Top Maryland Republicans fired back at Democratic lawmakers yesterday for efforts to slice dozens of jobs from the budget, including about 40 that are filled by appointees of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
Democrats said that most of the positions they have identified for elimination are unfilled and that the occupied ones have been recommended for cuts because they are providing redundant services.
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Transcript: The Post's Matthew Mosk answered questions on Maryland politics and state hiring and firing practices.
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But Republicans accused the lawmakers of targeting the governor's political allies, including Craig Chesek and Greg Maddalone, two former congressional staff members.
"It is part of an organized campaign to attack people who have come into government to help Governor Ehrlich reform and improve state government," said Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan, whose agency would bear the brunt of the cuts. "The only thing that's going to stop this infantile behavior is outrage from the public."
The outcry over the cuts adds a new wrinkle to a debate in Annapolis about politically motivated personnel moves. In recent weeks, Democrats have pledged an investigation into what some former state workers have said was an organized effort to purge the state workforce of Democratic loyalists. Chesek and Maddalone are said to be part of that effort.
Ehrlich, Maryland's first GOP governor in a generation, has called such allegations false and mean-spirited, and his communications director, Paul E. Schurick, said it was "the ultimate in hypocrisy" that Democratic lawmakers have made recommendations for targeted cuts.
Appointments Secretary Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. released a statement saying, "A small band of people IS systematically routing people out of state government." The people responsible, he said, were Democratic lawmakers.
The governor offered a more restrained view of the cuts, approved by the House Appropriations Committee. He said the cuts were "clearly a negotiating tactic." Ehrlich, however, said he was especially concerned about the House committee's move to cut the Office of Children, Youth and Families, which is overseen by two close friends of first lady Kendel S. Ehrlich.
Sen. P.J. Hogan (D-Montgomery) said the Senate was not taking the same tack as the House on targeting filled positions.
"I prefer to take vacant positions, not the live bodies," said Hogan, vice chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee.
House Appropriations Chairman Norman H. Conway (D-Wicomico) said the cuts were recommended by legislative budget analysts, who are nonpartisan.
Most of the cuts would affect public information officers and legislative liaisons. Chief legislative analyst Warren G. Deschenaux said the cuts were suggested because agencies had devoted too many resources to "liaising and doing PR, and not enough to doing their work."
The proposed cuts have become fodder for Republicans who are smarting over accusations that the Ehrlich administration has made improper personnel moves.
Senate Minority Leader J. Lowell Stoltzfus (R-Somerset) called the targeting of jobs "extremely mean-spirited" and "heartless," and he said it worsens the already troubling tenor of the legislature. He was referring, in part, to a decision by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) to halt action on Ehrlich's appointments. "Let's lower the emotional level," Stoltzfus said. "I think one-upmanship is a terrible way to conduct business."
The same sort of partisanship was on display yesterday on the Senate floor in debate over a bill that would change the appointment process for the State Board of Elections and its administrator.
Senate Minority Whip Andrew P. Harris (R-Baltimore County) accused Democrats of trying to create "a lifetime job" for the elections administrator, a Democrat whom the board's GOP majority tried unsuccessfully to oust last year.
The bill debated yesterday includes several provisions designed to make the removal process more difficult. Republicans countered with amendments that would create a six-year term for the administrator and force retirement at age 70.
All the amendments were turned down on votes that broke largely along party lines.
