Firing Offenses

Tuesday, December 27, 2005; Page A24

FOR NEARLY a year, venomous partisan sniping in Maryland over the Ehrlich administration's personnel practices has partly obscured an underlying truth: It is illegal to fire mid- or low-level public employees solely because of their political beliefs. That tenet of constitutional law, affirmed by the Supreme Court and reflected in Maryland statute, is what's at issue in hearings of a special legislative committee that are finally underway in Annapolis, months after the controversy erupted. That, and the ruined careers of state employees who were fired or forced from their jobs after Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. took office nearly three years ago.