Andy Harris, who has branded his Democratic opponent, Frank Kratovil, a "tax-and-spend liberal," laughs with amusement when someone calls him an extremely conservative Republican. "Only in Maryland," he says, would someone with his attitudes and voting record be considered extreme. In many other places in this great nation, Harris says, he'd be considered a mainstream Republican.

Perhaps that is so. But certainly Harris is to the right of Wayne Gilchrest, the Eastern Shore Republican he wishes to replace in next Tuesday's election. Yesterday on Midday, Harris seemed to say that Gilchrest was out of step with voters of the First District, and what voters really wanted all along, instead of the former school teacher and Vietnam veteran they sent to Congress for 18 years, was a more conservative brand of Republican. And that's why Harris, a doctor and state senator from Baltimore County, is running for the seat: He's more of a classic Republican than Gilchrest, more in step with a district that was redrawn six years ago.

Harris can downplay the level of his conservatism, but his General Assembly voting record, which we've examined carefully, clearly puts him to the far right. And if that's relative to the voting records of others in the state legislature or the attitudes of most voters in this Democrat-dominated state, so be it. That's how we measure things here and everywhere.

Consider his environmental voting record, for instance. Harris has one of the worst records on environmental matters, according to the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, an organization that rates every member of the House of Delegates and Senate after every session, and has consistently put Harris near the bottom of its list. (His lifetime 9 percent rating ties him for second-worst in state Senate.) The Chesapeake Bay should be of concern to all Maryland representatives in Congress, but particularly one from the First District, which includes all of the Eastern Shore, and parts of Harford, Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties.

Yesterday, when a Midday caller asked Harris what he'd do for the bay, he said that for too long, and on too many fronts, Maryland has gone it alone in the long and unsuccessful bay restoration effort. Other states in the vast watershed need to do more, he said. (Below is Harris's position on the Chesapeake, in his own words.)

I asked him about his opposition to the so-called "flush tax," approved by the legislature four years ago and pushed by Bob Ehrlich, the former Republican governor who is supporting Harris in his campaign for Congress. Harris said he opposed the $30 annual levy because it included rural and suburban homeowners who have their own septic systems. He didn't think it fair to include them, the inference being that people with their own septics don't contribute in some way to the polluting of the bay and don't benefit from sewage treatment plants. This was an argument heard frequently on right-wing talk radio during the debate over the flush tax. But, in the end, it became a law widely praised. Ehrlich expressed misgivings about the septic provisions of the bill, but said the measure was "too important to veto."

For those who don't quite remember, here's a summary of the flush tax by Tim Wheeler, the Sun reporter who has long covered environmental issues for the paper: "In an attempt to boost the bay cleanup effort, lawmakers in 2004 approved a 'flush tax' on sewer users and septic system owners proposed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. The $2.50 monthly fee on sewer bills has generated
$60 million per year for upgrading sewage treatment plants, a major source of nutrients fouling the bay. A $30 annual fee charged to homeowners on septic systems has raised $12 million a year to help pay farmers to plant pollution-preventing 'cover crops.' The fee also pays for grants to improve septic systems."

One of the first treatment plants to benefit from the levy was the one in Easton, in the heart of the First District. Before the end of 2004, Ehrlich went there and, proclaiming his commitment to cleaning up the Chesapeake, he and other officials broke ground on what would be the first of 66 sewage treatment plant expansion projects funded through his new "flush tax." The $36 million expansion of the Easton facility was intended to handle the town's growing population and cut by two-thirds the amount of nitrogen pollution flowing from the plant toward the bay. "We all love the bay, and we love to fish and go to Ocean City," Ehrlich said. "Past administrations have done a lot to help, but it was somewhat piecemeal, uncoordinated. It had stopped the bleeding, but it didn't turn the corner." The "flush-tax" could raise up to $1 billion for plant improvements by 2014.

No one likes taxes, and Bob Ehrlich took of a beating from the more extreme wing of his GOP constituency for proposing the flush-tax. Republican doctrine insists on fighting taxes every step of the way, decreasing the size of government and government's reach.

But, when it comes to environmental issues, there's no "going it alone," and for most people the "flush tax" represented an effort to get all Marylanders in on the effort to help the bay. It was a modest levy with a potentially large result, and many consider it it one of the most important steps we've ever taken in this region.

In the General Assembly, Andy Harris represents north-central Baltimore County and perhaps he felt that "representation" meant fighting off the flush tax on behalf of his constituents. But, when it comes to the bay, such parochial thinking doesn't work. And when you offer yourself as a candidate for Congress, offering to serve a far greater constituency, you have to present vision and leadership that goes beyond petty and provincial concerns.

Here's Harris's position on the environment: