Senate Votes to Limit O'Malley's Personnel Powers, but Only a Tad

Personnel Bills Passed by Md. Senate Weaker Than Limits Sought on Ehrlich

"It's not a great big, massive bill. It's fine-tuning of our personnel system," says Sen. Thomas M. Middleton (D-Charles), the bills' sponsor. (By Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)

After crusading to restrict the power of Maryland's then-Republican governor to hire and fire employees, Senate Democrats pushed through diluted versions of legislation yesterday that do little to diminish Gov. Martin O'Malley's power.

The proposals grew out of a controversy under Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), who was accused by Democrats of firing longtime workers for partisan reasons when he took office as governor in 2003.

One bill prohibits the governor -- now a Democrat, after O'Malley's victory over Ehrlich in November -- from using the appointments secretary to fire people against a department head's wishes. The other bill requires that state government workers be told whether they are "at will" employees or protected merit employees.

But the bills do not trim the ranks of more than 6,000 people who serve at the pleasure of the governor, which was one of the original goals of the Democratic-led investigation into the Ehrlich administration's hiring and firing practices.

The Democrats' interest in the legislation seemed to wane after O'Malley's election.

Sen. Thomas M. Middleton (D-Charles), who sponsored the bills, said they were changed at the O'Malley administration's request. The legislation that passed yesterday was designed to provide government efficiency and does so, Middleton said.

"It's not a great, big, massive bill. It's fine-tuning of our personnel system," he said.

Some Republicans said the watered-down legislation proved that the investigation was a waste of time and money.

"The bills do virtually nothing. . . . It was a political witch hunt with no substance," said Del. Anthony J. O'Donnell (R-Calvert), the House minority leader. "They were trying to embarrass the Ehrlich administration, and in the end, no substantive changes were made in the law. It was a sham, and everybody knows it."

In early 2005, Ehrlich fired a longtime political operative for boasting about a whisper campaign against Ehrlich's chief political rival, O'Malley, who was then the mayor of Baltimore.

During the first two years of Ehrlich's tenure, the operative, Joseph Steffen, worked in three state agencies. He placed a figurine of the Grim Reaper on his desk, referred to himself as the "Prince of Darkness" and told co-workers that he had a "death list" of people who were marked for dismissal.

Ehrlich administration officials played down Steffen's role and said turnover in state government was a natural byproduct of the 2002 election, which put a Republican in the governor's office for the first time in a generation.