Anthony Brown sworn in as attorney general, brings big asks to Annapolis

On Tuesday, the three-term representative for the state’s 4th Congressional District returned to the House of Delegates chamber in Annapolis where his tenure in elected office began and received a new title and role: Attorney General.

The former congressman and Maryland’s former lieutenant governor, Anthony Brown, who served eight years in the State House from 1999 to 2007 as a delegate representing a Prince George’s County district before becoming Gov. Martin O’Malley’s second-in-command, came back with big asks for the legislature.

“I’ll be asking the governor and the General Assembly for increased salaries and more resources for investigations, enforcement, training and support (for the Attorney General’s office),” said Brown in his remarks standing before Senate President Bill Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones on the speaker’s dais. Brown also asked the General Assembly to authorize his office to conduct pattern of practice investigations of police misconduct.

The police reform law passed in 2021 did not provide such authority, but the law does allow the attorney general’s office to investigate all-police involved deaths. “The next logical step is to consider independent prosecutorial authority,” Brown said.

More:They joined police accountability boards to ensure fairness. It's been a wobbly start

Gov.-elect Wes Moore, Gov. Larry Hogan speak

Gov.-elect Wes Moore, whose inauguration is scheduled for Jan. 18, introduced Brown, who became Maryland’s 47^th attorney general upon being sworn in by outgoing Republican Gov. Larry Hogan. Brown is the first African American to hold the position in the state’s 234-year history.

“I’m excited to be a constituent,” said Moore, whose wife, Dawn, worked for Brown on a campaign when he served in Annapolis as a state lawmaker before running to be lieutenant governor with O’Malley.

Brown replaces Brian Frosh, who received a standing ovation from those assembled in the House chamber after his eight years as attorney general and decades serving in the state legislature.

In his remarks before swearing Brown in, Hogan, who in 2014 defeated Brown to become governor, paid homage to perhaps the state’s most famous lawyer: the late Thurgood Marshall.

Hogan noted the nation’s first African American U.S. Supreme Court justice is honored with a statue steps away from the State House on Lawyers’ Mall. Marshall once argued civil rights cases about school desegregation in Maryland on the spot, once home to the Court of Appeals Building, prior to working as the chief attorney in the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled “separate, but equal” schools unconstitutional in 1954.

First Black attorney general Brown invokes Thurgood Marshall

But after making light of his 2014 defeat to Hogan, Brown, too, referenced Marshall and the work for equity.

“I wouldn’t be taking the oath today had it not been for you, eight years ago,” said Brown, recounting a conversation he had with Hogan before the ceremony. His quip was met with laughter and applause in the chamber.

Quoting a 1992 speech from Marshall, Brown said: “Democracy just cannot flourish amid fear. Liberty cannot bloom amid hate. Justice cannot take root amid rage. America must get to work.”

The new attorney general said much of what Marshall saw remains.

“Central to our mission will be the defense of democracy, the protection of rights, and the pursuit of justice,” he said. He concluded his remarks by discussing “the pursuit of equity.”

Brown takes office amid the state’s legalization of marijuana. “We’ll remedy past injustices by making expungements easier,” he said.

He also enters office amid the fallout from Supreme Court cases last year on guns and abortion.

Brown leaves Washington, works for Maryland

Former State’s Attorney for Prince George’s County Glenn Ivey is set to replace Brown in the U.S. Congress as the representative for Maryland’s 4^th District, an area that now covers Prince George’s County and a part of Montgomery County.

During an interview with Maryland’s USA TODAY Network reporter on the morning of Election Day, Brown spoke to the reason he sought the statewide office instead of the federal one.

“Everybody, no matter what your profession is, wants to be able to make the biggest impact,” said Brown, at the Prince George’s County Democratic Headquarters on Nov. 8. “Leading 700 men and women working on the same things that I’ve worked on my entire career, just with a different set of authorities, different resources, I can make a bigger impact.”

Brown’s office is based in Baltimore, and as the state’s chief legal officer he now leads a plethora of entities, including the office’s Consumer Protection Division, the Independent Investigations Division for police-involved deaths, as well as chairing the Maryland Cybersecurity Council. The General Assembly starts Jan. 11.

Dwight A. Weingarten is an investigative reporter, covering the Maryland State House and state issues. He can be reached at dweingarten@gannett.com or on Twitter at @DwightWeingart2.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Anthony Brown sworn in as Maryland's first Black attorney general