IN 2019, THE MARYLAND DEMOCRATIC political scene was abuzz with excitement. After thirty-three years on the job, the president of the state Senate, Mike Miller, announced that he was stepping down from leadership and handing the reins over to a more liberal leader half his age: a 36-year-old state senator from Baltimore named Bill Ferguson.
Media coverage at the time portrayed Ferguson as a skilled politician who would shift the state Senate to the left following decades of steady moderation from Miller, whom many liberal Marylanders blamed for stymying their policy priorities. Sen. Paul G. Pinsky described Ferguson at the time as “transformational” rather than “transactional.” The Intercept called Ferguson’s accession to the speakership “a coup for progressives in Annapolis.” Maryland Matters, a local political outlet, stated that “the culture in the Senate is going to change dramatically.”
“He kind of came out of nowhere,” Michael Ricci, who served as communications director to then–GOP Gov. Larry Hogan, told me. “It was a seismic shift for the Senate.”
But as Ferguson is finding out, politics is a fickle business. Because now, the very progressives who just six years ago celebrated him as a darling about to reshape Maryland politics have come to despise him.