20 Facts About Ariana Kelly

Ariana Brannigan Kelly was born on December 7,1976 and is an American politician who is the executive director of the Maryland Commission for Women.

Ariana Kelly was a member of the Maryland Senate from District 16, which is located in Montgomery County, from 2023 to 2024.

Ariana Kelly is the granddaughter of Maryland fire safety pioneer Francis Brannigan.

Ariana Kelly worked as a producer for PBS' To The Contrary, a weekly news program, from 2002 to 2005, before becoming the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland.

Ariana Kelly was sworn into the Maryland House of Delegates on January 12,2011.

Ariana Kelly was a member of the Health and Government Operations Committee, including as its vice chair from 2022 to 2023, during her entire tenure and served as deputy majority whip from 2016 to 2023.

Ariana Kelly served as the president of the Women Legislators of Maryland caucus from 2017 to 2018, and as the House chair of the Joint Committee on Children, Youth, and Families from 2016 to 2022.

Ariana Kelly filed to fill the vacancy left by Lee in the Maryland Senate in January 2023.

Ariana Kelly was sworn in on February 27,2023, and served on the Judicial Proceedings Committee during her entire tenure.

On March 20,2024, Governor Moore appointed Ariana Kelly to serve as the executive director of the Maryland Commission for Women.

Ariana Kelly resigned from the legislature following the 2024 legislative session on May 5,2024, and assumed her new role on May 6,2024.

In January 2019, Ariana Kelly was one of nine Maryland lawmakers to add their names to a manifesto signed by 326 state legislators to reaffirm their commitment to protecting abortion rights.

In May 2022, following the leak of a draft majority opinion for the Supreme Court case Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, Kelly joined 82 other legislators in signing a letter pushing Hogan to release $3.5 million in funding to support the implementation of the Abortion Care Access Act.

In June 2022, following the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs, Kelly said that the end of Roe v Wade made strong laws on the state level "even more necessary".

Ariana Kelly introduced a bill aimed at implementing these policy recommendations, which was passed and signed into law by Governor Larry Hogan.

In 2013, Ariana Kelly voted in favor of a bill that would raise gas taxes in Maryland to fund the state's various mass transit projects.

In July 2015, Ariana Kelly was charged with indecent exposure and trespassing in an incident related to a domestic dispute.

Ariana Kelly then exposed her breasts in his direction, which he had captured on his cellphone camera.

Ariana Kelly later called the dispute that led to her arrest a "domestic quabble" rather than a criminal manner.

Ariana Kelly's charges were dropped later that month, with a spokesperson for Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy saying that the incident was "a matter better suited for family court" and that the indecent exposure charges were incorrectly applied.