HARRY R. HUGHES
Governor of Maryland
Harry Roe Hughes was inaugurated on Janu-
ary 17, 1979, as the fifty-seventh Governor of the
State of Maryland. In the general election of 1978
he received the largest majority of the vote re-
corded by a Maryland gubernatorial candidate in
this century and one of the two largest attained
in the entire election history of the State. He
swept the State, carrying by substantial majorities
Baltimore City and all but two of the twenty-
three Maryland counties,
Governor Hughes came to the office of Chief
Executive with twenty-two years of experience in
State service, sixteen years as a legislator, and six
years as a cabinet officer directing one of the
State's largest and most complex agencies—the
Department of Transportation.
As a legislator Governor Hughes held key
positions of leadership and authored much of the
significant legislation enacted during the period,
particularly in the areas of tax reform and educa-
tion. As Senate majority leader and as chairman
of numerous standing and study committees, he
is identified with the important advancements
made in the sixties and early seventies in tax revi-
sion, in improving fiscal relations between the
State and its counties and municipalities, and in
increases in State aid for public education. As the
State's first Secretary of Transportation he
attained national recognition for his role in
establishing and operating a department that
combined all modes of transportation — a depart-
ment that served as a model to many other states
that were organizing or reorganizing departments
of transportation.
Governor Hughes was born in Easton, Mary-
land, on November 13, 1926. He lived in Denton
and was educated in the public schools of Caro-
line County. As a young man he explored the
possibilities of a career in professional baseball af-
ter pitching on high school and college teams.
Upon graduation from college he played a sum-
mer of professional baseball with the farm team
of the New York Yankees in Easton and the
Federalsburg independent team.
Enlisting at age seventeen. Governor Hughes
served a year-and-a-half tour of duty with the
U.S. Navy Air Corps in World War 11, after which
he entered the University of Maryland, receiving a
B.S. degree in 1949. Prior to entering the Univer-
sity of Maryland he had attended Mercersburg
Academy in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and

Mount Saint Mary's College in Western Mary-
land. After receiving his undergraduate degree he
entered the George Washington University School
of Law, receiving his LL.B. degree in 1952. He
was admitted to the practice of law in Maryland
the same year and entered the practice in Denton
in 1952.
Hughes was elected to the Maryland House of
Delegates in the election of 1954 and served one
term (1955- 1958) in that body representing Car-
oline County. In the election of 1958 he ran for
the Senate and was elected. There he spent twelve
years (1959-1970), first representing Caroline
County, and after reapportionment the Upper
Eastern Shore counties. He moved to leadership
positions rapidly, serving on the important Legis-
lative Council while a member of the House and
later as a Senator.
In 1962 Hughes was appointed Chairman of
the Committee on Taxation and Fiscal Matters,
which at the time played a prominent role in the
Legislature's interim fiscal activities. It was that
committee that began a series of advancements in
State-local fiscal relationships that was to contin-
ue over many years and indeed continues today.
Out of the report of the Committee on Taxation
and Fiscal Matters to the Legislature in 1964
came the first major revision since its establish-
ment in the 1920s of the State's equalization pro-
gram for public education.
In 1965 Senator Hughes became majority floor
leader of the Senate and Chairman of the influen-
tial Senate Committee on Finance. It was in this
capacity that he directed much of the important
legislation that was to be enacted over the next
few years.
In 1965 a Commission on State and County
Finance, headed by Dr. Paul D. Cooper, submit-
ted a report recommending sweeping changes in
State and local taxes and in State and local fiscal
relations. The General Assembly that same year
adopted a resolution asking for the appointment
of a special legislative commission to study
and evaluate that report and to make its
recommendations to the Legislature at the 1966
session.
Senator Hughes was named Chairman of what
came to be called the Special Legislative Commis-
sion on State and Local Taxation and Financial
Relations. In its report to the Legislature in Janu-
ary 1966, the Commission recommended drastic
changes in the tax structure as well as substantial
increases in State aid to local governments for ed-
ucation and other purposes. The recommenda-