Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot recently reminded members of the General Assembly in Annapolis that under Maryland law, “tax records are confidential; state employees’ salaries are not.” Because Franchot formerly represented Montgomery County in the House of Delegates for 20 years, he perhaps assumed that state Sen. James DeGrange, D-Anne Arundel, knew Maryland law just as well as he did.

But then DeGrange called a news conference to demand an ethics investigation of Franchot. Why? Because Franchot had the temerity to make public the salaries of the 4,600-plus state employees who are paid $150,000 or more each year. Franchot did so, as he was required to do by the Maryland Public Information Act, in response to a request from our newsroom colleagues at The Baltimore Examiner.

At his news conference, DeGrange hysterically accused Franchot of “compromis[ing] the prestige of his office,” calling the release of public information — to the public — “unethical and outright wrong.” If he is tempted to repeat these ludicrous ideas, DeGrange should sit down, take a deep breath and actually read the law, which explicitly gives taxpayers the right to know how much their “government servants” are being paid. Then he — not Franchot — should apologize.

Predictably, Franchot is getting grief from other Maryland Democrats, including state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, D-Calvert. Franchot should respond by taking his welcome advocacy of making Maryland government more transparent to the next level. His abundant political talent would boost the budding campaign to require all Maryland state government to post spending data — including all employee salaries and other compensation — online in a Google-like searchable database.

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He would be following the example of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who joined with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., two years ago and helped gain passage of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA), which mandated establishment of such a database at the federal level, now viewable at USASpending.gov.

Since President Bush signed FFATA into law in September 2006, officials in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina and Hawaii followed suit, approving legislation creating state spending Web sites in 2007. Newly elected Gov. Bobby Jindal had barely moved into the Louisiana governor’s mansion before signing an executive order mandating creation of a site for his state. Legislators in 17 more states, including Virginia, have introduced spending database bills, and in Maryland, state Sen. Alex Mooney, R-Frederick, and Del. Warren Miller, R-Annapolis, are co-sponsoring such legislation. Franchot’s support could make the critical difference in getting the Mooney-Miller measure enacted into law. One more thing: Include all Maryland county government spending, too.