good evening, everyone. welcome. over the next hour, we will hear from both candidates for maryland governor. tonight's debate is sponsored by the baltimore jewish council and we thank them nobodying with us today. -- for being with us today. maryland groove martin o'malley and former governor robert ehrlich. each candidate will have up to one minute and 30 seconds to make an opening statement. and then we will move on to the issues. this is how it will work. i will establish a topic. i will pose a question on that topic. each candidate will then have up to two minutes and 40

seconds to present his views. i will then choose whether to follow up or whether to move on to the next issue. each candidate will be given one minute for closing statements at the end of this debate. tonight's debate is also being broadcast statewide and we welcome you on maryland public television. wrpy radio baltimore, wusa digital 9.2 washington and wjz.com worldwide on the web. over the past week, many, many wjz viewers have e-mailed suggested questions for the candidates. we thank now those. we have read them, all of them. we have used many of them as we have decided on tonight's topics of discussion. now we really did have a coin toss just moments ago before this broadcast that has determined that governor robert ehrlich will go first with his opening statement. welcome, governor. >> denise, thank you for doing this. you must have lost your coin toss to do n. we thank you very much. good to see you.

we've been talking about the race, one of the most interesting races in the country. thank you for doing this. this is the first of four or five debates, denise, as you know. so i want to thank all the sponsors to this debate as well, all the folks in the studio audience, all the elected officials and thank you very much for watching. it's a consequential race. executives impact lives. the impact business cycles. they impact the ability to create jobs in a particular state. they impact taxpayers, our vision and our future. so that's the reason we have so much interest in this debate. that's the reason all the signs and bumper stickers are running around and all the fv commercials are running as well. governors count. we have very different views with regard to the bottom line which is making maryland better, of course. governor o'malley's view with regard to progress in our statute, i have a far different view. obviously job creation being the number one issue in this campaign and the fact there's a

lot of these commercials that you've seen attempt to litigate the past. they attempt to litigate things about me. this is not a personality contest. it's not martin o'malley, bob ehrlich. it's about you. eight not about in fact -- it's not about in fact whatever 30- second attack ad says any particular night. it's about us, our future, taxpayers, it's about business creation. it's about you. you count. you get to vote. we're just two guys who want to lead. it's a great honor to lead this state obviously for four years. i've loved my time in public service, in the state legislature, the congress of the united states and representing you as your governor. obviously thought i was retired. we're back. four years ago. back again. here we go. in any event, folks, we thank you very much for watching tonight. we thank now your interest. we thank you for your enthusiasm. we thank you for the fact that you care about this consequential race. folk, governors count. thank you very much for watching and i look forward to talking about the issues.

>> thank you, governor ehrlich. governor o'malley. >> thank you, denise and thank you, governor ehrlich. i want to begin by thanking the people of our state and i want to thank the people of our state for giving me the honor of serving you in these very challenging and difficult times for every family and every business in our state. but as this national recession comes to a close, our state is moving forward. we are starting to create jobs again in maryland and we are transforming our economy through innovation and through education and we're doing it better than most states. but we have a lot of important and urgent work to do. you have a clear choice to make in this contest. it is whether we move forward to better days or whether we slip back. and i humbly ask for your support to move maryland forward. every decisive' made over these -- every decision i i've made over these last

four years -- [ loss of audio ] i have fought every battle on your side, standing up to big mortgage companies as homeowners try to protect their homes. i've stood up to big utilities for maryland consumers. with fiscal discipline and with decisiveness, very cut our state spending by more than any governor in maryland history and more importantly together we have found ways to protect the priorities that allow us to make this transformation to a better, new economy. improving schools, investing in innovation, making college more affordable for families and taking the strong actions that are working to improve the health of the cheese peek bay. -- of the chesapeake bay. i'm optimistic about the future, that better future that you and i have the ability to achieve for our children by moving forward. thanks a lot. >> thank you, governor. the first topic today and both of you have touched on it already, the most numbers of

viewers questions we got are always surrounding the topic of the economy. the economy. buckets have been -- budgets have been slashed and programs have been cut. so many of our viewers want to know what do you say to marylanders who say how are you going to stop this trend, how are you going to help maryland's economy grow? >> this is a big issue. governor, you know, the governor really has a big impact on the regulatory environment in your state. the fact of it is we have some really broken state agencies. they have been increasingly hostile to business and business creation in the state. we've seen the latest scandal on the dollar for example, the so-called business regulation agency. we have the department of environment which is increasingly hostile to job creators in this state. we have not created one new job in this state. that's a really problem. we've doubled our unemployment rate. that's a huge problem. we seem to have job growth in the public sector because of brac and base closing and other

stimulus. the fact is you have to have a healthy private sector. you have to -- particularly what we control, gov, you know we control to some extent tax policy and we control some legal policy. we don't really control the private sector concerning liquidity but you and i both know we control the regulatory environment in this state. to the extent you have hostile environment created, to the extent you have business people hurting around the state of maryland as a result of actions by state regulators, you have a loss of jobs. denise, that's what i hear time and time again around the state from the small business community, the people that are really the backbone ever our economy and our -- of our economy and our state. it's cliche but it's truth. small business is the backbone of our economy. to the extent your governor, and you have this direct responsibility for job creation, you really need to think about the people you put in charge and the fact that business people need answers. they need consistency. they need a welcoming environment, not hostility.

