
Maryland Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis. Photo by Bryan P. Sears.
In 2013, soon after the passage of an overhaul of state campaign finance law, Jared DeMarinis was handed a badge.
DeMarinis, then the state’s director of candidacy and campaign finance, was part of an overhaul of campaign finance laws in Maryland in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United three years earlier. The new law also gave DeMarinis and his office wider latitude to issue civil violations.
The toy badge was meant as a playful tease aimed at DeMarinis. Even so, DeMarinis was the new sheriff in town.
On Friday, DeMarinis takes over as the state’s elections director, succeeding Linda Lamone, who retires after a quarter century.