State delegate missed most of legislative session due to health reasons, daughter says

Apr. 23—State Del. Carol Krimm's family said a medical condition caused her to miss most of the 2022 Maryland General Assembly session.

Krimm, 71, was absent from the General Assembly starting in January, shortly after the 90-day session began. Other members of the county's delegation to Annapolis have said recently that neither they nor their offices have heard from the delegate for months.

"We'd respect privacy at this time while she's recovering," Krimm's daughter, Jennifer Boothe, said in a phone interview on Thursday. She declined to comment further about the status of her mother's health.

Boothe said the family was in touch during the course of the session with the office of House Speaker Adrienne Jones, D-Baltimore County. The speaker's office did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday and Friday.

Krimm, a Democrat who has represented Frederick County for seven years, was present for the first day of session on Jan. 12, a House quorum, or attendance, list shows.

The House had four "pro forma" sessions between Jan. 13 and 24, in which only a few House members attend, then quickly adjourn, to fulfill a requirement that the chamber be in session. Most House members do not attend those sessions and a quorum list is not kept.

The next quorum lists for the House were on Jan. 26, then Jan. 27, according to the legislature's website. Krimm is listed as having an excused absence for each of those days, then for the remainder of the House's voting sessions through Sine Die on April 11.

One of Krimm's bills, HB374, passed during the session with help from co-sponsor Del. Ken Kerr, D-District 3B.

If it's enacted, the Maryland School for the Deaf staff and personnel would be placed in a collective bargaining unit, the latest in a series of bills from members of the county's delegation over the past few years to increase protection for those employed at the school.

Kerr said he heard from the House speaker's office that Krimm had requested a medical leave of absence, so he coordinated with Krimm's staff to get the bill passed.

Kerr and other delegation members, including Sens. Ron Young, D-Frederick and Michael Hough, R-Frederick and Carroll counties, and Dels. Karen Lewis Young, D-District 3A, Barrie Ciliberti, R-District 4, and Jesse Pippy, R-District 4, all said they had not heard from Krimm since January and did not know the specific reason for her absence. Some said they heard it was related to her health.

"I've inquired, but everybody either does not know anything or won't tell anything," said Ciliberti, who chairs the Frederick County delegation. "The absence of everything is what fuels speculation."

Del. Dan Cox, R-District 4, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Krimm did not file for reelection to the District 3A seat that she's held since 2015. The county's other District 3A delegate, Lewis Young, is running for a Senate seat held since 2011 by her husband, Young, who retired following the session.

The General Assembly's legislative redistricting maps restructured Frederick County's districts and combined Districts 3A and 3B into a single district. Kerr is the only incumbent in the field seeking one of the three seats, which will represent much of the city of Frederick.

Under the legislature's map, the county remains divided into three districts. District 4 wraps around Frederick, covering most everything outside the city and south of Thurmont, and District 2A, which mostly lies in Washington County, includes Thurmont and everything to the Pennsylvania line.

Three delegates will represent District 3, three will represent District 4, and two will represent District 2A.

Prior to the change, a larger District 3 was split in two, with two delegates representing the city and a third covering areas south of the city between Urbana and Jefferson. Three delegates in District 4 represented everything east, west and north of the city.