Brandon Flood has left his position as the secretary of the Pennsylvania board of pardons.
Flood was appointed to the role in April 2019 by Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, nine years after being freed from prison himself. As secretary, Flood advocated for second chances for formerly incarcerated people. His own turnaround story helped to spotlight a new state focus on redemption.
A spokeswoman from Fetterman’s office said his departure from the post was effective on Thursday night. Spokeswoman Christina Kauffman declined to say if he was asked to leave or if the sudden exit came at his request.
“I can’t go into any details on it because we can’t discuss personnel matters for legal reasons,” Kauffman said.
She said Fetterman, who chairs the Board of Pardons, will work on filling the secretary’s position, which oversees the day-to-day operations of the board’s Harrisburg office and acts as a liaison between the staff and the board.
The separation came one day after Flood stepped down from his role on the Dauphin County Prison’s advisory board, saying he did so to have more time for other endeavors. He was a founding member of the advisory board, where he served as an active liaison between officials and people who had loved ones inside the jail.
Flood told PennLive he departed from the pardons board after “a number of philosophical differences” with Fetterman, a Democrat who is running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He cited the differences as “mainly his lack of advocacy and interest in ensuring that our agency has adequate resources to deal with the increasing demand of clemency requests.”
The philosophical differences “came to head this month due to personal differences and my expressed interest in running for public office next year,” Flood told PennLive. “That said, we mutually agreed to go our separate ways so that I would no longer serve as the proverbial thorn in his side, and so that I can focus my attention on my candidacy for lieutenant governor in the beginning of the year.”
Flood said he has changed his political affiliation and will be running as a Republican.
Despite their differences, Flood said he was still immensely thankful to Fetterman for “extending me an opportunity to serve as Secretary of the Board of Pardons. For the time that I have served, I am extremely proud of the many transformational changes that I have been able to bring to bear within Pennsylvania’s executive clemency landscape.”
Flood said he had to leave the job because: “no job is worth me compromising my integrity and turning a blind eye to failed leadership, irrespective of one’s previous acts of magnanimity or political affiliation.”
Fetterman declined to comment on Flood’s statements, telling PennLive he was unable to discuss personnel matters.
As pardons secretary, Flood acted as a liaison for the five-person board, which was responsible for balancing crime victims’ needs with the chance to give incarcerated Pennsylvanians a second chance at life.
Prior to his appointment, Flood spent nearly a decade working for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and he served as legislative director for Pennsylvania’s second largest public sector union.
His appointment as secretary was especially noteworthy as Flood spent eight years in prison between 2000 and 2010, after separate arrests for drug dealing, and later, carrying an unlicensed handgun at age 22.
Flood, a Harrisburg native, said he and some friends started selling marijuana in middle school. Within a couple of years, that evolved into selling crack cocaine.
“In me, not only do you have an advocate who understands the clemency process firsthand, you have someone who understands what it’s like to bear that scarlet letter of a conviction on your sleeve,” Flood told PennLive at the time of his appointment.