The first black woman to serve as Prince George’s county executive, Allbrooks, 53, has a down-to-earth personal perspective and a good sense of public service. She has been a fiscally responsible steward throughout the pandemic and a champion for economic development in historically marginalized communities. She was instrumental in advocating for the FBI headquarters to be moved to Greenbelt. She said that when Mr. Hogan was governor, he secured up to $400 million in state bonds to guarantee redevelopment along the five-mile Blue Line corridor in Prince George, even if the Washington Commanders left the stadium. and concluded an agreement with Mr. Hogan. She employed innovative public-private partnerships to build 10 new schools.
Mr. Allsbrooks deserves praise for his leadership on public safety. She resisted pressure from progressives to remove police from schools during the tumultuous summer of 2020. This was in contrast to Washington, D.C., Alexandria, and Montgomery County, which came to regret hasty cuts to their school resource officer programs. In 2022, Allbrooks began enforcing a curfew for children under 17 after learning that most armed carjackings were carried out by teenagers between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Ta. She clashed with her successor, the state’s attorney, who accused her of grandstanding. Albrooks stood her ground, and she was right.
At the same time, Ms. Allbrooks knows what it means to fight against systemic injustice and struggle financially. His mother’s family came to Maryland from South Carolina after a white sheriff’s deputy shot and killed his unarmed great-grandfather in 1956. Her father recently returned to part-time work to help pay her bills, as her mother developed dementia.
Mr. Allsbrooks is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Maryland School of Law. In 1997, Prince joined the George County State’s Attorney’s Office, becoming the first prosecutor to handle domestic violence cases full-time. She was elected state’s attorney in 2010 after leading the county’s revenue authority for six years. During her eight years as the county’s top law enforcement officer, she built a successful diversionary program for non-violent drug offenders.
Ms. Albrooks will bring valuable diversity to the Senate. There are currently 10 men and zero women in the Maryland General Assembly. In 1992, there were four women in the delegation. She is the first black woman elected statewide in Maryland and the third black woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. (Nearly one-third of Maryland’s population is black or African American.)
My conversation with Ms. Allbrooks reassured me that she has mastered local and state issues, but that she faces a learning curve when it comes to federal issues and foreign policy unrelated to Maryland. It will be. Her approach to her problems gives us confidence that she will climb that curve rapidly. Ms. Albrooks does not take a knee-jerk attitude. She’s not making a fuss. She researches carefully and discusses all sides before making her decision. Her general philosophy is solid internationalism, including support for funding Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
Tron, 68, has a reliable record, focusing on relatively uncontroversial bipartisan bills that address addiction, mental health, criminal justice reform and medical research. From humble beginnings, he amassed a fortune as a co-founder of the retail alcoholic beverage chain Total Wine and More, using that money first as a major donor to Democratic causes and then as a supporter of his own presidential candidacy. I invested in it as a person. Trone, who has spent nearly $42 million through March 30, ranks as one of the most prolific self-funded primary candidates in U.S. Senate history. So far, he has been able to flood the airwaves and drown out Allbrooks’ voice, but he has recently made comments that undermine his own message by using racist slurs. The company said the mistake was unintentional and immediately apologized.
As this glitch showed, a lot can happen near the end of a campaign. We hope more Maryland Democrats see Mr. Allsbrooks in a new light and decide to support this pragmatic leader at the peak of his career. . She could serve effectively in the Senate for the next six years and beyond.
