Andy Harris is mad at me.

I wrote about his congressional district art contest two weeks ago, and the Republican from Cambridge hated it so much he told one of my colleagues he wouldn’t talk to her because she works at The Baltimore Banner.

“Tell your editor,” he said.

Then I told him I wrote it.

“You wrote it? You should be fired!”

Harris, chair of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus in Congress, doesn’t mind seeing people fired for doing their jobs. In a 20-minute speech Thursday night to the Dorchester Chamber of Commerce in Cambridge, the thousands of federal employees in Maryland getting canned didn’t come up.

Nor did any plans for a town hall meeting, where constituents say they would tell the seven-term congressman they disagree with the cuts, part of President Donald Trump’s radical — and probably unconstitutional — remaking of the federal government.

Instead, Harris told the crowd of hundreds inside the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay that he was at Mar-a-Lago the other night, the president’s Florida country club home. He likes the food better at Cindy’s Kitchen in Cambridge.

“Don’t tell the president!” he laughed.

Despite the bonhomie on display for the $75-a-seat private event, Harris has a temper. He doesn’t like criticism. It’s one of the reasons he hasn’t hosted an in-person town hall since 2017.

That year, a feisty roomful of constituents at Chesapeake College in Wye Mills sparred with the congressman so much about Harris’ support for overturning the Affordable Care Act that it made CNN.

There was anger and shouting. The crowd was upset, too.

After suggesting Thursday night that I should be fired, Harris turned with his wife to leave the impromptu interview. As he retreated, I asked about protestors picketing outside the hotel, demanding a town hall to discuss what’s happening now, eight years later.

“Congressman, there are people outside asking for a town hall,” I asked. “Will you have one?”

He turned to respond, only to have the Mrs., Maryland GOP Chair Nicole Beus Harris, grab him by the elbow and forcefully guide him into a march for the exit.

I supposed I’d be mad, too, if people were calling me names.

“Where is ANDY?” protest organizer Michelle Fowle shouted outside the hotel before the dinner.

“AWOL ANDY!” the crowd roared back.

“Where is ANDY?”

“Ggarrrgh!” they jeered.

I asked a Harris spokesperson if he’s considering an in-person meeting where constituents can ask questions.

“I’ve got no update on that,” she said.

He’s told other news outlets he plans to have a virtual town hall next week. Not the same thing.

Real town halls can be rough, particularly in times of change when not everyone agrees. Even the one Tuesday in Howard County with three Democratic members of Congress sympathetic to federal workers got emotional, with someone shouting: “Impeach them all!”

“Well, let me tell you,” former state Sen. Addie Eckardt said, “the last town hall was very strident and he got a little overwhelmed.”

Eckardt remembers it well. After she chatted amiably with Harris and his party chair-wife Thursday night, she admitted she felt for him at the time.

“I’ve been to town halls and they can be brutal,” the Republican said.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t see a need for one. There were plenty in the ballroom waiting for Harris’ talk who said they’d like to tell him what they think.

“Protest is the right of every American,” said Deb Gootee, a psychiatric nurse practitioner in Easton. “I believe in health care for all.”

And yes, she said over the roast chicken and vegetables, she’d ask Harris some hard questions. If only she had the chance.

Instead, Harris did all the talking once he took the stage.

He talked about the threat of bird flu to Maryland’s vast poultry industry, the backbone of the state’s important agriculture economy. He didn’t mention that Trump’s billionaire sidekick, Elon Musk, just cut 25% of personnel at the National Animal Health Laboratory Network.

Harris explained his opposition to wind energy — “It’s not the solution, it’s just not” — and support for bringing small modular nuclear reactors and manufacturing to the Eastern Shore. He didn’t bring up EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s cut of 400 grants, many of them for programs that protect the most vulnerable from historic consequences of industrial pollution.

And while he didn’t mention rounding up undocumented immigrants working in the agriculture and seafood business on the shore, he told a delightful story about going to Mar-a-Lago to ask the president for more H2B temporary visas to fill those jobs.

As long as those workers stay at a safe distance while they’re here.

“My goal for my grandchildren, my children, is not a six-months-a-year job. It’s not,” he said. “It might be supervising those people. It might be running restaurants where that crab [is eaten], once processed. It might be the trucking company that delivers that crab. It’s not to be picking crabs for six months.”

I get that. It’s hard work that doesn’t pay a lot of money.

But the comment comes back to his ill-tempered decision to tell me I should be fired. I don’t think he appreciates, or maybe cares, how he sounds.

True to his worldview, but without much thought for the contempt he displays to anyone who disagrees.

I’m not getting fired. Right now, I guess, it pays not to be a federal employee in Andy Harris’ world.

No hard feelings. I’ll even offer to help. I’d referee a Harris town hall if the congressman asked me.

Short of that, if you’ve read this far, email me your thoughts on Andy Harris' record and his unexpected rise to power in Congress. Is he doing a good job? Should he change course?

If enough of you contribute, I’ll share your thoughts in a future column.

Because, let’s be honest, now we know he’ll read it.