McKay Session-In-Review Books Face Critical Ethics, Campaign Finance Reviews

By Bryan P. Sears, Maryland Matters

July 25, 2025

Two self-published books by a Western Maryland state senator could face negative reviews from a legislative ethics panel and the Maryland State Board of Elections.

“The 90 Day Report,” a paperback by Sen. Mike McKay (R-Western Maryland) and available on Amazon, provides a detailed look at every bill the veteran lawmaker sponsored or cast a final vote on during the 2024 and 2025 General Assembly Sessions.

McKay sees the print-on-demand books as a cost-efficient modernization of the traditional lawmaker practice of informing constituents of their doings during the 90-day legislative session.

But ethics and campaign officials are looking at it against a tangle of ethics rules governing use of official titles, state employees, prestige of office and the commingling of state resources — namely legislative staff paid by taxpayer dollars — and campaign finances. Even if strictly legal, it could run afoul of ethics laws warning of the “appearance” of an ethics issue.

Sen. Mike McKay (R-Western Maryland). (File Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters.)

McKay acknowledged that the books are under review by both the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics and by officials at the Maryland State Board of Elections.

“I just think that it’s outside of the box, just modernizing,” McKay said in an interview Thursday. “I’ve just taken the exact same thing that it’s always been and I’m just trying to figure out a new way to communicate to the people who sent me down to Annapolis.”

McKay is a 10-year veteran of the General Assembly who served two terms in the House of Delegates before being sworn in as a senator in 2023.

Lawmakers routinely email and mail — at taxpayer expense — legislative updates to constituents, along with other information they may have requested. Legislative rules limit how widely the mailings can be distributed to prevent their use as state-funded campaign materials.

McKay’s self-published paperback books — and their cover charges — are not typical. The kerfuffle around his 2024 book was a surprise, the senator said.

“I wasn’t intentionally trying to sell books or trying to advertise the books or anything like that,” McKay said. “A lot of these questions, I don’t know anything about it, because it wasn’t our intent. And since it wasn’t our intent, I didn’t know it was a question.”

During his first decade or so in Annapolis, McKay said he had his staff compile information on all bills that got a final vote, as well as legislation he sponsored, and other issues that specifically affected his Western Maryland district.

Staff would then copy and organize the documents into binders that McKay would provide to local officials of towns he represented. At the time, McKay represented a single-member House district, so he needed relatively few copies.

But soon the volume of copying caught the attention of House office building staff, who asked McKay to use the General Assembly’s in-house print shop.

But McKay said, “They told me they don’t do that,” so he went to a private commercial printer for roughly two dozen or so spiral-bound books for $18 to $20 each.

When McKay became a senator, his district size tripled and providing more copies of the updates — which were also available at no cost on his campaign website — was becoming costly. Someone recommended he use Amazon’s print-on-demand service, where copies would cost him less than $6 each.

“I originally was paying for them myself, out of my business for the first 10 years of it,” McKay said. “I now have three times the (district)…I went from four municipalities — now I think I have 18 — and three county boards.”

The book compiled by Sen. Mike McKay (R-Western Maryland) is drawing ethics and campaign finance scrutiny. (Photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters.)

In 2024, McKay published his first book, “The 90 Day Report: A review of the 2024 legislative session by Senator McKay.” Copies appear to be printed on demand: An edition purchased by Maryland Matters earlier this year for $7.92, including sales tax, carries a publication date of the day it was ordered.

Inside, on unnumbered pages, is a recount in small print of “wins” for the three counties in McKay’s district. The book also includes updates on bills sponsored by the senator as well as every House and Senate bill that received a final vote in the Senate, along with how McKay voted in each instance.

In March, McKay said he was approached by Sen. Charles Sydnor (D-Baltimore County), co-chair of the legislative ethics panel. McKay described the conversation as friendly and informal. He said Sydnor raised some questions about thanking staff in the book, the use of his official title and state letterhead, a campaign logo on the back cover and a title that closely resembled an annual publication produced at the end of each session by the Department of Legislative Services.

State law bars lawmakers and other public officials from using the prestige of office to benefit themselves or others. All lawmakers get a guide to legislative ethics that warns against the use of official letterhead except for official business or constituent service. It also warns against the prominent use of official titles with a few exceptions, including resumes and employment-related biographies.

Other provisions bar the use of state resources, including office equipment, for “business, personal, or political campaign purposes.”

Lawmakers are warned against using staff for campaign work — a potential issue for McKay, since he pays for copies of the book from his campaign account. State election law requires that all expenses for the campaign have a “nexus between the campaign and the expense.”

“There was nothing official, and he was not in an official capacity, but he was the chairman,” McKay said of the discussion with Sydnor, adding that he attempted to incorporate the discussion into changes made for the 2025 edition.

Sydnor declined to comment for this article.

Sen. Charles E. Sydnor III (D-Baltimore County) and Senate co-chair of the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics. (File Photo By Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters.)

