But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and funding for the government of Israel. How we check
Andy Ellis
Green · Governor, Maryland
✓Opposes
How this mark works
We track key votes on sending U.S. weapons and money to the government of Israel. A check means every tracked vote they cast came down against sending more, on the side of peace and de-escalation. A question mark means a mixed record: they sided with sending up to half of the time. An X means they voted to send more weapons and money in over half of their tracked votes, even as the way those weapons and dollars were being used became more and more obvious. At exactly half, money this election cycle from a lobbying group we track, or an endorsement from a group that backs sending weapons, makes it an X. Only votes actually cast are counted. Where a candidate has no recorded votes on these bills, the mark comes instead from a reviewed reading of their public record (money from the lobbying groups we track, endorsements, and their own words since January 26, 2024). There an X also covers fully backing the conduct of the war by the government of Israel without significant reservations, and a question mark also covers speaking about Israel without saying clearly where they stand on U.S. weapons and funding. A dash means No Position Found: we found nothing in their own words about Israel, Gaza or the war.
Two reviewers, reading the public record as a whole, agree: In his own words he calls Israel's campaign a genocide and objects to tax dollars funding bombs dropped on Palestinian children, with nothing pointing the other way. Reviewed by hand on 2026-10-01. This candidate has no recorded tracked floor votes.
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Ellis is the Green Party nominee for governor of Maryland. He has never held federal office, so none of the congressional votes this site tracks are his.
He has said it plainly and in his own words. Speaking at a ceasefire rally in Frederick in February 2025, he said a genocide had unfolded over the previous fifteen months and that both major parties had supported it, then drew the line to money: "When our state government has a joint venture to develop military equipment with Israel that's a Maryland issue. When our tax dollars fund bombs dropped on Palestinian children, that's a Frederick issue." At his campaign launch a month earlier he named the state body he wants defunded, saying Maryland should not be "a Maryland that invests our tax dollars in joint ventures to support Israeli apartheid and genocide, like the Maryland Israel Development Center."
Most of what he can actually do as governor is state business, and that is where his commitments sit: defunding that development centre, and repealing the executive order barring Maryland from contracting with anyone who boycotts Israel or businesses in the occupied territories. He has no vote on U.S. weapons or U.S. aid. What the card carries from him on the federal question is the sentence about tax dollars and bombs, which is his own.
In their words
“When our state government has a joint venture to develop military equipment with Israel that’s a Maryland issue. When our tax dollars fund bombs dropped on Palestinian children, that’s a Frederick issue.”
“We need a Maryland that is a refuge for those suffering from war, genocide, austerity economics and climate change, not a Maryland that invests our tax dollars in joint ventures to support Israeli apartheid and genocide, like the Maryland Israel Development Center.”
The notes behind this card: what we looked at, what we found, and where each item came from.
U.S. military aid and weapons to Israel
[Position, 2025-02-03] Remarks at the Frederick Permanent Ceasefire Now rally, published on the national Green Party site and verified verbatim: "Injustice anywhere is injustice *everywhere*. When our state government has a joint venture to develop military equipment with Israel that's a Maryland issue. When our tax dollars fund bombs dropped on Palestinian children, that's a Frederick issue." The asterisks are the page's own emphasis marks. This is the one place on this record where he addresses federal money directly.
[Position, 2025-01-05] Campaign launch remarks on his own site, verified verbatim: "We need a Maryland that is a refuge for those suffering from war, genocide, austerity economics and climate change, not a Maryland that invests our tax dollars in joint ventures to support Israeli apartheid and genocide, like the Maryland Israel Development Center." And: "Both parties support Israel's campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people."
[Position, read 2026-08-18] His priorities page lists, among his commitments: "End Maryland's complicity with genocide in Palestine."
U.S. aid to Palestinians
Nothing located in which he takes a position on U.S. humanitarian funding, such as the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, in its own right.
Characterization of the conflict
[Position, 2025-02-03] From the rally remarks, verified verbatim: "We have all watched over the last 15 months as a genocide has unfolded before our eyes." And: "This cowardice in the face of genocide exposed the failure of our two party political system." And: "Both parties enable genocide."
[Reaction window, 2023-11-24] "A Statement on Israel and Palestine", published on his campaign site under his own byline and also carried by the national party, verified verbatim: "As a potential candidate for Governor of Maryland, as a human being, and as a member of the Green Party, I am committed to peace, justice, and democracy for Palestinians and Israelis alike. I am deeply saddened by the violence, the occupation and the system of Israeli apartheid. I am angry at the United States federal government, and numerous state governments, for the direct and material enabling of Israeli regimes that continue to defy international law and make peace impossible." Not on the card summary: the page's byline dates it inside the reaction window. Everything the card carries is drawn from his 2025 and 2026 material instead.
State action and Maryland law
[Reaction window, 2023-11-24] In the same statement he pledged: "Thus, I will repeal the Anti-BDS executive order on day one of my gubernatorial administration." He sets out the history: an attempt to pass such a law in the General Assembly in 2017 failed, the then Republican governor issued an executive order barring state contracts with entities boycotting Israel or businesses in the occupied territories, and the current Democratic governor said in 2022 that he would keep it. Not on the card summary because of its date, although the page carrying the pledge is live campaign material for this election.
[Position, 2025 to 2026] Defunding the Maryland Israel Development Center is the commitment he repeats in his 2025 and 2026 material, and it is state money rather than federal money, which the card and deep dive both say.
Related rhetoric and lobbying
[Position, 2026] A pro-Palestinian voter guide, the Watermelon Ballot, describes his campaign site as carrying a page titled "Maryland is complicit in Genocide" focused on boycott policy, on apartheid and on ending funding for that development centre. The description is the guide's; the underlying commitments are verified above on his own pages.
[Position, read 2026-08-17] His campaign states that it takes no corporate or political committee money. No endorsement from any tracked committee was found.
Safety and antisemitism (context)
Nothing located from him.
⚠ **Name collision.** A technology and cybersecurity executive of the same name writes and speaks about antisemitism. He is a different person, based in another state, and none of that material is his. Our search flagged the collision.
Race and status context
Green Party nominee for governor of Maryland, running with Owen Silverman Andrews for lieutenant governor, against the Democratic incumbent Wes Moore and the Republican nominee Dan Cox, per Ballotpedia's race page and his campaign site. A Baltimore debate coach and a former co-chair of the Maryland Green Party.
He did not serve in Congress during any of the tracked votes.
But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and
funding for the government of Israel. Every claim on this page goes through at least two verification steps.
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