--- title: After Hogan Controversy, Maryland Passes New Ethics Law description: The law requires governors to divest from their holdings or place all their assets into a blind trust. canonical: https://time.com/7283708/after-hogan-controversy-maryland-passes-new-ethics-law/ author: Eric Cortellessa article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-05-08T10:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-11T00:26:35.337Z article:section: Politics og:title: After Hogan Controversy, Maryland Passes New Ethics Law og:description: The law requires governors to divest from their holdings or place all their assets into a blind trust. og:url: https://time.com/7283708/after-hogan-controversy-maryland-passes-new-ethics-law/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltec7ea18979551d72/698a89f218689226216cd326/larry-hogan-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Senate Candidate Larry Hogan Tours AstraZeneca Facility og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: After Hogan Controversy, Maryland Passes New Ethics Law twitter:description: The law requires governors to divest from their holdings or place all their assets into a blind trust. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltec7ea18979551d72/698a89f218689226216cd326/larry-hogan-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # After Hogan Controversy, Maryland Passes New Ethics Law > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Eric Cortellessa](https://time.com/author/eric-cortellessa/)  ## Eric Cortellessa Senior Correspondent May 8, 2025 10:00 AM UTC  Larry Hogan speaks to members of the media at the AstraZeneca facility in Gaithersburg, Md., on Aug. 26, 2024. Larry Hogan speaks to members of the media at the AstraZeneca facility in Gaithersburg, Md., on Aug. 26, 2024. Graeme Sloan—Bloomberg/Getty Images  by [Eric Cortellessa](https://time.com/author/eric-cortellessa/)  ## Eric Cortellessa Senior Correspondent May 8, 2025 10:00 AM UTC Maryland governors will soon have to play by a new set of rules. On Tuesday, Gov. Wes Moore signed into law a bipartisan overhaul of the state’s ethics laws requiring future governors to put their financial holdings in a blind trust or disinvest from them entirely. The bill, authored by Democratic Delegate Marc Korman, [passed unanimously](https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb0932?ys=2025RS) in both chambers of the Maryland statehouse this spring. “We can't go back to fix the mistakes that were made in the past,” Korman says. “But we do want to make sure that you know any future governor is definitely acting on the people's behalf and not their own behalf.” The “instigating moment” that triggered the legislation, Korman says, was a TIME[report](https://time.com/7081664/exclusive-as-governor-larry-hogan-approved-millions-in-awards-to-his-firms-clients/) last October on former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s approval of millions of dollars in affordable housing awards to his real estate firm’s listed clients. Over Hogan’s eight years in office, nearly 40% of the competitive affordable housing awards overseen by the governor went to developers listed as clients on Hogan’s real estate firm’s website, according to a TIME review of public records. Those awards were concentrated among six developers who competed against more than 60 other companies during that time. As one of three members on the Board of Public Works, an administrative body that determines how Maryland taxpayer money gets spent, Hogan also voted on five occasions to issue additional loans or grants to four of those same developers. A subsequent story [found](https://time.com/7094238/larry-hogan-stepmother-property-development-exclusive/) that one of the projects Hogan approved was being developed on Hogan’s family property. In January 2021, he greenlit $15 million in low-income tax credits over ten years to convert a parcel in Frederick, Maryland into an affordable housing site. The bucolic land was purchased by Hogan’s father and stepmother in 1983 for $230,000\. After one of the Hogan firm’s clients secured the tax credit to build low-income housing there, the governor’s step mother sold the property to the developer in 2022 for $3.75 million. A spokesperson for Hogan did not respond to a request for comment on the new law. Last fall, Hogan [dismissed](https://www.wbaltv.com/article/larry-hogan-time-magazine-maryland-governor-personal-gain-allegations/62583133) TIME’s reporting as an “October surprise,” calling it “completely false” without citing any factual inaccuracies. He has argued that he held his assets in a “trust agreement” approved by the State Ethics Commission that allowed him to remain apprised of his company’s investments, investors, and other matters including the location of its real estate projects. During that time, Hogan put his brother in charge of the firm, HOGAN, and made his business partners his trustees. All the while, he continued to hold regular meetings with HOGAN’s leaders, according to his official meeting calendar, which was obtained by the _Washington Monthly_ via a FOIA request in 2019. Hogan declined to provide TIME with his tax returns for all eight years in office. When he was running for reelection in 2018, he revealed making $2.4 million during his first three years in office from undisclosed sources, making him the first governor in Maryland history to make millions of dollars while in office. Hogan’s official annual salary ranged from $165,000 to $180,000\. On a financial disclosure form from last year he reported a net worth between $12.3 million and $35 million. The new ethics law would require governors within six months of taking office to either divest from their holdings or place all their assets into a blind trust. In some rare cases, the measure allows for governors to maintain ownership of an interest but enter into a nonparticipation agreement with the State Ethics Commission. Government watchdogs argue the Maryland legislation offers a model for other states and the federal government. “I think every state should pass such a law,” says Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush Administration. “I think that bill should be copied and passed through Congress and applied to the President of the United States.” Painter and others have expressed alarm at President Trump allegedly benefiting financially from his presidency, including by recently [launching](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/04/trumps-first-100-days-crypto-coin-profits/83323189007/) a meme coin. There is also a growing movement to prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks. In a recent interview, Trump [told](https://time.com/7280114/donald-trump-2025-interview-transcript/) TIME he would sign such a ban into law. For now, though, it’s one of Washington’s neighboring states that is brandishing new government ethics reforms. “Gone are the days when a Maryland governor can make millions of dollars in office because they didn’t view their time in public service as a reason to stop their profits,” Moore said at a bill-signing ceremony in Annapolis Tuesday. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7283708/after-hogan-controversy-maryland-passes-new-ethics-law/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7283708/after-hogan-controversy-maryland-passes-new-ethics-law/"},"headline":"After Hogan Controversy, Maryland Passes New Ethics Law","datePublished":"2025-05-08T10:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-11T00:26:35.337Z","description":"The law requires governors to divest from their holdings or place all their assets into a blind trust.","url":"https://time.com/7283708/after-hogan-controversy-maryland-passes-new-ethics-law/","keywords":["2024 Elections"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltec7ea18979551d72/698a89f218689226216cd326/larry-hogan-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eric Cortellessa","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eric-cortellessa/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltec7ea18979551d72/698a89f218689226216cd326/larry-hogan-002.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Senate Candidate Larry Hogan Tours AstraZeneca Facility","caption":"Senate Candidate Larry Hogan Tours AstraZeneca Facility","creditText":"Graeme Sloan—Bloomberg/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2024-election/","name":"2024 Elections"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7283708/after-hogan-controversy-maryland-passes-new-ethics-law/","name":"After Hogan Controversy, Maryland Passes New Ethics Law"}}]}] ```