Gov. Martin O?Malley said recent firings in his administration were not for political reasons, as some Republicans maintain, but to put “competent, professional” people in charge to help “make government work again.”
Former members of then-Gov. Robert Ehrlich?s administration are circulating lists of people who they say were fired because of their Republican ties. The Examiner reported Monday that some of those let go called it “hypocrisy” and “a double standard” for Democrats to do the same thing that Ehrlich was accused of doing.
Allegations that Ehrlich?s staff fired state workers based on their political affiliation was the subject of an expensive yearlong legislative probe that cost taxpayers millions.
O?Malley told reporters Monday, “The abuse you?re talking about is replacing people for political reasons. We are hiring people that are professional and up for doing the job.”
As he did during the campaign, the governor again faulted Republicans for creating the impression “that our government doesn?t work and that it doesn?t have to work.”
“We?re going to do everything we can to put people in charge in places in this government that are competent and professional and capable of doing the work,” O?Malley said.
O?Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese said the small number of terminations were being handled by Cabinet secretaries, with no involvement by the governor?s office.
“There are no hit men” sent to departments “to weed out” Republicans, as Ehrlich had allegedly done with Democrats, Abbruzzese said.
Top members of the Ehrlich administration denied those charges during hearings of the Special Committee on State Employee Rights and Protections. Other witnesses talked about their contacts with the governor?s staff in identifying Democrats to be removed.
Several recently terminated Republican state workers said there was no indication of involvement by the governor?s staff.
Anne Sunderland, fired as the public information officer for the Department of Aging, said Peggy Watson, a deputy chief of staff for O?Malley, was surprised to learn Sunderland has been let go. Sunderland, who was an Ehrlich campaign worker, was replaced by her assistant.
So far, Republicans have identified about 40 people who have been let go below the level of assistant secretaries, compared with 350 in the Ehrlich years. But four months into the O?Malley administration, there are fears of more terminations in some departments that were just getting reorganized under their new secretaries, according to one Ehrlich appointee who thought he was going to be fired last week.
