ANALYSIS:

What Ever Happened to Good Old-Fashioned Regulated Monopolies?

While it is always expected that appointees serve at the pleasure of the political boss under the time-honored principle "to the victor belongs the spoils," why now? Perhaps Governor Ehrlich's recent appointee as chairman of the commission, who happens to have been formerly the House of Delegates minority whip, was assigned the duty of hatchet man, but he has been in that position for a year.

According to a Sun article about the firings (4/20, PSC chief fires 5 top members of agency staff), the consensus of experts both within and outside the PSC is that the particular expertise of the five senior staff will be sorely missed and virtually irreplaceable. Could it be that these employees represented a potential anomaly--a group of public servants raised in a tradition of service to the public, in a new world of deregulation and privatization where market forces decide everything? a world where corporate interests are assumed to be always aligned with the public interest?

By unleashing the profit motive in the world of public utility enterprises, shareholder interests will be paramount, and the public interest will be that of a customer only.

Chairman Schisler did not even have the courtesy to inform his fellow commissioners of his move (at least none of the Democratic ones), and he refuses to answer press inquiries under the theory that this is a private personnel matter.

In a Sun article today (4/21, Firings at PSC viewed as risky) the legality of his assumption of this unilateral move is being questioned. The fact that some of these long-time staff members were escorted out of their workplace under armed guard is especially troubling, as it might leave the impression that there is a fraud issue here.

Schisler may have to be reminded that he is an employee also, and he is supposed to be working for us, not the business interests that financed the Ehrlich campaign. As taxpayers and rate payers, we don't elect Governors to be dictators, do we? Do we elect corporate CEOs to public office so that there need be no public input into decision-making?

Subverting the rule of law, undermining regulations, and doing everything in utmost secrecy--these tactics appear to be the modus operandi of (often Republican) officials these days. Ehrlich undoubtedly has observed this behavior among his peers and those in Congress and even in the White House, and is trying to copy it to play out what he must view as his mandate in Maryland.

I doubt that most Maryland voters voted for a CEO. It's entirely possible they still think they are voting for a public servant, not a special interest facilitator.

I think we are all tired of hearing that we need to make Maryland a user-friendly State for business. Let them all go to Delaware if they don't think they need to consider the public as anything other than a customer base.

The popular political theory these days is that politicians must have their "base." We the public are all stuck at first base under such a theory. When the base involves corporate and gambling interests, you get slots and roads, but little else.