this election is really about how we view small business and the small business sector. is it a source of revenue? is it simply a source of more dollars to the state that we can tax and tax and tax and spend, spend, spend? or is it a source of job creation? i believe in job creation. that's why the national federation of independent business, the number one job creation group in this country, the small business people, the people that are the backbone of this country, they support me. they've always supported me and certainly support me in this election. we can't have a economy in maryland completely dependent on the true true to us nature of federal spending or the latest base closings, whatever it happens to be. we need a healthy private sector. under governor o'malley, the private sector has suffered and the facts speak for themselves. >> our country is going through a tough recession over the course of these last three -- [ loss of audio ] our economy is an innovation

economy and it is an innovation economy that is fueled by small business. two-thirds out of all jobs created in our state are created by small business. but nonetheless as a state, we need to take stock of our competitive strengths in this environment. i'll make no apologies for standing up when necessary to environmental polluters and for protecting our quality of life and the health of the bay. i believe that there are some things we can only do together and protecting our natural resources is one of those things. surely we have plenty of room for improvement, greater openness, transparency, predictability on regulations. but really the key to creating jobs is making this transition into this new economy of innovation. and we have some strong sectors. i have been supported by over 200 business people throughout our state. many of them in some of these leading sectors of life science and biotech. we're -- where even in the face of this downturn we've moved up

from fourth place ranking to second place. last year we had one ever the highest performing technology sectors in the country because we're moving forward. the truth of the matter is, we have actually created over 33,000 net new jobs. that's not me saying that. that's the bureau of labor statistics. and we have to continue to create jobs because we have a deep hole to climb out of. this recession has cost all of us over these last three years. but for all of our anger and frustration at this recession, that anger and frustration isn't going to move us forward. what's going to move us forward are things like increasing the biotech tax credit, creating the invest maryland fund which allows to us get more venture capital into businesses and the start-ups that are happening in maryland. the u.s. chamber of commerce, denise, hardly a mouth piece for the o'malley-brown administration or maryland democratic party has named our state one ever the top two -- of the top two best states in america for innovation and

entrepreneurship. healing, health, discovery, we sit in the center of a corridor of innovation provided we protect our investment in the most important quality of all which is the talents, the skills, the held indication left of our people which "forbes" magazine ranks as one of the top three in the country. >> this is really the issue of the campaign. this is what it's all about. governor, you know that. we love the federal sector. we love federal spending. we love n.i.h. and we love fort meed. these are fehrly -- these are federal facilities. the fact is we have dropped in our business ratings significantly. we have 216,000 marylanders out of work. the tax foundation, various rating groups rate us one of the worst business environments in the country because we've gone from the 20s to the 40s. when i was first elected, is maryland a pro-business state? we were in the 30s. when we left office, we

employed under four. we were in the 7 also. now we're back -- 70s. now we're back in the 30s. the largest tax increase in maryland, interest groups controlling the agendas of state government. job creation is the issue in this campaign. who best to create private sector jobs? governor, we're not talking about public sector jobs. maryland always creates public sector jobs. wear good at that. lieutenant brown has been in charge of that operation but we brought brac here that was the great success of our administration. we need to create private sector jobs, the jobs that really count to help with our underpinnings with regard to the public sector. >> jobs are important but first, governor, there was another thing you mentioned which i think is very important to a lot of people that have written in. someone named sean says, he wants to know whether you will forget jobs. he wants to know whether you will pledge not to raise taxes or significant fees in the

coming years. >> i'll tell you what i will pledge. i've never done that sort of irresponsible blanket pledge but i will pledge not to raise property taxes like you raised property tax, governor, when you were governor in easier times. i will pledge not to jack up college tuition by 40%. i will pledge not to increase buy 300% the annual filing fees for every small business incorporated by maryland. and i will pledge to not pretend that fees are not taxes. denise, in the toughest of times, we have cut state spending more than any governor in maryland history. in fact, state spending is 3% less now than it was four years ago. when the former governor was governor in easier times, he actually increased spending, state spending by 33%, more than glen denny did you d in the four-year period of time. more than shaeffer in a four- year period of time. yet we have protected the priorities that have allowed our economy to outperform

