Brandon Scott

Brandon Maurice Scott (born April 8, 1984) is an American politician serving as the mayor of Baltimore, Maryland, since 2020.

The city of Baltimore uses a strong mayor-council structure for their government, meaning Scott holds strong mayoral powers.

He ran track and cross country at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School where he graduated in 2002.

He went onto receive a degree in political science from St. Mary's College of Maryland in 2006.

After graduating from college, Scott worked as a liaison for City Council President Stephanie Rawlings Blake.

In 2011, he was elected to serve as the city councilperson for the second district, making him one of the youngest ever elected to city office.

He was the chair of the Public Safety Committee and a member of the Budget and Appropriations and Judiciary and Legislative Investigations committees.

He is the former president of the Baltimore City Council and was a candidate for lieutenant governor of Maryland in 2018, as well as a representative for Baltimore's second district.

In early 2018, he passed a bill creating an open data policy in Baltimore.

As a council member, Scott oversaw the reinstatment of Council Oversight of the Baltimore Police Department.

On February 16, 2018, Baltimore attorney Jim Shea announced the selection of Scott as his running mate in 2018 Maryland gubernatorial election.

Scott would later appoint Shea to serve as Baltimore's solicitor under his mayoral administration.

On May 6, 2019, Scott was elected to replace Jack Young as council president after Young succeeded Mayor Catherine Pugh.

In September 2019, Scott announced his candidacy for mayor and won the June 2020 Democratic primary.

In May 2019, the Baltimore City Council unanimously voted to elevate Scott to serve as the City Council president, serving the remainder of the term of Bernard C. "Jack" Young, who ascended to the mayoralty following the resignation of Baltimore mayor Catherine Pugh.

Scott has participated in the 300 Man March, a nonviolence group.

While serving as city councilperson, he voted against an aerial surveillance program for the Baltimore Police Department and supported reductions in police funding.

Scott announced his campaign for mayor on September 13, 2019, at a press conference in his childhood neighborhood of Park Heights.

Scott won the November 3 general election and took office on December 8, 2020.

Scott was born and raised in Park Heights, Baltimore.

As a child he admired Congressman Elijah Cummings and saw him as a role model.

On June 9, 2020, Scott was declared the winner of the Democratic primary, defeating the incumbent mayor Jack Young.

Scott was perceived as more progressive than Young.

This all but assured him victory in the November general election.

Democrats have a nearly 10-to-1 advantage in registered voters, and for years the Democratic primary has been the real contest.

As expected, he won the November 3, 2020, general election in a landslide, with a nearly 3-to-1 margin over his nearest opponent, independent Bob Wallace.

For the second election in a row, the Republicans were pushed into third place.

Inaugurated in a small, socially distanced ceremony on December 8, 2020, Scott vowed to take on both "public health emergencies" — gun violence and the coronavirus.

Taking the office at age 36, Scott is the youngest mayor in Baltimore's history.

On his first day in office, Scott signed an order mandating an end to restaurant dining, both indoor and outdoor, and capping retail activity, religious gatherings, gyms, malls, casinos, and museums to 25 percent capacity.

Scott lifted Baltimore's mask mandate and state of emergency declaration on July 1, 2021.

In August 2021, Scott reinstated the city's mask mandate following a 374 percent increase in COVID-19 infections in July.

The mask mandate expired on March 1, 2022.

In January 2021, Scott and Maryland governor Larry Hogan started a confidence campaign called "GoVax Maryland" encouraging citizens to get vaccinated.

In February, Scott launched a new partnership with local universities to boost confidence in and combat misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.

In March 2021, Scott expressed frustration with the Hogan administration after state health officials denied his request to set aside 50 percent of state's COVID-19 vaccine doses for the state-run mass-vaccination sites in the city.

Hogan responded to these criticisms by telling him to "talk to his health department," which he claimed was telling the state health department to send vaccines elsewhere because they had too many.

Scott refuted Hogan's charges, calling them "categorically untrue."

In May 2021, Scott delivered a letter to Hogan asking him to impose a temporary statewide eviction moratorium while local jurisdictions continued to distribute federal rent relief funding to tenants and landlords.

In January 2022, Scott declined requests from housing advocates to institute an eviction moratorium in Baltimore, saying that he didn't have the power to do it on his own and that action would need to come at the state level.