Michael Davis was a lawyer by profession, but it was politics that really got his juices flowing.

“He loved (politics) more than he loved the law,” said Arnold Jablon, an attorney with the law firm of Venable LLP in Towson. “The law was a means to an end. The end was politics.”

Jablon was director of the county Permits and Development Management Department when Davis was a top aide to then-County Executive Dutch Ruppersberger.

Davis, a partner with Venable, died March 5 at Johns Hopkins Hospital of complications related to a liver transplant.

HIs family will hold a private burial service on March 11. A public memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. March 28 at Alumni Hall on the campus of the Gilman School.


An Owings Mills resident, Davis was 49.

Jablon said Davis had a reputation as a politically astute adviser who was “able to warn you what roads not to take.”

“He intrinsically understood what was right and what was wrong,” Jablon said. “I think it was something he was just born with.”

Jablon said Davis had a direct, no-nonsense style that was part of his role as a lawyer, a government official and a political adviser.

“He was never adverse to telling whoever he worked for what he felt,” Jablon said. “But he never went back and said, ‘I told you so.’”

Davis, the son of a city police officer and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and raised in Randallstown. He attended public schools until his freshman year of high school at the Gilman School.

“He went to Gilman in high school during a time when Gilman was reaching out to boys who wouldn’t normally have a chance” to attend there, said his wife of 24 years, the former Ann Royston. “He would have never thought of going to Harvard if he hadn’t gone to Gilman. All of his achievements are because of Gilman’s strong foundation and showing him what he could do.”

Davis played varsity football at Gilman for Nick Schloeder Sr. It was Schloeder, Ann Davis said, who sparked her husband’s lifelong interest in politics by getting him involved in Sen. Paul Sarbanes’ 1976 campaign.

Mike Davis continued to work on local political campaigns for Sarbanes, Ruppersberger, then-Baltimore Mayor William Donald Schaefer and former Sen. Francis Kelly.

Davis would spend days poring over computer printouts of election results, said his wife, a teacher at Roland Park Country School.

“He would get a copy and sit and go page by page studying them,” she said. “He did that for years.”

Davis attended Harvard on a scholar-athlete scholarship after graduating from Gilman in 1978. He graduated from Harvard magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science in 1982.

Davis received his law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1985 and married Ann that same year.

He began his law career at Smith Somerville & Case before joining Venable. He took a leave of absence from the firm in 1995 to serve as Ruppersberger’s top aide.

Davis left his position with the county and returned to Venable in 2000. He spent most of the last decade as a land use attorney.

Ruppersberger called Davis “one of the key players in my 1994 campaign.”

“He really could recognize upcoming trends as well as anybody I knew,” Ruppersberger said.

He said Davis’ hard work and political skills were exceeded by his devotion as a husband and father.

“You never got in the way of Mike watching his kids play sports,” Ruppersberger said.

Ann Davis said her husband was extremely interested in everything their children did.

“He was never too busy to go to the silliest little recital or coach,” she said. “He was part of every little thing.”

When the couple’s daughters became interested in field hockey, for example, Michael Davis immersed himself in books and videos about the game, “learning every little nuance,” she said.

Michael and Ann Davis contracted hepatitis A last summer. Ann Davis recovered. Michael Davis grew sicker and underwent an emergency liver transplant July 6 at Johns Hopkins.
“He always felt he was going to make it,” said Ruppersberger. “He was an athlete. He was tough.”

Davis remained interested and involved in politics after the surgery
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Councilman Vince Gardina said Davis attended a dinner meeting last fall in Perry Hall to discuss Gardina’s political future.

“Everybody that wanted to run for political office talked to Mike because he was so knowledgeable,” Gardina said.

In addition to his wife, Davis is survived by the couple’s three children, Robert Davis, 21, a junior at the Naval Academy; Jessica Davis, 20,  a sophomore at Fordham University, and Blair Davis, 17, a senior at Roland Park Country School. He also is survived by his parents, Arnie and Helen Davis, of Taneytown; a brother, Glen Davis, of Owings Mills, and sisters Lisa Rozanski and Laura Shickman, both of Taneytown.

Bryan P. Sears is political editor for Patuxent Publishing Co.’s Baltimore County newspapers.

This story updates an earlier version that was posted March 9.

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