Jill P. Carter

Carter was a candidate in the 2020 Maryland 7th congressional district special election to fill out the term of the late Elijah Cummings, finishing third in the primary. Carter is also a candidate in the overlapping regular 2020 election for the same congressional seat.

Carter was elected to the Maryland Senate November 6, 2018. She is a member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review, Joint Committee on Fair Practices and State Personnel Oversight, Maryland Violence Intervention and Prevention Advisory Council, and the Marijuana Legalization Work Group.

On April 30, 2018, Gov. Larry Hogan appointed Carter to fill the Senate seat vacated by Nathaniel T. Oaks, who resigned before pleading guilty to federal corruption charges. After being encouraged to run for the Senate seat, Carter was forced to step down as director of the Office of Civil Rights and Wage Enforcement prior to accepting her appointment. Carter handily defeated her opponent in the primary election and went on to win the general election amassing more than 31,000 votes.

From 2017 to 2018 she served as director of the Baltimore City Office of Civil Rights, a position she resigned from The Maryland House of Delegates to accept.

In 2016, Carter resigned her seat in the Maryland House of Delegates to accept an appointment as director of the Baltimore City Office of Civil Rights and Wage Enforcement.

After considering a bid for mayor in the 2016 Baltimore Mayoral election, Carter instead endorsed Catherine Pugh, calling Pugh the best choice to stop the "failed and fake War on Drugs, create jobs and opportunities for everyone, and end lead poisoning and not give lip service to it."

Carter declared her candidacy for the Democratic nomination in the Baltimore mayoral election of 2007 She had criticized the city's mayor and administration for giving unfair advantages to developers and corporations at the expense of the poor and middle class, and had vowed to replace the police department's leadership if elected mayor. In a poll of likely democratic voters released by the Baltimore Sun on July 16, 2007, Carter trailed Mayor Dixon (47%), Councilman Mitchell (15%) and Andrey Bundley (4%) with 2% of those polled. Despite her campaign activities, such as camping out all night on some of the city's most violent street corners, serving hot dogs, having one-on-one conversations with residents, and distributing voter registration forms, Carter's campaign failed to raise enough money to become viable, the political establishment did not support her, and Carter eventually finished fourth in the race with only 2.8% of the vote.

Prior to her re-election in 2006, she became a vocal critic of then mayor (and later Governor) Martin O'Malley's "failed policing policies". She posited that the so-labeled, zero tolerance, arrest strategy failed to cause significant reduction in a soaring crime rate in Baltimore City, but, rather, pressured police officers to make tens of thousands of arrests that did not produce criminal charges. She has oft been referred to as a lone voice in the wilderness for her challenges to established politicians on matters of adequate housing for the poor, lead poisoning of children, to adequately fund public education, both in the legislature, and in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City., and, in 2007, calling for a special session of the legislature to deal with the BGE utility rate increase.

Carter was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2002. She was the third African-American female attorney elected to the Maryland Legislature. During her first term from 2003 to 2006, she was the only African-American female attorney serving in the Maryland House of Delegates. She was assigned to the House Judiciary committee where she served as chair of the Estates and Trusts Subcommittee, the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, and the Women Legislators of Maryland. Carter voted against legalizing slot machines in Maryland in 2005.

Carter was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1993. She has worked as a staff attorney for The Legal Aid Bureau, the Office of the Public Defender, and the Office of the City Solicitor. She is a member of Monumental City Bar Association, the Maryland State Bar Association (MSBA), former member of the Maryland Trial Lawyers' Association and a founding member of the Black Lawyers Group. She is founder and president of the Walter P. Carter Foundation. She was the executive director of the Maryland Minority Business Association in 2002, chair of the Baltimore Branch NAACP Legal Redress Committee.

Jill P. Carter (born June 18, 1964) is an American politician who represents Maryland's 41st legislative district of Baltimore City in the Maryland State Senate. She previously represented the same district Maryland House of Delegates. She was elected to the Maryland legislature in 2002 and took office in January 2003, resigning in 2017. She was appointed to the state Senate May 4, 2018. She won the primary election, receiving 54% of the vote, handily defeating Martin O’Malley's son-in-law, educator J.D Merrill and former senator Nathaniel T. Oaks (whose name remained on the ballot at the insistence of the Maryland State Board of Elections and persistence of the Maryland Attorney General although Oaks was disqualified from serving).

Carter is the daughter of the late Walter P. Carter, who was a civil rights activist and leader in the desegregation movement in Maryland in the 1960s and early 1970s. Her mother, Zerita Joy Carter, was a public school teacher specializing in Early Childhood Education. Carter graduated Western High School in Baltimore. Carter received her B.A. in English from Loyola College in Maryland in 1988, and her Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1992.