Heather Mizeur

[5] Mizeur attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a Truman scholar from 1991 to 1994,[6][7] but dropped out after receiving a full-time job offer in the office of U.S. Representative Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, who she had interned for during her junior year.

[5] In 2005, after state delegate Peter Franchot announced that he would run in the 2006 Maryland Comptroller election, Mizeur entered the race to succeed him.

[16] Her running mate was Reverend Delman Coates, a Prince George's County pastor who backed the state's 2012 same-sex marriage referendum.

[5] Mizeur participated in the state's public financing system, making her the first gubernatorial candidate to limit their campaign spending since Republican Ellen Sauerbrey in 1994.

[19] During the primary, Mizeur received endorsements from former U.S. Representative Wayne Gilchrest,[20] EMILY's List,[21] the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws,[22] Sierra Club,[23] and Democracy for America.

[25][26] Mizeur was defeated by Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown in the Democratic primary election on June 25, 2014, placing third with 21.7 percent of the vote.

[29] Mizeur later endorsed Brown in an op-ed to The Baltimore Sun in October 2014, in which she asked her supporters not to vote for her as a write-in candidate in the general election.

She also sold her home in Takoma Park to move to her farm in Chestertown, Maryland, where she and her wife grow organic herbs.

Senator Barbara Mikulski, Sonja Sohn, Washington Post reporter Jenna Johnson, and Governor Larry Hogan.

[37][38] During the primary, Mizeur received endorsements from the entire Maryland House delegation (excluding Harris),[39] most Democratic candidates for governor,[40] U.S.

[41] She also received backing from the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus,[42] LGBTQ Victory Fund, LPAC, Sierra Club, and EMILY's List.

[5] The couple lived in Takoma Park while Mizeur served in the Maryland House of Delegates,[53] but later moved to Chestertown, where she owns a 34-acre herb farm, named "The Apotheosis of Washington" after the famous fresco that adorns the dome of the United States Capitol.

[61] In June 2011, Governor Martin O'Malley appointed Mizeur to a commission to investigate whether fracking endangered drinking water and public health.

[62] During the 2012 legislative session, she introduced a bill that would require natural gas companies to pay $15 per leased acre to fund the state's fracking study.

[63] In November 2014, after the study concluded and Governor O'Malley allowed energy companies to begin drilling in the state, Mizeur cautioned governor-elect Larry Hogan against acting in a rash manner when mapping out his administration's fracking proposals.

[64] In September 2011, Mizeur introduced a Democratic National Committee resolution that called on President Obama to kill the Keystone Pipeline.

[80] In July 2004, Mizeur introduced a resolution to the Takoma Park City Council supporting a lawsuit filed by nine gay couples against the state for the right to wed.

The measure passed the city council unanimously, making Takoma Park the first jurisdiction in the state to formally support same-sex marriage.

[82][83] After the bill was reintroduced and signed into law in 2012, Mizeur and her wife traveled across the state to fight opponents of Question 6, a ballot referendum seeking to overturn the Civil Marriage Protection Act.

Mizeur campaigning in 2012
Mizeur and Coates campaigning in November 2013.
Delegate Mizeur speaking at the "Surround the White House" Rally in 2011.
Question 6 supporters hold up a sign depicting Mizeur and her wife, 2012