Del. Pamela Queen (D-Dist. 14) has spent more than a decade representing much of the northern and eastern portions of Montgomery County in the Maryland General Assembly. Now, she says, it’s “time for the youth to step up.”
Queen, of Olney, announced in September that she would not seek re-election this year — a move she said was “part of a bigger plan of not only retiring from the General Assembly but also my teaching job” as a professor of finance at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
“For me, I think it’s time to move on,” Queen told Bethesda Today in a Tuesday interview at the Montgomery County Council office building in Rockville, where she had just been honored with a proclamation for her years of service. “I wanted to leave on my own terms.”
Queen’s retirement announcement kicked off a contested Democratic primary for her seat in the legislature and brought to a close a trailblazing political career that began in 2016 when the county’s Democratic Central Committee tapped her to fill a legislative vacancy.
Her appointment by then-Gov. Larry Hogan (R) made Queen the second Black woman to represent Montgomery County in the state legislature. The first, former Del. Karen Britto of Chevy Chase, served for eight months in 2010 to fill a District 16 vacancy pending that year’s election.
In 2018, Queen became one of the first Black women from Montgomery County to win election to the state House of Delegates — a distinction she shares with Dels. Charlotte Crutchfield (D-Dist. 19) and Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Dist. 20), who were elected that same year.
Queen’s successor in the state legislature will be Matt Post, an attorney for the Maryland State Education Association who served a one-year term as the student member of the Montgomery County Board of Education from 2017 to 2018.
“I think he’ll do well,” Queen said of Post during Tuesday’s interview with Bethesda Today. “It’s time for the youth to step up.”
Post, 26, easily won nomination to the District 14 delegation. He ran as a slate with District 14 incumbents Sen. Craig Zucker and Dels. Bernice Mireku-North and Anne Kaiser, which allowed him to benefit from their campaign infrastructure in the leadup to the June 23 Democratic primary election.
Final results from the Maryland State Board of Elections show Post came second with 29.1% of the vote — a slightly higher percentage than Mireku-North, who received 28.1% of the vote, and well beyond the 12.8% of the vote that went to fellow newcomer Alicia Contreras-Donello, a former federal worker.
Post will not face a Republican opponent in November. Still, he told Bethesda Today in an interview on Tuesday, he’s “not taking this period for granted.” He plans to spend the next few months supporting get-out-the-vote efforts with a focus on youth participation in battleground districts, he said.
After his swearing-in ceremony in January, Post said his focus in the legislature will be on supporting schools and educators, lowering utility bills and fighting actions by the Trump administration — key concerns he heard while on the campaign trail.
He also said he hopes to pick up the baton from Queen on issues she championed in the legislature, such as supporting aging Marylanders and advocating for small businesses.
Queen’s work in the state legislature is not quite done. House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk and Senate President Bill Ferguson (both D) recently called members back for an August special session to consider a proposed constitutional amendment on Congressional redistricting — a sticking point leaders were unable to resolve during the regular session earlier this year.
“It opens up a whole can of worms when you start these things off-cycle,” Queen told Bethesda Today on Tuesday. “But big picture, it does seem like we need to do something at this time.”
Asked what advice she had for Post, Queen told Bethesda Today he “needs to be his own person.”
“He has a strong following and a focus on national issues of importance to this community,” Queen said, referring to Post’s gun violence prevention advocacy. “He should build on that.”