By Jeff Barker
Baltimore Sun
(Baltimore Sun) — More than 50 current or former state lawmakers supporting Democrat Angela Alsobrooks’ U.S. Senate bid issued a statement Friday recounting their battle with then-Gov. Larry Hogan over abortion access, saying the Republican “cannot be trusted to defend women’s freedoms.”
The statement signed by the group members — all women — was the latest attempt by Alsobrooks’ backers to try to undermine Hogan over abortion rights, an issue on which they believe he is vulnerable. Hogan, who left office in January 2023 after two terms as a popular governor, is Alsobrooks’ opponent in the November election to succeed Sen. Ben Cardin, who is not seeking reelection.
“Any notion from Larry Hogan that he didn’t restrict access to abortion is categorically false,” said the statement, obtained by The Baltimore Sun from Democratic House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, one of the signees. “We know firsthand about Larry Hogan’s record on reproductive freedoms, because we’re the women who fought back when he vetoed legislation to expand access to abortion.”
Hogan said following the May 14 primary that he supports codifying abortion access in federal law, amending a previous position that Alsobrooks has sought to use against him.
Friday’s statement contained the names of 58 current or former General Assembly members, including Comptroller Brooke Lierman, who was a state delegate until being elected to her current position in November 2022.
The statement referenced Hogan’s 2022 veto of legislation allowing nurse practitioners, midwives and other non-physician medical professionals to perform abortions in Maryland. The Democratic supermajority in the General Assembly overrode his veto.
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Abortion is a sensitive issue for Hogan in a state where Democrats, whose voters typically back abortion rights, have a more than 2-1 voter registration advantage. Hogan would need sizable Democratic crossover support to beat Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive.
Hogan said when he ran for governor in 2014 that, while he was opposed to abortion, he would not act in that office to restrict women’s reproductive rights. He often said as governor that Maryland abortion rights had been “settled” in a 1992 state referendum.
But he clashed with the General Assembly over issues related to abortion access. He withheld $3.5 million in funding to train additional clinicians to perform abortions — money that his successor, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, released on his first full day in office in 2023.
“Larry Hogan didn’t just veto legislation to expand access to reproductive health care, he doubled down on it,” Friday’s statement said.
The statement is an attempt by Alsobrooks supporters “to remind women who might be thinking ‘Yeah we like Hogan, he’s a moderate on this particular issue’ that perhaps they don’t want to risk it,” said Roger Hartley, dean of the University of Baltimore’s College of Public Affairs.
The Hogan campaign, asked for comment, referred a reporter to a statement from two Montgomery County Democrats, former state Del. Luiz Simmons and Rona Kramer, who was Maryland’s Secretary of Aging under Hogan from 2015 to 2023. The statement referenced “partisan attack ads” by the Alsobrooks campaign.
“Anyone who cares about protecting the right to choose would applaud Governor Hogan’s pro-choice stance instead of turning it into just another political weapon in today’s polarized environment,” Simmons’ and Kramer’s statement said.
“It’s more important than ever to celebrate the common ground between candidates rather than fueling division,” it said.
Abortion rights have been emphasized by Democratic candidates nationally since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision’s abortion protections generated new urgency to the issue.
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