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Sarah Siddiqui Wolek addresses a question during a forum earlier this months for applicants to the District 16 House of Delegates vacancy. Screenshot.

The Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee on Tuesday night nominated Sarah Siddiqui Wolek for a vacancy to serve in the House of Delegates representing Bethesda-based District 16.

Wolek prevailed over a crowded field that included a former state lawmaker, a mayor, and several policy experts and political insiders. She was nominated to replace Ariana Kelly (D), who was elevated to the state Senate earlier this month following a vacancy there. Kelly had served in the House since 2011.

Eighteen people sought to replace her through the central committees application process. Wolek won after three rounds of balloting shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday.

Saman Qadeer Ahmad, chair of the central committee, said a letter of nomination would be sent to Gov. Wes Moore (D) later Tuesday night. The governor has 15 days to make the appointment to the seat.

Wolek is a professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and is the founding director of the universitys Intentional Life Lab, which seeks to help students develop meaningful life and career paths while managing well-being and mental health.

She worked in the federal government for more than a decade, including posts at the U.S. Treasury Department, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the White House Office of Management and Budget. She left the White House shortly after the 2016 election.

Wolek highlighted her familys roots during the interview process. She described herself as as a first-generation South Asian-American Muslim woman married to a Catholic Polish immigrant raising three children who attend county public schools.

Wolek grew up in Montgomery County, in neighboring District 15, and spent part of her childhood in Pakistan. Her family returned to the U.S. so a younger sibling could attend special education programs in Montgomery County.

Wolek said during the interview process that she would champion special education students and their families in Annapolis. She also wants to bringa focus to issues of mental health and well-being, pathways to home ownership, and reimagining education for a new economy to her work as a delegate.

Wolek will join House Majority Leader Marc Korman and Del. Sara Love in representing the district in the House of Delegates.

Including Kelly, Moore has already filled four vacancies in the General Assembly, all resulting from his decision to tap state lawmakers for key posts in his administration: Then-Del. Alonzo Washington (D) was appointed to replace longtime Prince Georges County state Sen. Paul Pinsky (D) after Pinsky was named director of the Maryland Energy Administration. Ashanti Martinez (D) was then appointed to replace Washington in the House.

Kelly replaced former Sen. Susan Lee (D), who has become Secretary of State in the Moore administration. And in Montgomery Countys District 14, Bernice Mireku-North (D) was appointed to the House early this year after Moore tapped Eric Luedtke, who had been the House majority leader in Annapolis, to become his chief legislative officer.

More legislative vacancies are in the offing: Del. Kirill Reznik (D-Montgomery) resigned Tuesday after almost 16 years in the House to become assistant secretary at the Maryland Department of Human Services. The Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee announced Tuesday that the application process for that vacancy will kick off Wednesday, with plans to fill the seat by April 18.

There could be other vacancies on the horizon in the state House and Senate as Moore continues to build his administration.

A bill that would require special elections for legislative vacancies in the first two years of the four-year legislative term appears to be stalled in the House Ways and Means Committee. It was introduced by Del. Linda Foley (D-Montgomery) who ironically is a former chair of the county Democratic Central Committee who was appointed to her seat to a fill a vacancy in late 2021.

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To fill House vacancy, Montgomery Democrats pick university ... - Maryland Matters

This is WESA Politics, a weekly newsletter by Chris Potter providing analysis about Pittsburgh and state politics.Sign up here to get it every Thursday afternoon.

True story: On the night in 2019 when Bethany Hallam won her seat on Allegheny County Council, I found myself after deadline at an all-night Eatn Park. Sitting a few tables away was County Treasurer John Weinstein, quietly celebrating his own (fifth!) re-election win with a couple friends. I started eavesdropping you hear a lot of stories this way, though not necessarily about politics and Weinstein was praising Hallams campaign: She worked hard, he said, but she never attacked rival John DeFazio personally.

I let Weinstein know I was there, and we exchanged pleasantries. He left shortly after, and when I got ready to go 20 minutes later, I discovered hed paid the server for my order of pretzel sticks.

A couple lessons could be drawn here. First, Weinstein was impressed by Hallam from the outset. And second, hes always willing to do you a favor.

Ive been thinking of that encounter since Weinstein jumped into this years county executive race especially since last week, when state Rep. Emily Kinkead accused Hallam of trying to strike a political deal in 2022. According to Kinkead, Hallam said that if she stepped down from the county sewer authority board, Weinstein would cut off support for a candidate challenging her re-election. All in hopes that he could be appointed to fill Kinkeads board spot instead.

