Blame Frosh for Big State Legal Bill with Venable – Maryland Matters

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Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (R) at the Maryland Association of Counties Summer Conference in Ocean City in 2019. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines

By David Plymyer

The writer is a former Anne Arundel County District Attorney. He can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter: @dplymyer.

Criticizing Maryland Governor Larry Hogan for trying to end federally funded expanded unemployment benefits quickly is fair. Blaming him for the cargo of taxpayer money spent on an unsuccessful attempt by private law firms to defend his decision in court is not.

Responsibility for these expenses rests solely with the Attorney General of Maryland, Brian Frosh. Mr Frosh chose to speak out publicly against the governor’s decision knowing full well that it meant he would have to bring in an outside lawyer to defend it. In my opinion, it was Mr. Frosh’s political theater, the taxpayers paying for the tickets.

In June, Mr. Frosh, a Democrat, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing Mr. Hogan, a Republican, for cutting benefits. This is possibly the most expensive editorial in Washington, DC history, costing Maryland taxpayers more than $ 380,000 in legal fees paid to Venable LLP, headquartered in Washington, DC.

When he wrote the editorial, Mr. Frosh knew three things. He knew his office was charged with defending the governor’s action against a legal challenge under Article V, Section 3 of the Maryland Constitution.

He also knew he was virtually certain that the governor’s decision to end benefits would be tested in court. Finally, he knew that neither he nor his subordinates could ethically defend the decision in court if he took a public position attacking him, and that he would have to hire outside lawyers to handle the case. That’s what he did, selecting Venable.

Mr. Frosh’s editorial added nothing to the public debate that was not said by others. He criticized the governors’ decision for political reasons without questioning the legal authority of the governors to make the decision.

The editorial did not change the governor’s mind. Nonetheless, it did accomplish one thing: No member of Mr Frosh’s office had to defend the termination of benefits, giving Mr Frosh a personal and political distance from an unpopular decision by the governor. It is fair to wonder if this was his only goal.

Mr. Frosh is not the first attorney general to worry about political appearances. Indeed, Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks once called his predecessor, Doug Gansler, a publicity missile.

As far as I can remember, however, Mr. Gansler never sought to disqualify the attorney general’s office from the defense of a politically heavy case. I’m sure he understood it would set an awkward precedent.

The constitutional duties of GAs do not include writing opinion pieces criticizing the political decisions of other state officials with which they disagree. Duties include the defense of such decisions in court, whether or not such decisions enjoy popular support.

In a social media post, State Senate Speaker Bill Ferguson (D) alluded to a single-day legislative review of spending. [paid] to a mega-company for two lost court cases, implying that the governor was responsible for the expenses. I have no doubt that his reaction would have been different if the shoe had been on the other foot.

If a Republican GA disqualified itself from defending a decision of a Democratic governor because the GA disagreed with it for political reasons, people like Mr. Ferguson and House Speaker Adrienne Jones (D ) would ask the GA to pay the bills. for an external lawyer from his campaign account. And they would have a legitimate ox.

The GA office was perfectly capable of defending the state against the two trials which resulted in a court ruling blocking the suspension of benefits. There are situations in which conflicts are inevitable and an external lawyer must be employed by the GA for this or other reasons. It was not such a situation.

Rather, it was a situation in which there were two bad decisions. The first by the governor in trying to quickly end the expanded unemployment benefits funded by the federal government. The second by the Attorney General choosing to publicly reprimand the Governor, a reprimand that resulted in the gratuitous spending of over $ 380,000 of taxpayer dollars.

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