MARYLAND MATTERS
DECEMBER 10, 2025
If it was supposed to be musical chairs, it was a short song.
Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) announced committee chairs for the 2026 General Assembly, his seventh as president, but most of the faces are familiar to anyone who haunted the Miller Senate Office Building during the 2025 legislative session. That familiarity starts with Ferguson and Senate President Pro Tem Malcolm Augustine (D-Prince George’s), who were reelected by a unanimous vote Wednesday of the Senate Democratic Caucus, according to a press release from Ferguson’s office.
The biggest change was in the Senate Executive Nominations Committee, where last year’s chairman, Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Howard and Anne Arundel) was moved out, replaced by Sen. Benjamin Brooks (D-Baltimore County). Lam, who had the misfortune of getting out, loudly, in support of redistricting just as Ferguson and the rest of the Senate were moving toward opposing, keeps his seat on the Finance Committee.
The only other standing committee chair to move is Sen. Shelly Hettleman (D-Baltimore County), who leaves the Rules Committee to become chair of Budget and Taxation’s Public Safety, Transportation and Environment Subcommittee in place of former Sen. Michael Jackson, who left the Senate to become superintendent of the Maryland State Police. Sen. Katie Fry Hester (D-Howard and Montgomery) takes over Rules.
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