Hallam and Weinstein deny that account. And along with the mystery of who is telling the truth is another question: How did two young Democrats who would probably vote the same way on any issue that matters end up at odds?

One answer: Politics isnt just about the votes our leaders cast. Its about the friends, and enemies, they make along the way.

The writing was on the wall moments after Hallam was sworn in three years ago. She and other progressives joined a coalition behind now-President Pat Catena a faction of Democrats aligned with Weinstein rather than unite with those more friendly to County Executive Rich Fitzgerald.

The Fitzgerald group tends to be more socially liberal, and on paper Hallam might seem to have more in common with them. But the coalition she joined was united by something that may be even more powerful than shared convictions: opposition to almost everything Fitzgerald does.

Weinstein and Fitzgerald have long been at odds, while Hallam saw Fitzgerald as an obstacle to advancing a progressive agenda. It wasnt about ideology as much as pushing back on administrative interference, she told me. But whether that majority is motivated by political rivalry or philosophical conviction, Hallam said, It has been successful as hell.

She points to her first term, when council advanced a number of causes such as a 2021 sick leave bill that had made no progress before. Catena assigned Hallam to the Jail Oversight Board, a position that enables her to seek changes at a facility where she herself was once detained on drug charges.

Hallam said that given the chance, I would do it all over again, though she acknowledged that some allies started turning on us the day we backed Catena.

Some still question the decision. Fitzgerald ally Tom Duerr, who was sworn in alongside Hallam, said joining Team Weinstein may have seemed like the most expedient path. But he said the resulting political tensions delayed progress on such issues as sick leave, which took more than a year to get done.

There could have been fewer hurdles to get where she wanted, he said.

Still, if youre going to oppose Rich Fitzgerald, there are only so many allies you can turn to. And while politics abhors a vacuum, Weinstein is adept at filling it. Critics deride him as the embodiment of old-school politics, but he and his circle have sought to connect with a new generation of leaders outside county council, too.

Consider that Catena and another Weinstein friend, County Councilor Bob Palmosina, joined Hallam in endorsing progressive champion Summer Lees congressional bid a year ago. (Fitzgerald backed her chief rival, Steve Irwin.) Or that Weinstein and Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey both have ties to the powerful Laborers union and as noted here previously local political consultant Moses Nelson.

Kinkead took a different path. While Hallam backed Gainey in the 2021 Pittsburgh mayoral race, Kinkead backed the re-election of Bill Peduto, and the two shared a campaign manager. And as a state official, Kinkead has had less cause to clash with Fitzgerald even if she wanted to.

None of that would make Hallams alleged proposal more appealing, and its not clear such a deal would have helped Weinstein anyway. Gainey would have had to appoint Weinstein to fill her seat. His office says he wouldnt have, and City Council which still has Pedutoites in its ranks would have had to approve it.

But the political landscape could be different next year, with Weinstein controlling the executive branch and a friendly majority in the county legislature.

Hallam says not to worry.

Its about being a check on the executive branch, she said of her mission, and pledged to follow it no matter who holds the office. For that matter, she said, I dont want to say [Weinstein] doesnt care about council, but he doesnt take an interest in it to the point of trying to call shots.

As significant as the county executive race, though, theres a bigger picture.

One dynamic driving this election cycle is a generational struggle, as a rising tide of millennials seeks to supplant its elders. (Gen Xers are left to write political newsletters.) But you can see tensions within that younger generation too, because political conflicts, like political power, are part of the inheritance.

We may look back at 2023 as the coming of age for this new crop of leaders. Like any coming of age, that can be awkward and painful and one of the hardest parts is trying to escape the shadow of your elders.

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Allegheny County Democrats: surprising alliances and divisions - 90.5 WESA

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and a pair of Democratic lawmakers offered a tale-of-two-jails on Friday after a group visited the Washington, D.C. jail, where pre-trial defendants from Jan. 6, 2021, are being held.

Greene led the trip to the D.C. jail and was joined by other members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee from both parties. Greene who previously visited the facility in November 2021 and has been pushing to return since earlier this month said shewanted to tour the jailto address the human rights abuse inside.

But after emerging from the facility, lawmakers from opposite parties offered contrasting accounts of the conditions they had just witnessed.

What we saw today is exactly what weve known all along its a two-tiered justice system, and theres a very different treatment for pre-trial Jan. 6 defendants and the inmates or, you know, other charged defendants and inmates, Greene told reporters outside the jail. A protester blew a loud whistle during her remarks.

These men are being held, their due process rights were being violated, and they have been mistreated, she added, calling the defendants political prisoners.

Greene said the group was not able to tour the entire jail, but they did go into the Jan 6 pretrial defendant wing.

