Shane Pendergrass began her career in government and politics as a community activist for slower growth and an adequate number of public schools in the county.

She decided to run for office after learning that her daughter and other students were taking tests not at a desk but while seated on the cafetorium floor of their crowded school.

Pendergrass' committee assignments led her to develop an interest and expertise in health insurance issues.

[8] The law allows nurse practitioners, licensed certified midwives, and other trained professionals to perform abortions, in addition to physicians.

In May 2022, after a leaked draft of a decision in the Supreme Court's Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization portended the end of a constitutional right to an abortion, lawmakers in the Women's Legislative Caucus of Maryland called on Hogan to release the training funding a year early, in July 2022.

[12][13][14] She also took steps to safeguard the separation of church and state, objecting to prayers "in Jesus' name, Amen."

Early in her career, she objected to these explicitly sectarian prayers by slamming her desk top in the House chamber.

Instead of clergy delivering religious prayers, the House of Delegates members now offer reflections.

[15] During the COVID-19 pandemic, she criticized the Hogan administration's handling of reimbursements for behavioral health services.

[16][17] During the 2022 session, she rebuked Delegate Dan Cox, who would later mount a failed run for governor of Maryland on the Republican Party ticket, after he compared a bill related to children seeking mental health services without a parents' consent to the Nazi experiments on children during Holocaust.