Martin O’Malley served as the Commissioner of Social Security from December 20, 2023 to November 29, 2025. He was appointed by President Biden to turnaround an Agency where customer service was in rapid decline after Congress had reduced its staffing to a fifty year low as its customer base c,imbed to a record high.
By the end of the Biden Admninstration, every timeliness metric had been turned in a better direction with agency reaching a fifteen year best in speed to answer its 1-800 number calls, ten year best in timeliness of retirement benefit applications, and 30 year best in speed to decision on disability cases before Administrative Law Judges.
Elected Mayor of Baltimore at the age of 36, Time Magazine soon named him one of top five big city mayors in America. Later as Governor of Maryland, Governing Magazine named him Public Official of the Year. And when he ran for a President the United States in 2016, Washingtonian Magazine called him, “the best manager in government today.”
Elected to Baltimore City Council at the age of 28 in 1991, Martin O’Malley was elected Mayor of Baltimore in 1999 and then re-elected to a second term with 88% of the vote. In that role, he won Harvard University’s Innovation in American Government Award for creating, “Citistat” — a new system of performance managed government that has been widely adopted by other cities in the Information Age.
Elected Governor of Maryland in 2007, he not only led Maryland through the Recession with a faster rate of job growth than neighboring states, but for the first time ever, Maryland was recognized for five consecutive years as having the best public schools in the country, and one of the best states at holding down the cost of higher education.
Under O’Malley’s leadership, Maryland achieved the highest median family income in America, Maryland all made itself the #1 state for women in business, and for his final three years as Governor, Maryland was named #1 in Innovation and Entrepreurship by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
As Governor, he introduced and signed marriage equality into law, abolished the death penalty, and passed the Maryland DREAM Act expanding the opportunity of a college education to the children of New American immigrants.
In 2013, O’Malley led the successful fight to ban the sale of combat assault weapons in Maryland, while also driving violent crime in Maryland down to 35-year lows and the incarceration rate to 20-year lows.
Governor O’Malley ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016. O’Malley’s fearless positions on climate change, immigration reform, gun safety, and the death penalty became part of the Party’s platform for the first time due — in part — to his candidacy.