John Delaney (Maryland politician)

John Delaney
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland's 6th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2013
Preceded by	Roscoe Bartlett
Personal details
Born	John Kevin Delaney (1963-04-16) April 16, 1963 Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	April McClain-Delaney
Children	4
Education	Columbia University (BS) Georgetown University (JD)
Website	House website

John Kevin Delaney (born April 16, 1963) is an American politician and businessman who has been the United States Representative for Maryland's 6th congressional district since 2013 and is running for President of the United States in 2020.^[1] The district, the state's second-largest, includes nearly the entire western portion of the state, but the bulk of its vote is cast in the outer suburbs of Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Democratic Party.

On July 28, 2017, Delaney became the first major Democrat to announce he is running for president in 2020.^[2]

Early life and education

Delaney grew up in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, the son of Elaine (Rowe) and Jack Delaney, an electrician. He has Irish ancestry.^[3] Scholarships helped him attend college thanks to his father’s labor union (IBEW Local 164) as well as the American Legion, VFW, and the Lions Club. He is a graduate of Columbia University and Georgetown University Law Center.^[4][5] In February 2015, Delaney received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.^[6]

Business career

Delaney has co-founded two companies, both of which are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. He has won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2004. ^[7]

In 1993, he co-founded Health Care Financial Partners, to make loans available to smaller-sized health care service providers purportedly ignored by larger banks.^[8] HCFP became public in 1996, and became an NYSE company in 1998.^[9]

In 2000, Delaney co-founded CapitalSource, a commercial lender headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland; the company provided capital to roughly 5,000 small and mid-size businesses before his departure.^[10] In 2010, during Delaney’s tenure as CEO, CapitalSource was awarded a Bank Enterprise Award from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund by the U.S. Treasury Department for its investment in low-income and economically distressed communities.^[11] In 2005, CapitalSource was named one of Washingtonian Magazine’s best places to work for its company culture and employee benefits.^[12]

CapitalSource continued to be publicly traded on the NYSE after Delaney's election, making him the only former CEO of a publicly traded company serving in the 113th United States Congress.^[13] In 2014, the lender was absorbed by PacWest Bancorp.^[14]

U.S. House of Representatives

2012 election

After redistricting, Delaney decided to run for the newly redrawn 6th District against 10-term Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett. The district had long been a Republican stronghold, but it had been significantly reconfigured. The Maryland General Assembly shifted heavily Republican Carroll County and a mostly Republican section of Frederick County to the heavily Democratic 8th district. It shifted Republican-tilting sections of Harford and Baltimore counties into the already heavily Republican 1st district. Taking their place was a heavily Democratic spur of western Montgomery County, which ended just two blocks from Delaney's home in Potomac.

On paper, this dramatically altered the district's demographics, turning it from a heavily Republican district into a Democratic-leaning district. While John McCain carried the 6th with 57 percent of the vote in 2008,^[15] Barack Obama would have carried the new 6th with 56 percent.^[16] The shifts were quite controversial, as Republicans accused Democrats of shifting district boundaries in their favor, and former Governor Martin O'Malley now admits the redrawn districts would favor Democrats. "That was my hope," O'Malley told attorneys in a deposition. "It was also my intent to create … a district where the people would be more likely to elect a Democrat than a Republican."^[17]

During the primary, Delaney was endorsed by former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Comptroller Peter Franchot, the Washington Post, and the Gazette.^[18][19][20]

On April 3, 2012, Delaney won the five-candidate Democratic primary field with 54% of the vote. The next closest opponent, State Senator Robert J. Garagiola, received 29% of the vote, 25 points behind Delaney.^[21][22]

In the November 6, 2012 general election, Delaney defeated Bartlett by 59%-38%, a 21-point margin. He won mostly on the strength of a nearly 56,000-vote margin in Montgomery County, which accounted for almost all of the overall margin of 58,900 votes.^[23]

2014 election

Delaney faced a closer-than-expected contest for reelection against Republican Dan Bongino, the Republican candidate for Senate in 2012. He ultimately won by just over 2,200 votes, due mainly to swamping Bongino in the Montgomery County portion of the district by over 20,500 votes.^[24] Larry Hogan carried the district in his successful run for governor.

2016 election

Delaney won a third term in 2016, taking 56 percent of the vote to Republican Arnie Hoeber's 40 percent.

Tenure

Since his election to Congress, Delaney introduced legislation to end partisan gerrymandering. The Open Our Democracy Act would appoint independent redistricting commissions nationwide to end partisan gerrymandering, make Election Day a federal holiday and create an open top-two primary system. ^[25]

Delaney was ranked as the 53rd most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 114th United States Congress (and the most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy that ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship (by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party).^[26] In 2015, a similar ranking by the nonpartisan site GovTrack ranked Delaney third highest for bipartisanship among all House Democrats. ^[27]

2020 presidential bid

Despite a rumored bid to run against incumbent governor Larry Hogan in 2018, Delaney plans to bypass the 2018 elections altogether. On July 28, 2017, Delaney announced he is running for president in 2020 in a Washington Post op-ed.^[2]

Committee assignments

• Committee on Financial Services
  • Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit
  • Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
• Joint Economic Committee

Legislation sponsored

Key legislation which Delaney has sponsored:

• Medical Leave for Disabled Veterans Act (H.R. 5165; 114th Congress) - a bill that would relax the criteria for eligible veterans to qualify for FMLA to seek medical treatment for their service-connected disabilities.^[28]
• Veterans' Advisory Committee on Education Improvement Act of 2013 (H.R. 2011; 113th Congress) - a bill that would extend through the end of 2015 the Veterans' Advisory Committee on Education and change its membership.^[29]
• Partnership to Build America Act of 2013 (H.R. 2084; 113th Congress) - a bill that would establish the American Infrastructure Fund (AIF).^[30]
• Infrastructure 2.0 Act (H.R. 1670; 115th Congress) - a bill that uses revenue from international tax reform to fund an infrastructure bank and the Highway Trust Fund. ^[31]
• Medical Foods Equity Act of 2013 (H.R. 3665; 113th Congress) - a bill that would extend coverage of medical foods, vitamins, and amino acids to those with metabolic disorders.^[32]
• Open Our Democracy Act (H.R. 2981; 115th Congress) - a bill proposed to make election day a federal holiday, make all congressional primary elections open elections so all eligible voters can participate in them, and to end gerrymandering by requiring independent commissions to draw the districts in each state.^[33][34]

Personal life

Delaney and his wife April (née McClain) met at Georgetown University Law Center and have four daughters. His wife is the Washington, D.C. Director for Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating families on social media. Two of his daughters attend Northwestern University.

He was a member of the Board of Directors of several organizations: St. Patrick's Episcopal Day School (Chairman), Georgetown University, National Symphony Orchestra, and the International Center for Research on Women.^[13]

References

External links

• Congressman John Delaney official U.S. House website
• Campaign website
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Profile at Project Vote Smart
• Financial information (federal office) at the Federal Election Commission
• Legislation sponsored at The Library of Congress
• Appearances on C-SPAN