Don Addis Editorial Cartoons E-mail a letter to the editor

October 28, 2000

Times Recommends
Three Hillsborough races
Hillsborough County voters will elect a supervisor of elections, circuit court clerk and property appraiser in the Nov. 7 general election. Though these constitutional officers have fairly narrow duties, largely dictated by state law, a candidate with little experience and poor judgment can wreak havoc on the orderly administration of county government. The following races are open to all Hillsborough voters.

Merit retention for judges
In November, voters across the state will be deciding whether to move from our current system of electing county and circuit judges to a system known as merit retention, in which the governor appoints judges from a group of nominees and, in regular uncontested elections, the electorate decides whether the judges get to keep their jobs. We already employ this system for Florida's Supreme Court justices and appellate court judges, whose performance is put before the electorate after their initial appointment and then every six years.

Candidate replies
Candidate replies
Democratic candidate for Hillsborough County state attorney  

Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.

Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.

Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.

Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.