virtually every other state. we have held on to our private job base better than all but four other states in the union. we are now creating jobs at twice the rate of the rest of the nation and at a faster rate than our neighbors in virginia. and the jobs that i'm talking about are the small innovative companies that are popping up and starting all over maryland, even in the face of this recession and are really the cutting edge of this new economy. i was up in edgewood the other day at smith's detection, 56 additional jobs. i was at life technologies in frederick last week. a hundred additional jobs. human genome signs where tom watkins believes we're a very strong state for the new innovation economy if we move forward. >> just one second. before you go because i think you'll want to address this. on the issue of jobs and job creation, we received lots and lots of inquiries from people who work for the state, state workers. for instance, there's a viewer who says they want to know what can you promise state workers.

a lot of them are taking home less money. a lot of them are facing furloughs. they're having a very difficult time making ends meet. >> i've always rejected furloughs as a management tactic. we had that option in 2003, governor, and i rejected it. what it does is demoralize the people. these are people -- these are social workers that run out in dangerous neighborhoods. they're the public safety folks. now, denise, we need to get back to some of the issuees that have been raised because i've been waiting for n. drew and i watch tv every night and see the o'malley commercials. and governor, you said you cut state spending. well, we added up your budgets over four years. do you know who what they add to? $124 billion. mine, $101 billion. your $23 billion -- that's not a rounding error that really counts. it's big time money. you replace state money with federal stimulus dollars as you

know. i'm speaking now. it's my time. [ loss of audio ] you have to back up the debt for wall street to keep our aaa bond rating to set the approximate tax. tuition, scri an -- very an interesting number. people watching need to listen to n. they've been hearing this demagoguery for a while on the college freeze. the system freeze started under our administration. three years under yours and went up again this year. folks, the total cost of education in those system schools, college park, has increased 35%. you like to talk about fees. from 16,000 to 22,000. those fees have skyrocketed. so you show a difference between tuition and fees. this really counts. these are middle class folk, working class folks like i came from, a lot of folks that really depend on financial aid. and our administration -- [ loss of audio ] -- because

tuition in the schools did increase. we have 94% increase in folks waiting for need-based aid in maryland. not only that, what your freeze has done is caused less maryland kids to be admitted to maryland schools. we have the numbers to back up. thousands have been hammered. less maryland kids getting admitted to towson college park because the freeze went on too long. [ loss of audio ] >> getting maryland kids to stay in the state is real important. >> the governor can respond. >> let me begin with the most important thing which is college tuition and making it more affordable. over the last ten years, we've slipped from a nation that educated more of our people with college education and now i think we rank about ninth.

that happened in just a ten- year period of time. so making college more affordable for more families is critically important to making this transition to an innovation economy, creating jobs in this new economy for the future. all of those things that the former governor cited, the charges for dorms and food and those things, they went up when he was governor as well. what he had the discretion to do or not to do was to make investments in higher education so that kids did not get hit with a 40% increase for in state college. i watch those numbers very closely about how many students are coming out of state, how many are coming in state. the fact of the matter is they've remained very constant over the last five, six years. but you had the ability, governor, to do as i did which was to freeze college tuition. for your first three years in office you never did it. in fact, one of your biggest accomplishments was to force a 40% increase in college

tuition. right up on an election year, yes, you did something different and froze it for one year. we are the only state in the country to go four years in a row without a penny's increase to college tuition and i'm proud of that. furthermore, the property tax, governor, you actually did vote to increase the property tax and you know you did it and did you it at the board of public works and perhaps you thought no one would notice that. [ loss of audio ] >> i'm -- denise, i get to respond here because it's important. the ads have been running. i didn't bring up the fact that property tax went up. you're right. thank now reminding me -- thank you for reminding me of that. governors do not set tuitions. everybody listening, it may be a news item for some folks. governor do not set tuition. regents set tuition. with regard to property tax, the same thing. what you see from these ads is

the half truth. it's the get over to the next election thing. that's what this election is all about. that's going to stop on november 2. >> that's our goal is to get on certain points. let's go back to education, not on college tuition. let's go to something that affects many, many families in this state. and that is public education. and we had a lot of viewers' questions on this issue. marie in baltimore asks, what will you do to improve public education in low-performing schools? >> we were very fortunate because of the investments we protected, record investments in public education, even as i have had to cut our state budget by $5.6 billion in state spending. we've nonetheless and thanks in part to presidential leadership been able to provide record funding for our schools. and they've been recognized by experts around the country as the best or among the best certainly in the nation. but there's still too many schools that are underperforming so that's why we joined forces. we were one of only ten states,

