Guy Guzzone

Guy Joseph Guzzone (born March 27, 1964) is an American politician who has served as a member of the Maryland Senate representing District 13 since 2015, and as its majority leader from 2019 to 2020.

Guzzone was born in Baltimore on March 27, 1964.

He graduated from Parkville High School and attended the University of Maryland, College Park, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and government & politics in 1986, and later his Master of Public Administration degree in public management as a MacArthur Graduate Fellow in 1988.

He later served as a special assistant to county councilmember Shane Pendergrass from 1991 to 1995.

Guzzone was married to Pam Guzzone, whom he moved from Parkville to Columbia with in 1992 and later divorced.

Pam was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2022.

Together, they have three children.

Guzzone has Lyme disease.

In 1994, Guzzone was appointed to the Kings Contrivance village board of directors, serving as its chair from 1995 to 1998.

From 1996 to 1998, he served as the state director of the Maryland Sierra Club.

On October 26, 1997, Guzzone announced that he would run for the Howard County Council in District 3, seeking to succeed Republican Dennis R. Schrader, who unsuccessfully ran for county executive.

He ran unopposed the Democratic primary in September 1998, and faced Republican Wanda Hurt in the general election.

The election was seen as the most competitive in the county, as the winning candidate would decide who held the majority on the county council.

Guzzone defeated Hurt in the general election on November 5, 1998, with 58.1 percent of the vote.

He was sworn into the county council in December 1998, and served as the council's chair in 2001 and from 2003 to 2005.

In November 2005, after initially considering a run for county executive, Guzzone anonunced that he would run for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 13, challenging Neil F. Quinter, who briefly ran for Congress in 2006.

During the Democratic primary, he ran on a slate with incumbent state delegates Shane Pendergrass and Frank S. Turner.

In 2006, Guzzone chaired the transition team of Howard County Executive-elect Kenneth Ulman.

Guzzone won the Democratic primary in September 2006, placing third and edging out Quinter, and defeated Republican challengers in the general election.

A member of the Democratic Party, he previously represented the district in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2007 to 2015, and as a member of the Howard County Council from 1998 to 2006.

Guzzone was sworn in on January 10, 2007, and was a member of the Appropriations Committee during his entire tenure.

Guzzone also attended Georgetown University, where he earned an executive certificate in juvenile justice and multi-system integration in 2008.

Guzzone first got involved in politics as a college intern for U.S. Representative Bill Nelson.

In January 2012, Guzzone criticized Governor Martin O'Malley's plan to shift responsibility for teachers' pensions to local jurisdictions, saying that he would need to be "really convinced" to vote for it.

In October 2013, Guzzone was named to the Howard County organizing team for Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown's gubernatorial campaign.

On June 14, 2013, Guzzone announced that he would run for the Maryland Senate in District 13, seeking to succeed retiring state senator James N. Robey.

During his campaign, he ran on a slate with Vanessa Atterbeary and state delegates Shane Pendergrass and Frank S. Turner.

Guzzone ran in the Democratic primary unopposed and won the general election on November 4, 2014, defeating Republican challenger Jody Venkatesan with 62.3 percent of the vote.

Guzzone was sworn in on January 14, 2015, and has been a member of the Budget and Taxation Committee during his entire tenure.

During the 2017 legislative session, Guzzone introduced legislation to increase funding for the Maryland Legal Services Corporation, the state's largest funder of civil legal aid, which passed and became law.

During the 2021 legislative session, Guzzone said he supported Governor Hogan's RELIEF Act, which provided $750 stimulus checks to low-income families in Maryland, calling it a "good place for us to start".

He supported the "Maryland Senate Recovery Now" amendment to the bill, which added $520 million in grants to businesses and workers on unemployment insurance to the bill.

In February 2023, Guzzone said that the Budget and Taxation Committee would begin interpreting bills with funding mandates through the lens of a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2020 that gave the legislature increased power over fiscal policy.

In November 2018, Senate President Thomas V. Miller Jr. announced that he would appoint Guzzone as majority leader of the Maryland Senate.

After Miller announced that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, he was seen as a likely candidate to succeed him if Miller was to step down, but he declined, instead endorsing eventual Senate President Bill Ferguson, who returned the favor by appointing Guzzone to chair the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee following his election.

During his tenure as chair, he implemented a three-minute limit on testimonies and frequently utilized work groups to develop policy.

In 2018, Guzzone chaired the transition team of Howard County Executive-elect Calvin Ball III.

In January 2020, after Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks and Baltimore mayor Jack Young expressed concern about the cost of the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, Guzzone promised to get "every county and city" on board with the funding formulas in the bill.

Legislators would later amend the bill's funding formulas to lessen its impacts on poorer areas of the state, which decreased the bill's cost to Prince George's County to $183 million and to Baltimore to $170 million by 2030.

Guzzone also supported legislation to creating a tax on online advertising and expanding the state sales tax to include online streaming services, and an amendment that would limit the Blueprint's implementation if state revenues dropped by more than 7.5 percent.