They told us stories of being denied medical treatment, they told us stories of assault, they told us stories of being threatened with rape and guards laughing about it, she said.

The congresswoman did, however, say that there had been some changes since her previous visit to the facility, noting that the jail was cleaner. But she claimed that the inmates had to clean up, scrub the floors, scrub the bathrooms, scrub their cells and paint the entire area, and that happened in this past week before lawmakers were allowed to tour the facility.

After the visit, the two Democrats who took the trip to the jail Reps. Robert Garcia (Calif.) and Jasmine Crockett (Texas) rejected Greenes description of the conditions Jan. 6 defendants were in.

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These are people that are being treated quite fairly, Garcia told MSNBCs Deadline: White House during an interview. These were conditions where they have access to medical care 24 hours a day, they have tablets for entertainment. Obviously they are being treated by the folks that are there with what their needs are, they can communicate with their families, and theyve done a huge harm to our country.

And so to see Marjorie Taylor Greene right now going on media, lying about the visit, saying that they were in terrible conditions, is just not true, he added.

Crockett who previously worked as a public defender said she witnessed privileged people during her visit to the jail in an interview with MSNBCs The ReidOut.

The privilege that I saw was actually quite astounding, even though we were supposed to talk about or review how bad the conditions were, she added. If anything, I have never seen a jail that afforded so many privileges to anyone and as I said, Ive been licensed in Texas, Arkansas and in federal courts for almost two decades.

The Texas Democrat said its kind of like theres seemingly two versions of what happened on Jan. 6; I had a completely different experience walking into this jail.

Greene and two other GOP lawmakers sent a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) earlier this month asking that she direct the D.C. Department of Corrections to arrange for lawmakers to visit and review the facilities.

The DC Jail Facilities reported mistreatment of pre-trial detainees connected to the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, raise the Committees and Members concerns that DC and DOC is violating detainees constitutional and human rights, the letter reads.

Last year, dozens of Jan. 6 detainees asked to be transferred to the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, claiming that there was black mold in the facility and worms in their food.

The request came to fruition on Friday, when a group of bipartisan lawmakers visited the facility. The Washington Post noted that the Jan. 6 defendants were in the newer Correctional Treatment Facility, and not the Central Detention Facility, which is older.

Garcia and Crockett were the only two Democrats to attend. A spokesperson for Oversight Democrats on Friday said the Democrats on the trip will cut through Republicans attempts to whitewash the dangerous realities of January 6.

There has to be someone that was gonna keep them honest, Crockett said after the visit. I mean, we know that the people that were going on this trip especially the one that led this trip they have a little bit of an issue with the truth.

A number of other Republican lawmakers joined Greene, including Reps. Byron Donalds (Fla.), Eli Crane (Ariz.) and Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.).

Following the visit to the jail, Greene claimed that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection.

Now for two years, weve heard the story from the people on the Jan. 6 committee, weve heard the story about how it was an insurrection and Im gonna tell you something right now, it was not an insurrection, Greene said. And President Trump did not tell anyone to go into the Capitol that day. And as a member of Congress who lawfully objected against Joe Bidens electoral college votes, I was following my duty and so were my colleagues that also did the same thing.

What we have to do is we have to work as hard as possible to defund the two-tiered justice system. And we have to return freedom and due-process rights to these pre-trial Jan. 6 defendants, she added.

Garcia said the worst part of the visit was when we actually saw the inmates, the Republicans rushed to them like they were celebrities.

Talking to them, patting them on the back, interacting with them. These are folks that showed no remorse, he added, referring to the Jan. 6 defendants.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.

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Greene, Democrats offer tale-of-two-jails after visit with Jan. 6 defendants - Yahoo News

For years, party insiders have stressed that the donor class is too focused on federal races, and the highest profile ones at that. The lack of attention paid to state contests has not only led to more conservative policy outcomes in the states, they warn, but less Democratic talent moving through the ranks.

The DLGAs pitch to donors and other party leaders is a bench-building one: Todays lieutenant governors are tomorrows senators and governors. They also note that Democratic lieutenant governors best represent a party that increasingly relies on the support of non-white and women voters. Of the 25 Democratic second-in-commands, which includes states where the secretary of state fills that role, 14 are women and 12 are people of color.

It is the most diverse organization of elected officials in the country, said Austin Davis, who was recently elected as Pennsylvanias first Black lieutenant governor. If you look at the number of lieutenant governors that elevate whether to the U.S. Senate, whether its governor, whether its Congress this is clearly a bench of folks who are going to be leading our party into the future.

