Meet The Candidates: Maryland State Senate District 38

Salisbury, Md. – Maryland’s 38th Senate District encompasses parts of Wicomico, Worcester and Somerset Counties.

Come Election Day, incumbent State Sen. Mary Beth Carozza will face off against challenger Lino Cressotti.

Carozza has served on the state legislature since 2014, first as a delegate and then as a senator since 2018. Her top priorities include public safety, affordability and leveraging multilateral partnerships to support the Eastern Shore.

“I look at my job, my role as a state senator, to continue to bring the partners together to make sure that, we have a consensus on what our shore priorities are and to move forward together with them,” she said. “Whether that’s sometimes it’s something that requires a strong partnership with the business community, sometimes it’s something that has to be done locally, county level, municipal level.”

Cressotti is a former union leader and currently serves as a Baltimore County Liquor Board Inspector. His top three priorities are education, environmental resilience and creating more jobs on the Eastern Shore.

“One of the things is my background is from the building trades,” he said. “And I’m trying to encourage the building trades to open up trading facilities over here on the lower eastern shore for some of the youth that need to get jobs over here.”

To tackle rising living costs, Carozza says it’s important to tailor housing developments to each community and prioritize energy generation. “When it comes to the energy crisis, that we’re focusing on energy generation in the state of Maryland, not be so dependent on other states for the energy that we need in Maryland,” she said.

Meanwhile, Cressotti says the answer lies in updating infrastructure to support jobs. “A lot of the plants, whether they’re water plants, treatment plants, power plants all need to be upgraded to the current technology,” he said. “Being from building trades, a lot of that stuff needs to be upgraded to current stuff to try to get the cost down. Yes, affordability is a big thing in this country. We need people to get to work so they can pay their bills and just to be able to afford turn the lights and put food on the table.”

Both say they are willing to work for all constituents.

Carozza said she focuses her policy making on a broad approach that works for the diversity of her district.

“It’s never about any one policy or any one issue,” Carozza said. “It’s about moving forward with my public service in a way that serves my constituents across the district.”

Cressotti said, though it is his first time running for office, he says his experience as a union leader makes him especially equipped to listen to the concerns of others.

“My door is always open. Whether you voted for me or not. Whether you’re rich or poor, that door is open,” he said. “You will have a seat at the table.”