Representative Debra Davis Contact information

Debra M. Davis, born on October 11, 1959, in Cheverly, Maryland, is an American politician who has served as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates representing District 28 since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as a member of the Charles County Board of Commissioners from 2010 to 2018.

Davis graduated from Frederick Douglass High School and later attended the University of Maryland, College Park with a Bachelor of Science degree in criminology, and the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she earned a Juris Doctor degree. Davis was admitted to the Maryland Bar in 1995 and to the District of Columbia Bar in 1996.

In 2010, Davis was elected to the Charles County Board of Commissioners, representing the Charles County District 2. During her two terms as commissioner, she gained the reputation as a maverick, often voting against the majority on issues large and small. During her second term, she also served as the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Local Government Insurance Trust, becoming the first African-American to serve as LGIT Chair.

In January 2018, Davis announced that she would run for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 28. The district was targeted by the Republican State Leadership Committee in the general election, in which Davis placed third with 23.8 percent of the vote, behind incumbents C. T. Wilson and Edith J. Patterson.

Davis was sworn in on January 9, 2019. She was a member of the Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2022, and has since served as a member of the Environment and Transportation Committee. She is also the House Chair of the Charles County Delegation and is a member of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland and the Women Legislators of Maryland.

Davis supports the removal of school resource officers (SROs) from public schools, noting that SRO programs in Charles County disproportionally affected Black and brown students, and reforms to make policing more equitable and humane. During the 2019 legislative session, Davis expressed concerns with a bill that would require judges’ names to be included in all online records, worrying that the bill would have a “chilling effect” on judges’ independence. In 2020, Davis introduced legislation that would require prosecutors to submit additional information about jailhouse informants before they could testify in a court case to identify whether they have a conflict of interest in the case.