Election Preview: Nancy Jacobs

State Senator Nancy Jacobs is a veteran politician.

If reelected Tuesday, the Abingdon/Edgewood resident would start her fourth term in the state senate in January, which would mark the start of her 17th consecutive year representing Harford County in Annapolis. Jacobs was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1994, and was sworn in as a representative of District 34 in January 1995. She moved up to the Maryland Senate in the 1998 election, and was sworn in there on January 13, 1999.

District 34 runs from Joppatowne to Havre de Grace, and includes much of northern and western Cecil County. The district also includes Edgewood, where Jacobs has concentrated much legislative effort in recent years, passing successive bills giving law enforcement and community leaders more clout in their efforts to curtail gang violence.

"I passed the first gang law [in Maryland]," Jacobs says in a video on her website. "Does it do enough? No it didn't, and that's why I was back two other years with more gang legislation to toughen the penalties on these young punks who kill our families and get our children addicted to drugs and rob people."

Jacobs' most recent update to the law treats the gang as a criminal operation, allowing prosecutors to go after gang leaders for the orders they issue.

Jacobs, a Republican, has long been a supporter of tougher laws for sexual predators, and she was the chief sponsor of a new law this year to increase the minimum penalties for second degree rape of victims under the age of 13; the new minimum sentence is 15 years to life.

"I feel very strongly about protecting the children in Maryland, about protecting them from harmful drugs, protecting them from bullying, and protecting them from violent sexual predators," Jacobs said in another video on her website.

Jacobs, 59, serves on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. She grew up in West Virginia and has a Bachelor's in journalism and speech from West Virginia University. She worked in television in Virginia before moving to Harford in the mid 1970s, where she was the owner-operator West Shore Indoor Tennis Club in Edgewood until 1984. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jacobs worked with the Maryland chapter of Concerned Women of America, and also taught English, sold real estate, wrote a local political column and hosted a talk radio show.

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In response to interview requests from Patch, Senator Jacobs sent the following statement in an email Sunday afternoon, which was in part a response to the election preview story that we ran on her opponent, Art Helton:

"I'm proud to be running on a campaign of 'Making a Difference.' We chose this motto because it reflects the work we've done on items like Jessica's Law, Birth Match, Tougher Gang Laws and much more. But we also chose this motto because it's reflective of the fact that it's not just me, it's been an effort of our community fighting next to me for things we believe in. And of course, there is more work to do.

"I think I can win because people agree with our motto of 'Making a Difference' and people agree with me that our working families and small businesses are overtaxed and our spending is out of control. So many voters have told me they appreciated me fighting hard against the O'Malley tax hikes. It's a big point of contention between my opponent and I. I believe it's a horrible idea to pass job-killing tax hikes in this economy. I believe we must have a balanced budget that doesn't dig a deeper hole with billions in new deficits.

"I've resided in this district for over 38 years. We've raised our daughters here. And five of our grandkids are being raised here too. I couldn't afford to simply by a new house to change my residency at will.

"Art and I have met before on the campaign trail in 2002 where he lost by a larger margin than [Democratic state senate candidate Bill] Kilby did in 2006. Unfortunately, Art would rather rewrite history than concede that his ideas such as new tax hikes and spending our way into deeper deficits don't resonate with voters. You can't spend your way out of a deficit.

"The Harford County Delegation is composed of the delegates elected that represent a portion of Harford County. It does not include the county's three state senators. We always met separately. The implication that we run the delegation is troubling. It follows the implication that we directly vote on school funding when in fact the State's Board of Public Works (Governor, Comptroller and Treasurer) vote on school funding. It's one thing to run for office on policy disagreements, it's another thing all together to try to run on things that are out of the control of the given office."