Plan to Fire Commissioners Halted

Maryland's highest court temporarily blocked the General Assembly yesterday from enacting its plan to fire the members of the state's embattled Public Service Commission who signed off on massive electricity rate increases.

In the short term, the order from Court of Appeals Chief Judge Robert M. Bell means that Chairman Kenneth D. Schisler and his colleagues can keep their jobs. The ruling leaves open the underlying question of whether lawmakers can legally remove commissioners who are appointed by the governor.

A lawsuit was filed in response to legislation the Democrat-controlled General Assembly pushed through last month over Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s veto.

The new law would end the terms of the current commissioners prematurely and give the governor until July 15 to appoint new ones from a list of names provided by legislative leaders.

If Ehrlich did not act by then, the leaders -- Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) -- would pick for him.

"From what we can see from this order, that won't happen now," said Baltimore lawyer Andrew Radding, who represents Schisler and the commission. The court, he said, "will tell us what comes next."

The legal wrangling does not affect Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s electricity rates that sparked the initial debate in the General Assembly after the Public Service Commission announced a 72 percent increase. The new legislation also set the rate increase at 15 percent on July 1, and that rate will not change for at least 11 months.

The judge's two-paragraph order is a place holder until the court takes further action.

In court yesterday, Michael D. Berman, deputy chief of litigation for the Maryland attorney general's office, defended the legislature's authority. There are "of course appropriate limits on the General Assembly's power, but the legislation at issue in this case falls squarely within the General Assembly's authority," Kevin J. Enright, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said in a statement.

Ehrlich, in a statement, renewed criticism of the legislature yesterday for what he called an "election-year attack on the Public Service Commission" that "exceeds legislative authority," and he applauded the court's action, which he said "restores stability."