The Gazette reports on Dr. Beyer's reactions to the searches:
"I helped craft the bill, and I'm the first to use it," said Dana Beyer, a transgendered woman who serves as senior aide to Councilwoman Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At large). "That's a delicious irony." Beyer filed a complaint Tuesday with the Montgomery County Human Rights Commission against the county, claiming its Ethics Commission has investigated her for the past eight months because of her "gender identity." "The Ethics Commission has made a blatant political attack on me, because I am the first openly transgender government staffer in Maryland," Beyer said. "The commission's accusations are baseless. If the Ethics Commission acted responsibly and, frankly, ethically we would not be here today." Predicted Horrors Failed to Materialize. Now What? The far right wing Examiner notes: The dueling complaints are the latest saga in Montgomery County's efforts to ban discrimination against transgendered people. After the council unanimously approved the law in 2007, a grouped called Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government led an unsuccessful petition effort to have a referendum. The group said it feared men would be allowed in women's bathrooms and locker rooms. To scare voters, anti-transgender rights radicals warned of dire consequences if the county enacted basic protections in a proposed bill. When the fear factor didn't work, they employed other "creative" means in their equally failed petition drive to overturn the law. Since the law passed in 2007, none of these predicted catastrophes actually happened. Undaunted by this embarrassing lack of credibility--or perhaps because of it--anti-TG radicals accused Dr. Beyer of "intimidating" them, prompting the extraordinary search. What began as a private citizen's effort to end discrimination has turned into an escalating conflict with a fringe element seeking to perpetuate discrimination. The investigation's targets believe this conflict led to an abuse of power at the behest of bigots. The Gazette recounts this chronology, events leading up to the controversy: The county's antidiscrimination bill was passed by the County Council and signed by County Executive Isiah Leggett in November 2007. In January and February 2008, the group Citizens for a Responsible Government circulated a petition to put the new [transgender rights] law to county referendum. However, on Sept. 9, 2008, the Maryland Court of Appeals blocked the referendum from the Nov. 4 ballot, supporting a challenge to the validity of the signatures and whether enough of them had been collected. On Oct. 7, 2008, Ruth Jacobs, president of the citizens group, filed a complaint against Beyer, claiming she violated county ethics law by attempting to discourage people from gathering the signatures for the referendum. On Jan. 23, the Ethics Commission referred the case to the Office of the County Attorney to investigate. It seems like Ms. Jacobs and her MCRG group tried to block a law using scare tactics, but failed. Then, they tried to overturn the will of Montgomery County's elected officials by using many invalid signatures on petitions, were caught, and again failed. Now, they're apparently trying to exact political retribution against the successful side by filing an ethics complaint against a then-private citizen who is currently serving the people of Montgomery County.
Apparently MCRG's memory doesn't reach back too far, but their vindictiveness knows no bounds.
The Gazette reports:
Beyer said her advocacy work as a private citizen in support of the antidiscrimination measure was the basis for the ethics complaint against her. She said her work computer, telephone and desk were searched, unbeknownst to her, by an investigator for the Ethics Commission working at night when no one was there. The search was discovered in a report filed by the county attorney's office. "The only documents that were found related to my official work on legislation as a County Council staff member," Beyer said. Details of the Ethics Commission's investigation into her also were leaked by someone from the commission, a violation of the county's law, Beyer said. As far as she knows, the ethics investigation is ongoing, she said. In a bizarre twist, after Dr. Beyer turned to the protections in the law, her critics claimed that her defense of her basic rights--not their outlandish horror stories--was their actual concern.
