Charm City Indivisible is proud to announce our endorsement of Delegate Malcolm Ruff for Maryland State Senate District 41.

In a short time in Annapolis, Malcolm Ruff has done something rare: he has turned a powerful committee seat into concrete, visible investment in the West Baltimore neighborhoods that have been overlooked the longest—and paired that investment with a sophisticated, sustained record on criminal justice and racial accountability. Now, he’s fighting for a Senate that actually delivers for District 41. He has earned our endorsement through his work, his values, and his vision for what West Baltimore can be when its representatives show up and produce results.

Who is Malcolm Ruff

Malcolm Ruff is a son of West Baltimore, and his career has been a steady movement toward the people and places that get the least attention from those in power. He started out as a prosecutor and became a civil rights litigator, a path that says something about how he works: from inside the system, pushing it to be fairer rather than turning away from it. He brought that same approach to the House of Delegates after Governor Wes Moore appointed him in 2023, and in just three years, he rose to chair the subcommittee that writes the state’s capital budget.

Now he is giving up that seat to run for the Senate—a real risk, taken on purpose. He’s running because the neighborhoods that need the most investment and attention have gotten the least, and he’s not willing to keep watching it happen. That instinct, to move toward the hardest problems rather than away from them, runs through his entire record.

Delivering for West Baltimore

As Chair of the Capital Budget Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, Ruff led the House’s review of Maryland’s $1.8 billion capital budget and used that position deliberately on behalf of his district, steering more than $12 million home to District 41 in a single year. What’s telling is where he aimed it: toward neighborhood schools, toward health care closer to where people live, toward workforce training and economic opportunity in the parts of West Baltimore that have long gone without. He’s fought for years to win the Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park designation as the first state park within Baltimore City limits—an important piece of green space equity for the West Baltimore communities that too rarely see that sort of investment. And his reach extends well past the district line, into the HBCUs, community colleges, and public institutions that educate and serve Baltimoreans across the city.

What impressed us most, though, wasn’t only how much he directed home, it was how he wields the responsibility. When he discovered $194 million in community college construction funds sitting unspent, he didn’t look away. He pushed his committee to reject a $150 million funding request until there was real accountability. That is exactly the instinct we want in a senator: investment paired with oversight, and a willingness to hold even friendly institutions to account.

A Broad Progressive Record, Focused on Justice

Criminal justice is Ruff’s deepest and most personal issue area, shaped by his experience as both a former prosecutor and a civil rights litigator—and it shows. He introduced good-cause expungement legislation in three consecutive sessions, the kind of persistence that signals genuine commitment rather than a one-time gesture. He co-sponsored the Second Look Act, now law, which allows people serving long sentences to petition for review. He has backed police accountability boards, pretrial release reform, rehabilitative prerelease services tailored to incarcerated women, and protections that keep artists’ creative expression, including rap lyrics, from being weaponized as evidence in court.

And he is not afraid of the boldest fights. Ruff was the primary sponsor of legislation to create a state Reparations Board and Fund, financed through an excise tax on large endowments—a serious, redistributive proposal to study and begin to repair the harms done to the descendants of enslaved Marylanders. This is a legislator who approaches justice from many directions at once, and who is willing to put his name on the hard things.

Ruff’s strength extends well beyond these signature areas. On housing, he established a task force to combat the deed fraud that strips generational wealth from Baltimore homeowners, reshaped a tax credit to incentivize affordable housing, and co-sponsored both the Renters’ Rights and Stabilization Act and good cause eviction. On immigration, he co-sponsored the Community Trust Act, the Maryland Values Act, and the prohibition on 287(g) enforcement agreements, all now law, alongside affirmative integration measures like the Commission on New Americans. On labor, his apprenticeship, collective bargaining, and progressive taxation work across multiple sessions is reflected in a deep bench of union support. On the environment, he has fought for environmental-justice permitting reform and, through the Gwynns Falls work, for green space where Baltimoreans actually live. This is a substantive, values-aligned record built steadily over three sessions.

Why This Matters Now

District 41—overwhelmingly Democratic, majority Black, and home to neighborhoods that have waited far too long for serious public investment—deserves a senator who shares its values and shows up to fight for them. The contrast in this race is clear. Delegate Ruff co-sponsored the Second Look Act to give people who have served decades a chance to come home; his opponent, incumbent Senator Dalya Attar, sided with Senate Republicans to narrow it. Ruff has voted to protect and expand reproductive freedom; Attar broke with her party to oppose expanding abortion access, siding with a Republican governor against it. And where this district deserves a senator it can trust without reservation, Attar is currently under federal indictment on extortion and conspiracy charges.

Malcolm Ruff offers a different kind of representation: progressive conviction and personal integrity. In a moment of federal overreach and disinvestment, West Baltimore can’t afford a Senate seat that goes quiet, or one that drifts rightward when it matters most. It needs a fighter, and Malcolm Ruff has shown, vote after vote and dollar after dollar, that he will be one. He has earned the confidence of a broad coalition that knows his work, receiving endorsements from Governor Moore, Mayor Scott, and Representative Mfume, as well as the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, SEIU 1199, CASA in Action, Progressive Maryland, and Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, among many others. It’s a strikingly broad coalition—elected leaders, labor unions, and grassroots organizers who don’t always agree—and a list that varied says something about the person at its center: Delegate Ruff has earned trust across a movement that rarely speaks with one voice. Today, we’re proud to add ours.

How to Support Malcolm Ruff

Delegate Malcolm Ruff is running for State Senate District 41 because he knows, as we do, that our community deserves better. If you agree, here’s what you can do:

• Donate to support his campaign in these final few weeks before Election Day
• Volunteer — knock on doors, make calls, and help get out the vote
• Talk to your neighbors — tell them why you’re voting for Delegate Ruff and encourage them to join you
• Vote for Malcolm Ruff! Check your registration and find your polling place today. You can request a mail-in ballot and vote early from June 11 to 18, or vote on Election Day, June 23.

West Baltimore deserves a senator who will both fight for it and deliver for it, and Malcolm Ruff has shown he’ll do both. We’re voting for him, and we hope you will too.

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A note on our endorsement process:

Our endorsement process begins with a thorough questionnaire, which we make available to all declared candidates in a race. Completed questionnaires are evaluated, and candidates who score well are invited to an interview with our endorsement committee. In some cases, a sitting officeholder with a strong legislative record may qualify for a streamlined track: in place of the questionnaire, our committee prepares a review of the candidate’s record to ground the interview. Because this path could otherwise advantage incumbents, we hold those candidates to a higher qualifying standard, not a lower one. After all interviews are complete, we deliberate and announce our endorsement of the candidate who most aligns with our values.

Charm City Indivisible evaluates all candidates using the following criteria: alignment with our values, thoughtful policy positions, demonstrated commitment to constituent engagement, and a track record and/or clear vision of fighting for working people over wealthy interests. We apply these standards equally to all candidates we evaluate. We believe voters deserve to understand not just who we endorse, but how and why we made that decision.