Leopold Aide Embarrasses Boss

As soon as I began the second paragraph of the Sun article, I knew exactly who was behind the Administration's request for expense reports from the State Delegation - Erik Robey. Turns out Robey, a former aide to Ron Dillon and long time Republican Party flak, put one of his underlings up to the task of making her way down to the Maryland Department of Legislative Services "to formally ask for all travel-related expenses, including lodging, meals and mileage, incurred during the 2007 annual and special sessions by the 15 delegates and five senators who represent Anne Arundel County."

Problem is, the request was NOT authorized by the County Executive. In fact, the Executive said "he was surprised and deeply concerned about the nature of the request."

There seem to be at least two possibilities here: The first, which I think is relatively unlikely, because this seems like the work of a hard core partisan, which Robey is and Leopold is not, is that Leopold put Robey and the underling up to the whole thing and is now content to let them take the fall.

The second, and more likely, option is that Robey contrived this as a way to garner ammunition for the 2010 elections, using the authority of his boss' office to make the request.

If the latter is true, and Robey has smeared the Executive's name, and the Administration's capacity to get assistance from the local delegation for his personal ends, my guess is the Executive will find a very special place in the bureaucracy for him. Mail room attendant has a nice ring to it.