“I believe I made 99.9% of the suggestions,” said McKay. “The reason I say that is just in case I forgot one of the suggestions that I just don’t recall. But there again, this was just communicated to me as we sat in the back room of JPR (the Judicial Proceedings Committee).”

McKay’s 2025 legislative session book came out soon after. It has more color in its graphics, McKay said, and costs $13.50 before sales tax. Maryland Matters did not purchase a copy of that book.

Over the two years, McKay said he has handed out as many as 100 copies to lawmakers, constituents and local officials in his district. He buys them himself and reimburses the expense from his campaign account as “printing expenses,” according to a review of his campaign finance records and an interview with McKay.

Outside of those copies, he sold four other books, including one to staff for the legislative ethics panel and a reporter.

McKay does not report profits from the sales of the books in his financial disclosures.

“There’s no money going into me making money for this, and the statements show no royalties … because I’m not making money,” said McKay, who provided statements from the online retailer that showed no royalty payments and no immediate eligibility for royalties. “Amazon, I guess, makes some money off of it. I’m just using them as a printing company, like just a local printer.”

He said he did not know what would happen to any royalties if he earned them by some chance.

“I didn’t get any advice on how that all works, because we never expected to get any money whatsoever from it, and we haven’t, and don’t want to,” he said.

McKay said the ethics panel asked for a meeting in May.

Ethics reports aren’t always secret

In Maryland, most of the work of the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics is confidential by law. In a few circumstances, the panel recommends public disciplinary action — reprimand and censure — to the House and Senate. Recent public cases include:

In 2024, then-Del. Shaneka Henson (D-Anne Arundel) was admonished by the committee for her relationship with an Odenton church which she assisted in seeking grant funding. The five-page letter represented a rare public release of findings by the ethics panel.

In 2019, the committee recommended public discipline for two members of the House of Delegates: Del. Mary Ann Lisanti (D-Harford) was censured for her use of a racial slur. A month later, the House, acting on recommendations of the ethics committee, reprimanded Del. Hasan M. “Jay” Jalisi (D-Baltimore County) for “an ongoing pattern of unrepentant workplace bullying.”

In 2017, Del. Dan Morhaim (D-Baltimore County) was reprimanded for failing to disclose that he worked as a consultant for a company trying to open a medical marijuana dispensary in Maryland.

“I was interviewed by ethics: How’d you come up with the book? How’d you do this? All positive, not positive, but, you know, questions and all that kind of stuff,” McKay said. “And I answered all of their questions, and I just as I’m explaining to you how we got to this point, and that at no point have I ever reached out to a lobbyist or anybody about buying the book or doing anything. It was just a print house.”

Exactly what the ethics panel is reviewing or when it might act or close its review of McKay is unclear. The work of the panel is confidential by law. McKay said he has yet to hear from the committee.

Often, the panel is less about what is legal or illegal. Those issues are referred to prosecutors. Instead, the focus can be on the gray areas — the perceptions of impropriety — errors of judgment by a lawmaker that fellow lawmakers deem a dark stain on the reputation of the body.

Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) was unavailable for an interview.

“I am aware that there is an ethics investigation involving one of our Senators,” Ferguson said in the statement. “I trust the adjudicatory process the legislature has established to handle these matters with the seriousness and impartiality they require. All members of the Maryland Senate are expected to conduct themselves with the highest ethical standards, and I remain committed to ensuring integrity and accountability in our institution.”

McKay added that he met this month via video conference with staff from the Maryland State Board of Elections Division of Candidacy and Campaign Finance. The meeting came about because of issues McKay said were referred to the board by legislative ethics.

State Elections Administrator Jared DeMarinis did not respond to a request for comment.

In that meeting, he said the board asked for campaign finance records, receipts and invoices from Amazon. State law requires candidates to maintain 10 years of records that must be turned over to the board upon request.

McKay said he complied with every request.

The senator maintained throughout his interview that he did nothing wrong but conceded that if either the ethics panel or the board of elections finds differently, he would comply with their orders. So far, he said neither has had any further contact with him.

McKay did, however, lament the lack of confidentiality in the ethics committee process. The committee’s work is confidential, according to some, to protect public officials from being shamed by meritless ethics complaints.

Parties who file a complaint or are subject to one can disclose the existence of a complaint. The committee, however, does not publicly disclose complaints. In many cases, unless the panel votes to take public action such as censure or expulsion, the results of complaints are rarely made public.

“I’m not trying to think there’s any kind of nefarious or whatever, but what I think is an interesting thing is I’m being transparent and being held accountable to the people of District 1 who elected me, and to be perfectly honest, the people who didn’t vote for me,” McKay said.

“I’m still being transparent and accountable to them,” he said. “What’s interesting is this has now gotten out to two different reporters from either ethics or campaign finance, and we’ll never know, because they’re not going to be fully transparent and held accountable.”