The DLGA is looking to fashion itself as a training ground for up-and-coming Democrats, connecting them with donors and helping them build policy chops as they consider their political futures beyond their current role.

For a long time, I think the role of lieutenant governor was sort of in the background, Peggy Flanagan, the Minnesota lieutenant governor who serves on the organizations executive committee, said in an interview during a meeting of the organization in Washington this week.

Two of Senate Democrats highest profile midterm recruits were lieutenant governors: Mandela Barnes, who narrowly lost in Wisconsin to incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson, and now-Sen. John Fetterman, who won a close contest in Pennsylvania against Trump recruit Mehmet Oz. And overall in 2022, four now-former lieutenant governors won election as their states chief executives, either winning a term outright or winning a full term of their own after previously assuming the governorship following a resignation.

DLGA leadership says that it is eager to foster members future ambitions. Kevin Holst, who was recently named the committees executive director, noted that would-be donors can form relationships early with a future rockstar in the party.

Holst said that, beyond putting LGs forth as key fundraisers, one particular area of focus would be turning the committee into a centralized services hub for current and aspiring lieutenant governors.

Its a unique committee in which we are focused on electing more LGs, but we recognize that LG isnt likely the endpoint for a lot of these elected officials, he said. Can we provide the fundraising support? Can we help with press support? Can we help with profile building in their states?

Republicans also have a party committee focused on lieutenant governors, which is an arm of the Republican State Leadership Committee. The GOP version focuses on all down ballot races in states, including state legislator and secretary of state contests. The RSLC lieutenant governors website notes that these experiences often prepare our lieutenant governors for higher office, and that over a third of the countrys Republican governors were previously lieutenant governors.

Two tests in the upcoming years for the DLGA will be North Carolina in 2024 and Virginia in 2025, states where the lieutenant governor is elected independently of the governor.

The officeholders in both states are currently Republicans and both are considered potential gubernatorial candidates in the upcoming cycle.

Part of the impulse behind getting involved in these races is because Democrats lost an ultimately consequential race in North Carolina in 2020, a race the committee says it spent $1 million on. Now Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a controversial and bombastic Republican in the state, is a likely candidate as Republicans look to flip the governorship next year.

LG was a race that many people didnt pay attention to in 2020, and now it is biting us in the ass, Holst said.

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Democrats have a diverse bench waiting in the wings. They just need to pitch it to donors. - POLITICO

WASHINGTON In the nation's capital, the debate over banning TikTok has largely focused on whether the app's Chinese parent company poses a security threat to Americans.

But behind closed doors, Democrats are also being forced to weigh whether blocking the popular video platform could come with heavy political costs.

In 2020, Aidan Kohn-Murphy used TikTok to rally support for Joe Biden. Now, he's trying to use the platform to stop Biden from killing it.

Im not defending TikTok as a company, Im defending my entire generation, said the 19-year-old Harvard freshman who, as a high-schooler during the 2020 campaign founded a group called TikTok for Biden. It has since changed its name to Gen Z for Change and formally incorporated as a political nonprofit and, according to Kohn-Murphy, it now includes 500 creators with a combined 500 million followers on multiple platforms.

If they went ahead with banning TikTok, it would feel like a slap in the face to a lot of young Americans, he said.Democrats dont understand the political consequences this would have.

As the Biden administration considers banning the Chinese-owned short-form video platform with some 150 million U.S. users, young progressive activists and the older Democratic strategists trying to reach them are worried that the officials making the decision very few of whom likely regularly use TikTok have no idea how central the platform is to the lives of many in a generation that is just coming of age politically.

Gen Z the teens and 20-somethings born after 1996 skew overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic. Their stronger-than-expected turnout in the 2022 midterms was partially credited with salvaging what otherwise might have been a disastrous election for the Democratic Party.

They're still a small portion of the electorate just 9% in 2022, according to NBC News exit polls but their ranks are growing every year as more turn 18. And not all members of the generation use the app, but 1-in-5 say they get political information from TikTok, the same portion who cited teachers and classmates as information sources, according to a recent survey.

Some worry that if Washington bans Gen Zs favorite app for reasons that most are likely unfamiliar with accusations that the app is collecting user's location data and sharing it with the Chinese government it might leave a lasting political mark on an entire generation, depressing turnout, increasing apathy and shaping their view of the role of the federal government.

Banning TikTok? I mean, are you trying to engage young voters or not? What are we doing here? Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., a former middle school principal and member of the progressive squad said in an interview. They will absolutely stay at home. Theres no question about that.

