Brandon James Scott Popular Books

Brandon James Scott Biography & Facts

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 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. 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. Scott won the November 3 general election and took office on December 8, 2020. Early life and education Scott was born and raised in Park Heights, Baltimore. As a child he admired Congressman Elijah Cummings and saw him as a role model. He ran track and cross country at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School where he graduated in 2002. He went on to receive a degree in political science from St. Mary's College of Maryland in 2006. Career Political background 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. 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. 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, cutting 22 million dollars from the city's policing budget in 2020. He also embraced the politically-charged expression "defund the police".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. 2020 Baltimore mayoral election Scott announced his campaign for mayor on September 13, 2019, at a press conference in his childhood neighborhood of Park Heights. 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. Baltimore City Mayor (2020–present) 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. COVID-19 pandemic 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.Scott tested positive for COVID-19 on October 4, 2021. He returned to City Hall on October 15, 2021, after testing negative. Crime and policing During his mayoral campaign, Scott vowed to "reduce homicides by 15 percent each year in my term, getting us to below 300 homicides in my first year as mayor" by studying the flow of guns into Baltimore and implementing violence reduction strategies. He also rallied on reforming police spending after leading the charge to cut $22.4 million from the city's $550 million police budget, half of which was for "unallocated" funds. Despite this, Scott's first budget, introduced in April 2021, included a $28 million increase in the city's police budget. This proposed increase was met with criticism by Baltimore residents. Scott pushed back against this criticism by asking people to "look at the full picture behind violent crime rather than the "simple conflict" that leads to the loss of life." His budget was approved without amendments on June 8, 2021. In April 2022, Scott again proposed a $5 million increase in the city's police budget, which was met with further criticism.In January 2022, Scott implemented the Group Violence Reduction Strategy in the city's Western Police District. This program targets outreach to individuals who are identified as being likely victims or perpetrators of gun violence within the city and stresses community based policing strategies. The four central tenets of the program are the reviewing of gun violence incidents, direct outreach, life coaching, and strategic policing. In December 2022, Scott announced that the district had seen a 33.... Discover the Brandon James Scott popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Brandon James Scott books.