James Joyce once wrote: Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion. This might serve as a keynote for a biography of Martin O’Malley, the Mayor of Baltimore City, who is now running for Governor of the State of Maryland. The citation, from the premier Irish novelist, trumpets qualities all found in abundance in Martin.
Called one of America’s five best mayors by Time magazine, Martin is a fearless, intelligent public servant who puts people before politics. During his six years as mayor of Baltimore City, he has worked tirelessly with the city’s citizens and public servants to make it a more beautiful, cleaner city where people want to live and businesses want to invest. Proof that the O’Malley Administration’s drive to improve the quality of life in Baltimore is now bearing fruit is seen in the largest decline in violent crime of any big city in the country and in increased achievement and test scores across the board in city schools. This year the City also had a $38 million budget surplus – the largest in Baltimore’s history – and a 5 year, $75 million tax cut which has reduced property taxes to a 30 year low.
Martin O’Malley sums up Baltimore’s comeback this way: “Our story is the story of perseverance, it is the story of hope in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, and it is the story of hard work and a courageous and diverse people who join together time and time again to triumph over adversity.”
Early Years
Born in 1963, Martin was raised in Bethesda and Rockville, Maryland, the eldest son in a family of six children. His ebullient spirit was evident early on as he developed what would be lifetime passions for history, Irish culture and music.
His parents, Tom and Barbara O’Malley, instilled in their children an appreciation for the importance of public service, and the difference that political leadership can make in people’s lives. Martin inherited an interest in the practical side of politics and remembers campaigning with his father for local candidates.
“I was very lucky- I was raised in a home where pictures of King and Kennedy and Roosevelt hung on our walls. My parents taught me that public service could be a high and noble calling.”
Martin attended Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., a Jesuit school with a long history and a commitment to helping its students fulfill the ideal of becoming “Men for Others.” The idea that faith is expressed through service to those in need was a core value at the school and, along with his classmates, Martin participated in the renowned Eagle program, serving in tutoring programs and other efforts to provide assistance for the residents in the impoverished neighborhood surrounding the school.
“So you’d come in from the lily-white suburbs, and you’d see the nation’s Capitol looming up in front of you, and then when we took that left onto I Street, you’d walk by the morning line of homeless and poor and jobless men who were waiting in line at Father Horace McKenna’s,” a Jesuit priest who ministered to the poor from the church next to the school. “That was not lost to many of us walking into school by that line every day, how lucky we were, how much we had.”
His high school years were also a time when Martin expanded on his early interests in other areas, as he played football, acted in school plays, and pursued his love of music as a member of an Irish band, the Shannon Tide, which played engagements all over the region.