In an article yesterday, The Baltimore Sun reported, “Ehrlich rejects question from Democratic Party employee.”

While The Sun did a great job of reporting many of the facts of what happened,  a lot of assumptions are being made online about how I asked Bob Ehrlich a question about taxes. Bob Ehrlich accused me of having “no-class” and characterized my issue-based question regarding taxes as “inappropriate.” This was after he pointed out who I was at the outset of the meeting. It’s no coincidence that now I’m being attacked by Ehrlich’s right wing allies with the same talking points he used, in order to divert attention from the issue at hand – taxes.

Contrary to Bob Ehrlich’s recollection of what happened, I was polite and respectful in asking my question. Prior to my question, many small business owners in the room had voiced concerns about taxes and fees that Bob Ehrlich had put in place. However, not one person in Ehrlich’s campaign, including Bob Ehrlich, owned up to his record on UI taxes, property taxes and corporate filing fees and were effectively misleading small business owners into thinking that Governor O’Malley was to blame for the policies Ehrlich had a role in implementing.

In order to clarify the record, which is what I was attempting to do with respect to Bob Ehrlich’s role in the Unemployment Insurance (UI) taxes increases, I thought it would be helpful to release the video of the question I attempted to ask Bob Ehrlich.  I tried to ask Bob Ehrlich a simple question about UI taxes and he refused to answer. Andy Barth can be heard in the video asking me to leave and accusing me of being rude even though I did not interrupt anyone’s questions or Ehrlich’s responses.

For the record, Bob Ehrlich signed the law mandating UI tax increases while Governor O’Malley has worked to provide relief to small businesses.