John Hoff

**John Edward Hoffman** (born January 8, 1960) Is an American politician, who is the former President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate, and is the Junior Senator from Maryland. He is a former U.S Congressman from Maryland’s 6th Congressional District, State Representative for Maryland’s 47th district, and the former Mayor of Westminster Maryland.

## Early Life, education, and career

Hoff was born to Mark and Judy Hoff, January 8, 1940, in the town of Westminster, Maryland. Born on a farm, Hoff would grow familiar with hard work, having to work 5 hours after school, and 7 on the weekends. In 1954, they moved into rural Westminster because of financial issues, where he would remain until he went to college in 1971. He was apart of the 1968 graduate class from Westminster high school. He would attend the university of Maryland, where he would major in political science. He has said this is where he got an interest in politics. He Graduated in 1972.

## Mayor of Westminster

In January of 1981, Hoff announced his candidacy for Mayor of Westminster, Maryland. In order to proceed his father who was retiring , after serving in the position for twenty years. Hoff ran on a campaign for a higher minimum wage, and low income tax tax, saying how important it is for people to keep the money they earned. He ran against Don Stevens, who was a three term city councilman. In the general election, he won by 34%, and would assume office May 3rd.

In his first year as mayor, he increased the city’s minimum wage from $6.45 to $8.54, with unanimous support from the city council. He would also reduce the income tax by 14%, which had also received unanimous support from the council. He would work in many community projects during his first year, like establishing the Dwight Eisenhower memorial park, which would hold many events such as ceremonies, and sports games.

In his second year, he would work towards establishing new low-income neighborhoods, for people in poverty. He would also open numerous job opportunities in the city, by building new homes and neighborhoods, as well as fixing the towns roads. By the end of the year, poverty had reduced by 7.8%, and employment had increased by 12.4%.

In his third year, the town would see an increase in AIDs, which had been raging across the country since 1981. He would approve of a plan to spread AIDs awareness, and open clinics to properly handle AIDs. He would give many speeches to spread awareness about AIDs, and how important it is to stay away from the deadly disease, by the end of 1984, cases would have dropped by 23.8%.

In his last term, he fought to handle crime, by increasing the police departments funding, and establishing a new drug crime unit by January 13, 1985. As of the late 1980s, the city had been fighting the growing increase in the use of drugs, which had destroyed neighborhoods and increased crime by 18%. When he left office, crime would decrease by 3.56% in seven days, he resigned from office on January 20, 1985 to assume the office of State Legislature, for the Maryland state assembly.

## Maryland State Assembly

In 1984 Hoff announced his candidacy for the Maryland State House, as the incumbent Lance Matthews was retiring. He was running against Republican, Earl Stevens who was described as a “Overzealous idiot”. During the general election, he won with 67% of the vote.

On January 20, 1985 Hoff assume his office and immediately got to work, introducing legislation to increase funding for the state police and funding for local roads and highways. Hoff had worked with, then governor Harry Hughes to improve the states curriculum, and decrease the rising crime rates.

He would work to reform the states criminal justice system as well, by introducing legislation that would have non-partisan judges be appointed, instead of judges with a political party, to allow for less bias in court cases.

Hoff would be re-elected to a second term in 1988, being re-elected with 87.7% of the vote. Hoff would resign on January 3, 1991 to assume the role of United States Representative, the seat he has won in 1990.