1. Sarah Kelly Elfreth is an American politician who is serving as the US representative for Maryland's 3rd congressional district since 2025.
46 Facts About Sarah Elfreth
1. 2.
Sarah Elfreth previously served as a member of the Maryland Senate representing the 30th district from 2019 to 2025.
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Sarah Elfreth became involved with Maryland politics while attending Towson, during which she was appointed by Governor Martin O'Malley to be a student member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents.
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Sarah Elfreth's district encompassed the lower half of Anne Arundel County, including the state capital of Annapolis.
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Sarah Elfreth won the 22-way Democratic primary in the US House of Representatives election in Maryland's 3rd congressional district and then defeated the Republican nominee in the general election.
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Sarah Elfreth was born and raised in Barrington, New Jersey, where her stepfather worked as a locomotive engineer and her mother worked as a probation officer.
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Sarah Elfreth's grandfather served in the Korean and Vietnam wars, and later suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Sarah Elfreth is of English descent and is a descendant of Jeremiah Elfreth, who was the namesake of Elfreth's Alley in Philadelphia.
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Sarah Elfreth graduated from Haddon Heights High School in 2006, and attended Towson University on scholarship, where she served as a resident assistant, submitted a thesis on how having students participate in governing boards can make them more effective, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 2010.
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Since 2019, Sarah Elfreth has taught as an adjunct professor for Towson University's Honors College.
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Sarah Elfreth became active in politics while attending Towson University, when she became involved with student government and began traveling to Annapolis to lobby the Maryland General Assembly.
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Sarah Elfreth worked as a summer intern for state senator James Rosapepe.
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In 2009, Maryland governor Martin O'Malley appointed Sarah Elfreth to be the student member of the University System Board of Regents.
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Sarah Elfreth didn't become involved with electoral politics until her senior year at Towson, after hearing a speech by former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin.
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Sarah Elfreth briefly served in the office of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer before working as the Government Affairs Director at the National Aquarium of Baltimore.
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In June 2017, Sarah Elfreth filed to run for Maryland Senate, seeking to succeed state Senator John Astle, who did not seek re-election to run for Mayor of Annapolis.
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Sarah Elfreth was elected to the Maryland Senate with 53.8 percent of the vote against former state delegate Ron George.
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Sarah Elfreth was sworn into the Maryland Senate on January 9,2019.
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Sarah Elfreth was regarded as one of the most productive members of the legislature, having passed 84 bills during her tenure, more than any other legislator during that time.
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Sarah Elfreth served as an at-large delegate to the 2020 and 2024 Democratic National Conventions.
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In 2022, Sarah Elfreth served as the chair of the Chesapeake Executive Council.
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Sarah Elfreth resigned from the Maryland Senate on January 2,2025.
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Sarah Elfreth remained neutral in the process to pick her successor.
24.
On November 4,2023, Sarah Elfreth announced that she would run for the US House of Representatives in Maryland's 3rd congressional district to succeed John Sarbanes, who had announced his retirement a week before.
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Sarah Elfreth was the only candidate in the race who expressed openness to accepting campaign contributions from corporate political action committees, saying that she would accept donations from corporations within the district, and received more than $4 million in support from AIPAC's United Democracy Project super PAC.
26.
Sarah Elfreth defended her campaign receiving support from AIPAC by saying she did not solicit the support and that she would support campaign finance reform if elected to Congress, referencing Sarbanes's For the People Act.
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Sarah Elfreth won the Democratic primary election on May 14,2024, and defeated Republican nominee Rob Steinberger in the general election on November 5,2024.
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Sarah Elfreth is the youngest woman ever elected to the US House of Representatives from Maryland.
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In June 2023, following a shooting in Annapolis that left three dead and another three injured, Sarah Elfreth attended a vigil to honor the victims of the attack and endorsed calls for accountability from state legislators.
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Sarah Elfreth played a role in gathering opposition to a resolution recommending against a policy on pornographic films following the screening of Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge at the University of Maryland, College Park, convincing other board members that there was no way to create such a policy without infringing on freedom of speech.
31.
Sarah Elfreth introduced legislation that would require the state's Commission on Environmental Justice and sustainable Communities to "reflect the racial, gender, ethnic, and geographic diversity of the state".
32.
Also in 2021, Sarah Elfreth introduced the "Student and Military Voter Empowerment Act", which would require higher education institutions to create websites to provide students with voting information and allow military members to register to vote using their Department of Defense Common Access Card.
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Sarah Elfreth co-sponsored legislation to expand the public's role in rehabilitation projects in the Chesapeake Bay Bridge resurfacing project.
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In 2023, Sarah Elfreth introduced a bill to establish a State Disaster Recovery Fund to help jurisdictions recover from natural disasters.
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Sarah Elfreth opposes conditioning US aid to Israel, saying that she believed that "all nations have a responsibility in supporting humanitarian aid to the region as the only way to begin the very long road towards a peaceful two-state solution".
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Sarah Elfreth expressed concerns with some of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's public statements during the war, but said that conversations on Israel's leadership and governance should be handled in private between it and the United States.
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Sarah Elfreth traveled to Israel for the first time in July 2023, visiting locations including an Iron Dome battery, the West Bank, religious sites, and a Hezbollah tunnel on the Lebanese border.
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Sarah Elfreth met with a Palestinian National Authority official during her visit, after which she expressed concerns with "some verbiage" used by the official and an evasive answer about the authority's failure to hold elections in the region.
39.
Sarah Elfreth supported an amendment introduced by US senator Chris Van Hollen that would condition US foreign aid on a country's compliance with international law, though a spokesperson clarified her belief "that Israel is acting in accordance with these laws" and later reiterated that she would only support requiring countries to comply with existing conditions as opposed to establishing new conditions.
40.
In January 2025, Sarah Elfreth voted against a bill to place sanctions on the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
41.
In February 2025, Sarah Elfreth condemned comments made by President Donald Trump blaming Ukraine for Russia's invasion and calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a dictator, but said that she agreed with the president's calls for members of NATO to invest more into the security of Europe.
42.
In June 2023, Sarah Elfreth spoke in support of the Gun Safety Act, which increased the requirements and fees to obtain handgun permits and limited where gun owners could carry their weapons.
43.
In June 2024, Sarah Elfreth signed onto a Maryland Healthcare for All pledge to support legislation to extend Inflation Reduction Act-provided healthcare benefits beyond 2025.
44.
Sarah Elfreth opposed the Trump administration's efforts to fire and reclassify thousands of federal workers at various agencies, saying that there was "no check and balance" on the Department of Government Efficiency and criticized its director, Elon Musk, for having "billions of dollars in self interest with contracts with this federal government and foreign governments".
45.
Sarah Elfreth introduced the "David Perez Military Heroes Act", which provides state funding for psychedelic research to help military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, which passed and became law.
46.
In March 2023, Sarah Elfreth was one of five Democrats to vote for an amendment to decouple the state's gas tax from inflation.