denise, to win the race to the top grant. and part of that involves a much morrow bust and effective approach to turning around injured performing schools. how do you do that? you do that in a number of ways. we have doubled the number of charters in our state over the last four years. in fact, when i was mayor of baltimore, we had more charters in baltimore than on the rest of the state combined. but we are also going to be investing in a system that tracks a student's education all the way through school. many of our students in poor areas move a lot from school to school. we also have incentives to attract great leaders and great teachers to what have been hard to recruit to schools in some tough areas. that's all part of our race to the top effort building on the tremendous accomplishments of parent, administrators, teachers and really the people of maryland who understand that the most important thing to making this change to a new economy is protecting the

education of our children. so those are some of the things we're going to be able to do in the immediate future. >> denise werks will always have pretty -- denise, we will always have pretty good schools because we're a pretty wealthy state. we supported thorton, the major boost in education. we funded to the tune of $1.4 billion. governor, i think we can actually agree, maryland schools are pretty good generally. we have some terrific schools. we know the subdivisions we're talking about, howard county, montgomery county and others. we tend to focus in our administration on the dysfunctional schools. i don't want to relitigate the issue of the 11 schools in baltimore city that maryland legislature, maryland general assembly just had to protect the system when those 11 schools were failing. we had kids with pass rates of 4% and 6% and 8%, folks. and you and your leadership this election year had to protect those numbers. you couldn't allow the schools to go charter or private vendor

because it would have been an embarrassment in an election year. that was the most disgraceful episode and i'm not blaming all of you. trust me, there are a lot of folks involved here. but i have never seen political leaders protect a monopoly as i did that year. we had 11 schools with kids being denied their constitutional rights, mostly african-american kids in baltimore city and nobody cared enough. other than us. and some members of the general assembly, a lot of republicans and a couple of democrats. it was one of the worst episodes i've ever seen of protecting the monopoly as opposed to kids. we passed the first charter school legislation in the history of the state over the objection of the maryland state teachers association and thank god for mike miller quite frankly who allowed us to pass that bill. we have one residential charter in our city. we have 44 charter schools in fact, 34 in baltimore city. we need to focus innovative approaches to education where we're hurting, where the kids are being denied their

constitutional rights. the fact that your -- [indiscernible] -- that's why we funded thorton when the legislature stopped my funding source. so we can go residential charter. next by the way i want to quadruple, we have one in the city of baltimore, this allows kids to not only learn but learn in a state environment. we can bring some mentor programs into all title one schools in baltimore city. we generally have pretty good schools and always will. we need to focus where the kids are being denied their rights. that episode in 2006 although it's passed is really relevant today because those kids were denied their constitutional rights. your color, your ethnicity, your backgrounds, your race, what you look like should not abpredictor of the quality of public education you receive. >> denise, i really to respond. i promise to be brief. i'm going to be really, really brief. the residential charter school of which the former governor referenced, was a charter school i recruited to

baltimore. i was there at ground breaking and been there every step of the way and it's a good thing. but that incident describe bid you in 2006, governor, that wasn't about protecting a monopoly. that was about protecting the progress of kids, especially in the city of baltimore where ten years ago not one grade school majority profurther in read -- proficient in reading or math. today one through eight are scoring proficient in reading and math. furthermore as a state we've cut the achievement gap between black and white students in half in recent years and i'm tired of people putting down the achievements of poor children and children of color. we move forward as a state and we move forward together. and we move forward as one people. >> this is really emotional, governor, because when you have schools that are graduating -- not graduating 85% of your kids and you have kids achieving 6% and 8% pass rates, those kids of color are being denied their constitutional rights. that's intolerable and unacceptable in the state

maryland, until of -- and the united states of america. >> why don't you come with me -- > i've been been to those charter schools. >> why don't you ever mention the places where kids are making progress. you always talk, bob, in very coded language about the kids who aren't succeeding. frankly i will put our progress up in the city of baltimore and our rate of improvement up against any kid in any major city in america. >> i will always talk about the kids being denied their constitutional rights. >> you never talk about the things they're doing well. >> we love progress. when the kids are being denied their constitutional rights and they're passing functional tests at 5% and 10%, 15% rates, those kids are being denied their constitutional rights. >> and you want to cut their funding for education if elected and you cut construction funding in easier times. >> you cut $150 million on school construction this election year. >> if i can interject for a second because it's my job and i lost the coin toss as you

said. >> now you're paying the price, denise. >> let's talk about somebody who gets blamed for these kids and the lack of education and that's the teachers. we heard from a lot of teachers when we asked people to send us their questions. and there was a teacher named janet in arnold who sent this e- mail. governor o'malley, she said she's not had a raise in three years. she's been furloughed. she wants to know if maryland wants to keep highly qualified teachers, how will each candidate restore the pay scal for teachers and -- scale for teachers and fund programs that have been cut from the schools. >> these have been difficult years. i had a choice, denise, at the state level and individual school districts are making similar choices and in the counties. my choice was do we do furloughs and all of us whether to -- weather this together or do what the former governor likes to call restructuring what we've seen in other states means mallsive layoffs n. california they put 20,000, 30,000 teachers in unemployment lines. we need to make our economy

