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John Kevin Delaney celebrated his 56th birthday this past Tuesday. He was born on April 16, 1963 and grew up in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, the son of an electrician. Delaney spent part of his youth working at his father's construction site. His father was active in IBEW local 164 and scholarships sponsored by that union helped John Delaney to attend college. He also received scholarships from the American Legion, the VFW, and the Lions Club. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from Columbia University, in 1985, and a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1988. Delaney co-founded two companies, both of which are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1993, he co-founded Health Care Financial Partners (HCFP), a company designed to make loans available to smaller-sized health care service providers. HCFP went public in 1996, and its stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1998. Health Care Financial Partners was acquired by Heller Financial in 1999. Then in 2000, Delaney co-founded CapitalSource, a commercial lender headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The company provided capital to around 5,000 small and mid-size businesses during his tenure there. In 2005, CapitalSource was named one of Washingtonian Magazine's best places to work for its company culture and employee benefits.
In 2012 Delaney ran for election as a Democrat in the newly redrawn 6th District against 10-term Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett. The district had long been a Republican stronghold, but it had been significantly reconfigured. The Maryland General Assembly have moved Carroll County and a section of Frederick County (both of which traditionally voted Republican) to the heavily Democratic 8th district. It shifted sections of Harford and Baltimore counties, which traditionally voted Republican, into the already heavily Republican 1st district. Taking their place was a heavily Democratic spur of western Montgomery County, which ended just two blocks from Delaney's home in Potomac. The redrawn district, the state's second-largest, includes nearly the entire western portion of the state, with the bulk of its vote is cast in the outer suburbs of Washington, D.C.
The shifts were quite controversial. Former Governor Martin O'Malley later admitted the redrawn districts would favor Democrats. In a deposition, O'Malley admitted: "That was my hope. It was also my intent to create a district where the people would be more likely to elect a Democrat than a Republican." In the Democratic primary leading up to the election, Delaney was endorsed by former President Bill Clinton and other powerful legislators. On April 3, 2012, Delaney won the five-candidate Democratic primary field with 54% of the vote. In the November 6, 2012 general election, Delaney defeated Bartlett by 59%–38%, a 21-point margin.
Delaney won re-election in 2012, but by just over 2,200 votes. Delaney won a third term in 2016, taking 56 percent of the vote. Since his election to Congress, Delaney introduced legislation to end partisan gerrymandering, which is ironic, given the circumstances of his election. The legislation is called the Open Our Democracy Act of 2017, and it proposes the appointment of independent redistricting commissions nationwide to end partisan gerrymandering. It also proposes making Election Day a federal holiday and create an open top-two primary system.
Delaney was ranked as the most bipartisan member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy. This system ranks members of the United States Congress by their degree of bipartisanship by measuring the frequency each member's bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and each member's co-sponsorship of bills by members of the opposite party. Of the 436 members of the House, Delaney was ranked 53rd overall.
In Congress, Delaney was a member of the Committee on Financial Services, the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and the Joint Economic Committee. Within the Democratic Caucus he was a member of the New Democrat Coalition, the Congressional Arts Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the Congressional NextGen 9-1-1 Caucus and the Climate Solutions Caucus. He was a sponsor of the Medical Leave for Disabled Veterans Act (a bill to relax the criteria for eligible veterans to qualify for FMLA to seek medical treatment for their service-connected disabilities), the Veterans' Advisory Committee on Education Improvement Act of 2013 (a bill to extend through the end of 2015 the Veterans' Advisory Committee on Education and change its membership), the Partnership to Build America Act of 2013 (a bill to establish the American Infrastructure Fund), the Infrastructure 2.0 Act (a bill authorizing the use of revenue from international tax reform to fund an infrastructure bank and the Highway Trust Fund), the Medical Foods Equity Act of 2013 (a bill to extend coverage of medical foods, vitamins, and amino acids to those with metabolic disorders), and the Open Our Democracy Act (a bill that proposed to make election day a federal holiday, make all congressional primary elections open elections so all eligible voters can participate in them, and to end gerrymandering by requiring independent commissions to draw the districts in each state).
Many thought that Delaney would run for Governor of Maryland in 2018, but an July 28, 2017, Delaney announced his run for president in 2020 in a Washington Post op-ed. He did not seek re-election to Congress. He considers himself to be a pragmatic, solution-oriented legislator who defies labels such as moderate or progressive. He received the top score of 100 from the Human Rights Campaign for his support of equality-related legislation. He has also called for an increase in the corporate tax rate to 23 percent "to raise about $200 billion for infrastructure".
Delaney and his wife April met at Georgetown University Law Center. They have four daughters. His wife is the Washington, D.C. Director for Common Sense Media, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating families on social media. Two of his daughters attend Northwestern University.
Delaney has said that he won't accept any assistance from political action committees. Delaney has self-funded much of his campaign thus far. As of January 2019 Delaney had loaned his campaign committee $2.5 million of his own money, and had contributed an additional $80,000. The campaign has also received about $1.1 million in contributions. In the op-ed announcing his candidacy, Delaney wrote,
"The Democratic Party cherishes opportunity over birthright; wants people to earn a good living; offers a helping hand to the poor, the immigrant and those left behind; wants all Americans to have health care; embraces diversity, equality and justice; understands the importance of global engagements; believes that government can do transformative things; and stands ready to provide for our common defense. This is why I'm a Democrat."