When Lisa Harris Jones started lobbying in Annapolis in the late 1990s, she was almost always one of the few Black women in a room and sometimes the only. She recalled just a few female faces, mostly white, at the capital working to influence state policy, but she was usually surrounded by white male lawmakers and lobbyists.

“I have no memory of a Black female in a partnership position,” she said.

As the first Black woman to own and manage a law practice focused on lobbying and government relations, Harris Jones is known as a “trailblazer” in Annapolis, inspiring other Black women to enter the field and helping open doors.

A top adviser to the last two leaders of the House of Delegates will leave her post at the end of the year.

Alexandra Hughes, 44, will be missing from her usual spot on the rostrum within earshot of House Speaker Adrienne Jones when the 2022 session starts. A fixture in the speaker’s office for 15 years, Hughes will leave to start her own Annapolis public relations firm.

The change, and word of her successor, was part of an announcement from Jones Friday morning and an earlier Maryland Matters report.

On May 1, 2019, as the House of Delegates gathered in Annapolis to select a new leader three weeks after the sudden death of Speaker Michael E. Busch (D), Alexandra M. Hughes, Busch’s longtime lieutenant, packed up her State House office, unsure if the next speaker would want to keep her around.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Hughes recalled in a recent interview. “It was so hard not to be in control of that process and to leave everybody to their own devices.”

She shouldn’t have worried.

By that point, Hughes had worked for Busch for 13 years — including 4 1/2 years as his chief of staff. She served, in the words of one admirer, as Busch’s “war-time consigliere,” as he navigated a strained relationship with Republican Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr.

So when Del. Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County), who had been Busch’s loyal, low-key speaker pro tem for the entirety of his tenure, emerged as the Democratic caucus’ compromise choice to replace him that May Day, it wasn’t surprising that she chose to keep Hughes as her chief of staff. Jones said it never occurred to her that Hughes might leave.

“As pro-tem, I dealt with her a lot,” Jones said. “We really had a good rapport. Plus, we’re both Scorpios. Scorpios have this sense about people, so we really connected early on,” Jones said, referring to their shared astrological sign.

But now, Hughes is packing up her State House office for real. She plans to step down as Jones’ chief of staff at the end of the year and set up her own public affairs shop in Annapolis.