Marvin Mandel, American lawyer and politician, 56th Governor of Maryland (b. 1920)
Marvin Mandel (April 19, 1920 – August 30, 2015) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 56th Governor of Maryland from January 7, 1969, to January 17, 1979, including a one-and-a-half-year period when Lt. Governor Blair Lee III served as the state's acting Governor in Mandel's place from June 1977 to January 15, 1979. He was a member of the Democratic Party, as well as Maryland's first, and to date, only Jewish governor.Before he became the state's Governor, Mandel had been Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates from 1964 to 1969 and a delegate since 1952.
Mandel was elected as Governor of Maryland on January 7, 1969, by the joint vote of both houses of the Maryland General Assembly due to the approaching vacancy created by the election of Spiro T. Agnew, the incumbent governor, as Vice President of the United States, as there was no lieutenant governor at the time to succeed to the governorship, as in most other states. Such an office was created by amendment in 1970.