Your trusted source for contextualizing Election 2024 news. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

A Republican U.S. House candidate in Maryland repeatedly opposed a state law to remove marriage as a defense for certain classes of rape and sexual assault, stating that under such legislation, “You just pat them in the wrong way, they take it sexually inappropriately.” 

Neil Parrott, who served in the Maryland House of Delegates for 12 years, is running for a third time for the 6th Congressional District. Parrott and Democrat April McClain Delaney are vying for the Western Maryland House seat vacated by Rep. David Trone, who unsuccessfully ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

In 2020, 2021 and 2022, Parrott was consistently among the small group of lawmakers who voted against attempts to repeal Maryland laws prohibiting defendants from being prosecuted for second-degree rape and fourth-degree sex offenses if the victim was married to the accused person or was incapacitated during the assault. 

In floor debate for the second reading of H.B. 153 in February 2022, Parrott appeared to argue the legislation was unnecessary and would criminalize regular physical contact between spouses.  

“In common law, in Maryland, it’s already against the law to rape your wife, that’s no question about that, it’s against the law. But we’re talking like fourth-degree offense,” Parrott said. “I mean, you just pat them in the wrong way, they take it sexually inappropriately. That’s marriage. Those things are protected in marriage, and this law gets rid of that.” 

“This is ridiculous, and that’s why I’m voting no, and I encourage the body to vote no,” he said. 

All 50 states have outlawed marital rape since 1993. But in some states like Maryland, legal loopholes and exemptions allowed some of those accused of raping and assaulting their spouses to evade prosecution. 

The legislation Parrott opposed in 2022 passed by a vote of 125-6 on the second reading and 131-3 on its third reading, with Parrott voting against it both times. But the effort didn’t make it to the governor’s desk until 2023 when Gov. Wes Moore signed into law another iteration of the legislation, S.B. 129. 

Parrott did not respond to requests for comment.

“Neil Parrott’s comments trivializing marital rape, and his opposition to protecting victims of domestic violence are deeply disturbing, and only reinforce his troubling record of disregarding women in Maryland’s state legislature,” said Chandler Dunn, a spokesperson for Delaney’s campaign. “Once again Neil Parrott is proving his views are out of step with Maryland’s basic values and principles, and the threat he would pose to women as a member of Congress.”

Parrott, who got his start in politics as a Tea Party activist, had a reliably conservative voting record when he served in the legislature representing a Washington County-based district from 2011 to 2023. 

Delaney served in the Biden administration working on technology policy as an official in the Department of Commerce and was previously in a leadership role at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit focused on protecting child online safety. In her first television ad, she said she’s running for Congress to “rein in MAGA extremists and find common ground.” 

Delaney is also married to former Rep. John Delaney, who represented the district before running in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. 

Delaney has outraised and outspent Parrott. She has contributed almost $1.9 million of her own money to bring the campaign’s total fundraising to nearly $3 million and has spent $2.7 million through the end of June, campaign finance filings show. Parrott has raised over $554,000 and spent over $360,000. 

Election forecasters, including The Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia, have rated the district, which backed President Joe Biden by 10 points in the 2020 election, as a likely Democratic hold. 

But recent polls have shown Parrott and Delaney locked in a tight race — an independent poll from Gonzales Research & Media Services conducted in late August showed Parrott leading Delaney by two percentage points, 41 to 39 percent. A previous poll fielded in early August by Public Opinion Strategies for the National Republican Congressional Committee showed Delaney ahead by two points, 42 to 40 percent.