Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) on Monday said that he will run for Maryland attorney general in 2022, the latest Democratic member of Congress to say he will give up his seat for another office.
In a video announcement, Brown called himself a “champion for progress.”
“Sure, we’ve made progress over the years, but too many barriers exist for too many Marylanders, from health care and housing to the environment and education, to workplaces, policing and the criminal justice system,” Brown says. “I’m running for attorney general to dismantle those barriers.”
Brown is seeking to replace Brian Frosh (D), a two-term incumbent who said last week he would retire in 2022.
A former member of Maryland’s General Assembly, Brown had considered running for attorney general in 2006, soon after he returned from serving in Iraq in the Army. Instead, he accepted an offer from then-Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley (D) to run for lieutenant governor.
After two terms as the state’s No. 2, Brown ran for governor himself. He lost that race to Gov. Larry Hogan (R) by a 5-point margin.
Brown’s political comeback started in 2016 when he won an open seat in Congress covering Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties. He served as vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
His seat in the House is likely to remain in Democratic hands. The district gave President Biden 79 percent of the vote in 2020, the highest share of any district in solid-blue Maryland. Glenn Ivey (D), the former Prince George’s County state’s attorney who challenged Brown in the 2016 Democratic primary, has already said he will run again.
Brown is the 14th Democratic member of Congress to say he will quit at the end of his current term, and the sixth to announce a run for a different office. Three Democrats — Reps. Val Demings (D-Fla.), Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) — are running for U.S. Senate seats. Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) is running for governor, and Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) is running for mayor of Los Angeles.