John Pardoe?s a lifelong Democrat, but finds himself squarely in the Republican camp when it comes to fighting tax increases approved during the General Assembly?s special session.
Pardoe, the owner of a Westminster electronics company, says the tax could devastate his business.
So he joined Republican state lawmakers last week in a lawsuit in Carroll County Circuit Court alleging that the special session was unconstitutional.
The suit claims a six-day Senate adjournment never received House approval, and therefore the tax increases passed in the session are invalid.
That would mean a 6 percent sales tax on computer service companies like Pardoe?s would be negated.
“I just feel like it?s a total sleight of hand,” Pardoe said of the tax increase. “We really had the wool pulled over our eyes.”
Pardoe, 46, grew up in Easton but crossed the country to attend a specialty school for electronics in Arizona.
“It?s been my life since I was like 16 years old,” Pardoe says.
More than 20 years later, the company he had worked for began shedding employees.
“They began downsizing like crazy,” he says, “so I decided to spin off and start my own company.”
Pardoe made the leap of his life in 1999 and put everything he had into building his company in Westminster, Byte Right Support Inc., a computer consulting and maintenance business that does most of its work for law firms, but also does jobs at private homes.
