‘A colleague, a mentor and friend’: Former Maryland state Sen. Ulysses Currie dies at 82
Sen. Ulysses Currie, a Prince George’s County Democrat who rose from humble beginnings to serve as a leader in the Maryland State Senate, has died. He was 82 years old.
Maryland Senate President Mike Miller issued a statement that read, in part, “I woke up this morning to the sad news of the passing of former Sen. Ulysses Currie.”
Miller said Currie was a sharecropper’s son, the first in his family to graduate college, and that he spent decades as an educator in Prince George’s County, Maryland.
Miller added, “He was a colleague, a mentor and friend, and I will miss him very much.”
State Sen. Jim Rosapepe served with Currie as part of the Prince George’s County delegation. Rosapepe said, “He was one of my best friends in the legislature and in Prince George’s County politics.”
Rosapepe said one of the things he remembers most about Currie is the late senator’s dedication to standing up for those in need. When a proposal to establish schools for children of immigrants got pushback in Prince George’s County, Rosapepe said Currie appealed directly to the community, telling constituents at a PTA meeting, “Look, they’re all our children.”
Currie chaired the powerful Maryland Senate Budget and Taxation Committee. He lost that position after he was indicted on federal corruption charges in 2010.
Currie was on the payroll of Shoppers Food Warehouse as a consultant while serving in the Maryland Senate. He was acquitted on the federal charges, but was censured by his Senate colleagues and stripped of his leadership posts in February 2012.
When that vote was taken, he apologized to his Senate colleagues and voted for his own censure.
Rosapepe said Currie continued to have the support of his constituents, winning reelection twice after his legal troubles. Rosapepe said of Currie’s constituents, “They understood that he was not a perfect man, but that he was a good man.”
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