Benjamin T. Jealous, the former president of the NAACP, who is said to have taken the civil rights organization out of the red and restored its relevance at a time fraught with tensions between working-class communities and law enforcement, is reportedly thinking about tossing his hat into the ring for one of Maryland’s U.S. Senate seats, the New York Times reports.
Jealous would be vying for the seat that Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is leaving in 2017.
The report says that Jealous declined to comment on his possible candidacy, but two people familiar with “his thinking” say the Baltimore native is giving a senatorial campaign some serious thought.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen is already in the race, and other possible contenders include Reps. Elijah E. Cummings and Donna Edwards.
According to the Times, Jealous is familiar with the state’s political and financial terrain. He raised a lot of money as president of the NAACP and got kudos from former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley for helping to rid the state of the death penalty and gain passage of the Dream Act, which allowed undocumented immigrants to become eligible for in-state college-tuition rates.
Read more at the New York Times.