Interesting article in the Baltimore Sun recently, notingthatthe race for Baltimore County state's attorney, “a rematch of the 2006 contest between Scott D. Shellenberger and Stephen Bailey,” has pushed the usual law-and-order issues to one side, as “accusations of wasteful spending” dominate the race.

Shellenberger, a first-term Democrat, “is promoting his accomplishments, which include carrying out a policy to record inmates' phone calls and prosecuting the state's first fetal homicide case,” the Sun notes, adding that, as is to be expected, “he is also playing up his role in the county's record-low crime statistics.”

Bailey, his Republican opponent, says he wants to expand some of Shellenberger’s initiatives, while charging that “Shellenberger could stand some improvement, arguing that he is paid too much and doesn't run his office efficiently.”

Shellenberger said he is “particularly proud of implementing the phone call recording policy because it has paid off in a number of high-profile cases,” the Sun reports, “including the 2008 kidnapping and armed robbery of two teens at a Timonium light rail station. Shellenberger personally prosecuted that case.”

Bailey hammers Shellenberger on money matters, particularly “salary, pension, perks, financial efficacy and campaign backers,” the Sun says, quoting Bailey as saying "I'm not running because I think Scott's a bad guy or he's incompetent as a prosecutor, I think he's a terrible steward of the taxpayer dollar. He and I have very, very different views of what it means to be a public servant."

Shellenberger, whose career and Bailey’s intersected at several point, departed an office the two of them worked in together about a decade earlier, after serving for 11 years, to join the law firm of Peter G. Angelos, owner of the Baltimore Orioles.