Letters to the Editor

Volume VI Number 5
February 5-11, 1998

Miller Gets Teeth ...

Dear New Bay Times:

Thank you for your profile of Sen. Mike Miller (Jan. 15). The interview method allows us to hear people in their own words without the news media's filter.

Every time I see Mike Miller or read about him now, I'll think of him picking up sharks' teeth on the Chesapeake shoreline (and ducking work) after reading New Bay Times.

- W. Kendall, Bowie

... and Chewed

Dear New Bay Times:

It appears that the Democrat leader of the state Senate, Mike Miller, will go to any length to maintain power in Annapolis. In a recent interview with WMJS radio station, Sen. Miller portrayed the Maryland Republican Party as being funded by inside-the-beltway special interests and the executive director funded by the Republican National Committee.

Apparently Mr. Miller mistook the Democrats' report for the Republicans'. It is the Democrats who received $77,000 from the Democratic National Committee last year, while the Maryland Republican Party received $10,000 from the Republican National Committee. It is the Democrats who received the majority of their funds in large contributions, some in the thousands of dollars. Yet the average contribution for the Maryland Republican Party last year was only $42.45.

The Maryland Republican Party has worked hard to give Maryland a strong two-party system. Yet Sen. Miller and the Democrats in the Legislature don't want accountability in government; they want all the power. However, as we all know, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

-Joyce Lyons Terhes, Calvert County Chairman Maryland Republican Party

Judging Judges

Dear New Bay Times:

Maryland's judges ask for big bread. Let them eat a little reform. They want an $11,275 raise. Let all of them, not just some of them, be elected by a yes/no vote to a 10-year term. A quarter-century ago, the Assembly did the right thing: It made this the plan at the appellate level. Now it needs to extend the plan down to the Circuit Court and the District Court levels.

With yes/no 10 year, a middle-ground between no election and the four-year terms of legislators and executives, the Assembly recognized a middle zone between eternal verities and momentary passions - a zone we can call the evolving popular ethos. It says wetlands are no longer swamps, women are no longer second-class people, non-custodial dads need more time with their kids, uncured sex abusers should stay locked up and property rights are no longer supreme.

Give all the judges a big raise and yes/no 10-year terms. Make them all respect the evolving popular ethos. As we enter the 21st century, we must drag some judges, even if kicking and screaming, into at least the 20th.

- James A. Hoage, Severna Park

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