Michael Gordon, Longtime State Delegate, Dies

Michael Robert Gordon, a Rockville attorney and longtime state delegate representing Rockville, Gaithersburg and Garrett Park, died Aug. 29 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

He was 65.

Rockville Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio acknowledged Gordon’s death during Monday’s Rockville City Council meeting.

Gordon represented District 17 “quite well,” Marcuccio said. “Condolences to his family. I know many of us worked very closely with him over the years.”

Gordon, a Democrat, served six terms as delegate between 1983 and 2007.

‘‘It was a friendship that was sometimes better than family,” Sen. Jennie M. Forehand (D) of Rockville, said of her relationship with her longtime District 17 colleague, in a 2006 article in The Gazette.

Despite being a Republican, Carol Blum Gordon—who was married to Gordon for 25 years—worked as his aide in Annapolis for three years, The Gazette reported.

Gordon had been living with the effects of Parkinson’s for more than a decade when he retired from the General Assembly, according to The Gazette.

Click here to read the entire 2006 article in The Gazette.

A lifelong Montgomery County resident, Gordon was born in Silver Spring and graduated from . He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1969 from what was then Towson State College, where he was a member of the ROTC. He later served eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve, retiring as a captain. He received a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 1972.

In Annapolis, Gordon pushed consumer protection and tax reform measures. He served on the House Constitutional and Administrative Law Committee from 1983 to 1989, and the House Ways and Means Committee from 1989 to 1994. He was the vice chairman of the House Economic Matters Committee from 1995 to 2003, before returning to the House Ways and Means Committee from 2003 to 2006.

Gordon was appointed by House Speaker Michael E. Busch to serve as House chairman of the joint Spending Affordability Committee during what would be his final four years in the Legislature.

Click here to view Gordon’s delegate’s page on the General Assembly’s website.

Gordon co-founded the Rockville law firm of Ehrlich & Gordon, where he practiced plaintiff’s law until 2003.

He was known for supporting many community organizations, including Peerless Rockville, Manna Food Bank, Rockville Little Theater, the Montgomery County Democratic Central Committee, the Bar Association of Montgomery County and the Rockville Civic Federation. He once served as president of the West End Citizens Association.

Click here for Gordon’s complete obituary, from Danzansky-Goldberg Memorial Chapels, Inc.

Donations in Gordon’s memory can be made to the National Parkinson Foundation, by mail at 1501 N.W. 9th Avenue, Miami, FL 33136-1494 or by clicking here.