ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- The impending summer utility rate hike has created a huge political storm, battering the governor.

WBAL-TV 11 News reporter David Collins reported the anticipated 72 percent rate increase in electric bills this summer has reached a political boiling point in Annapolis.

Democrats unveiled a radio advertisement Wednesday that blasts the governor's leadership. The same day, the Legislative Black Caucus announced its investigation into why the Ehrlich administration didn't invite the only African-American member of the state's utility-regulating Public Service Commission to a meeting.

Video: Black Caucus Questions Ehrlich

Collins reported Democratic Comptroller William Donald Schaefer -- who has been an ally of Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich -- threw insults during the Board of Public Works meeting.

Schaefer said he is upset over the rate increases and with the governor's appointments to the PSC who gave their approval.

"This is Glendening Jr.," he said, referencing Ehrlich's predecessor, Parris Glendening.

In 1999, Democrats introduced and passed a bill deregulating the utilities, and they also put rate caps in place, which are set to expire on July 1.

Meanwhile, the Democrats' radio ad blasts the governor's leadership on the issue.

The ad's narrator states: "The governor should be solving our problems, but he keeps dropping the ball, and it keeps costing you money."

The governor's press office called the Democrats' radio ad "petty politics."

The Legislative Black Caucus has launched an investigation into the Ehrlich administration's handling of an impromptu meeting with select members the beleaguered PSC.

"My question to the governor, and to whoever raised this meeting: What happened that Mr. Harold Williams -- the only African-American member of that Public Service Commission -- was omitted from that meeting?" said Baltimore City Sen. Nathaniel McFadden D-District 45.

"We're mad as hell. We're mad as hell because this is going to be one of the biggest issues this summer, and we've got to solve it now, but we can't solve it when people get left out of the room," said Baltimore City Delegate Curt Anderson, D-District 43.

Chip DiPaula, the governor's chief of staff, said Williams was not intentionally left out. DiPaula said he had spotted four PSC members in a State House hallway on Tuesday who were in Annapolis to talk with legislators about several utility-related bills in a Senate committee.

Williams -- the only member not appointed by Ehrlich -- cited an occasion last month when, he said, PSC Chairman Kenneth Schisler and the three other commission members met without him in the chairman's office.

Stay with TheWBALChannel.com and WBAL-TV 11 News for the latest news updates.