Meet Jakeya
Jakeya Johnson’s career began in healthcare administration after earning her bachelor’s degree. Day after day, she had to deliver heartbreaking news to parents, telling them that insurance companies, not doctors, had decided their children could not receive medically necessary care. “It breaks you,” Jakeya recalls. Eventually, she couldn’t do it anymore. She quit her job without a plan, but with a conviction: she needed to do work that put people, not profits, first.
Finding Her Calling in Policy
Jakeya began volunteering and quickly fell in love with public service. She became active in the Young Democrats of Maryland, where she was elected Chair of the Women’s Caucus, a role that connected her with the state Delegate she would later serve. In the General Assembly, she managed legislative strategy and saw firsthand how policy could change lives on a systemic level.
Bridging Classroom and Real-World Change
While pursuing her Master’s in Public Administration and Policy, Jakeya was assigned to identify a real-world issue and design a policy solution. What began as a class project quickly became a personal mission. Her proposal, to expand access to reproductive healthcare on college campuses, grew beyond the classroom. When her own university’s health center declined to implement the plan, she decided to dream bigger. Jakeya turned her research into a real policy proposal that would eventually become law, not just for her campus, but for every public college in Maryland.
Turning Ideas Into Policy
Jakeya spent a year gathering data, talking to students, and drafting legislation. With the legislative session fast approaching, she cold-emailed a Delegate with her research and a bold offer: “I’ll do all the work. I just need you to champion this bill.” With nothing but Jakeya’s email to base it on, the legislator replied, “I believe in you.” And she was right to. The bill passed, and Maryland became a national leader in reproductive health access.
The result was a law that fundamentally changed access to reproductive healthcare for students across Maryland.
The law requires:
24/7 access to FDA-approved over-the-counter contraception, including emergency contraception
Science-based reproductive health education on campus
Access to all FDA-approved forms of birth control, or strong referral networks
Access to both medication and procedural abortion care
The following year, Jakeya and her allies expanded this legislation to Maryland’s community colleges, making the state a national model for student health equity. Her persistence and leadership didn’t go unnoticed: she was brought on to support the advancement of the state’s most comprehensive package of reproductive rights bills in more than 30 years, and later brought on by the American Society for Emergency Contraception to help implement campus reforms statewide.
Proven Leadership Today
That same commitment to turning bold ideas into lasting policy continues to guide Jakeya’s leadership today. She now serves as Executive Director of Reproductive Justice Maryland, where she leads community-driven solutions to expand access and equity. Under her leadership, RJM played a pivotal role in the 2024 Question 1 campaign, building a coalition of more than 50 organizations that helped pass constitutional protections for reproductive rights with nearly 80% of the vote.
All of that work made something clear to Jakeya: change doesn’t happen quietly, and it doesn’t happen by accident. She’s seen how power works, who it listens to, and what happens when leaders are willing to fight instead of play it safe. That’s why she’s running for Congress. In a strongly Democratic district, she believes the job isn’t just to hold the seat, but to use it to push for real change, stand up to powerful interests, and deliver results for working people.
Her leadership has been recognized statewide and nationally, from being named one of Maryland’s Leading Women Under 40 to receiving the Women’s Law Center of Maryland’s 2025 Dorothy Beatty Memorial Award, honoring her as “a force in policy advocacy, and a fearless champion for reproductive justice and gender equality.” Her advocacy has been featured in numerous publications, including Glamour, and The Baltimore Sun.
She also works for a philanthropic nonprofit, where she proudly serves as a union steward and sits on the labor-management committee, putting her values of fairness and collective power into practice every day.