Following up on a guest post from last week, Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s (R) decision to stop state employees from communicating with a newspaper he doesn’t like has led to an interesting lawsuit.
The Baltimore Sun filed suit against Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland on Friday, asserting that he violated the paper’s First Amendment rights by prohibiting state employees from talking to two Sun journalists.
The suit, filed in federal court in Baltimore, intensifies a feud between The Sun and Mr. Ehrlich, a Republican who contends that the 167-year-old newspaper has a liberal bias.
It’s a rather sordid tale. Ehrlich started hating The Sun because it had the audacity to endorse a different candidate when he ran for governor in 2002. Things got considerably worse when the Sun reported on a controversial Ehrlich plan to sell state forest land to a developer. The coverage prompted Ehrlich to issue a directive: no one in his gubernatorial administration is to speak with The Sun’s Maryland statehouse bureau chief or its columnist covering the legislature.
The wacky Constitution-huggers at The Sun have a problem with this.
In its complaint, The Sun argues that Mr. Ehrlich’s order was intended to punish the paper for exercising its First Amendment rights and that it was having an “impermissible chilling effect” on the paper’s freedom of speech.
Oddly enough, Ehrlich doesn’t even dispute the latter part. In a radio appearance after his directive was issued, the governor admitted his ban was “meant to have a chilling effect” on the paper’s reporting.
The poor man appears to have completely lost his mind.
The Sun’s editor seems to have summed up the problem quite nicely.
“The governor’s action sets a dangerous precedent for all citizens,” editor Timothy Franklin said in a letter to newspaper readers. “No governor, Republican or Democrat, should be allowed to pick and choose whom state employees speak to based on whether the governor approves of their views.”
For what it’s worth, this isn’t the first time Ehrlich has taken an odd approach to dealing with Maryland’s media. In July, the governor decided to deal with reporters by throwing them out of the Statehouse.
Maryland’s Statehouse is the oldest capitol building in the United States still in legislative use. But after July 31 it also may be one of very few that does not provide space for the news media.
In a June 28 letter to media, the administration of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) ordered reporters to clear out of their basement digs in the domed Annapolis landmark, where Gen. George Washington resigned his military commission in 1783. The administration says it plans to use journalists’ space for gubernatorial staff during a three-year project to replace pipes for heating, cooling and drinking water.
Critics counter that Ehrlich, who frequently claims not to read newspapers, is retaliating against the print press that he regularly derides.
The good news is, Ehrlich will be up for re-election in two years. He’ll probably go up against popular Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, who’s likely to trounce Ehrlich in this solidly-blue state.