Where do Attar, Ruff stand on issues in heated MD Senate race?

Baltimore‘s 41st legislative district is proving to be the battleground for one of the most hotly contested races this midterm.

Sen. Dalya Attar, D-Baltimore City, is fighting both a criminal indictment and to keep the seat she inherited from former state Sen. Jill Carter, D-Baltimore City, in 2025, and is finding a tough opponent in Del. Malcolm P. Ruff, D-Baltimore City.

Attar has pleaded not guilty to her indictment for a scheme to blackmail a former campaign consultant. 

A lawyer, Attar was first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 2018, where she served on the Environment and Transportation and Ways and Means committees. In the Senate, she sits on the Education, Energy and the Environment Committee.

Ruff was appointed to the House of Delegates by Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, in July 2023. Also an attorney, Ruff was endorsed by Moore in the District 41 senatorial race.

With less than a week left ahead of Maryland’s June 23 primary election, it’s difficult to gauge which Democrat will come out on top in the race to represent West Baltimore’s upside-down “L” shaped district that encompasses Pimlico Race Course and Gwynns Falls.

So, where have Attar and Ruff stood on some of the state’s most pressing issues?

Juvenile justice

The legislature made big moves in 2024 as constituents reeled over an uptick in crime committed by children, passing a bill that overhauled the beleaguered Department of Juvenile Services, tightened penalties for young people and increased the number of charges kids ages 10 to 12 can face.

Attar voted in favor of the bill’s passage. Ruff was one of eight in his chamber who did not.

“We know very well from years of study that when you put someone into the criminal justice system, their trajectory immediately goes down,” Ruff said as he explained his oppositional vote. “We are going to be impacting the Black community in a way that is unfair.”

However, both Attar and Ruff championed the NyKayla Strawder Memorial Act in 2026, which will require law enforcement to forward complaints to the Department of Juvenile Services if they believe that a child under the age of 13 commits an act that results in the death of another person. The bill, which took four sessions to get across the finish line, is named in honor of NyKayla Strawder, 15, who was fatally shot by a 9-year-old boy.

Rising energy prices

In 2025, Attar co-sponsored the Next Generation Energy Act with Senate President Bill Ferguson, D-Baltimore City. The multi-faceted legislation, which was signed by Moore last May, set forth a mandate for the Public Service Commission to seek out energy generation proposals that would support consumption on the highest usage days in the summer in an effort to phase out coal and oil. The bill also provided $200 million in utility bill rebates for residential customers in the summer and winter.

Both Attar and Ruff voted in favor of the bill.

“As a member of the Senate’s Education, Energy and Environment Committee, I’ve worked closely with my colleagues to tackle this issue head-on,” Attar wrote in her 2025 end-of-session newsletter. “While there is no overnight fix, we have passed important legislation this session that will bring both short-term relief and long-term stability to energy costs for Marylanders.”

This past legislative session, Ruff and Attar both voted in favor of the Utility Reducing Energy Load Inflation for Everyday Families, or RELIEF, Act, which bars energy companies from pursuing forecast-based energy bill increases for one year, and shaves the cost of Maryland’s EmPOWER program off of customers’ utility bills, among other measures. That bill went into effect in mid-May. 

Healthcare costs

In 2025, Ruff and Attar both voted in favor of legislation that will ultimately expand the authority of Maryland’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board to set upper payment limits for all Marylanders.

Currently, the board only has the authority to set upper payment limits for state and municipal employees. Under the bill that Moore signed, the Prescription Drug Affordability Board can officially set upper payment limits for all residents once two drugs are officially approved.

Thus far, the Prescription Drug Affordability Board has recommended the approval of the diabetes drugs Jardiance and Ozempic. According to lobbyist Vinny DeMarco, both are still in the process of being approved, and will be on the Maryland Register for public comment by the end of the month. 

If they are officially approved, the board plans to have the upper payment limits for state and municipal employees go into effect on Jan. 1, 2027. If that occurs, upper payment limits can be set for all Marylanders beginning Jan. 1, 2028.

Housing justice

In 2026, Ruff sponsored legislation that created a task force to study incidents of deed fraud across the state, including the number of complaints and cases that have been resolved, the amount of restitution received, as well as which geographic areas and demographics are most affected. The task force is to submit recommendations to combat deed fraud in Maryland to the General Assembly by July 1, 2028.

“At its core, the bill is about protecting generational wealth, shielding vulnerable older adults and stopping bad actors who are exploiting gaps in our laws to steal homes, land and livelihood,” Ruff said during the February bill hearing. “When deed fraud occurs, it doesn’t just take property, it wipes out decades of sacrifice, destabilizes families and often leaves people displaced with no clear remedy.”

Both Attar and Ruff voted in favor of the bill, which Moore signed earlier this year.

Immigration reform

As the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers ramped up under President Donald Trump, Ruff was one of nearly 80 members of the House of Delegates that co-sponsored legislation that limits how state and local law enforcement officials can interact with ICE. The Community Trust Act, which went into effect without Moore’s signature, prohibits people detained at state prisons and local jails from being held at the request of ICE, or from being transferred to one of its facilities unless agents present a valid judicial warrant. State and local correctional facility employees are additionally barred from giving information to ICE, and federal immigration agents will be prohibited from entering into areas of those facilities that are off-limits to members of the public.  

The new law provides carveouts for communications with ICE if an individual is convicted of a felony under Maryland law, are convicted of an offense that lands them on the state’s sex offense registry, are sentenced to a term that would require them to serve a sentence in a state prison or if they were sentenced to and served in prison for five years in another state.

Both he and Attar voted in favor of the bill.