It's Time for the Senate to Look Like America

Vice President Kamala Harris with County Executive
Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD)

This morning, Sen. Ben Cardin announced that he would not seek a fourth term in the US Senate.  Cardin is one of the most seasoned politicians in the US government.  Elected to the Maryland House of Delegates at the age of just 23, he has been in public office consistently since 1967, first in the Maryland legislature (eventually rising to the position of Speaker), then spending two decades in the US House before finally ending up in the US Senate since 2007.  Cardin is 79, and in the wake of Dianne Feinstein & Ruth Bader Ginsburg not knowing when it was time to leave, it's nice to see a politician realizing that serving in one of the most consequential roles in American government should not be doing this as a retirement hobby.  He will be missed, but knowing that his seat should stay blue & he has decades of bills with his endorsement should be strong solace for Cardin.

Cardin's retirement opens up his seat, and honestly-this is the time to do retire from a strategic perspective.  With Joe Biden the prohibitive favorite against Donald Trump, and an overwhelming favorite in blue states like Maryland, now is the time for the Democrats to trade into a new generation of incumbents, staving off a midterm in 2030 where we won't know what will happen.  Cardin's seat, though, also opens up an opportunity for Democrats to do something that they honestly need to prioritize: electing a Black woman to the US Senate.

People get uncomfortable when you talk about racial equity in American politics (or indeed, in most aspects of employment).  They will say things like "the best person should get the job, regardless of X/Y/Z." And that's true, in theory.  But it also needs to be underlined that for far too long, Black women have not been given a proper seat at the table in the US government.  No state has ever elected a Black woman as their governor, and only two women (Carol Moseley-Braun and Kamala Harris) have ever served as a US Senator.  Some might scoff given that Harris is the most powerful woman in the American government (or, depending on how you rank it, potentially the most powerful woman in American political history), but that's like saying in 1983 saying women aren't underrepresented on the Supreme Court because Sandra Day O'Connor is there...even though she was at the time the only female jurist in the nation's history to serve in that position.

Democrats also should acknowledge that despite a Democratic Senate majority that was largely built off of Black women in Wisconsin, Michigan, & Georgia getting out to vote, they have not been given due chance to serve in the US Senate.  93% of Black women backed Joe Biden in 2020, the highest percentage of any measured voting demographic, and yet no Black woman serves in the US Senate for the Democratic Party.  While some Black women have run since Harris was elected in 2016 (specifically Cheryl Beasley of North Carolina and Val Demings of Florida), both were in uphill races, not given the opportunity to win pretty much a safely blue seat like Maryland.

The Democrats also have an exceptional candidate in Angela Alsobrooks.  Alsobrooks, educated at the University of Maryland, is the Executive of Prince George's County (encompassing a large swath of the DC suburbs), and was inspired to run for that position because of Harris success in California.  She won her current office by defeating a former US House member, and at 52, is a rising star in the party.  She is a solid progressive, a fighter for minimum wage increases, paid sick leave, and an advocate for policing reform.  She's what Democrats who have supported the equally progressive Cardin would want, carrying on his legacy while forging her own.

She would certainly have challengers, including Rep. David Trone (D), who is one of the wealthiest members of Congress and reportedly is willing to spend tens of millions of his own money to win this seat.  But in a congressional delegation that is entirely male (and has been since Barbara Mikulski's retirement in 2016), it's absurd that we would pick yet another aging, white, male politician, just 12 years Cardin's junior, to go to the Senate.  It's possible that Alsobrooks won't be the only prominent Black woman headed to the Senate in 2025-Rep. Barbara Lee in California could join her (though Lee's poor fundraising and advanced age make it difficult to see her getting past Adam Schiff in the general), and if Sen. Tom Carper retires (a solid possibility), it's a near certainty that Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester would succeed him.  But if we're going to have a conversation about how Congress should look like the people it represents, that needs to be more than just talk-it means it's important to support viable women of color who are running for higher office when they run.  Alsobrooks is that candidate, likely the best chance the Democrats' have had to send a Black woman to the US Senate since 2016.  I hope the voters of Maryland take that opportunity.