recover. we need to make this transition to a new comoi so we -- new economy so we can get our revenues back up. we had the best year of job creation we've had since the year 2000. that's that better future that we need to get to. we have nonetheless been able to protect because of our teachers commitment, we've been able to protect our advances in the achievement levels of our children which are higher now than they've been at any time since the latest msa test started back in 2003. and a lot of that credit goes yes to parent, yes to teachers, yes to administrators and really to everyone who's pulling together in the toughest times to make sure that our education of our children does not become another casualty of this recession. >> the massive layoffs you're talking about did not occur under our administration nor the state of maryland. we have a different philosophical view on furloughs. furloughs constitute a management tactic, denise. what they do is save you x amount of dollars. in many cases they don't save

as much as you think because supervisors will come in on weekends and work time and a half so the savings you receive are not necessarily what you think they are when you institute a furlough. but the message here to state employees is we appreciate what you do. these are hard jobs. i've never beat up on state employees and some folks in my party quite frankly have over the years. i've not. furloughs send a very clear message to you which is thanks for what you're doing but just take the hit. they discourage folks who really get your state off in the morning as i said earlier. they discourage the people who protect us from violent criminals, who build our roads, social workers. [ loss of audio ]

>> sales tax increase, comiewjty colleges getting hurt, furloughs for state employees, all regrelsive, all hurt working people where they live -- regressive, all hurt working people where they live. the baltimore suburbs, the working neighborhoods -- [ no audio ] [ no audio ] >> furthermore, you have said and i'm not making this up. these are words out of your mouth, that you would cut education if you were elected. what do you think happens to teachers then? you might be able to keep this division in your fantasy world that somehow you've stuck to a promise of not doing furloughs but i think that would be very little comfort to tens of thousands of teachers who would

then be put in unemployment lines while class sizes go up and the education of our children suffers. we've made big investments in community colleges. we have made investments in school construction. when you cut it in easier times and we're the only state in the country to go four years in a row without a penny's increase to college tuition, that's after you made decisions to cut higher ed and forced them to jack up college tuition by 40% for maryland kids. >> if this one program you're talking about was so darn important to you, geographic cost of education index, that's what we're talking b why didn't you fund -- talking about, why didn't you fund it? if this was a priority you to and my lawyer, opined that this was not part of thorton as you well know. we didn't fund it in 2003. it was a deal struck in the 2002 session just to get the

thorton formula passed, just to get that bill passed. it was never part of thorton. you didn't find it a priority. you dndz fund it with -- now we're in a fix. you talk about being in a fix. we've had $3.7 billion in surplus come to our state the past couple of years. you've taken two-thirds of every dollar and stuck them in the recurring spending programs. medicaid and k-12. and now do you know why we have these structural deficits? because those dollars have stopped. washington is going to change big time in a few weeks. trust me, those dollars have stopped. >> trust you? why are you calling these -- i'm not sure why he calls them surplus dollars. these are dollars, the recovery and reinvestment dollars he's talking about -- to make sure we protect our children's education in these tough times

and the most vulnerable among us in terms of health care. we ramped up. we did it in a fiscally responsible way and we are one of only eight states that still has a aaa bond rating, denise. furthermore, we've improved outcomes for our students throughout our state and we are going to continue to do it. we've made different choices when we were -- [ no audio ] in easier times the former governor always looked for ways to get out of funding education. he cut school construction and he forced a 40% increase in college tuition. >> it's temporary spending from the federal government to the state government. as you know, those dollars are gone. >> we're picking apart a very important but very small point and there are big issues we haven't gotten to yet that a lot of people want to hear about. let's move on to crime, if we will. we heard from nicholas in pass dean na.

he wants to -- in pasadena. he wants to know will you reform firearms law. a lot of people are concerned about firearms law. >> i've been a pro-second amendment throughout my public career. interestingly enough, when you look at how these bills work, they tend to only penalize law abiding citizens. i in addition have supported programs such as exile. it targets felony cases. the fact of it is it's bad guys with guns and addiction that drives our -- we can agree on n. we can agree as far as the baseline at what causes gun violence in our cities, state and country. it's drink bin addiction. i've always voted to -- [indiscernible] -- for those who misuse firearms. not law-abiding citizens. that's why i've supported

