Larry Hogan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Larry Hogan
62nd Governor of Maryland
Incumbent
Assumed office January 21, 2015
Lieutenant	Boyd Rutherford
Preceded by	Martin O'Malley
Chair of the National Governors Association
In office July 26, 2019 – August 5, 2020
Deputy	Andrew Cuomo
Preceded by	Steve Bullock
Succeeded by	Andrew Cuomo
Vice Chair of the National Governors Association
In office July 21, 2018 – July 26, 2019
Preceded by	Steve Bullock
Succeeded by	Andrew Cuomo
Secretary of Appointments of Maryland
In office January 15, 2003 – January 17, 2007
Governor	Bob Ehrlich
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Jeanne Hitchcock
Personal details
Born	Lawrence Joseph Hogan Jr. (1956-05-25) May 25, 1956 (age 67) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Yumi Kim ​ (m. 2004)​
Relatives	Lawrence Hogan (father) Patrick N. Hogan (half-brother)
Residence(s)	Government House
Education	Florida State University (BA)
Signature

Lawrence Joseph Hogan Jr. (born May 25, 1956) is an American politician and businessman serving as the 62nd governor of Maryland since 2015. A moderate member of the Republican Party, he was secretary of appointments under Maryland governor Bob Ehrlich from 2003 to 2007. Hogan chaired the National Governors Association from 2019 to 2020.

Hogan ran unsuccessful campaigns for Maryland's 5th congressional district in 1981 and 1992, the latter of which was incumbent Steny Hoyer's closest race. Hogan founded the Change Maryland organization in 2011, which he used to promote his 2014 gubernatorial campaign.

Early life, family, and education

Hogan was born in 1956 in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Landover, Maryland, attending Saint Ambrose Catholic School and DeMatha Catholic High School. He moved to Florida with his mother after his parents divorced in 1972 and graduated from Father Lopez Catholic High School in 1974. Hogan is the son of Nora (Maguire) and Lawrence Hogan Sr., who served as U.S. Representative from Maryland's 5th congressional district from 1969 to 1975 and as Prince George's County executive from 1978 to 1982. Hogan Sr. was the first Republican member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to call for Richard Nixon's impeachment. His parents were both of Irish descent.

Hogan attended Florida State University from 1974 to 1978 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in government and political science.

Career

As the son of a U.S. representative, Hogan was exposed to politics at a young age and worked in many aspects of politics, including political campaigns and citizen referendums.

While in college, Hogan worked in the Florida legislature. Upon graduation, he worked on Capitol Hill. Hogan helped his father run a successful campaign in 1978 for Prince George's County executive and later worked for him as a low-paid "intergovernmental liaison".

In 1981, at age 24, Hogan first ran for office in the special election to fill the vacancy in Maryland's 5th congressional district left by Gladys Noon Spellman. Spellman had succeeded Hogan's father in the office. Hogan finished second out of 12 candidates in the Republican primary with 22% of the vote, behind Bowie Mayor Audrey Scott's 63%.

In 1985, Hogan founded Hogan Companies, which is engaged in brokerage, consulting, investment and development of land, commercial and residential properties. He spent the next 18 years in the private sector.

In 1992, Hogan was the Republican nominee for Maryland's 5th congressional district, running against Democratic incumbent Steny Hoyer. Hoyer outspent Hogan by a 6-to-1 margin. The race was the closest in Hoyer's tenure. Hogan won four of the district's five counties and 44% of the vote to Hoyer's 53%, with William Johnston (Independent) at 3%.

Hogan took a four-year leave of absence from his business to serve as Maryland's secretary of appointments in Bob Ehrlich's administration from 2003 to 2007. In this capacity, Hogan appointed over 7,000 people to positions in the Maryland government.

In 2011, Hogan founded Change Maryland, a nonprofit anti-tax advocacy organization that was used to criticize Governor Martin O'Malley's administration. The organization promoted Hogan's gubernatorial run, and his campaign eventually purchased its assets. The Maryland Democratic Party alleged that Hogan had improperly received campaign benefits from the nonprofit; the State Board of Elections dismissed two of the complaints but found Hogan's campaign had not properly disclosed the value of a poll the nonprofit did before purchasing its assets.

