I heard the ad in question a couple times on WICO today and figured that soon there would be a response from Andy Harris’s camp – sure enough my e-mail got the following late this afternoon:
State Senator Andy Harris today called Wayne Gilchrest’s new attack ad an “outright fabrication.” He called on Gilchrest to stop engaging in negative attacks and start telling the voters the truth about where each of them stand on the issue of illegal immigration.
“I don’t think the contrast on this issue could be more clear,” said Andy Harris. “I oppose amnesty, Wayne Gilchrest supports it. This ad is a complete fabrication of the facts. The voters deserve better.”
Senator Allen Kittleman Republican Minority Whip said, “I am disappointed Gilchrest would resort to the dirty trick of intentionally misleading voters about a sitting state senator’s record, especially one with such a clear record of leadership on taxes and illegal immigration.”
(snip)
In the negative attack ad, Gilchrest claims Andy supports giving illegal immigrants drivers’ licenses. Senator Janet Greenip, sponsor of the REAL ID Act of 2007, a law to crackdown on illegal immigration, points out this could not be further from the truth, “Andy has been a leader with me as we have fought to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving drivers’ licenses.”
Harris has a clear and a consistent record of leadership opposing illegal immigration while in the State Senate. This year, Andy’s leadership to filibuster a bill allowing in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in the Maryland State Senate killed the bill. Andy co-sponsored Senator Greenip’s REAL ID Act of 2007 to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving drivers’ licenses.
(snip)
“As a member of Congress, I will continue to oppose ALL forms of amnesty and will vote to secure our border,” said Andy Harris.
In the release, Harris picked out the same bills that I discussed previously in this post. But what Gilchrest has not done (and perhaps there’s an update that can be sent to me) is cite the bill that Harris voted for which states as Gilchrest claims. At least the Harris people send me proof of their charges, which I can check out. Until then, all I have is the smear tactic that an incumbent who may be running scared is using.
Oh, I know that this release has been on a couple other sites but I like to delve deeper into these things, plus I had an event this evening that I’ll write about on monoblogue tomorrow. Hope this was worth the wait.
Crossposted on Red Maryland.
In addition to attacking Harris, Gilchrest is also trying to educate voters on his views. I just got a nice brochure from him that tells me all about his support of lower taxes. Of course, this campaign brochure was printed and mailed at taxpayer expense. And I’m sure his people will claim it is simply education and has nothing to do with the campaign, but it seems fairly obvious that Gilchrest is trying to shore up his conservative support. He just wants us taxpayers to foot the bill for him to do so.
I wrote a letter to the Daily Times expressing my outrage. It’s been almost a week since I sent it in. Want to take bets on whether they’ll run it?
[from O’MalleyWatch.com]
EXCLUSIVE: Busch Knows How to Strong Arm
Published November 14th, 2007
After doing a post on Busch’s lack of using muscle when it comes to getting a vote on the slots referendum. I have received word that Speaker Mike Busch did in fact use strong arm tactics in order to get the tax bills to pass.
Three Delegates in particular were called into the Speaker’s Office on Saturday Afternoon and told that if they don’t vote for the tax increase all three would lose their leadership positions. Appropriations Chairman Norm Conway (Wicomico/Worcester Counties) was initially a fence sitter despite the fact that the tax bills were jointly assigned to his committee but after the threat from Busch, he quickly signed on to vote for both tax increases. On Conway’s committee, Delegate Mary Dulany-James (Harford/Cecil Counties) was pulled into the same meeting and told that if she did not join the vote she would lose her sub-committee chairmanship of an insignificant Appropriations committee, but more importantly, would be moved to another committee all together. This after Delegate Dulany-James made a dangerous but similar vote in 2004 after being pulled into the back room. And to round out the trifecta was Delegate Jimmy Malone of Baltimore and Howard County. As Vice-Chair of Environmental Matters he had a lot to lose and chose to save his power in order to pass the tax bill. Both James and Malone only voted for the income tax portion of the tax increase which was in danger because of dissents from Montgomery County.
Now that is all fact, but the less clear aspect of this meeting is that Delegate’s Dave Rudolph (Cecil County) and Delegate John Donoghue (Washington County) were also in the room and threatened and in turn changed their votes to support the bills. Donoughue is the Chief Deputy Majority Whip, a position responsible for rounding up votes, and Rudolph is the Vice-Chair of the powerful Economic Matters Committee. Rudolph split his votes amongst the income and sales tax portions, while Donoughue remained with the Party across the board. Also part of this story is that Delegate Mathias (former Mayor of Ocean City) was begged to come along by Norm Conway.
The greatest part is that while Busch could and did twist arms to get the tax parts passed. He’s not doing the same thing for slots. The saddest part is that these Delegates could have chosen to represent their constituents, but would rather have Annapolis power and money (a lot of these seats allow folks to raise tons of cash).