Last week’s Maryland court of appeals decision placing the Arundel Mills slots question on this November’s ballot forced Bob Ehrlich to hide from the truth about his lobbying activity once again.
He told the Washington Post’s John Wagner that he and his staff didn’t "lobby" for the Cordish Cos. on slots, but he won’t say whether or not he and his staff attended meetings or communicated with elected or appointed government officials on behalf of the Cordish Cos., otherwise known as lobbying.
Mr. Ehrlich blew his credibility earlier when he and his operator in chief, David Hamilton, told the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun that no one from their firm’s office ever registered to lobby. Ha!.....
Two Ehrlich staffers who followed Mr. Ehrlich to the Baltimore office of the law and lobbying firm, Womble Carlyle, did indeed register to lobby the federal government for the mid-Atlantic developer, Ribera Development LLC, and disclosed $45,000 in lobbying payments. Womble’s Washington office also registered to lobby for another client that Ehrlich spokesman Henry Fawell credited to Mr. Ehrlich.
If Mr. Ehrlich or his staff had any government contact of any nature for Cordish, it doesn’t matter whether he registered as a lobbyist or not, because his activity would be the very definition of lobbying. I'm looking forward to hearing Mr. Ehrlich explain why he thinks having "government affairs" with elected or appointed officials on behalf of his clients isn't the same as "lobbying."
Why the truth about Ehrlich’s lobbying matters
Slots and Bob Ehrlich’s work for Cordish are hot issues in Anne Arundel County right now, but the Ehrlich lobbying matter raises broader questions. Never before has a credible candidate sought to move directly from a lobbying/law firm to the Maryland governor’s mansion.
When Mr. Ehrlich was governor, his best friend, the Baltimore lawyer, David Hamilton, unashamedly sold access to the governor, otherwise known as lobbying, while skirting lobbyist registration requirements so he could continue to shake down Maryland businesses for Mr. Ehrlich's campaign. In the strictest technical sense, Mr. Hamilton was not a registered lobbyist, but he made no apologies for selling access to his friend, then-Gov. Ehrlich, and delivering millions of dollars in state business to his clients. If Mr. Ehrlich doesn’t want to call that lobbying, perhaps influence peddling is a better term...
"We didn't have a government relations practice before he was elected," Mr. Hamilton told Matthew Mosk at the Washington Post, "but clients started coming to us and saying, 'Can you help us?' And it's worked out pretty well."
Today Mr. Hamilton is the managing partner of Mr. Ehrlich's lobbying law firm, which is why Mr. Ehrlich owes Maryland voters a frank explanation of his own work for Womble over the past four years, and what boundaries he thinks are appropriate between a governor and his former law firm specializing in "government affairs." He could start with straight answers to these questions:
- Did Mr. Ehrlich and/or any other Womble employee attend any meetings or communicate in any manner with any elected or appointed federal, state, or local government official(s) on behalf of the Cordish Cos.?
- Did Mr. Ehrlich or anyone from Womble’s Baltimore office attend any meetings or communicate in any manner with any elected or appointed federal, state, or local government official(s) on behalf of any other client, including Ribera Development, for whom two Womble-Baltimore employees registered to lobby?
- If Mr. Ehrlich is elected, will he permit David Hamilton to sell access to himself and his administration, as he did when Mr. Ehrlich was governor from 2003 to 2007? Will he permit other Womble employees to sell access to an Ehrlich administration, as David Hamilton did when Mr. Ehrlich was governor?
Which Maryland reporter, commentator, or editorialist will be the first to wrestle answers to these questions from a recalcitrant Mr. Ehrlich?
- Steve Lebowitz, Annapolis
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