Vice president asks Marylanders to back Alsobrooks with gun control bills on the line

Vice President Kamala Harris, in the Maryland suburbs of Washington on Friday, threw the weight of her and President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign behind Democrat Angela Alsobrooks in the state’s heated U.S. Senate race.

Endorsing Alsobrooks and promising they would work together on Democrats’ long-stalled plans to pass gun control laws, Harris stressed the importance of both campaigns’ elections in November.

“Maryland, are you ready to make your voices heard?” the vice president said to over 100 supporters and community activists on National Gun Violence Awareness Day at the Kentland Community Center in Landover. “Are you ready to fight for an assault weapons ban? Are you ready to fight for universal background checks and red flag laws? And are you ready to fight for your freedom to be safe from gun violence?”

The event kicked off what could be an important joint effort in the coming months as Alsobrooks looks to defeat Republican Larry Hogan and Harris and Biden face Republican former President Donald Trump.

In Maryland, a Democrat-packed state that Biden won in a landslide four years ago, the president is expected to safely win again. But the race to replace retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin is one of the nation’s most-watched, with Hogan appealing to Democrats and independents who helped him win two four-year terms as governor.

Harris and Alsobrooks, longtime friends and political allies, didn’t mention Hogan on Friday, opting instead to boost their platforms and records combating gun violence.

“She will be an experienced leader,” Harris said, noting Alsobrooks was the first assistant state’s attorney in Prince George’s County who specialized in domestic violence cases.

The vice president called Alsobrooks “a leader with deep conviction and compassion” and spoke of their friendship in between hugging and raising their hands together on stage in front of the cheering crowd.

Alsobrooks spoke about her work to reduce crime — including supporting legislation, establishing a Violence Prevention Task Force and securing grant funding for anti-violence programs — over two terms as the top county prosecutor and the last six years as county executive. She talked of spending time with families of victims and was introduced by one: Tiffani Evans, whose 8-year-old son, PJ Evans, was killed by a stray bullet in 2021.

“This is personal for me. This is a pain that I have witnessed, up close and personal, firsthand. I have observed it for too long,” Alsobrooks said, wearing an orange pin to commemorate the issue. Supporters around her wore orange shirts as well as bright green Alsobrooks campaign gear.

Alsobrooks would be just the third Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, following Harris and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, of Illinois.

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, said electing more Black women to Congress was important in the context of widespread gun violence.

“The weight of this crisis does not fall equally,” Ferrell-Zabala said. “Like so many other pressing issues of our time, Black and brown women are bearing the brunt when it comes to gun violence. Tackling gun violence and tackling white supremacy go hand in hand.”

Biden in 2022 signed the first major piece of legislation targeting guns in three decades. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act aimed to toughen background checks for gun buyers under 21, implement red flag laws that allow law enforcement to take guns from people considered dangerous and keep guns from more domestic violence offenders.

It did not ban assault-style weapons or enhance background checks for all gun purchases, policies Democrats have sought for years and that both Alsobrooks and Harris vowed to keep supporting.

Harris oversees the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which launched last year. But additional measures cannot happen solely with executive action, making the political control of the U.S. Senate critically important, said U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

“We need a majority in the United States Senate and the United States House if we’re going to pass laws to get weapons of war, semiautomatic assault weapons, off of our streets and out of our neighborhoods,” Van Hollen said at the event Friday. “We need a majority in the United States Senate who is going to end the reality today that the gun industry is the most protected industry in the United States of America. That’s nuts.”

In Maryland, Democrats in charge of the state legislature have sought to go as far as federal law allows in their attempts to limit gun violence, including state bans on purchases of assault-style weapons.

After a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that invalidated Maryland’s law requiring individuals to explain why they want a concealed carry permit, the Maryland General Assembly passed landmark legislation to limit who was eligible to receive a license and where guns could be carried. A federal lawsuit challenging that new law is moving through the courts, with part of its scope limited in the meantime.

Hogan, as governor in 2020, vetoed legislation to expand background checks to all sales and transfers of rifles and shotguns. Democrats in the legislature overturned his veto. In his first successful campaign for governor, in 2014, he said he opposed Maryland’s ban on assault weapons.

Still, he chose not to veto or openly supported other measures. In 2022, he let a bill to ban “ghost guns” go into law without his signature. And after the 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people, Hogan backed Maryland bills to create a “red flag” law to restrict gun purchases by people considered a danger to themselves or others and a measure that ensured gun owners who are convicted of domestic violence surrender their weapons.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, in his remarks Friday at the event, incorrectly said all of the state gun bills were met with vetoes under Hogan. Straying from the topic at hand, he also spoke skeptically about Hogan’s recent campaign statements that, if elected, he would support codifying previous abortion protections into law.

“In the words of Jay Z, ‘Allow me to reintroduce myself,” Moore quipped.

Hogan’s campaign, in a statement responding to Friday’s event, said, “While Angela Alsobrooks is campaigning today, instead of just offering more platitudes, we urge her to tell voters how she will address the skyrocketing crime on her watch in Prince George’s County.”

The former governor’s statement also highlighted a recent crime platform Hogan released. It includes supporting law enforcement and policies that ensure dangerous individuals cannot have guns. It also states he will “push for common sense protections to get guns out of the hands of violent criminals and the mentally ill, including universal background checks.”