If you?re going to give something to Gov. Martin O?Malley or his wife ? other than a piece of your mind ?be prepared to have the contents and value broadcast to the world ? or at least to anyone willing to make a trip in person to the State Ethics Commission in Annapolis.
And be prepared to have the item re-gifted as a “donation to charity,” as were most of the T-shirts and baseball caps the governor got.
O?Malley appears to be scrupulous in reporting gifts to him and his family, even if the item is worth less than $20 and the donor doesn?t do business with the state ? the criteria for required gift reporting.
“We prefer to err on the side of caution,” said O?Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese. “I think it?s important.”
From homemade candy and cookies to ties and foreign garb, all 115 gifts show up on schedule D of O?Malley?s 2007 financial disclosure form. Among the forms reviewed by The Examiner for 17 statewide and legislative leaders, most reported no gifts at all, except for those of O?Malley, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown and House Speaker Michael Busch.
Brown received eight gifts, the most expensive being $228 worth of tickets to the Baltimore Opera Company. Busch accepted a framed $125 photograph from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
O?Malley accepted lots of books, CDs and articles of clothing ? but he also got a “box of potatoes” from Maine Gov. John Baldacci and “a jar of produce” from then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his wife.
There was also a fruit basket and five flower arrangements received around the time Judge Catherine Curran O?Malley was hospitalized last year, including a bouquet from Comptroller Peter Franchot.
The most expensive gifts O?Malley received included two trips to Ireland, one in April from the Irish Institute of Boston College for $1,562.74 and the other in October from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce for $3,868.20. The state paid about four times those amounts for the security detail on those trips.
