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Ryan Sullivan (Maryland)
Ryan Sullivan (Green Party) ran for election to the Maryland House of Delegates to represent District 7. He lost in the general election on November 6, 2018.
Sullivan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2018. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Sullivan attended the University of Maryland Baltimore County from 2013 to 2016. His professional experience includes working as a food service worker and philosophy research assistant.[1]
Elections
2018
General election
General election for Maryland House of Delegates District 7 (Historical) (3 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Maryland House of Delegates District 7 (Historical) on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Kathy Szeliga (R) | 25.4 | 38,617 |
| ✔ |  | Lauren Arikan (R) | 23.3 | 35,476 |
| ✔ |  | Rick Impallaria (R) | 22.5 | 34,223 |
 | Allison Berkowitz (D) | 12.8 | 19,550 | |
 | Gordon Koerner (D)  | 10.3 | 15,614 | |
 | Ryan Sullivan (G) | 5.5 | 8,443 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.2 | 324 | ||
| Total votes: 152,247 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Maryland House of Delegates District 7 (Historical) (3 seats)
Allison Berkowitz and Gordon Koerner advanced from the Democratic primary for Maryland House of Delegates District 7 (Historical) on June 26, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Allison Berkowitz | 54.3 | 5,814 |
| ✔ | | Gordon Koerner | 45.7 | 4,893 |
| Total votes: 10,707 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Maryland House of Delegates District 7 (Historical) (3 seats)
The following candidates ran in the Republican primary for Maryland House of Delegates District 7 (Historical) on June 26, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Kathy Szeliga | 23.3 | 7,127 |
| ✔ | | Rick Impallaria | 14.7 | 4,494 |
| ✔ | | Lauren Arikan | 13.6 | 4,173 |
| Aaron Penman | 10.5 | 3,216 | ||
| Bill Paulshock | 9.4 | 2,869 | ||
 | Michael Geppi | 6.7 | 2,044 | |
| Dave Seman | 6.5 | 1,981 | ||
| Tammy Larkin | 6.3 | 1,934 | ||
| Joshua Barlow | 5.1 | 1,548 | ||
| Angela Sudano-Marcellino | 1.6 | 498 | ||
| Russ English Jr. | 1.2 | 374 | ||
| Norm Gifford | 0.7 | 219 | ||
| Trevor Leach | 0.5 | 148 | ||
| Total votes: 30,625 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2018
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Ryan Sullivan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Sullivan's responses.
What would be your top three priorities, if elected?
Workers getting the wealth they produce. Ending Occupational policing. Sanctuary for all.
What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?
I'm very passionate about clawing back our austerity ridden public policy for working peoples interests rather then lazy rich parasites who produce nothing and perform no socially necessary function.
Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?
Fred Hampton. He lived for the people and died for the people. Doesn't get more noble then that.
Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?
Settlers: The Myth Of The White Proletariat Wretched Of The Earth Introduction to the Reading of Hegel Empire
What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?
Commitment to the interests and prosperity of the working class.
What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?
An earnestness and rigorous approach to positive ideas that is virtually extinct in the US circa 2018
What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?
Empowering the multitude
What legacy would you like to leave?
Living for the people
What was the last song that got stuck in your head?
The Internationale
What do you perceive to be your state’s greatest challenges over the next decade?
Capitalist interests and the puppet politicians beholden to them.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Biographical submission
The candidate completed Ballotpedia's biographical information submission form:
| “ | What is your political philosophy?
