Maryland House Speaker Adrienne Jones, Secretary of State Susan Lee, Comptroller Brooke Lierman, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller and U.S. Congresswoman from California Nancy Pelosi were inducted into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame Thursday.
Since the hall was established in 1985, The Maryland Commission for Women has honored four to eight women every year in March, Women’s History Month. Hall of Fame inductees over the 39 years have ranged from lawmakers to abolitionists to astronauts. This year, all five are government officials. The theme for 2024’s commemoration is “Celebrating Women’s Leadership: Honoring Maryland’s Firsts and Rising Leaders.”
Each woman chosen this year is a government leader and the first of her gender or race to hold her position. Jones, a delegate from Baltimore County, became the state’s first Black and first female speaker in 2019. Lee is Maryland’s first Asian-American Secretary of State and Lierman is its first female Comptroller. Lt. Gov. Miller is the first woman of color and first immigrant elected to statewide office in Maryland. Meanwhile, Pelosi, who grew up in Baltimore, became the United States’ first female Speaker of the House in 2007.
“In each of their respective fields, they have taken our state to greater heights — even in the face of adversity,” said Rafael López, Secretary of the Department of Human Services, which houses the Maryland Commission for Women, in a statement.
Jones has served in the Maryland House of Delegates since 1997 and was elected speaker in 2019. In her time in the role she has led the house in passing The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, an education reform legislation plan, mandating the biggest investment in education in Maryland history. She led Maryland to becoming the first state to repeal the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights and implemented a statewide policy agenda for racial and economic reform. Additionally, she led the effort to solidify reproductive rights in Maryland’s Constitution.
Jones was born in Baltimore County, attended Baltimore County Public Schools and received her bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
Lee was appointed Secretary of State in January 2023 by Gov. Wes Moore. One of her primary focuses in the position is helping Maryland become a global leader and interface with other international leaders in life sciences, artificial intelligence, higher education and climate resilience. She’s already met with representatives from 69 countries, she said.
She was elected to the Senate in 2014 and to the House of Delegates in 2002 representing Montgomery County.
She is a graduate of the Montgomery County public school system, University of Maryland, College Park and the University of San Francisco School of Law.
“The women they’ve inducted in are just trailblazers and individuals that’ve made significant contributions to Maryland and to the world,” Lee said Thursday.
She added that the recognition is especially sweet given that many members of the women’s commission helped her achieve the feats she’s being honored for as advocates for causes including women’s rights and gun control.
“I feel very honored to be recognized by them — those that helped me pass landmark bills to empower and uplift women, children, families and people of different backgrounds.”
Bills Lee worked on in the legislature like the Maryland Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, a law prohibiting gender-based discrimination around wages, True Freedom Act and Anti-Exploitation Act, which relate to labor trafficking, and ghost gun regulations, she said were championed by the commission members before their time serving on the body.
In November 2022, Lierman was elected comptroller, a position that manages the state’s tax collections and offers her a seat on the three-person Board of Public Works which approves appropriations for nearly all state public works projects.
Prior to winning the comptroller race, she served as a delegate from Baltimore City for eight years. She worked on legislation around bolstering public transit and public schools, funding for gun violence prevention programs, strengthening affordable housing laws and assisting victims of sex trafficking.
She is a Washington, D.C. native and graduated high school in Montgomery County, going on to earn her bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and her law degree from The University of Texas at Austin.
Lierman thanked the honorees who came before her and enabled her to be in a position to continue paving the way for women political leaders.
“Each of us builds on the work of those who come before us, and I am grateful for and inspired by the many women who helped make it possible for me to put more cracks into the world’s glass ceiling,” she wrote in a statement to Baltimore Sun Media.
Miller was elected lieutenant governor in November 2022 as Moore’s running mate. In this capacity, she is focusing on helping address statewide transportation, mental health and STEM equity issues. She also chairs the Governor’s Work Zone Safety Work Group which is designed to improve the safety of highway work zones. Miller also chairs Maryland’s first Council on Interfaith Outreach which aims to improve communications across religious divides.
“It’s an honor to be part of a Hall of Fame class of trailblazers, who are leading by example and showing the next generation of leaders that anything is possible,” Miller said in a statement. “I am proud to be working in partnership with these women to make this Maryland’s decade.”
For seven years, she represented Montgomery County in the House of Delegates. During that time she worked on laws to invest more in STEM education, eliminate red tape for small businesses and assist survivors of domestic abuse.
She was born in India and has lived in Montgomery County for the past 30 years.
Pelosi held her position as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023.
She’s served as a congresswoman representing the San Francisco area for 36 years. She led the design of the Affordable Care Act during the Obama Administration, which expanded the availability of health care coverage, and the American Rescue Plan under the Biden Administration, which led to support for frontline workers during the pandemic as well as the facilitation of hundreds of millions of vaccines. To support the improvement of roads, bridges, ports and broadband across the nation, she shepherded the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
During her tenure in office, she also led the House’s side of the bipartisan effort to establish the Select Committee to Investigate January 6th and impeach former president Donald Trump for violating his oath of office and headed the fight to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” regulation, protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ citizens to openly serve in the military.
A physical exhibit of the honorees is located on the campus of Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore. The five will be honored in a ceremony Thursday night at the Government House in Annapolis.