Two cabinet appointments, and an extraordinary allegation, roil Maryland politics.
'Two Maryland cabinet secretaries are the unlikely figures at the center of a growing political brawl between the state’s Republican governor and the Democratic-majority legislature that could end up in court.
The dispute, over whether the legislature can prohibit the state from paying appointees whose nominations were sent to the state Senate but not approved, prompted an extraordinary allegation this week from Doug Mayer, Gov. Larry Hogan’s chief spokesman.
Mayer accused Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), the most powerful Democrat in Annapolis, of threatening to kill one of the nominations unless Hogan forced the state hospital commission to stop the creation of a new cardiac program at Anne Arundel Medical Center.
Miller has strongly denied the allegation, and Mayer has offered no proof that the conversations happened, although Dennis Schrader, the acting health secretary, echoed his account.'>>>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/two-cabinet-appointments-and-an-extraordinary-allegation-roil-maryland-politics/2017/07/14/218a1d3c-670f-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html