Glenn Ivey

Glenn Frederick Ivey (born February 27, 1961) is an American politician and attorney serving as the U.S. representative for Maryland's 4th congressional district since 2023.

The district covers most of the Black-majority areas on the Maryland side of the Washington metropolitan area.

Ivey graduated with honors from Princeton University, where he earned an A.B. degree in politics in 1983.

In 1986, he received a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1986, Ivey worked for the Baltimore law firm of Gordon-Feinblatt.

From 1987 to 1988, he worked on Capitol Hill as an aide to U.S. representative John Conyers, after which he returned to law, working for Preston, Gates, Ellis & Rouvelas.

In 1989, the United States Department of Justice hired Ivey as an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. He worked for U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Eric Holder.

Afterward, Ivey returned to Capitol Hill to serve as majority counsel to U.S. Senate Banking Committee chairman Donald Riegle.

From 1995 to 1997, he served as the counsel for senator Paul Sarbanes during the Senate Whitewater investigations and coordinated the Senate investigation into the suicide of Vince Foster.

Eventually, Ivey served as chief counsel to Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle until 1998.

In March 1998, Governor Parris Glendening named Ivey to serve as chairman of the Maryland Public Service Commission.

As chairman, Ivey oversaw the deregulation of Maryland's electric power industry and helped the PSC determine how to monitor telephone services and foster competition in the telecommunications industry.

On October 18, 2000, Ivey announced that he would resign from the PSC by the end of the month to become a partner at the K&L Gates law firm, and said he was contemplating a 2002 run for Prince George's county state's attorney.

A partner at the law firm of Ivey & Levetown, he served as the state's attorney for Prince George's County, Maryland, from 2002 to 2011.

Ivey won the 2022 Democratic primary for the 4th congressional district over Donna Edwards, who previously represented the district for four terms, and then defeated the Republican nominee.

Ivey ran for Prince George's county state's attorney in 2002, seeking to succeed outgoing state's attorney Jack B. Johnson.

In the primary, he was endorsed by U.S. representative Albert Wynn, U.S. senator Paul Sarbanes, and The Washington Post.

He defeated deputy state's attorney Mark Spencer in the primary with 60.0% of the vote.

He ran unopposed in the general election.

When Ivey took office in December 2002, Prince George's county had the second-highest crime rate in Maryland.

During his two terms as state's attorney, he oversaw reductions in crime and led reform measures that put cameras in police interrogation rooms and prosecuted officers accused of excessive force.

He sought to involve community groups in crafting policies and strategies for tackling crime in the county and partnered with faith leaders to assist domestic violence survivors and to gain tougher sentences for convicted offenders.

Ivey ran and was elected twice as state's attorney for Prince George's county and served from January 2003 to January 2011.

In November 2009, he declined to run for Prince George's county executive or for a third term as state's attorney, instead forming an exploratory committee to look at challenging U.S. representative Donna Edwards in the 2010 elections.

In January 2010, he decided against running for a third term or against Edwards, saying he wanted to return to the private sector after the end of his term.

According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, his district is tied with California's 12th for the most Democratic in the country, with an index rating of D+40.

Ivey served on Capitol Hill as chief counsel to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, as counsel to U.S. senator Paul Sarbanes during the Whitewater controversy, as chief majority counsel to the Senate Banking Committee, and on the staff of U.S. representative John Conyers.

He also worked for U.S. attorney Eric Holder as an assistant U.S. attorney and as chair of the Maryland Public Service Commission.

He was twice elected state's attorney for Prince George's County, Maryland.

Ivey was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, but grew up in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where much of his extended family lived and his mother worked as the first Black teacher at an all-white school.

His immediate family later moved to Dale City, Virginia, after his father got a job with the United States Department of Labor.

Following the end of his second term as state's attorney, Ivey became a partner at Venable LLP before moving to a position as a partner at Leftwich & Ludaway, in Washington, D.C., from 2012 to 2017.

Afterward, he was a partner at the District-based law firm Price Benowitz.

Ivey taught trial advocacy at Harvard Law School during winter sessions from 2013 to 2021 and was an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland School of Law from 1995 to 2014.

He is a past president of the D.C. chapter of the Harvard Law School Association, a former chair of the Maryland Legal Services Corporation, and a former member of the D.C. Bar Association's board of governors.

In 2020, Ivey opened his own law firm, Ivey & Levetown, in Greenbelt, Maryland.

In July 2020, Prince George's county executive Angela Alsobrooks appointed Ivey to serve as the chair of the county's police reform task force.

During committee meetings, Ivey scrutinized policies surrounding pretextual traffic stops, which experts say can enable racial profiling and precipitate a police shooting.

The committee released its final report on December 3, which included recommendations relating to community engagement, employee hiring and retention, police department finances, internal oversight, and standards and regulations.

Ivey is a member of The Sentencing Project's Board of Directors.