In Montgomery County, where are the women?

The first person to serve as Montgomery County Council president under the county’s present form of government, 54 years ago, was Idamae Garrott. In 1974, Garrott was the Democratic nominee for county executive, losing to Republican incumbent James Gleason by 6 points.

All these years later, that’s the closest a woman has come to being elected county executive in Maryland’s largest jurisdiction.

All but one of the state’s other “Big Eight” jurisdictions have had at least one, and in some cases more than one, female leader during that time. The other exception, Baltimore County, could be on the precipice of ending its all-male county executive streak, with state Sen. Katherine Klausmeier (D) a top contender to be appointed to complete the final two years of County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr.’s (D) term when Olszewski heads to Congress in January.

Even some of the state’s most conservative areas, including Cecil and Wicomico counties, have elected women county executives. Frederick County has had two county executives during its short time as a “charter” county; both have been women.

So what’s up with MoCo, Maryland’s progressive, good-government, forward-thinking county?

It was hard not to think about this circumstance watching Montgomery County Councilmember Kate Stewart (D) being sworn in Tuesday as the latest council president. Council presidents in Montgomery are selected annually by their colleagues; Stewart becomes the 10th woman since Garrott to hold the job (though three of those women, Marilyn Praisner, Nancy Floreen and Nancy Navarro, served more than once).

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“Madame President: If we can’t say that at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I’m proud we can say it at 100 Maryland Avenue [the council building in Rockville],” Councilmember Evan Glass (D) said Tuesday, praising Stewart’s elevation.

Several colleagues said that strategically and temperamentally, Stewart is the ideal person for the job.

But her ascension is transitory. The question is whether there is anything to build on.

Now that Montgomery County voters have overwhelmingly embraced a two-term limit for their county executives, the incumbent, Marc Elrich (D), becomes a lame duck, and more than a few speakers at the investiture ceremony for Stewart and County Councilmember Will Jawando (D) as council vice president suggested Tuesday’s meeting was the unofficial kickoff of the 2026 campaign.

Montgomery County being Montgomery County, Elrich and the council members are still going to craft policy, and there was universal agreement Tuesday that the county government needs to be a bulwark against whatever comes down from the Trump administration. The word of the day, based on the speeches, appeared to be “fidelity.”

“This year will be a challenge,” Stewart said during her own address. “But what gives me hope is that I get to be part of a group of people who share the goal of ensuring Montgomery County lives up to our values of being a welcoming and inclusive community with a thriving economy and the best education system to prepare our young people and families for the future.”

The policymaking is going to be punctuated with politics over the next two years, and the voters’ decision to deny Elrich the opportunity to seek a third term has quickened the pulses — and anxieties — of ambitious Montgomery County pols.

The early line for 2026, as the bettors might say, shows three council members likely to run for Elrich’s job: Glass, Jawando and Andrew Friedson (D), who just finished a year as council president. Montgomery County political professionals also see Councilmember Gabe Albornoz (D) and Rich Madaleno, the county’s chief administrative officer and a former state senator and candidate for governor, as possible contenders.

All are honorable and high-quality public servants who would bring different assets, different political (if occasionally overlapping) bases and different priorities to a campaign for executive. All are shrewd politicians and good communicators who would represent Montgomery County well in Annapolis, in the media, across the region and beyond.

But where, looking ahead to the 2026 election, are the women? Montgomery County has six women on the 11-member council — all, like Stewart, serving their first terms. Like their five male counterparts, who have all been there longer, they have different skill sets and have focused on a range of issues during their time in Rockville.

Yet all have the same rough level of qualifications as the men who are lining up to run for executive. Stewart, for one, is a former Takoma Park mayor who chairs the council’s Government Operations and Fiscal Policy and Audit committees and had a stint as board chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Where are the women?

Expanding the view, there are three women in Montgomery County’s state Senate delegation, and 14 in its House delegation (this does not include the three Howard County lawmakers who also represent a sliver of Montgomery). There are women serving in municipal governments and on the county Board of Education and in an array of relevant positions inside and out of government.

As of now, none, so far as we know, is looking to run for executive — though that could change. Some county union leaders are reaching out to at least one woman council member, and maybe more, to at least check in about the executive’s race.

There is no guarantee that a woman would be an effective candidate or a successful county executive. But isn’t it time for Montgomery County to join the 21st century and offer its voters a wider choice than they’re getting now?

Meanwhile, with 2026 politics clearly on their minds, two women on the council, Dawn Luedtke (D) and Natali Fani-González (D), have introduced a resolution that would prevent a council member who is running for higher office from serving as council president. A cynic would say it’s meant to target Jawando, who by tradition is in line to become the next council president, and would serve from the end of 2025 through most of 2026 — during the heat of the ’26 election.

In an interview Tuesday, Luedtke said the idea behind the resolution is to ensure cohesion and prevent distractions on the council, especially during troubling times, with Donald Trump about to enter the White House again and the state government awash in red ink.

In recent history, though, the Montgomery Council has had members serving as president while running for executive: Tom Hucker did so in 2021, while he and another council member, Hans Riemer, geared up to challenge Elrich in the 2022 Democratic primary (Hucker eventually dropped out of that race to run unsuccessfully for a council at-large seat). Roger Berliner served as council president in 2017, while he and two council colleagues, Elrich and George Leventhal, were running for executive in the 2018 election.

“You forget about [the dilemma] until it becomes really relevant again, and now it’s become relevant again,” Luedtke said.

The council is tentatively expected to debate the measure at its next meeting.

Disclosure: The author’s daughter works for the Montgomery County Council.