From the Washington Post: "Ruth Jacobs, the president of [Citizens for a Responsible Government] said her concerns about the transgender law have been borne out by Beyer's complaint. 'That was our concern, that that law was to give special rights to certain people and to ignore other people's rights. This [complaint by Beyer] shows that the law does what we suggested it would do,' she said." Really? That was MCRG's real "concern?" So Ms. Jacobs admits this was never about men in the girl's showers, ladies' rooms or all that other scary stuff she used to be "concerned" about. What a relief! This was really always about "special rights"? Note: this law actually protects the not-so-special rights of TG people to housing, employment, public accommodations, taxicabs and cable TV. And--if Dr. Beyer is vindicated--the right not to have your computer, phone and desk searched pursuant to a smear campaign and groundless accusations. Now that Ms. Jacobs mentions it, the only person whose rights have been "ignored" is Dr. Beyer! Maybe Council Member Trachtenberg's as well. So this is all really about the Constitution and not men in girls' locker rooms. After all this, Ms. Jacobs reveals it's not about showers and lockers? As Gilda Radner's Saturday Night Live character Emily Litella used to say, "never mind!" Hey Citizens for a Responsible Government! Thanks for telling us that your real fear is TG people would enjoy equal protections under the law--the same Constitutional protections everyone has--not anything else. Maybe we should start a new group: "Citizens for Responsible Citizens?"
How exactly did Dr. Beyer "intimidate" the "Responsible Citizens?" From The Examiner: "Dr. Dana Beyer improperly tried to stop people at a grocery store last year from signing a petition to have a referendum on a 2007 law banning discrimination against transgender people in housing, employment, public accommodations, and taxicab and cable service." From the WaPo report: "One man who signed the petition [to overturn the human rights law] said in an affidavit that he 'was starting to experience heart palpitations' after a run-in with Beyer." "Palpitations?" Really? Brings to mind the protestations of a delicate southern belle: "Oh mah stahs an' gah-tahs! Ah do believe Ah'm havin' a spell of thuh vapahs." As anyone who knows Dr, Beyer can attest, she is not one to physically threaten anyone, no matter how disingenuous that person may be! The Examiner also reports: Trachtenberg said she and Beyer were being targeted by the Ethics Commission at the behest of Maryland Citizens for Responsible Government, and took issue with the commission's investigation. "The use of KGB-type tactics to undermine the function of my council office is chilling," Trachtenberg said in reference to a memo from the County Attorney's Office showing that Beyer had her e-mail records searched without her consent as part of an investigation. Trachtenberg told The Examiner she was worried her computer and phone records may have been searched as well, and had plans to have the matter investigated. "It's very possible is what we'll discover is that a sitting elected official had their computer and phones swept," Trachtenberg said. If true, such a search would have "far-reaching implications of the functions of the legislative branch," she added. More from the Washington Post: The key issue now before the Ethics Commission is whether Beyer did anything illegal when she confronted opponents of the transgender law. Opponents had fanned out to supermarkets around the county to collect signatures in an unsuccessful bid to overturn the transgender law. *** Two Montgomery County agencies that investigate government ethics are facing complaints questioning their behavior. The computer of a transgender County Council staff member was secretly scoured by a county technology expert after a dispute over a transgender rights law, and on Tuesday, the staff member filed a discrimination complaint against the county Ethics Commission. Her boss, council member Duchy Trachtenberg (D-At Large), accused the county's independent inspector general of "intimidation" in a separate personnel matter and requested an investigation. Dana Beyer, a doctor who works as a top Trachtenberg aide, helped draft a 2007 law that bars discrimination against people based on gender identity. Now she is the first to make use of that law. Beyer said Tuesday that the county Ethics Commission has moved ahead on a complaint against her "because I'm the first transgender staffer in Maryland" and that the commission was trying to harm her political career and Trachtenberg's. Beyer is planning a second run for a seat in Maryland's House of Delegates, and Trachtenberg is seeking reelection next year. *** Trachtenberg said she filed a separate complaint about Inspector General Thomas J. Dagley with the Ethics Commission on Monday. In it, she points to an e-mail that Dagley sent to Joseph Adler, Montgomery's director of Human Resources, regarding a raise sought for Dagley's deputy. In the e-mail, Dagley said a pay disparity with his deputy's peers should be addressed, and he raised the issue of whether "manager compensation should be included as a project" in the work plan of the inspector general's office. Adler wrote other county officials that he viewed that "as a veiled threat." The raise was eventually given. "A threat to use the power of an office to intimidate public officials and obtain a pay raise for a friend would be a clear ethics law violation," Trachtenberg wrote. |
