File photo, 2018: Then Montgomery County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett jokes with then-Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III outside a polling station at Leisure World in Silver Spring, Maryland, on June 26, 2018.
Annapolis has been Maryland’s capital for centuries, but one candidate for governor says if he’s elected, he’d work and live in Baltimore for most of the year.
Rushern Baker, a Democrat who served as the Prince George’s County executive from 2010 to 2018, said he hopes a physical presence in Baltimore would foster a partnership with city leaders, The Baltimore Sun reported. Baker planned to announce his plans at McKeldin Plaza in downtown on Friday.
Baker would work from the State House during the General Assembly's 90-day session and work from Baltimore the rest of the year. He would also live in the city.
“The better that Baltimore City does, the better the state does,” Baker said.
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As county executive, Baker moved the county executive’s office and county agencies from Upper Marlboro, the county seat, to Largo, which is more central, accessible to mass transit and in need of economic development.
Only one of the eight men vying for the Democratic nomination in the governor’s race is based in Baltimore. The others are based in Maryland’s Washington, D.C., suburbs.
The two most prominent Republican candidates are both from Frederick County.
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Maryland’s governor has an office in a 29-story building that houses 1,100 workers from 14 state agencies, but Baker said he isn’t sure if he’d use that office, the State Center complex or another location.