second amendment groups throughout my career. these issues are more important and relevant given recent supreme court decisions as you know. people should have a right to protect themselves in their home. they have a right to a personal firearm to protect themselves. that's now clear pursuant to the united states supreme court. i support these decisions. eight my n my voting record throughout any public career. governor o'malley has never had the opportunity to vote on these issues but my voting record is quite clear. >> denise, there's no more sacred responsibility than any of us in public service have than the protection of public safety. it is true we need to do a much better job of cracking down on those who use guns. however, we have a big difference. i do believe there are appropriate things we can do with our laws to keep drug

dealers from being able to access firearms that spew out bullets faster than any arms we give our police. but on the issue of public safety, we have done a much better job as a state and also as a city over the last ten years not with strange all the downing of baltimore that we used to hear from the former governor. the city of baltimore achieved the biggest reduction in overall crime over the last ten years of any in the major cities in america and the third biggest reduction in violent crime only behind los angeles and new york. what we have done in the last few years, though, and what we can do moving forward is make sure that parole, probation and juvenile service along with corrections are actually engaged in this crime fight. we've created a new unit called the violence prevention initiative. we target the most violent paroleees and probationers and we go after them and make sure they're mitch more closely monitored than we were before. when i was elected, denise, we were left a 24,000 sampled

d.n.a. backlog, a backlog that was allowed to grow under the former governor, a backlog that they never bothered to address. along with another 15,000 d.n.a. samples that should have been taken. we've now cleared that backlog. we've made investments, important investments in our state crime lab, and there are 270 violent felons that have been charged only because we're doing a better job of backing up our police officers with the technology they need, with the d.n.a. lab that works. and we are also doing a much better job of working together to target those that use guns in crimes of violence over and over again. we still have a long way to go. there is no reason we should satisfy ourselves with being one ever the most educated states in america and at the same time allow a level of violence that we have in our state. we're moving in the right direction. i think we were ranked roughly fourth in violence when the former governor was in. now we're down around eight or nine. but we've got a long way to go

but we can get there by working together. >> wow, there's a lot there, denise. hold o. i need some time. the d.n.a. sample bill was a prerogative initiative of our administration. these are half stories. i inherited this, i inherited that. we allowed for the first time those samples to be taken upon conviction. so that was our bill which created the database, which created the new work, which created the ability of the system as you know, governor, to work. so you have to actually tell the whole story when it comes to criminal justice and every other issue for that matter. secondly, you arrested -- you had a lot of folks arrested in baltimore city. a lot of african-americans were arrested. arrested. and you talk about this racial tension that lies beyond some of your comment abouts talking bad about baltimore. i didn't ready that, that's for sure. a lot of people were upset and it was wrong. a lot of innocent people were arrested and thrown behind bars

and then they were let out a few hours late foreno apparent reason -- for no apparent reason. that's your record. let's live with it. >> there's a lot more people living because of it. >> it's my time now. [ no audio ] >> i supported processes and initiatives that make sense to keep firearms out of the hands of violent criminals. the issues that you have come down on the wrong side of my view, we have a legitimate, philosophical debate on this for the most part penalize law- abiding people, people who are not the problem, people who are simply in order to secure a firearm are given more obstacles in order to exercise their constitutional rights. because of the supreme court has now opined repeatedly over the past few years on this issue, it appears that there's more momentum with regard to my view of the second amendment. and i think that's good for our society as well. i think it's good for crime and

punishment. >> quick response? >> i disagree on that the fact of the matter is this d.n.a. backlog went totally unnatural liesed. you didn't bother to natural -- unnatural liesed -- didn't bother to analyze the samples. it was there. everyone knows it, bob. furthermore, we also create add public safety database, a public safety dashboard. we've driven hop sields down by a -- homicides down by a steeper degree the last few years than any time in maryland history since the numbers started being taken in 1975. and we continue to save lives. >> i guess law enforcement is not real impressed with your record since the fops all around the state have endorsed my campaign for governor over the incumbent democratic governor of maryland so the police-- >> you just took me to the next subject. >> the key is saving lives.

the key is saving lives. that's what we need to do as a state and we can do it with technology, with a state government that's actually working, with a d.n.a. lab, a crime lab. >> let's move on to something because you're already there. let's talk about something else that has been brought up which is campaign ads which both of you have been talking about. we received numerous questions from wjz viewers on campaign ads. a man named andrew from graysonville asks both candidates at what point did you decide to go negative with your campaign ads and why do you think it's an effective approach to winning an election. governor o'malley. >> there are a number of ads our campaign has been running, denise. a campaign is about choices. the candidates offer two stark and different choices. i have an obligation to make sure that the public understands notwithstanding the former governor's fantasy world that he never raised taxes because he didn't raise fees, even though he raised property taxes, even though he raised college tuition by 40%, even though he raised tolls and the like. i have an obligation to point