Governor of Maryland

Hogan giving the State of the State address in 2016

Larry Hogan's official portrait in the Maryland State House

Elections

Hogan began his campaign for governor of Maryland on January 21, 2014. On January 29, 2014, he announced former Maryland secretary of general services Boyd Rutherford as his running mate. On June 24, 2014, Hogan and Rutherford won the Republican primary with 43% of the vote. In the November 4 general election, they defeated Anthony Brown, the Democratic nominee and incumbent lieutenant governor, 51% to 47%. Hogan is the first governor to be elected from Anne Arundel County in over 100 years.

In the 2018 gubernatorial election, Hogan faced Democratic nominee Ben Jealous, a former NAACP president. Hogan enjoyed significant polling and fundraising leads over Jealous throughout the campaign. He defeated Jealous, 55% to 43%, becoming only the second Republican governor in Maryland history to be reelected, and the first since Theodore McKeldin in 1954. Hogan won the most votes of any governor in Maryland history.

Term-limited, Hogan could not run in the 2022 gubernatorial election. In November 2021, he endorsed the campaign of his commerce secretary, Kelly Schulz. After Schulz lost the Republican primary to state delegate Dan Cox who was much farther to the right of the generally centrist Hogan, he said that he would not support Cox in the general election. Hogan blamed "collusion" between the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) and former president Donald Trump for Cox's primary win. According to The New York Times, the DGA spent over $1.16 million on television advertisements promoting Cox, who was endorsed by Trump. Hogan also criticized Democrats for "emboldening" Cox, who Hogan called a "QAnon conspiracy theorist", and "play[ing] Russian roulette with the Maryland statehouse". Hogan declined to say who he voted for in the general election.

Tenure

Media outlets have called Hogan a moderate Republican and a "pragmatist". In 2015, The Washington Post's editorial board wrote that he was "true to his promise to govern from the center in the first legislative session of his term." On the Issues, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that tracks politicians' positions, considers Hogan a centrist.

In 2015, Hogan canceled the Baltimore Red Line project. This cancellation was considered strange given the federal funding and amount already spent by the state on initial engineering. Washington Monthly's Eric Cortellessa accused Hogan of corruption since his shift of state priorities to road funding resulted in the construction of several major projects near properties his company owns.

Hogan served as vice chair of the National Governors Association (NGA) from 2018 to 2019 and as chair from 2019 to 2020.

In 2019, Hogan raised the possibility of running for president in 2020, but he later decided not to run. In June, he addressed the Maryland Free Enterprise Foundation, a business advocacy group, in a combative speech, "skewering Democrats who control the state legislature and vowing to spend the remainder of his term in 'battle' with them." Hogan promised to work against tax increases.

Between taking office and February 2017, Hogan's Facebook page blocked over 450 people. One spokesman said about half had used "hateful or racist" language, while the rest were part of a "coordinated attack". Affected Marylanders said they had reached out to the governor via Facebook after the 2015 Baltimore protests as well as Donald Trump's Executive Order 13769 in January 2017, which banned travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries.

In March 2017, it was discovered that Hogan staffers altered headlines of The Baltimore Sun and DelmarvaNow articles posted on his Facebook page to falsely imply General Assembly support for Hogan's so-called "Road Kill Bill". After the Sun contacted Hogan's office about the doctored headlines, the office rectified the problem.

Personal life

Hogan with his wife Yumi in 2018

Hogan resides in Government House in Annapolis with his wife Yumi Hogan, a Korean-origin U.S. citizen who is an artist and adjunct instructor at Maryland Institute College of Art. The couple met in 2001 and married in 2004. Hogan and his wife are Roman Catholic. Hogan is the stepfather of Yumi's three adult daughters from her first marriage: Kim Velez, Jaymi Sterling, and Julie Kim. Hogan's half-brother, Patrick N. Hogan, represented a district in Frederick County, Maryland in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2003 to 2007 and 2011 to 2015.

In June 2015, Hogan announced that he had been diagnosed with stage-three non-Hodgkin lymphoma and was undergoing treatment. He completed 18 weeks of chemotherapy and announced in November 2015 that the cancer was in remission. He underwent his last chemotherapy treatment in October 2016 and was deemed cancer-free. In January 2021, Hogan underwent surgery to remove early stage squamous cell skin cancer from his face and shoulder, a repeat of similar surgery he had in 2018.

In 2021, Hogan purchased a home and estate for $1.1 million in Davidsonville, Maryland.

Electoral history

See also

In Spanish: Larry Hogan para niños