Carmen Amedori, a Carroll County Republican, served in the House of Delegates from 1998 to 2002. Photo by Bryan P. Sears.
Carmen Amedori, a Republican delegate from Carroll County who was a strong supporter of gun rights, died Sunday after a long battle with chronic kidney disease. She was 68 years old.
Amedori developed a reputation as an outspoken conservative, passionate about criminal and juvenile justice issues. Retired Maryland Supreme Court Chief Justice Joseph Getty, who also represented Carroll County in the House and served on the Judiciary Committee with Amedori, remembers her as “very talented as a legislator.”
“She was extremely diligent in her work on the committee, especially having served as a district court commissioner before serving in the House of Delegates,” Getty said. “She knew real-life situations in criminal law.”
Getty said he was not surprised by her accomplishments as a lawmaker. “She had enough legal points of contact that made her a very good member,” he said.
Getty said Amedori’s work didn’t stop when the legislative day ended.
“I had young children so I liked to go back to Manchester whenever I could. When I arrived to sit on the floor at 10 a.m., Carmen would tell me all the background stories and topics and everything that was going on in the Chamber,” Getty said, adding that Amedori’s “network was very intense.”
Amedori has battled kidney disease for the past six years. Nicole Amedori said her mother kept the nature of the illness to herself until her health rapidly deteriorated last weekend and she was admitted to home hospice care. She died peacefully at her home in Westminster.
Amedori was born on November 25, 1955, in Baltimore, the fourth of five children of Carmine “Mimi” Mario Amedori, who opened a Highlandtown Tavern after retiring as a foreman for a Baltimore construction company, and Delores Grace Amedori (née Perry). , a housewife.
She attended Franklin High School in the Reisterstown area of Baltimore County and later attended Villa Julie College, now known as Stevenson University, where she graduated with a degree in paralegal studies in 1975. After graduation, Amedori worked as a paralegal in family, criminal and real estate law until 1985.
It was then that she worked briefly as a journalist, first for the Baltimore Sun and then for the Carroll County Times. She has won several awards for her reporting.
In 1991, she took a job as a District Court commissioner in Carroll County.
In 1994, she served as campaign manager for her husband Jerry F. Barnes in his successful campaign for Carroll County State’s Attorney. She was elected to the House in 1998 and re-elected four years later.
Republicans, then as now, were a minority in the legislature. Some of Amedori’s former colleagues said the Carroll County lawmaker developed a reputation as a conservative firebrand, a bomb thrower who some dubbed “Carmen Armageddon.”
Bobby Zirkin, former chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, served with Amedori on the House Judiciary Committee in 2003, when he debated legislation to allow cannabis research and create a medical use defense for people accused of possession.
“We have now legalized cannabis,” Zirkin said. “We wouldn’t have this without passing a medical cannabis program, and we wouldn’t have medical cannabis without passing the Darrell Putnam Compassionate Use Act. And this would not have happened without Carmen Amedori’s vote.”
The bill, sponsored in previous years by Del. Don Murphy (R-Baltimore County), failed. Del. Joseph Vallario, then chief justice, opposed the bill on the grounds that the state should not pass laws that conflict with federal laws. Zirkin said Vallario had the votes to kill the bill, and Amedori, a rule-of-law Republican, was one of them.
“So we’re fighting, we’re debating, and Carmen is very quiet and voted against it,” Zirkin said. “I mean, she was always strident and voted against it.”
But Getty, who was on the committee at the time, voted in favor of the bill, citing his mother’s battle with cancer. When the call reached Amedori, she changed her mind and voted to remove the bill from committee.
“As soon as she does this, the president slams his hand on a book or the table, shouting and mumbling at the same time as only he can do,” Zirkin said. “You couldn’t really understand what he was saying, just picking up little words like marijuana, federal law. I think he may have used some swear words, but I’m not 100% sure. He just gets up and says, ‘We’re done,’ and leaves in the middle of voting.”
Soon after, lawmakers reached an agreement that did not legalize the drug, but created a defense for medicinal use. This was approved and sanctioned by the then governor. Roberto Erhlich.
Her daughters Nicole and Kara described their mother as “a force,” with Kara saying that “it was because of things like that” that her mother earned the nickname “Carmen Armageddon.”
Amedori also enjoyed reading and painting, Nicole said.
Two years into her second term, she was appointed to a seat on the Maryland Parole Commission by Ehrlich, and served on the commission until 2010.
She ran briefly as a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2010 on a ticket opposing Ehrlich in the Republican Party primary, but later dropped out and encouraged Republicans to support Ehrlich.
“Carmen Amedori has accumulated an enviable resume in public service throughout her professional career,” Ehrlich said in a Facebook post. “She was an outstanding member of the Maryland General Assembly and the Maryland Parole Commission. Most importantly, she was a good friend – a staunch political competitor – and a reliable supporter of conservative causes from Annapolis to Washington. She will truly be missed.”
Amedori was preceded in death by her former husband Jerry Barnes, her parents, her sister Carol Ann Amedori Long and brothers Joseph “Ricci” Ricardo Amedori and John Patrick Amedori I.
Alongside her daughters Nicole of Baltimore and Kara, a Florida resident, she is survived by her husband, Timothy Wade Headley, and a sister, Mariea Amedori of Ocean Pines.
A Memorial service for Amedori is planned for a later date.
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