TAX NEWS - June 2010

Local Attorney makes lowering taxes her No. 1 issue

WINDSOR -- A local attorney is challenging state Sen. David Brinkley in the Republican primary.

Kathryn Freed is making lowering taxes her No. 1 issue, and said Brinkley, who represents portions of Frederick and Carroll counties, has lost touch with his constituents.

"We need to promote a free market, not just government subsidies," Freed said. "We've taxed our best and brightest to the point where they're actually leaving the state of Maryland."

Describing herself as a constitutionalist, Freed said her background as an attorney would make her an effective legislator.

If elected, she pledged never to vote for a bill without reading it in its entirety first.

Freed is planning to sign a pledge that states she won't raise taxes, and she criticized Brinkley for refusing to sign it.

Brinkley signed it when he was a House member, but said he has chosen not to in the Senate because he serves on the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee.

If he had signed the pledge, he wouldn't have been able to vote for the hotel tax, a local request where the tax is used to promote tourism, he said.

Freed has lived in Maryland for about 10 years and New Windsor for about four.

She grew up in different areas around the world because her father was a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force.

Before moving to Maryland, she lived in Texas, where she served a term on the city council of Crossroads, Texas. During that time, she was elected mayor pro tem.

Her first foray into politics was because of her opposition to a hazardous waste facility that was planned for an area of the city that was to be deannexed. She helped fight and stop that facility, and after that agreed to serve on the council.

After her term was up, she went to law school to become an attorney.

She opposes slots and speed cameras, which she said are both taxes on the people.

One reason she wants Brinkley out of office is because he has supported the Gov. Martin O'Malley budget, she said.

"He is the type of person that goes along to get along in Annapolis, and then when he gets out here he tries to present himself differently to us," she said.

During the last General Assembly session, Brinkley and another Republican senator presented an alternative budget plan that would have substantially cut the budget.

He voted for O'Malley's budget but against another related budget bill that enabled fund transfers and other spending.

In 2007, when the legislature raised taxes, including the sales tax, Brinkley led the Republican opposition to increases.

Freed said, however, that those tax increases are a major concern of hers.

She is also taking issue with a vote Brinkley made in 1996 as a member of the House of Delegates.

"He voted for late-term abortions, and that's something that the people out here in Frederick and Carroll would be surprised to learn," Freed said. "I find that a just reprehensible practice."

Brinkley, who describes himself as pro-life, recalled the vote as a procedural vote on a bill that would have banned partial-birth abortions. He said the pro-life lobby was split as to how to tactically deal with the issue.

He opposes partial birth abortions and has voted most recently against government funding for abortions, he said.

"I think my record since then stands second-to-none," he said.

Freed is running a grassroots campaign and has received positive feedback, she said.

"I'm really good at reading legislation, and I'm not bought and sold by corporate interests," Freed said. "I am running for the benefit of the people of this area."