Michelle Lane Smithwick

Lane worked in Robert Ehrlich's congressional office, his 2002 gubernatorial campaign, and then his transition team before being appointed to his administration. She was placed at the Maryland Department of Human Resources (DHR) then moved to the Governor's Office of Children, Youth and Families (GOCYF) where she continued overseeing the Fostercare Consent Decree and other issues concerning the problematic Maryland Child Welfare System.[2]

In 2003 she discovered, along with that agency's statistician, that the department assigned children to foster care social workers who no longer worked for the State of Maryland. This resulted in children not getting monthly visits from a social worker, clearly led to children's injuries, and probably contributed to preventable child deaths. Lane was fired in July 2004[2][3] after she leaked documents disclosing an illegal hire as the Baltimore City DSS Director, just before the well publicized law suit between Governor Ehrlich and Mayor O'Malley was being held regarding that illegal hire being placed as DSS Director. As a result of Lane's leak, the illegal hire was not installed, and Lane was marched out by armed guards the day after the hearing. There were temporary positive changes in the fostercare system as some of her recommendations were implemented because of a series of Baltimore Sun articles about chronic failures leading to children disappearing, being seriously injured or murdered.

Governor Ehrlich, a Republican, said in 2005 that as a fired former employee, Lane was working with Democrats in a smear campaign against him. Lane's attorney and the Maryland Democratic Party director denied the allegations.[4]

In 2006, Maryland Legislature auditors reported that they had found that caseworker staffing numbers had been improperly reported. The auditors also reported failures to investigate child abuse complaints. Legislators said that they would investigate 11 foster child deaths that occurred in 2004. At least hundreds of foster children's whereabouts were never accounted for.[5] Lane was honored by the Nurses Association with a display on the Faces of Nursing Calendar for her work on behalf of children at DHR and GOCYF.

Lane was the Maryland state director for the Edwards presidential campaign in 2008.[1]

• Lane Smithwick, Michelle; Smithwick, Alfred Rogers (2013). Get Your Child Horseback Riding: Without Spending a Fortune. CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1-4848-6752-5.

Lane has served in a professorship appointment at Towson University[4] and owns a home healthcare organization in Maryland since 1998 called HiTech Infusions, PA, and one in Virginia since 2015 called Middleburg HomeCare, LLC.[6] In 2021 Lane served on Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam's Workgroup on Personal Care Assistants where her work blocked MoveOn.org from disrupting the EDCD Waivers which keep Virginia citizens in their homes and from entering nursing homes.