Edward Pipkin
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Edward "E.J." Pipkin is a Republican member of the Maryland State Senate, representing Maryland's 36th Senate district, and was first elected in 2002. Pipkin grew up in Dundalk, Maryland, and was educated at Salisbury University and Roanoke College. He received an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia. Prior to his election to the state senate, he worked in the field of business finance, trading junk bonds in New York City. Pipkin currently lives in Stevensville, Maryland.
[edit] Senate campaigns
In the 2004 U.S. Senate election, Pipkin ran unsuccessfully against incumbent senator Barbara Mikulski. As a millionaire, his campaign was primarily self-financed, with 70% of his campaign money coming from his personal fortune. As a conservative Republican in a heavily Democratic state, he only received 34% of the vote to Mikulski's 65%. Pipkin was considered to be a possible candidate for the seat of retiring senator Paul Sarbanes in the 2006 Senate election, but he did not file. The lieutenant governor of Maryland, Michael S. Steele, secured a large amount of support early in the race; but went on to be defeated by Senator-Elect Ben Cardin, by a margin of 11 points--55%-44%.
[edit] Chesapeake Bay Bridge
As a resident of Stevensville, Pipkin himself has been affected by traffic congestion on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and has fought to reduce the problem. In 2005, he proposed as set of bills, which failed to pass, in that year's Maryland General Assembly session, known as the "Bay Bridge Users' Bill of Rights". The bills would have, among other things, restructured the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA), banned trucks from the bridge when one of its dual spans is carrying two-way traffic, required the installation of an automatic lane-changing system, and waive tolls whenever backups extended beyond a certain point. Later that year, Pipkin was put on the Bay Bridge Task Force, to explore the possibility of building a new crossing of the Chesapeake Bay.
In the 2006 Maryland General Assembly session, Pipkin once again tried to pass parts of the Bay Bridge Users' Bill of Rights, this time more successfully. Among the bills that passed that year included the one that restructured the MdTA. Pipkin also proposed a bill to remove the Baltimore County-Kent County crossing from the list of approved crossing locations; however, that bill did not pass.
