(RANDALLSTOWN – August 3, 2026) – What if the District 10 Unity Team’s endorsement of Ruben Amaya was never primarily about the Baltimore County Council?
What if it was about protecting Delegate N. Scott Phillips?
That is my theory.
District 10’s legislative team represents a majority-Black district. Yet members of that team threw their political weight behind Amaya, a young Latino candidate, in the race to represent another majority-Black district on the Baltimore County Council.
Let me be clear: The issue is not that a Latino candidate cannot represent Black constituents. Black and Latino communities should not be pitted against one another. Voters have every right to support whomever they believe will serve them best.
The real issue is whether political insiders attempted to influence the outcome behind closed doors—and whether two Black candidates were told one thing while the political establishment did another.
According to accounts shared with me, Lawrence Williams and Danita Tolson were told that members of the District 10 legislative team planned to remain neutral in the council race.
Then the political establishment lined up behind Amaya.
Why?
I believe Amaya may have been encouraged to run for County Council—and offered the support of powerful political figures—so that he would not run for the House of Delegates again.
I cannot presently prove that such an agreement was made. But the certified election results provide a factual basis for asking the question.
The 912-Vote Problem
In the 2022 Democratic primary, voters could select three candidates for the three District 10 delegate seats.
Adrienne Jones finished first with 12,591 votes. Jennifer White finished second with 8,410 votes. Phillips claimed the third and final nomination with 5,161 votes.
Ruben Amaya finished fourth with 4,249 votes.
Only 912 votes separated Amaya from Phillips and a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates.
Amaya was not some distant or theoretical threat. He was the candidate standing directly behind Phillips.
Phillips has also established a pattern of finishing third among the District 10 winners.
He finished third in the 2022 Democratic primary. He finished behind Jones and White again in the 2022 general election.
Then came the 2026 Democratic primary.
Jennifer White Holland finished first with 11,871 votes. Robin Harvey finished second with 10,648 votes. Phillips captured the third and final nomination with 9,354 votes.
Once again, Phillips won. But once again, he was the last winner across the line.
Inside Annapolis, however, Phillips holds a much stronger position. His legislative colleagues elected him chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, which has been described as the largest state legislative Black caucus in the country.
That creates an extraordinary political contrast: Phillips holds one of the most important positions in Black political leadership, yet at home he has repeatedly occupied the delegation’s most vulnerable electoral position.
What might have happened if Amaya had challenged him again in 2026?
Would Phillips have survived a rematch with the young candidate who came within 912 votes of taking his seat four years earlier?
Would it have been politically embarrassing for the chairman of the Black Caucus to lose?
Did Phillips—or others interested in protecting the stability of the delegation—recognize that danger?
Those are questions, not established conclusions.
Was a Political Deal Cut?
Was Amaya told, in effect, “Run for County Council instead of delegate, and we will support you”?
Did Phillips encourage members of the District 10 team to support Amaya?
Again, I do not currently have proof that those conversations occurred. I am not presenting a backroom agreement as an established fact.
I am examining who benefited from the political arrangement that emerged.
Amaya benefited by receiving heavyweight endorsements in his County Council campaign.
Members of the District 10 team potentially benefited from the possibility of gaining an ally on the County Council.
Phillips benefited because the candidate who came closest to taking his delegate seat in 2022 entered a different race in 2026.
Phillips then survived the 2026 primary—once again in third place.
None of that proves that an agreement was made. It does, however, establish a political motive and a remarkably convenient outcome.
Maybe it was all a coincidence.
But in politics, when an arrangement benefits everyone inside the room, the public has every right to ask what was discussed before the door closed.
“Chess, Not Checkers”?
Yesterday, a lifelong Baltimore County resident offered another explanation.
“The District 10 Unity Team is playing chess, not checkers,” he told me. “They’re looking at the long game. They’re looking at what Ruben Amaya can help bring to the district.”
Bring from where?
We are talking about a majority-Black district that was represented by the Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates. It is now represented by the chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus.
Maryland also has a Black governor and a Black attorney general.
Who, exactly, does District 10 need Ruben Amaya to reach?
What door can he open that Adrienne Jones could not open? Who can he call that Scott Phillips cannot call? What can Amaya take to Governor Moore that District 10’s own Black elected leadership cannot take to him directly?
Did I miss something?
The deck is already stacked in District 10’s favor. Its elected officials hold—or have held—some of the most powerful positions in Maryland government.
Yet we are supposed to believe that these leaders need Amaya to help them gain access, influence or resources?
Are you serious?
Some people may call that chess. I call it poor thinking.
Actually, I call it broke thinking.
That is not strategy.
If, after obtaining all those titles and positions, the leadership of a majority-Black district still needs somebody else to carry its concerns to a Black governor, what in the hell has it been waiting for?
Black people in America have been waiting for more than 400 years.
We have the governor. We have the attorney general. District 10 had the speaker and now has the chairman of the Black Caucus.
If this is not the moment to exercise Black political power directly, when will that moment ever come?
What in the hell are we still waiting for?
The “chess, not checkers” explanation does not satisfy me. It sounds less like a long-term strategy for the community and more like a convenient justification for a political arrangement that protected people already holding office.
What Were Williams and Tolson Told?
The endorsement becomes even more troubling if Lawrence Williams and Danita Tolson were told that members of the legislative team intended to stay out of the race.
Elected officials have every right to endorse the candidates of their choice. Williams and Tolson were not automatically entitled to anyone’s support simply because they are Black.
But every candidate is entitled to be dealt with honestly.
If members of the team had already decided—or were moving toward a decision—to support Amaya, why tell the other candidates that they would remain neutral?
Were Williams and Tolson kept in the dark while political support was being organized behind Amaya?
That question deserves an answer.
This is not merely about who received an endorsement. It is about whether political leaders dealt honestly with the candidates and the electorate they serve.
The situation leaves a nasty taste in the mouths of the candidates and, truth be told, throughout the broader community.
District 10 Deserves Answers
Maybe my theory is wrong.
Perhaps there was no coordinated effort to redirect Amaya into the County Council race and protect Phillips from another delegate challenge.
The District 10 team can help clear that up by answering some straightforward questions:
- When did its members decide to endorse Ruben Amaya?
- Who initiated the endorsement discussions?
- Did any member encourage Amaya to run for County Council instead of delegate?
- Were Lawrence Williams or Danita Tolson told that the team would remain neutral?
- Did Phillips discuss Amaya’s political future with Adrienne Jones?
- Was the 912-vote margin between Phillips and Amaya in 2022 ever discussed?
- What, specifically, did the team believe Amaya could bring to District 10 that its own powerful delegation could not?
Those questions should be put directly to the people involved. Their answers—or their refusal to answer—should become part of the public record.
The public may never hear everything that was said in private.
But the certified election results are in plain sight.
In 2022, Ruben Amaya came within 912 votes of taking Scott Phillips’s place in the House of Delegates.
In 2026, Amaya ran for County Council with heavyweight political support. Phillips avoided a rematch and once again finished third in the delegate primary.
Maybe the District 10 team was playing chess.
Or maybe powerful incumbents simply moved a dangerous piece off Scott Phillips’s side of the board.
