44 Facts About Justin Ready

Justin D Ready is an American politician who has served as a member of the Maryland Senate since 2015, representing District 5 in Carroll County.

Justin Ready previously represented the district in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2011 to 2015.

Justin Ready graduated from Carroll Community College in 2002, and afterwards attended Salisbury University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 2004.

Justin Ready later worked as a legislative aide to state delegate J B Jennings from 2004 to 2006, afterwards working as the chief of staff for state senator Janet Greenip.

Justin Ready served in this position until July 2009, when he was fired by party chairman James Pelura for "personnel reasons".

Justin Ready's firing eventually led to the removal of Pelura as chairman of the Maryland Republican Party.

Justin Ready later served as an interim executive director from July to December 2011.

Also in 2008, Justin Ready unsuccessfully ran for delegate to the Republican National Convention, pledged to Mike Huckabee.

On January 5,2010, Ready announced that he would run for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 5A, challenging incumbent state delegates Nancy R Stocksdale and Tanya Thornton Shewell.

Justin Ready won the Republican primary, placing first with 39.3 percent of the vote, and later defeated Democrats Francis X Walsh and Sharon L Baker in the general election alongside Stocksdale.

Justin Ready was sworn in on January 12,2011, and served as a member of the Health and Government Operations Committee.

Justin Ready ran for re-election to a second term in 2014.

Justin Ready was a member of Larry Hogan's Change Maryland organization, and later served Hogan's transition team following his upset victory in the 2014 Maryland gubernatorial election.

In 2011, Justin Ready served as a co-chair for Rick Perry's 2012 presidential campaign in Maryland.

Justin Ready later ran for delegate to the Republican National Convention pledged to Perry, receiving 1.2 percent of the vote.

Justin Ready was elected to a full four-year term in 2018.

Justin Ready served as a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee from 2015 to 2021, afterwards serving on the Finance Committee.

In October 2021, Justin Ready was elected to serve as the Senate minority whip.

Justin Ready celebrated Donald Trump's win in the 2016 United States presidential election, calling it a "pretty stunning repudiation of Washington, DC, and the establishment, the media establishment, and sort of the coasts".

Justin Ready has called crime in Baltimore "out of control and destabilizing our entire region", and has expressed skepticism on claims that gun control would decrease violent crime.

In 2019, Justin Ready introduced "Laura and Reid's Law", a bill to increase penalties for murdering a pregnant woman.

Justin Ready introduced a bill that would prohibit courts from authorizing pretrial release for an individual accused of assaulting a police officer.

Justin Ready opposes the Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project, a proposed 70-mile power line that would run from Frederick to Baltimore County to provide power to data centers in Maryland and Virginia, pointing to its potential use of eminent domain to acquire properties along its proposed path.

In May 2015, Justin Ready defended Governor Larry Hogan's decision to withhold $68 million in funding for Maryland's costliest public school systems, saying that the state needed to restrain its growth spending to settle its fiscal issues.

In October 2019, Justin Ready expressed skepticism with the Kirwan Commission's recommendations, known as the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, comparing them to the recommendations made by the Thornton Commission and arguing that it would be better to address achievement gap deficits in education locally rather than raising education funding statewide.

Justin Ready later voted against the Blueprint bill, arguing that it would have a significant negative impacts on the state's economy.

In February 2022, Justin Ready signed onto a letter to the Maryland State Board of Education imploring the agency to rescind its COVID-19 mask mandate in schools, falsely claiming that masks were ineffective at limiting the spread of COVID-19.

In 2016, Justin Ready opposed a bill to automatically register people to vote when getting their driver's license at the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration.

In June 2021, Justin Ready participated in hearings for Hogan's Maryland Citizens Redistricting Commission, during which he advocated for districts that broke up communities as little as possible.

Justin Ready criticized the redrawn congressional districts passed by the legislature during the 2021 special legislative session, calling it "incredibly gerrymandered".

In 2019, Justin Ready said he opposed a bill to abolish the state's Handgun Permit Review Board, which handled conceal carry applications.

In 2023, Justin Ready said he opposed the Gun Safety Act, a gun control bill that increased requirements to obtain a handgun permit and limited where guns could be publicly carried following the Bruen decision, saying that he anticipated the bill's "fiery end by the court" if passed.

In 2019, Justin Ready criticized the End-of-Life Option Act, which would have provided palliative care to terminally ill adults.

Justin Ready supported Question 4 in 2012, which sought to repeal Maryland's Dream Act, a bill that extended in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants, saying that the bill made Maryland appear as a sanctuary state.

In 2014, Justin Ready condemned a proposal to house immigrant children at a former US Army Reserve Center in Westminster, Maryland, and blamed the increase in immigrant children on President Barack Obama's immigration policies.

In 2017, Justin Ready supported the Trust Act, a bill that would prohibit police from asking about a detainee's immigration or citizenship status.

In 2021, Justin Ready opposed the Dignity Not Detention Act, a bill that would end all contracts between state correctional facilities and ICE, arguing that it would make communities less safe.

In 2021, Justin Ready said he opposed a bill to extend the state's earned income tax credit to non-citizens.

Justin Ready describes himself as being pro-police, but supports citizen oversight over the police and military.

Justin Ready has criticized police reform bills passed by the Maryland General Assembly during the 2021 legislative session, including a bill regulating police use of force policies, which he called the "most dangerous provision in the police bill package".

Justin Ready criticized a bill to give the attorney general of Maryland sole prosecutorial power over police-involved incidents, imploring legislators to instead pass bills to deal with violent crime.

Justin Ready later supported a ballot referendum aimed at repealing the law, saying that he believed that the "institution of marriage" was between a man and a woman.

In December 2018, Ready signed onto an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court case American Legion v American Humanist Association defending the cross-shaped Peace Cross monument in Bladensburg, Maryland.

In March 2022, Justin Ready said he opposed a bill to provide $3.5 million toward training medical professionals to provide abortions, calling it "reckless and wrong".