that out. more importantly i have an obligation to point out that in much easier times, he chose to cut education, cut school construction, cut college education and thereby making college tuition much more expensive and i've made a different set of choices. so we have an obligation to compare and contrast and put those contrasts to the public. having said that i'm proud of the 5700 jobs that we've created at the port of baltimore through a public- private partnership and we've run ads on that aim proud of the fact in maryland we'll be building the next generation of electric drive car here at allison and i'm proud of the fact that the state was able to make that happen in partnership with g.m. i'm proud of the businesses on main street that are opening and i'm proud of the new start- ups that are happening in our state in the life, science, biotech and the private sector. so we have been running those ads as well, but we also have a duty to show where the contrasts are and the choice that the people of our state

have to make here of whether we move forward or whether we slip to the policies of the past where maryland was not making progress but the governor -- former governor was spending a lot more money than we did. >> $124 billion to $101 billion, governor. no ad, no crazy negative ad will overcome that fact. now, to answer the question, who was it, denise? >> this was from graysonville, andrew. >> andrew, thanks for calling us. thanks for contacting denise. the incumbent democratic governor, the bluest state in the country since march has run a series of pretty over-the-top negative ads. now, i have to tell you just to be real frank. march, april, may, june, july, august, most of those negative ads made up all the difference in the polls. we started ten down and by the end of those negative ad wes were even in the polls -- ads, we were even in the polls.

the oil spill-- >> i didn't blame you for the oil spill. >> that ad helped us. my second favorite ad is when you cut and pasted four or five different interviews together and whatever that ad was, but different interviews you cut and paste. now, here's the problem, andrew. you have a governor unwilling to talk about or try to market what he's done over the past four years. from march on with all the elected officials supporting you, all the money, all the advantage of incumbency, these ads are negative and that speaks volume abouts what the governor feels, thinks and believes about what he's done the last four years. negatives work. you go out there and talk about tuition freezes and talk about the fact that overall costs at college park has gone up so dramatically, people might buy them but the problem is you went so negative so early, way

too early. so we've had an opportunity to respond. we didn't have the money to respond earlier. we do now which is why we are responding and we're going to respond, governor, trust me through election day. so, andrew, the lesson here is unfortunately at times in certain media market, negatives might work but ultimately the narrative of this campaign will be where the incumbent democratic governor of the most bluest state in the country and you spend -- and the fact you bought ads on a radio show which was really interesting because the democratic party -- [ no audio ] >> the fact that you bought ads on a radio show led me to believe you were a sponsor of the ehrlich campaign. it's all -- [indiscernible] >> for four years on that radio

show, the former governor has been going negative on everything that we're trying to do in the toughest of times to move our state forward. and the former governor was quoted in the paper recently saying that smart people have advised him not to talk about his record for good reason. he increased state spending. i'm not talking about the stimulus dollars. by the way, bob, you never turned down a single dollar from the federal government when you were governor. but he increased state spending by 33%, more in a four-year period than glen denning or shaeffer and he increased property taxes, increased college tuition and maryland was not making much progress. we were spending more but we weren't moving forward. >> largest tax increase in maryland history, $1.4 billion, that was your answer. you also transfer add couple billion doll -- transferred a couple bill dollars from existing cash accounts. you also talked 3.7 billion of

stimulus. after each chapter, you said it's cured. let's have a press conference. we're done. >> i didn't actually say that. >> it's my time. you had a victory press conference after the major tax increase, the largest tax increase in maryland history, you all got together just like you did, by the way, when you beat those kids going to those schools in baltimore city. you had a big victory press conference then. you can't have these victory press conferences as though people don't have memories. to the tune of $6 billion after each time you said it's cured, it's fixed, good times are coming, we have not created one net new job in this state. you've doubled the unemployment rate under your watch and you know it. the facts speak for themselves. $124 billion worth of budgets as opposed to $101 billion. that's a difference of $23 billion. surplus billion dollars right there when i left office. spent immediately. this is your record. you have to live with it.

>> denise, we've never declared mission accomplished. he may be confusing me with your former -- our former president, president bush. this has been hard. every single day we've made tough choices but for all of the phony promises that you make about cutting people's taxes, when the former governor was in, denise, he didn't lower taxes for anyone. say what you will about the one penny that, yes, we asked every maryland to pay so that we could come through this storm without having to read about your state in the category with california and others. but the fact of the matter is, denise, we made changes to our income tax that actually had the net effect when you put the penny on the sales and income together along with increase in the unearned income tax credit and increase in personal exemptions which help seniors, we lowered taxes for 41% of maryland filers. when the former governor was n he didn't lower taxes on any group of people that we fought like heck to protect loopholes from big corporations.

