Dalya Attar

Dalya Attar (born October 17, 1990) is an American politician and attorney who has served as a member of the Maryland Senate representing the 41st district since 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously represented the district in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2019 to 2025. She is the first Orthodox Jewish person elected to the Maryland General Assembly and the first Orthodox Jewish woman to serve in the Maryland Senate.

In October 2025, Attar was indicted on federal extortion and conspiracy charges in connection with an alleged scheme to blackmail a former campaign consultant; she pleaded not guilty. She ran for a full four-year term in the 2026 election, but was defeated by state delegate Malcolm Ruff in the Democratic primary.

Early life and education Attar was born fourth of six children to an Iranian-Jewish father and a Moroccan-Jewish mother. She was raised as a Sephardi Orthodox Jew in Baltimore, where she attended the Bais Yaakov School for Girls. Attar later graduated from the University of Baltimore, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice in 2011, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where she earned her Juris Doctor degree in 2014.

While attending the University of Baltimore, Attar worked as a paralegal for Greenspan, Hitzel & Schrader until 2015, when she became a trial attorney for the firm. In the same year, she also began working as an assistant state's attorney in the Baltimore State's Attorney office, prosecuting narcotics and firearms cases.

Political career Attar developed an interest in criminal justice while in middle school, and became interested in politics in high school. During the Democratic primary, she ran on a platform of spurring development, improving schools, and reforming the juvenile justice system. Attar won the Democratic primary in June 2018, defeating incumbents Angela Gibson and Bilal Ali.

Attar was sworn into the Maryland House of Delegates on January 9, 2019. The Baltimore City Democratic Central Committee voted 5–3 to nominate Attar to the seat later that month. She was appointed to the seat by Governor Wes Moore and sworn in on January 24, 2025, and the youngest member of the Maryland Senate as of 2025.

2026 Maryland Senate campaign

Attar ran for election to a full term in 2026, during which she ran on a slate with delegates Samuel I. Rosenberg and Sean Stinnett. She also faced a primary challenge from state delegate Malcolm Ruff, who was backed by Moore, Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott, and U.S. representative Kweisi Mfume. In June 2026, Attar sought permission to use confidential evidence from the ongoing federal case against her in her primary campaign, which was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher.

Baltimore Brew described Attar as the frontrunner in the Democratic primary, during which she ran on law-and-order messaging that touted endorsements from the Baltimore Fraternal Order of Police and Baltimore state's attorney Ivan Bates (though Bates would distance himself from his endorsement of Attar following her October 2025 federal indictment) and highlighted state funding brought into the district. Attar was defeated by Ruff in the Democratic primary election on June 23, 2026.

Federal charges In October 2025, a federal grand jury indictment against Attar was unsealed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. It charged Attar, her brother Jay Attar, and Baltimore Police officer Kalman Finkelstein with eight counts related to extortion, conspiracy and wiretapping, stemming from an alleged scheme to silence a former consultant on Attar's 2018 House of Delegates campaign with whom she had had a falling out. Prosecutors allege that the three tracked the consultant's movements, placed a GPS device on a vehicle she was using, and concealed cameras in an apartment where she was staying; the recordings captured her in bed with a romantic partner who was married to someone else. According to the indictment, the group intended to use the footage to deter the consultant from speaking out against Attar during her 2022 re-election campaign. According to documents obtained by The Baltimore Banner, the consultant involved in the blackmail scheme told prosecutors that Attar's motive in the plot was driven by questions about potential campaign finance violations that her campaign manager raised internally, which led Attar to fire her after she raised these concerns to her.

After her charges were made public, Attar released a statement onto a community Facebook page in which she described the consultant as a "disgruntled woman" whom she fired from her 2018 campaign "for cause" and admitted to some of the conduct alleged by federal prosecutors, including having the consultant followed and having her family capture a video of the consultant, but maintained that what she did was legal. She also rejected the federal blackmail charges, instead claiming that the consultant was extorting, harassing, threatening, and stalking her and people close to her for the next six years after her firing. Attar later deleted her statement. In November 2025, she pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in federal court.

Political positions Crime and policing In March 2019, Attar voted against a bill that would allow school resource officers to carry guns in Baltimore schools. She supported a bill that would allow Johns Hopkins University to have its own private police force. During the 2020 legislative session, Attar introduced a bill that would require incarceration for violent offenders with open warrants. In January 2025, Attar proposed expanding access to "Grade A schools" to address juvenile crime in Maryland.

Education Attar supports improving public schools and providing publicly-funded scholarships for private schools. The bill was amended to remove representatives from organizations including CAIR from the hate crimes commission by requiring members to be advocates for protected classes under Maryland's hate crime laws.

Social issues Attar supports using an independent redistricting commission to draw Maryland's legislative districts.

During the 2020 legislative session, Attar introduced a bill that would prevent husbands from having a civil divorce unless they granted their wife a gett.

During the 2023 legislative session, Attar introduced legislation to move Maryland's 2024 primary date from April 23—the first day of Passover, which prevents Orthodox Jewish voters from participating in elections—to May 14. The bill's contents were added to another bill, which passed and was signed by Governor Wes Moore.

Taxes In January 2025, Attar expressed doubts with proposals to increase income taxes on millionaires to address the state's $3 billion budget deficit, suggesting that they could just leave the state to avoid paying higher taxes. She also expressed support for cutting state funding for state universities, calling it her "first choice" in choosing how to address the deficit.

Transportation During the 2022 legislative session, Attar supported a bill that would require the Maryland Department of Transportation to seek federal approval for the Red Line.

Personal life As of 2020, Attar is married to Asaf Mehrzadi, a longtime family friend. Together, they have two children.

Electoral history