Maryland gubernatorial candidate Rushern Baker would move governor’s office to Baltimore

For hundreds of years — long before the United States was even a country — Annapolis has served as the capital of Maryland. And since the 1770s, the State House has been the workplace of Maryland’s political leaders.

But if Rushern L. Baker III is elected governor, he said he’ll leave the city on the Severn River for most of the year, decamping to Baltimore with his executive staff to better serve the needs of the state’s largest city.

“The better that Baltimore City does, the better the state does,” said Baker, a Democrat.

But the city faces its share of challenges, from struggling schools to heart-breaking levels of violence.

“If you’re living there, working there, you have the opportunity to bring all the resources to bear on the problems and opportunities,” Baker said.

His plan is to work from the State House during the 90-day General Assembly session that runs from January through April, and work from Baltimore the rest of the year. He also would live in the city.

Baker said he hopes the governor’s physical presence in Baltimore would help forge a partnership with city leaders.

“I’m not coming in there heavy-handed, I know it’s a partnership,” he said. “We’re not going to bring in the state police and say they’re taking over.”

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, a Democrat, declined to comment on Baker’s plans.

Baker, who hails from Prince George’s County and served two terms there as county executive, traveled to Baltimore Friday to announce his plans at McKeldin Plaza downtown.

He points to his experience as county executive, when he moved the county executive’s office and some county agencies from the county seat of Upper Marlboro in the southern part of the county to Largo in the central part, an area that was both accessible to mass transit and in need of economic development.

Baker and the rest of eight-man field of Democratic candidates for governor skew heavily toward the suburbs of Washington, D.C., with only one candidate — author and former nonprofit executive Wes Moore — based in Baltimore. (Baltimore tech executive Mike Rosenbaum dropped out of the race earlier this week.)

The Republican field’s most prominent candidates, Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz and Del. Dan Cox, both hail from Frederick County.

Maryland’s governor already has an office in downtown’s William Donald Schaefer Tower, a 29-story building that houses 1,100 workers from 14 state agencies. Baker said he isn’t sure yet if he’d use that office, the State Center complex or another location in Baltimore.

Gov. Larry Hogan briefly set up shop in the Schaefer Tower in 2015, after the city experienced a dramatic night of unrest, arson and looting following the funeral of Freddie Gray, a young man who was fatally injured in a city police van.

“Baltimore was where the action was, and Baltimore was where we should be,” the Republican governor recalled in his memoir, “Still Standing.”

Lt. Gov. Boyd Rutherford remained in Annapolis, tasked with “running the governor’s office and the daily business of state government,” Hogan wrote.

Hogan also periodically held meetings and news conferences in the Schaefer Tower, often with Baltimore mayors and others to discuss city issues such as violence.

Gov. Parris Glendening, a Democrat elected to two terms starting in 1994, was the first governor to use the Schaefer Tower, spending $101,260 “to furnish a flashy gubernatorial outpost” there, as The Baltimore Sun described it. Glendening, who came from Prince George’s County, said at the time he wanted to demonstrate his interest in Baltimore by spending two days a week at the new office much of the year.

Before that, governors had used an office at State Center when conducting business in Baltimore.

Baltimore Sun reporter Emily Opilo contributed to this article.