I think weve sort of reached two conclusions here. The first is that the politics of this are very rough. And the second is that all of that has to be set aside because of nonhyperbolic national security concerns, said another Democratic member of Congress who has used the platform but supports a potential ban and who requested anonymity to speak candidly. I dont know that theres a balance to be struck. I think there might just be a political price to be paid.

Even Bidens commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, acknowledged the danger in a candid interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. The politician in me thinks youre gonna literally lose every voter under 35, forever, she said, before going to explain why a ban may still be necessary.

The politician in me thinks youre gonna literally lose every voter under 35, forever.

Democrat campaign operatives have increasingly seen the value of using the platform to reach young people including those working for Biden, who have on multiple occasions invited young TikTokers to the White House to help push their message on Covid vaccines, the War in Ukraine and their climate goals.

It can be hard for older Americans even older millennials who came of age with Facebook, but before Twitter to appreciate the centrality of TikTok in the lives and identity of Gen Z.

About 62% of TikTok U.S. users are under 30 and market research shows many young people turn to TikTok to look up information even before a Google search. A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that while 49% of all Americans support banning TikTok, 63% of 18-to-34 year-olds oppose the ban.

John Della Volpe, a pollster who specializes in young voters and authored Fight: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear, compares the platforms significance to Seinfeld for Gen X. And he said the data privacy concerns driving the potential TikTok ban are not as salient to young people.

They kind of feel like the cats already out of the bag on their data, he said. Disrupting or censoring one of Gen Zs main entertainment outlets without clearly communicating the personal and national security risks would meet a certain backlash.

Kurt Bardella, a Republican-turned-Democratic strategist who also works with entertainers, just returned from a country music industry convention in Nashville where he was surprised to find that even stars who broke through on TikTok were unaware of its potentially imminent demise.

I asked one of the artists who has done very well on TikTok if he had a plan B and the artist had no idea what I was talking about. And that was very illuminating to me that people whose livelihood depend on this had no idea, he said. I imagine theres a lot of young people, frankly, who have no idea that the cord could be unplugged any day or any week now. I think it will come as a massive shock.

It could very well be their first foray into politics for many of them and their first experience with how politics directly impacts their life, he added.

On the other side of the issue, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he worries about Chinas ability to use TikTok for content manipulation or propaganda, particularly with young people, noting that Chinese children are exposed to entirely different types of content on the app than Americans.

When asked about Raimondos remarks, Warner acknowledged that there is a political reality but added that if TikTok goes away, he thinks the market will create an alternative one that isnt ultimately controlled by an authoritarian regime.

Ioana Literat, a professor at Columbia Universitys Teachers College, has been studying young people on TikTok since before it was TikTok, when the app was called Music.ly, and even one of the biggest political hashtags during the 2016 election had only 1,600 videos.

Since then, the app has exploded in popularity and become undeniably the go-to place for young people today and the meeting place for an unusually cohesive generational community.

Its become inextricably linked to Gen Z culture. Its almost synonymous with Gen Z culture, said Literat. Theres such a strong sense of generational identity on TikTok and theyre self-consciously painting their generational self-portrait in real time. There are tons of videos that in effect say, GenZ is like this, Gen Z is not like that.

The generational identity forged on TikTok values political activism and expression, Literat said, calling the platform such an important political sandbox for young people in addition to being an effective way to organize them.

Literat is unsure that GenZ TikTok users will migrate en masse to another platform, given their enmeshment in the platform and its vaunted algorithm that, unlike Facebook or Instagrams, spotlights content from unknown creators that can turn students into stars overnight.

Young people see politics personally, she said. Taking away from them this platform that is so important in their personal lives will further tap into their personal view of politics and I dont think they will take it lightly.

Victoria Hammett, a 24-year-old progressive TikToker and abortion rights activist, said political creators want new rules applied to all social media platforms, not just TikTok. By banning TikTok, we would just be allowing Meta to further monopolize this space, she said of Facebook and Instagrams parent company.

Still, Democratic strategist Andrew Feldman said banning the app may well be worth the political cost especially since polls show Gen Z voters overwhelmingly agree with Democrats on nearly every issue.

The question here is what price are we willing to pay to put up with TikTok? he said. Yes, absolutely this is a political challenge, because this is Gen Zs favorite social media platform. But at the same time, theres a real cost here [to letting the app continue as is] and Democrats need to have a moral compass.

Even if Biden does this, we still have the high ground with young voters, we can still maintain the voting bloc, Feldman said. I see us winning every other issue. Thats not going to change just because we ban TikTok.

Alex Seitz-Wald is a senior politics reporter for NBC News.

Sahil Kapur is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.

Carol E. Lee contributed.

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TikTok ban would be 'a slap in the face' to young Democratic voters, activists warn - NBC News