Justin Ready

Justin D. Ready (born April 15, 1982) is an American politician who has served as a member of the Maryland Senate since 2015, representing District 5 in Carroll County.

He graduated from Carroll Community College in 2002, and afterwards attended Salisbury University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 2004.

Ready became interested in politics at a young age.

After graduating from Salisbury, working as a field director on the 2004 U.S. Senate campaign of E. J. Pipkin.

He later worked as a legislative aide to state delegate J. B. Jennings from 2004 to 2006, afterwards working as the chief of staff for state senator Janet Greenip.

In April 2008, the Maryland Republican Party named Ready as its executive director, replacing John Flynn.

Also in 2008, Ready unsuccessfully ran for delegate to the Republican National Convention, pledged to Mike Huckabee.

He served in this position until July 2009, when he was fired by party chairman James Pelura for "personnel reasons".

Ready's firing eventually led to the removal of Pelura as chairman of the Maryland Republican Party.

On January 5, 2010, Ready announced that he would run for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 5A, challenging incumbent state delegates Nancy R. Stocksdale and Tanya Thornton Shewell.

He won the Republican primary, placing first with 39.3 percent of the vote, and later defeated Democrats Francis X. Walsh and Sharon L. Baker in the general election alongside Stocksdale.

He previously represented the district in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2011 to 2015.

Ready was born in Mobile, Alabama, but moved to Westminster, Maryland, at the age of 11 after living in Mississippi.

Ready later served as an interim executive director from July to December 2011.

Ready was sworn in on January 12, 2011, and served as a member of the Health and Government Operations Committee.

In 2011, Ready served as a co-chair for Rick Perry's 2012 presidential campaign in Maryland.

He later ran for delegate to the Republican National Convention pledged to Perry, receiving 1.2 percent of the vote.

He ran for re-election to a second term in 2014.

Ready was a member of Larry Hogan's Change Maryland organization, and later served Hogan's transition team following his upset victory in the 2014 Maryland gubernatorial election.

In January 2015, following the resignation of state senator Joseph M. Getty to serve as the chief legislative officer to Governor Larry Hogan, Ready applied to fill the vacancy left by Getty in the Maryland Senate.

The Carroll County Republican Central Committee nominated Ready alongside Dave Wallace and County Commissioner Robin Bartlett Frazier to fill the seat.

Hogan appointed Ready to the seat on February 2, and he was sworn in on the same day.

Ready served as a member of the Judicial Proceedings Committee from 2015 to 2021, afterwards serving on the Finance Committee.

In October 2021, Ready was elected to serve as the Senate minority whip.

During the 2015 legislative session, Ready introduced a bill to increase penalties for human trafficking.

The bill was withdrawn after activists expressed concerns that the bill's definition of "trafficker" was too broad.

During the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, Ready participated in organizing activities for Ted Cruz.

He celebrated Donald Trump's win in the 2016 United States presidential election, calling it a "pretty stunning repudiation of Washington, D.C., and the establishment, the media establishment, and sort of the coasts".

Ready endorsed Maryland Secretary of Commerce Kelly M. Schulz in the 2022 Maryland gubernatorial election.

After Schulz was defeated by far-right state delegate Dan Cox in the Republican primary, Ready endorsed Cox, claiming that he would act as a counter on progressive legislation passed by the legislature.

During his tenure in the Maryland House of Delegates, Ready was a member of the legislature's Tea Party caucus.

The bill was named after Laura Wallen, a pregnant woman who was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend in September 2017.

The bill passed and was signed into law by Governor Larry Hogan.

He also introduced a bill that would prohibit courts from authorizing pretrial release for an individual accused of assaulting a police officer.

During the 2023 legislative session, Ready expressed concerns with and voted against Governor Wes Moore's appointment of Vincent Schiraldi as Maryland Secretary of Juvenile Services, pointing to the Schiraldi's controversial approach to reducing juvenile crime amid the state's "crisis in juvenile crime".

Ready was elected to a full four-year term in 2018.

In 2019, Ready introduced "Laura and Reid's Law", a bill to increase penalties for murdering a pregnant woman.

In January 2020, the American Conservative Union gave Ready a score of 76 percent on its annual legislative scorecard, the highest score among members of the Maryland Senate.

In the Maryland Senate, Ready repeatedly introduced and supported bills to increase penalties on violent crimes, including those involving guns.

He has called crime in Baltimore "out of control and destabilizing our entire region", and has expressed skepticism on claims that gun control would decrease violent crime.