Isiah Leggett

Isiah "Ike" Leggett (born July 25, 1944) is an American politician from the U.S. state of Maryland, currently serving as the executive of Montgomery County, Maryland. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Born in Deweyville, Texas, Leggett attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and, after serving in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Army, earned a law degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1986, he became the first African-American elected to the county council in Montgomery County, Maryland and served on the council through 2002. He remains the only African-American ever elected to that body at-large. For two years, Leggett served as the chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party before leaving that position to run for office once again. Leggett was elected County Executive of Montgomery County in 2006, the first African-American to hold that office. Since taking office, Leggett has worked to put the County’s fiscal house in order while strengthening critical County services in education and public safety, and helping the most vulnerable. In the four years before Leggett took office, County spending grew by over 40 percent. In his first five years in office, County spending was held to zero percent. Responding to the worldwide recession that hit in 2008, Leggett closed budget gaps of over $2.6 billion, eliminating 10 percent of County government positions, while imposing furloughs (including himself), wage freezes, and changes in retirement and health benefits to save the County money. At the same time, Leggett put tens of millions of dollars into building and preserving thousands of units of affordable housing in the County, establishing a CountyStat office to ensure “real time” performance of County services, and set up a multi-agency Positive Youth Development Initiative to ensure positive programs for at-risk youth. He worked to strengthen the County’s biotechnology and life sciences sectors and also established the “311” Customer Service as a single point of entry for residents seeking County services. During Leggett’s first five years, serious crime went down in the County by 24 percent and Fire & Rescue response times to County fires improved dramatically.

Early life and education
Leggett was born on July 25, 1944 in Deweyville, Texas and grew up with twelve siblings in Alexandria, Louisiana. In Alexandria, he played football for Peabody Magnet High School. He attended Southern University in Baton Rouge, working through school as a groundskeeper in a work-study program and graduating in 1967. In his time as an undergraduate, he was a student leader in the civil rights movement and twice met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He led the on-campus civil rights movement while at the same time commanding the Southern University Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) unit. He was elected president of his class during his senior year and was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the first intercollegiate fraternity established for African-Americans. In 1968, Leggett served as an infantry captain in the United States Army during the Vietnam War and saw action near the cities of Da Nang and Saigon. In 1974, he received Master of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees from Howard University in Washington, D.C., graduating first in his law school class, followed soon after by a Master of Laws degree from George Washington University. He returned to Howard as a professor in their law school in 1976, and continued teaching at the law school through his election as County Executive in 2006, with the exception of a stint as a White House Fellow under President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Leggett is currently married to his second wife, Catherine.

Career
Leggett's first participation in county government was as an appointed member of the Montgomery County Human Relations Committee, on which he served from 1979 to 1986. He was later named Chair of the Committee. In 1986, he was elected as an at-large member of the Montgomery County Council, becoming the first African-American ever to serve on the council. To this day, he is the only African-American ever elected to county office at large. He was re-elected to the seat three more times, and served three one-year terms as council president. During his time on the council, he chaired the council's transportation and environment committee and played a role in passage of a county living wage law and a public smoking ban. In 1992, a former county council aide of Leggett's accused him of sexual harassment in a widely publicized case, but the accusation was dismissed by a jury. In 2002, Leggett declined to run for re-election to the county council. He was widely viewed as a potential running mate for Democratic nominee Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in that year's gubernatorial race. However, Townsend chose Admiral Charles R. Larson instead. Townsend and Larson lost in November when Maryland elected Robert Ehrlich to be its first Republican Governor in 40 years and Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele as its first African-American statewide elected official. When his term on the council was completed in December of that year, Leggett was elected to a term as chairman of the Maryland Democratic Party. Leggett's chairmanship was seen by some Democratic activists as important to maintaining the African-American base of the Maryland Democratic Party and rebuilding the party's strength following the 2002 gubernatorial loss.

2006 campaign for county executive
Following the election of 2004, Maryland politicians started announcing their intentions for the 2006 elections. Among them was three-term County Executive Doug Duncan, who was in the early stages of a run for Governor. In December 2004, Leggett left his position as Chair of the Maryland Democratic Party to begin a campaign to replace Duncan as Montgomery County Executive. In the Democratic primary election Leggett squared off against a former colleague from the council, Steve Silverman. Leggett and Silverman engaged in a long series of debates beginning almost a year before the election. But despite being outspent by Silverman more than five to one, Leggett won the Democratic nomination for executive by 61.3 percent to 35.5 percent in the primary election on September 12, 2006. He then faced Republican nominee Chuck Floyd and independent anti-tax advocate Robin Ficker in the general election. Leggett easily won the November election with 68 percent of the vote to Floyd's 22 percent and 10 percent for Ficker. He carried 239 of the County's 241 voting precincts.

First term as county executive
In the early days of his administration, Leggett took the lead on a number of controversial issues. To help alleviate transportation funding difficulties and move County transit projects forward, he proposed a statewide gas tax increase, a position he first articulated in his race for County Executive. This proposal, which happened in the midst of a state budget crunch and in response to high levels of traffic congestion in the county, was supported by the County Council but largely ignored by incoming Governor Martin O'Malley. Leggett continued to advocate for the increase throughout his term.

Leggett also solved a vexing problem involving a hiring site for day laborers from the city of Gaithersburg and the surrounding upcounty area. During the term of Leggett's predecessor Doug Duncan, Gaithersburg had struggled to find space within the city limits that the county could lease for use as a location where the day laborers could wait for employers. The owners of virtually all of the more than 30 sites considered by the city government had refused to grant a lease for this purpose, and in the one case where the property owner was willing to consider the use, the county's efforts to lease the property fell through after the property owner backed out. The debate became caught up in a larger national debate about the role of illegal immigrants in American society. Leggett located a site for day laborer center on county-owned land. Despite opposition from anti-immigrant voices, the Center has served hundreds of workers and employers without incident.

Additionally, Leggett came out in favor of a proposed partial moratorium on new real-estate development in the county. This moratorium was proposed by Councilmember Marilyn Praisner, and was intended to allow the County time to reevaluate and revise its growth policy. Critics of the moratorium expressed concerns that it might cause economic harm to the county, sending the message to the business community that the county was unpredictable. Despite Leggett's support, however, the moratorium law was altered so that it did not completely stop applications for new development but rather placed increased regulation on them while the county planning board and county council revised the county's planning process.

Second term as county executive
Leggett was unopposed in the 2010 Democratic Party primary for County Executive. In the general election, he was opposed by Republican Party candidate Douglas Rosenfeld. In the November balloting, Leggett won reelection with 66 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Rosenfeld, carrying 227 of the County's 252 precincts.