Draft:Evan Glass

Evan Matthew Glass (born January 30, 1977) is an American politician from Maryland serving as a member of the Montgomery County Council. A Democrat, Glass serves as an At-Large member of the Council representing all 1.1 million residents of Montgomery County, MD. He is the first openly LGBTQ+ person to serve on the Council.

Glass was elected to his second term in November 2022. On December 6, 2022, the Montgomery County Council unanimously elected Glass to serve as president of the Council for a one-year term. Glass serves as chair of the council’s Transportation & Environment Committee and as a member of the council’s Economic Development Committee.

First elected in 2018, Glass served as Vice President from December 2021 through December 2022. During his first term on the council, Glass successfully passed the Montgomery County Pay Equity Act,  the LGBTQ Bill of Rights  and the Oversight and Small Business Investment Act. He also spearheaded the efforts to expand food composting, made public buses free for all residents under the age of 18 and amended the county’s charter to add two new council districts.

Glass also serves as the council’s representative to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ board of directors and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Climate Energy & Environment Policy Committee. He previously served on the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments’ Transportation Planning Board, the National Association of Counties Large Urban Caucus Committee and the Montgomery County Interagency Commission on Homelessness.

Early life and education
Evan Glass was born in Westbury, New York to Mona Glass, a bookkeeper, and David Glass, an insurance underwriter. An only child, Glass’ parents divorced when he was five and he grew up in a traditional Levitt home with his mother, who worked two jobs to provide for the family. A graduate of W. Tresper Clarke High School, Glass was active in the school newspaper and Model Congress. He went on to attend American University in Washington, DC, and earned bachelor's degrees in both journalism and political science.

Career
Immediately after graduating from college in 1999, Glass began a 12-year journalism career at CNN. First hired to work as a video researcher in the Washington bureau’s library, he worked his way through various positions to serve as a Congressional producer, a role in which he covered Capitol Hill, presidential campaigns and national politics. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Glass traveled the country serving as one of CNN’s primary journalists covering the Republican field and the campaign of the eventual GOP nominee John McCain. His coverage and reporting on election night from McCain’s headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona earned him an Emmy nomination.

Glass left CNN in 2011 to serve as a strategic communications consultant with Reingold Inc and as an independent consultant. In these roles he worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs, Generation Hope, Jewish Foundation for Group Homes and other nonprofit organizations. In 2014 Glass became the executive director of Gandhi Brigade Youth Media, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching media and advocacy skills to underserved youth. During his four-year tenure, Glass expanded the innovative after school program from operating at one location in Montgomery County to eight. In addition he launched the Montgomery County Youth Media Festival in partnership with the AFI Silver Theatre and fulfilled the organization’s dream of having a permanent home by successfully leading a capital campaign and building a new headquarters in the Silver Spring Library.

Montgomery County Council
In 2018, Glass ran a successful campaign and was elected by voters of Montgomery to serve as an at-large member of the 19th Montgomery County Council for a four-year term beginning in December 2018. During this first term, he served as Council Vice President from December 2021 through December 2022. In November 2022, Glass was elected to his second four-year term as an at-large member of the 20th Montgomery County Council. On December 6, 2022, the Council unanimously elected Glass to serve as president of the Council for a one-year term.

Glass serves as Chair of the Montgomery County Council’s Transportation & Environment Committee and as member of the Council’s Economic Development Committee.

Community and Political Activism
Glass quickly became active in community organizations after moving to Maryland. In 2005 he co-founded the South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association in an effort to improve pedestrian infrastructure and public safety. A marquee of his leadership of the South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association was the South Silver Spring Festival, which celebrated the burgeoning downtown Silver Spring community.

Over the years, Glass was invited to join numerous boards and commissions that supported the environment (Conservation Montgomery), affordable housing (Montgomery Housing Partnership) and community engagement (Safe Silver Spring).

In 2011, weeks after Glass left CNN, he was asked to join the board of Equality Maryland, where he helped the organizational efforts to pass marriage equality in Maryland – the first state to do so by referendum.

Elections
=== 2014 === In 2013, Glass announced his intention to run for the Montgomery County Council’s 5th District, a heavily Democratic district based in Burtonsville, Silver Spring, Takoma Park and White Oak. As a result of the resignation of sitting councilmember Valerie Ervin, the open seat attracted five Democrats vying for the nomination, including two-term Maryland Delegate Tom Hucker and Montgomery County Board of Education member Christopher Barclay. Glass was endorsed by the Washington Post and Gazette newspapers, Takoma Park Mayor Bruce Williams and community leaders from across the district. He ultimately came in second place, behind Hucker by 222 votes out of 20,000 cast.

2018
Glass officially launched his campaign for a countywide At-Large seat on the Montgomery County Council in September 2017. As a result of newly instituted term limits, three of the four At-Large seats were open. Glass joined a field of 32 other candidates for the Democratic nomination, being endorsed by the Washington Post, the Sierra Club and other community, civic and business organizations. He ultimately placed third in the June primary and placed first in the November election.

2022
Glass launched his re-election campaign in May 2021. In a field of eight Democrats, Glass came in first place, receiving a historic 88,301 votes. In November 2022, he came in first place against seven other candidates, receiving a historic 238,001 votes.