>> denise, it's just -- you know what? the recent -- [indiscernible] last year when thinking about running for this race so many people came up to me enough. we've drawing a line if it is sand. a enough with tax increases. enough with federal preemption. enough to looking to government to solve our problems. the wal-mart tax, we tried to cut taxes when i was governor. the maryland general assembly wouldn't allow us to do it. didn't pass those bills. again, folks, that's the reason we're running. what you just heard, blaming president bush, this election is about enough, drawing the line. enough of this stuff. we care about jobs -- about job creation. that's i am' running this race. >> owe that's why i'm running this race. >> i'll draw the line and move on to another subject. this is a subject that's become very important to a lot of people.

living in the state of maryland, that's the issue of immigration. we had a letter from someone named roy from baltimore who wants to know your stand on illegal immigrants who are living here in maryland. >> governors deal with very specific issues concerning immigration. driver's licenses, in state tuition and funding. i vetoed in state tuition as governor. [ no audio ] >> the legislature stopped me through the regulatory pro -- regulatory process. you have this issue of spending, the a casa demarylands of the world. if they would just follow their original charter f they were really about assimilation, recent immigrants into this country, teaching capitalism,

democracy, teaching our culture, our sing goo regard american -- singular american culture, i would be standing on the rooftops good for you came is a de maryland, -- casa de maryland, we'll support you, fund you. unfortunately what they have done is take state tax money and print booklets to assist illegal immigrants from the long arm of the law. our tax money is now going to assist illegal behavior. [ no audio ] >> s that ate clear line that tax payers are demanding. -- that's a clear line that tax payers are demanding. some of us were forced here in slave ships. we all came here. we're all immigrants. this is about a single -- [ no audio ]

[ stand by for captions ] [ no audio ] >> our country's innovation, our entrepreneurship, our work ethic has been fueled time and time again by newly arriving americans. what we have now is a very dysfunctional system of immigration and we need to make the changes, bring people together from both sides of the aisle to craft a comprehensive solution to immigration reform. only our federal government can enforce our borders. they need to do a better job of

that. only our federal government can enforce immigration laws and they also need to do a better job of that. but congress needs to come together across the partisan divide and find a way so that people who are here can apply for citizenship, obey the law, and pay their taxes and live in the full light and openness and transpair si -- transpair si of our american society. i do not believe as the former governor has said before that multiculturism is bunk. i believe we're all in this together. i don't believe as the former governor has said before that multiculturism is crap. i believe we're a multicultural people and multicultural country and if many comes one strong nation. i also believe that we should not blame new americans for the problems that or country is going through right now. it's wrong. new americans did not drive wall street into a ditch.

new americans did not have the regulators look the other way while credit markets were crashed and driven into the ground with false vehicles for investment. new americans did not get us into a series of unfunded wars that have driven up debt. i believe we're all in this together and we've got to find a better solution to our immigration challenge. >> i was never on the house banking committee. the bottom -- >> i'm sorry, governor ehrlich. i don't want to interrupt you but i wish we had all night but we don't. it is time for our closing statements. i do appreciate it. do to the coin toss, you go first. >> i think i go last according to the coin toss. i went first. >> my understanding is -- okay. >> whatever you say. >> governor o'malley gl. we have a lot of work ahead of us. we are on the cusp of a couple of decades if we make this change in our new economy.

so far this year we've had a better year of job creation than we've had since the year 2000, but we have a lot of work to do right now in order to make up for everything that we've lost in this horrible global and national recession. in this competition, in this change to a new economy, there will be states that are winners and there will be states that are losers. the states that win will be states that are able to move forward making progress in this transformation, improving their work force, improving their schools, making college more affordable and harnessing the power of the innovation economy. in every tough fight i have always been on your side and right now especially in these times, we need a governor who's on our side. the big banks, big utilities, the big mortgage companies, they can afford all of the government affairs specialists and lobbyists that money can buy. but we need a governor who's on our side, who looks at every challenge and question in terms of what's best for the people of maryland, what's best for

hard-working families as they plan for their own future and do their part to give all of our children that better future that they deserve. thanks very much. i need your help. [ no audio ] >> it's interesting that the only operating casino in maryland today has supported you $16,000 worth by the way. this stuff about class warfare and big and big and big being evil and nasty, i'd love to debate ow federal housing policy -- on federal housing policy when we get an opportunity. i'm running because i love maryland. we have a proven track record. record employment, record surplus, a lot of good things happened. charter schools, the restoration act, transportation bills, disability, the icc, all of these initiatives were part of our record as governor.

i thought i was retired but so many people came and said look, bob, think about it. we don't like the direction of this state. we want you to come and change maryland again for the better. that's why we're running. we have record unemployment, the largest tax increase in maryland history. folk, we can do better. the opportunity to do better will be november 26789 i thank you very much. i was proud to serve as your governor, humbled by the fact i was your governor, humbled to be running again. governor, thank you very much for your time today. godspeed. >> thank you the jewish council for supporting this debate. cast your vote on election day. good night.