Joint Republican Caucus Leaders Call for Investigation Into DLLR Jobs Report Coverup

MEDIA RELEASE

Joint Republican Caucus Leaders Call for Investigation Into DLLR Jobs Report Coverup

(Annapolis, MD) Today, the Minority Leaders in the Maryland House and Senate released letters sent to the presiding officers of both houses and the Attorney General, calling for investigations into the circumstances surrounding the removal of a report on July employment statistics from the DLLR website. The report in question was published on the website on the morning of August 20 and was removed and replaced that afternoon. Documents were recently made available on the internet following MD Public Information Act requests that have brought some troubling questions to light.

“It appears that a report indicating flagging job growth in July of this year was removed from public view in an attempt to withhold the information from the public. The original report was quickly replaced with a sanitized version in what appears to be an effort to complete the deception” said Delegate Anthony J. O’Donnell. “It is absolutely the right and the responsibility of the legislature and the office of the Attorney General to investigate and determine the extent and nature of the actions taken to prevent public consumption of the original report.”

“It is obvious that Governor O’Malley had already prepared a rousing speech for the Maryland Association of Counties summer conference on August 21. When the hard facts of job losses in the DLLR report undermined the campaign message of an economic recovery in Maryland, the political operatives in the Governor’s office demanded that the web posting be withdrawn and rewritten. Maryland taxpayers should be alarmed by the blatant use of government employees to prop up a faltering re-election theme by Martin O’Malley,” said Senator Allan Kittleman.

A letter sent to both House Speaker Busch and Senate President Miller requested a legislative committee be formed to investigate the incident, with the appropriate powers assigned to that committee as necessary to complete such an examination. A complementary letter was sent to Attorney General Gansler requesting an investigation by that office, as well as an opinion as to whether any statutes were violated.

“The citizens of Maryland have a right to know what is going on in their state, and it is the responsibility of their government to inform them. They also have a right to know if the representatives of that government are deliberately attempting to deceive them” concluded Delegate O’Donnell. “It is the responsibility of the elected representatives of the people to ensure that such behavior is scrutinized and exposed, in order to appropriately respond and prevent such actions in the future.”

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