Steven is an attorney who works for a nonprofit, helping low-income families stabilize their housing. In his work he sees so many laws that shouldn't exist and that particularly harm low-income people.
Steven is running for State Senator because we need laws that work and that work for everyone.
Before becoming an attorney, Steven served as a math teacher at Forest Park High School in Baltimore. There he saw students failed by the system that was supposed to teach them. He learned that we need systemic changes to address systemic injustice.
Steven is particularly equipped to fix the issues that face our district. This is not just because of his experience as an attorney, but also because he has first hand experience seeing how complicated issues like vacant houses, drug addiction, poverty, and injustice play out in his own neighborhood. Steven deeply cares about these issues and the people that face them.
Steven's vision is for a Maryland that provides an adequate education to everyone, where everyone feels safe in their neighborhood, where there are no vacant houses, where everyone has economic opportunity, and addiction is no more. Steven will work towards that future as your senator.
Steven is focused on the pressing issues facing our district:
economic justice,
vacant houses,
safety,
education and
voting.
Steven poses for a photo to help a Pigtown mushroom farmer.
Steven isn't just going to make empty promises or offer empty talk. Over his first four years, Steven has four tangible goals to bring economic justice to West Baltimore and low-income people across Maryland: end tax sale, repeal the inheritance tax, eliminate ground rent and reform probate. He's focusing on these issues because these are the issues he knows and nobody else is fixing them.
Steven presents to other attorneys about the Maryland inheritance tax and how it is really discriminatory based on family composition.
It's hard to figure out what Hayes believes, but one of the only things he talks about is what money he brought back to the district. Antonio Hayes offers a top-down approach to economic development by giving subsidies to developers and grants to institutions. Steven focuses on a bottom-up approach to economic development by stabilizing the people that already live here. The first thing West Baltimore needs is not for the government to lift it up. The first thing West Baltimore needs is for the government to stop pushing it down.
Hayes is well-funded by corporate interests. Antonio Hayes has accepted $105,625 from Political Action Committees (PACs) and $13,250 from BGE and other energy companies in the past 6 years. Also, American Future, a super PAC funded by sports betting platforms has already spent $206,834.58 to support Antonio Hayes and the rest of "Team 40" as of June 10, 2026. Steven will not accept any donations from PACs or corporations so you know that he is on your side.
Hayes has also shown an apparent disregard for the community. He defunded construction of a skatepark seemingly for political or petty reasons. He introduced a bill to cut out community involvement in school board appointments. He introduced a bill to build a soccer stadium on the Carroll Park Golf Course despite opposition from the community.
Antonio Hayes has not done anything to stop the tax sale, though it has devastated Black neighborhoods in Baltimore throughout the 12 years he has been in office. Ending tax sale is Steven's first priority.