BALTIMORE — Two city employees who were fired after making failed bids for local office last year sued Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott last week, accusing him of directing their firings because he saw them as aligning with his political opponents.

The lawsuit was filed May 2 by Margo Bruner-Settles and Liam Davis, who ran for city council seats in last year’s Democratic primary election and were terminated from their municipal jobs in the months following their losses. It claims that Scott ordered their terminations in the months after their campaign losses and his win over Sheila Dixon, because the incumbent mayor perceived the two as being aligned with his opponent.

The mayor’s administration declined to comment, with a spokesperson noting that the office doesn’t “comment on pending legal issues and will not until those proceedings are complete.” Neither Bruner-Settles nor Davis was given a specific reason for being fired in their formal termination letters

The 30-page complaint does not quote Scott directly but cites unnamed city employees who relayed that administration officials “gave an instruction” at a post-primary meeting to fire both candidates.

It alleges that an unnamed mayoral official told Davis that a Scott staffer had overheard the candidate in a restaurant saying he was “neutral” on the mayoral race — and that comment “didn’t sit well with” the mayor. It also accuses Scott’s administration of coercing a city contractor to withdraw a job offer from Davis as he sought new employment.

Davis, who ran to fill the District 1 seat vacated by Zeke Cohen, was a legislative affairs manager for the Baltimore City Department of Transportation. Bruner-Settles, who ran against District 3 incumbent Ryan Dorsey, was the chief of the city’s Employee Assistance Program.

Both candidates were “at will” employees, their termination letters note, meaning they could be dismissed for any reason without notice — unless the reason is illegal. The lawsuit claims that their firings violated their Constitutional rights to free speech and free assembly, in addition to being “traumatic” and “devastating.”

Neither of the candidates formally endorsed or exchanged campaign funds with Dixon, but the lawsuit suggests that Scott’s administration saw them both as being indirectly aligned with the former mayor’s bid to unseat him.

Both candidates received financial support from then-Councilman Eric Costello, who endorsed Dixon in the 2024 primary and lost his re-election bid in an upset.

Davis did not take a strong stance on the mayoral race, running a straightforward campaign focused on improving city services and infrastructure. The lawsuit notes that Davis is close friends with Costello, and was endorsed by his former employer and Scott’s predecessor as mayor, Bernard C. Jack Young. The District 1 candidate received 35% of the vote during the primary but ultimately lost to Cohen’s endorsed successor, pastor Mark Parker.

Bruner-Settles became a semi-controversial figure during the 2024 primary election, focusing most of her campaign on opposition to bike lanes. She lost to Dorsey, a strong advocate for those, by nearly 40 percentage points.

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