifying my commitment to sustainable development and decisions based in feedback from residents.
ENERGY
I support an “all of the above” approach to energy production. Maryland uses five times as much energy as we generate, and we import 40% of our energy from other states. These factors, together with others like data centers and a grid backlog, continue to drive up our energy prices to outrageous levels. Leaders in Annapolis closed coal-fired power plants faster than we could get clean energy generation operational, and drove out the responsible retail energy suppliers from our state through overregulation. I will fight to bring down costs by increasing in-state energy generation across the board and amending SB1 to restore competition to our state’s energy market.
AI & DATA CENTERS
I’m deeply concerned about the ramifications of AI on our economy and culture. When I was in school, computer science was considered the most promising field of work to go into. Now, its promise is shrinking. I grew up in the Rust Belt and experienced the damage that factory closures wrought because our politicians didn’t see the writing on the wall. Maryland must get out in front of the AI revolution, preparing our workforce and students for the changing economy. Being proactive also includes protecting our communities, environment, and energy bills against harm from data centers, like Harford has already done by banning their construction.
PUBLIC SAFETY & EMERGENCY SERVIES
Our first responders put themselves on the line for us every day. We can never thank them enough, but we can make sure they have the resources they need to protect us. I support more competitive pay and collective bargaining rights for our law enforcement to address personnel shortages and more local control, because our local police know their communities best. Harford’s rapid growth unfairly asks our first responders to do more with less, while also being asked to put politics ahead of public safety.
SMALL BUSINESSES
Harford’s small businesses are one of the many reasons that our community is special. As the cost of doing business continues to rise, its increasingly difficult to compete with chains that can eat the cost of taxes and overregulation. I want to give our small businesses a leg up through flexible policies that recognize the challenges they face, such as a sales tax holiday to encourage consumers to support their local businesses more.
MARYLAND'S BUDGET
During the 2023 session, I worked as a committee analyst assigned to the Senate Budget & Taxation Committee. It was clear to me then that our state had budget challenges, such as a looming structural deficit and repeat audits finding mismanagement of agency budgets. Three years later, these challenges remain and continue to grow. All the while, we keep being told to pay more in taxes and fees in a state with one of the highest tax burdens in the country. We need long-term solutions, starting with a state inspector general to enforce what the auditors are finding year after year. Our leaders shot down an opportunity to appoint such an official this spring. A $4 billion deficit is projected by FY2030, driven in large part by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education program. Regrettably, I think the responsible decision would be to pause or adjust it to account for the way our budget forecast has worsened since its creation.
MY PLEDGES
ACCOUNTABILITY
In all of my decisions as our next Delegate, I will answer to you, my constituents. My job is to represent you and your interests. For you to hold me accountable, you’ll need to know what I’m doing, and I know that the actions of our state government aren’t always front-and-center. Just as I’ve reached out to ask for your vote, I’ll continue to come to you to ask for your concerns and share what I’ve done for our district.
ACCESIBILITY
One of the many thing I’ve learned from working for elected officials, it’s that they’re ordinary people just like us, although with how distant they can seem from us, it’s like they’re in a world of their own. It’s important to me to be a candidate who’s approachable and out in the community like anybody else.
RESPONSIVENESS
If you reach out to my office with a question or concern, you deserve a timely response from me or my team. Serving you as a constituent is about great customer service and not stopping until your needs are met.