Martin Joseph O'Malley (born January 18, 1963) is an American politician who served as the 17th commissioner of the Social Security Administration from 2023 to 2024. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 61st governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015 and the 48th mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007.
O'Malley was elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1991 and re-elected in 1995. He was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999 after a surprise win in the Democratic primary. He won a second term as mayor in 2004. As mayor, O'Malley prioritized reducing crime within the city. O'Malley won the 2006 Maryland gubernatorial election, unseating incumbent Republican governor Bob Ehrlich. During his first term as governor, O'Malley implemented Maryland StateStat and became the first governor to sign the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. O'Malley won reelection in 2010. In 2011, he signed a law that would make illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children eligible for in-state college tuition. In 2012, he signed a law to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland. Both laws were approved in referendums in the 2012 general election. O'Malley served as the chair of the Democratic Governors Association from 2011 to 2013. After leaving office in 2015, O'Malley was appointed to The Johns Hopkins University's Carey Business School as a visiting professor focusing on government, business and urban issues.
Long rumored to have presidential ambitions, O'Malley publicly announced his candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination on May 30, 2015. One of six major candidates, O'Malley struggled to gain support, and he suspended his campaign on February 1, 2016, after finishing third in the Iowa caucuses. He endorsed Hillary Clinton four months later. Following his presidential campaign, he lectured at Georgetown University and Boston College Law School and has written two books about the use of technology in government. In July 2023, President Joe Biden nominated O'Malley to lead the Social Security Administration. He was confirmed by the United States Senate with a 50–11 vote on December 18, 2023.
In November 2024, O'Malley announced that he would run for chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2025, seeking to succeed Jaime Harrison. He was defeated by Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party chair Ken Martin, placing third with the votes of 44 delegates.
Martin Joseph O'Malley was born on January 18, 1963, in Washington, D.C., the son of Barbara (née Suelzer) and Thomas Martin O'Malley. Martin's father served as a bombardier in the U.S. Army Air Force in the Pacific theater during the Second World War, and recalled witnessing the mushroom cloud rise over Hiroshima while on a routine mission. Thomas later became a Montgomery County–based criminal defense lawyer, and an assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
O'Malley attended the Our Lady of Lourdes School in Bethesda and Gonzaga College High School. He graduated from the Catholic University of America in 1985. Later that year, he enrolled in the University of Maryland School of Law, on the urban campus of the University of Maryland at Baltimore, earning his J.D. in 1988, and was admitted to the Maryland bar that same year.
In December 1982, while still in college, O'Malley joined the Gary Hart presidential campaign for the 1984 election. In late 1983, he volunteered to go to Iowa where he phone-banked, organized volunteers, played guitar and sang at small fundraisers and other events. In 1986, while in law school, O'Malley was named by then-Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski as state field director for her successful primary and general election campaigns for the U.S. Senate. He served as a legislative fellow in Mikulski's Senate office in 1987 and 1988. Later that year, he was hired as an assistant State's Attorney for the City of Baltimore, holding that position until 1990.
In 1990, at the encouragement of Maryland attorney general J. Joseph Curran Jr., O'Malley ran for the Maryland State Senate in the 43rd State Senate District in northeast Baltimore. He challenged one-term incumbent John A. Pica in the Democratic Party primary, and lost by just 44 votes. He was considered an underdog when he first filed to run, but "came out of nowhere" to lead Pica on election night. The loss was narrow enough that his loss could only be projected after absentee ballots were counted subsequent to the night of the election.
Baltimore City Council (1991–1999)
In 1991, O'Malley was elected to the Baltimore City Council representing the 3rd Councilman District (when each of six districts had three members) and served from 1991 to 1999. His 1991 election was endorsed by the editorial board of The Baltimore Sun.
As councilman, O'Malley served as chairman of the Legislative Investigations Committee and chairman of the Taxation and Finance Committee. As a councilman, O'Malley advocated for many reforms. During the 1992 Democratic Party presidential primaries, he served as the Maryland coordinator for the presidential campaign of Nebraska U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey.
In 1996, O'Malley became a chief ally of City Council President Lawrence Bell at a time when Bell was engaged in a power-struggle with Mayor Kurt Schmoke. Fellow 3rd district councilor Joan Carter Conway joined O'Malley in aligning with Bell's positions on key votes. However, the other council member from the third district, Robert W. Curran, broke with them and instead voted for the mayor's preferred positions. O'Malley had previously been politically partnered with Curran, with the two having co-endorsed each other in the 1995 City Council election. Curran is also the uncle of O'Malley's wife. However, due to Curran's alignment with the mayor, in October 1996 O'Malley wrote an open letter assailing him.
By his second term, O'Malley was seen as a charismatic rising star in Baltimore politics, and was believed to be likely to soon seek a higher office. In a 1997 profile, Kevin Cowherd of The Baltimore Sun wrote of O'Malley, To many, Martin O'Malley seems ideally suited to the role of reformer, almost as if he were born for the job. He is 34, tall, leading-man handsome, with a Chiclets smile that seems to make his face glow. Now in his second term as an elected official, he's articulate, passionate, charismatic in a Kennedyesque way. He's considered something of a loose cannon at City Council meetings, where the sight of him rising from his chair and clearing his throat causes half the room to lean forward in anticipation
Mayor of Baltimore (1999–2007)
O'Malley announced his decision to run for Mayor of Baltimore in 1999, after incumbent Kurt Schmoke decided not to seek re-election to a third term. His entrance into the race was greatly unexpected, and he faced initial difficulties as the only white candidate for mayor of a city which had been predominantly African-American since the 1960 Census and had recently had two successive black mayors. His strongest opponents in the crowded Democratic primary of seven were former City Councilman Carl Stokes, Baltimore Registrar of Wills Mary Conaway, and Council President Lawrence Bell. In his campaign, O'Malley focused on reducing crime and received the endorsement of several key African-American lawmakers and church leaders, as well as that of former mayor of Baltimore and Maryland governor William Donald Schaefer, who had served from 1971 to 1987. On September 14, he won the Democratic primary with a 53% majority and went on to win the general election with 90% of the vote, defeating Republican Party nominee, developer David Tufaro.
In 2003, O'Malley ran for re-election. He was challenged in the Democratic primary by four candidates, but defeated them with 67% of the vote. He had to wait more than a year to run in the general election because of a conflict between Maryland election law and the Baltimore city charter. At the same time that O'Malley won his first term, Baltimore citizens voted to move municipal elections to coincide with presidential elections. However, Maryland law gives the General Assembly sole power to set primary election dates, and the General Assembly refused to move the mayoral primary. In the November 4, 2004, general election, he was reelected with 87% of the vote. Due to the conflict, he was only elected to a three-year term rather than the usual four-year term.