49 Facts About Martin O'Malley

Martin Joseph O'Malley was born on January 18,1963 and is an American lawyer and former politician who served as the 61st Governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015.

Martin O'Malley won the 2006 gubernatorial election, defeating incumbent Republican governor Bob Ehrlich.

Martin O'Malley served as the chair of the Democratic Governors Association from 2011 to 2013.

Long rumored to have presidential ambitions, Martin O'Malley publicly announced his candidacy for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination on May 30,2015.

One of six major candidates, Martin O'Malley struggled to gain support, and he suspended his campaign on February 1,2016, after finishing third in the Iowa caucuses.

Martin O'Malley's father served as a bombardier in the US Army Air Force in the Pacific theater during the Second World War, and recalled witnessing the mushroom cloud rise over Hiroshima while on a routine mission.

Martin O'Malley's father was of Irish descent; his ancestors come from An Mam in County Galway.

Martin O'Malley is a descendant of a veteran of the War of 1812, and is an active member of the General Society of the War of 1812.

Martin O'Malley attended the Our Lady of Lourdes School in Bethesda and Gonzaga College High School.

Martin O'Malley graduated from the Catholic University of America in 1985.

In December 1982, while still in college, Martin O'Malley joined the Gary Hart presidential campaign for the 1984 election.

In 1986, while in law school, Martin O'Malley was named by then-Congresswoman Barbara Mikulski as state field director for her successful primary and general election campaigns for the US Senate.

Martin O'Malley served as a legislative fellow in Mikulski's Senate office in 1987 and 1988.

In 1990, Martin O'Malley ran for the Maryland State Senate in the 43rd State Senate District in northeast Baltimore.

Martin O'Malley challenged one-term incumbent John A Pica in the Democratic Party primary, and lost by just 44 votes.

Martin O'Malley was considered an underdog when he first filed to run, but "came out of nowhere" to lead Pica on election night.

Martin O'Malley announced his decision to run for Mayor of Baltimore in 1999, after incumbent Kurt Schmoke decided not to seek re-election to a third term.

Martin O'Malley had to wait more than a year to run in the general election because of a conflict between Maryland election law and the Baltimore city charter.

Martin O'Malley has been accused by many of establishing a zero-tolerance policing strategy, aimed at reducing the city's high murder rate but that instead led to the targeting and abuse of black communities.

In 2002, at the age of 39, Martin O'Malley was named "The Best Young Mayor in the Country" by Esquire; and in 2005, TIME magazine named him one of America's "Top 5 Big City Mayors".

Martin O'Malley considered a run for governor in the 2002 election but decided not to run.

Martin O'Malley selected Delegate Anthony Brown of Prince George's County as his running mate for lieutenant governor.

Martin O'Malley was able to reverse course in all of these areas.

Martin O'Malley led by margins of several points in most polls during the campaign, but polls tightened significantly in the last week of the campaign.

Governor Martin O'Malley's spokesman said there was no "quid pro quo," and a spokesman for the County Executive said the project had been a county transportation priority since before both Martin O'Malley and the executive were elected.

In 2010, Martin O'Malley announced his intention to run for re-election while Ehrlich announced he would run, setting up a rematch of 2006.

Martin O'Malley has said that President Obama has looked at StateStat as a potential model for tracking stimulus funding.

Martin O'Malley supported a bill considered by the General Assembly to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland in 2011, even though Archbishop of Baltimore Edwin O'Brien had urged him as a Catholic not to support the bill in a private letter sent two days before Martin O'Malley voiced his support.

In 2013, Martin O'Malley signed a bill to ban the practice of shark finning in Maryland, making it the sixth US state to enact this regulation.

Martin O'Malley opposed a 2011 lawsuit filed by the University of Maryland Environmental Law Clinic against Perdue Farms, a poultry agribusiness corporation based in Maryland.

Also in 2014, Martin O'Malley approved the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," in western Maryland but only on condition of tight regulations.

Martin O'Malley had previously blocked the technique from the region for three years, awaiting the report from the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission on the risks and benefits of this controversial procedure.

Martin O'Malley is pro-choice and believes abortion should be legal without government interference until the time in pregnancy when the fetus might survive outside the womb.

Speculation about Martin O'Malley's plans was further fueled by his high profile at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he was given a prime-time speaking slot on the second night and spoke to delegations from several states including Iowa, where the first presidential caucuses are held in election years, and Ohio, a key swing state in recent presidential elections.

Martin O'Malley publicly expressed interest in a presidential run in 2016 on multiple occasions.

Four months later, on June 9,2016, Martin O'Malley officially endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Martin O'Malley was speculated as a possible choice for United States Secretary of Homeland Security, should Hillary Clinton be elected president.

Martin O'Malley was appointed chairman of the advisory committee and made a senior fellow.

Martin O'Malley was made a fellow of the Institute of Politics and Public Service at Georgetown University in Washington, DC After the Democratic primaries, Martin O'Malley explored a potential run for chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Martin O'Malley later withdrew interest after Minnesota representative Keith Ellison received the endorsements of several major Democratic figures.

In June 2016, Boston College Law School's Rappaport Center for Public Policy announced that Martin O'Malley would be the inaugural Jerome Lyle Rappaport Visiting Professor and teach at the law school during the Spring 2017 semester.

The Baltimore Sun reported on May 31,2017, that Martin O'Malley admitted that he along with other Democrats gerrymandered the state's 6th district in a successful effort to oust long-time Republican incumbent Rep.

Martin O'Malley met his wife, the former Catherine "Katie" Curran, in 1986 while they were both in law school.

In November 2019, Martin O'Malley encountered acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli II, in a Capitol Hill bar and confronted him with what The Washington Post reported one witness described as a "shame-invoking tirade" centering on the Trump administration's immigration policies.

Also in 2019, Martin O'Malley was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Martin O'Malley has said that he grew up surrounded by Irish music.

Martin O'Malley's March continues to perform following Martin O'Malley's decision to end his 2016 presidential campaign.

Martin O'Malley appeared in the 2014 Travel Channel documentary The War of 1812 Trail.

In 2019, Martin O'Malley appeared on Ireland's The Late Late Show to discuss his love of Shane MacGowan's music.