If elected, we would shift the Overton Window presently centered around controlled opposition, pro-corporate discourse, toward a worker and oppressed centered politic, capable of challenging predatory monopolies, government austerity, violent/oppressive authority, and the dictatorship of the wealthy we're collectively held hostage to. I’m running for State Delegate because I believe that my lived and political experiences, willingness to do the hard things, unwavering appeal to ethics, and nuanced insight into the instigation of positive historical/social change, represent unique qualifications for negotiating our collective interests. I’m well aware that mine is far from the standard resume one associates with political candidates, however, these aren’t standard times we’re living in. Our societies recently accelerated rate of regress in social and political domains, demands antithetical response. Without appropriate counterbalance and unapologetically justice focused politics, such as those I reliably stand by, rising fascist sentiment will most likely continue to progress, unabated by present political givens. Centrism and moderation may have seemed effective when political discourse was too narrow to permit an explicitly fascist politic, that’s unfortunately no longer the case. The rise in hate violence and political rhetoric reminiscent of fascist regimes throughout the 20th century cannot be resolved with the same failed politics that got us here. We must no longer collectively enable political platforms to Representatives like those I'm challenging, who condone genocide, support concentration camps, pine for the execution of children, hold hate rally's, or who otherwise routinely betray working communities. A tolerant and just society simply can not tolerate this level of normalized intolerance, and hope to produce anything more than dystopia, misery, and social regress. However, that change will never come from those on top. Positive historical change only ever comes from the many who're left out and abused in any era. We all must become the change we want to see in the world, working together to achieve collective rather than divided ends. A better world is possible but not guaranteed. Is there anything you would like to add? I’m running to represent our community as a delegate in the Maryland legislature because I look out and I see a world on fire . . . a world plagued with exploitation, predation, waste, greed, ecological instability, and a complete lack of political will to do anything. I see an unwillingness to seriously get at the root causes of the oppressions and abuses so many are expected to tolerate daily on the part of the media and our representatives. Like the late Stephen Hawking, I’m skeptical about humanity’s odds of surviving this century without putting an end to capitalism and its impossible contradictions. I’m running because I want my 6 year old son to have air to breathe, grass to run through, and stable ecological commons when he’s raising his kids; and I’m skeptical that our representatives are serious about making that happen. I’m running because the egregiously bigoted politics of district 7’s sitting delegates demand both electoral and community based condemnation. Finally, I’m running because I optimistically believe that we can create a world where peace, cooperation, and enlightenment are the norm, not the exception; and where labor and production can radically improve our lives rather than imprison us. — Ryan Sullivan Ryan Sullivan is a lifelong Maryland resident and sole guardian of an elementary school student who attends a Baltimore County public school. He is an UMBC Philosophy Alum, former Vice President of UMBC’s Philosophy Council of Majors, and Evelyn Barker Excellence in Philosophy prize recipient. While at University of Maryland Baltimore County, Ryan presented weekly moral theory lectures as a teaching assistant, and constructed comparative analyses between Marxist and Fichtian primary and secondary sources as a philosophy research assistant. He discovered an environment wherein rejection of authority and critical thought were essential for success. The most significant philosophical influence in Ryan’s academic career was studying Hegel, through which he learned to form holistically objective analysis. His independent and thesis based coursework focused on transhumanist and comparative ethics, bioethics, phenomenology, and the metaphysics of personal identity, which in turn he developed an ethos of future-focused human extinction risk mitigation and the demands thereof. Through additional coursework, Ryan developed an aptitude in philosophy of law, legal positivism, social contract theory, and political philosophy. Despite flourishing academically, capitalist reality and the demands of parenting alone in this system hit Ryan hard after graduation from UMBC. Turns out this society isn’t ethical, it doesn’t want critical thinkers, and it’s not interested in analysis that objectively determines dominant forms of authority to be failed and illegitimate. For these reasons and to meet childcare responsibilities, Ryan currently works as a food service worker for $3.56 an hour plus tips, just as he did through most of his twenties. As a result of these experiences, Ryan gained an understanding of practical struggle in a capitalist society that cannot be learned in a book. He learned firsthand – as so many others have – and through observation how workers are exploited and oppressed by the demands of a capitalist system. These firsthand experiences and observations made the books Ryan consumed exceedingly more real and provided him with further understanding of why the struggle against capitalism is long overdue. The revolutionary, legal, ethical, and metaphysical theory which Ryan developed in his coursework and honors thesis slowly developed from mere subjective recognition of the collective nature of well-being to an obsessive commitment to purpose his abilities and knowledge toward something greater than himself. Ryan uses his knowledge of historical progress and existential risk prevention as understood in socialist analysis to help oppressed persons and communities fight against the system, and create fundamental social and material transformation. Ryan is a delegate to the Maryland Green Party, an officer of the Baltimore County Green Party, and the Maryland Green Party liaison to the Maryland Cannabis Coalition. He sought political leadership responsibilities in the Green Party because of the inherent potential of the party’s mission to promote radically left candidates and chapters, and to elevate marginalized voices. Ryan believes that his lived and political experiences; willingness to do the hard things; unwavering appeal to ethics; his capacity to utilize theory, praxis, and analysis to objectively challenge the legitimacy of existing authority; and nuanced insight into the instigation of positive historical and social change represent unique qualifications for negotiating our collective interests. As an organizer, Ryan has focused most of his work on harm reduction initiatives and opposing anti-immigrant legislation. As a candidate and delegate, Ryan intends to create conditions in which all tolerant and oppressed persons will begin to work in tandem, struggling for collective rather than divided ends. He cannot do this alone. We must all become the change we want to see in the world. #ABetterWorldIsPossible[2] |
” |
| —Ryan Sullivan[1][3] | ||
See also
- State legislative elections, 2018
- Maryland House of Delegates elections, 2018
- Maryland House of Delegates
External links
- Search Google News for this topic
- Campaign website
- Campaign Facebook page
- Campaign Twitter feed
- Maryland General Assembly
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Information submitted through Ballotpedia's biographical submission form on July 7, 2018.
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Information submitted on Ballotpedia’s biographical information submission form on August 17, 2018
