Councilwoman Rebecca Maurer is a lawyer and community advocate. In 2021 she was elected to serve Cleveland’s Ward 12, which spans the historic and diverse neighborhoods of Slavic Village, Old Brooklyn, Brooklyn Centre and Tremont.  

Councilwoman Maurer started her career with a passion for housing justice after having her own issues with bad landlord. She graduated from Stanford Law School (JD ’14), worked at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, and clerked for Judge James Gwin of the Northern District of Ohio. She was a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, representing tenants in eviction and households facing bad debts. She worked with a community coalition pushing to reform Cleveland’s lead-safe housing laws after data revealed that Cleveland’s lead poisoning rate was worth than those in Flint, Michigan. While actively working to implement the new lead policy in Cleveland, she worked as in-house counsel at the Student Borrower Protection Center working on federal student loan policy.  

In 2021, her commitment to a more transparent and accountable city government led her to run against a long-time incumbent. She ran and won a grassroots campaign, knocking doors on every street in Ward 12.   

Since coming into office she has built a track record delivering on the bread-and-butter work of City Council and advocating for broader policy change at City Hall. Key projects she has worked on include: holding out-of-state landlords accountable to city housing standards; promoting commercial corridor development in historically disinvested neighborhoods; delivering high-quality city services in Ward 12 and identifying systemic changes to the 311 system to improve those services for everybody. 

Councilwoman Maurer is currently Vice Chair of Cleveland’s Health and Human Services Committee and is co-chair of the City’s Lead Safe Advisory Board.