City prosecutors aren't only ones who need a raise
Kudos to The Sun for recognizing that prosecutors in the Baltimore state's attorney's office deserve pay parity with attorneys in the public defender's and attorney general's offices ("Priceless prosecutors," editorial, June 21).
But another pillar of the legal community could also use a raise: Lawyers at the Maryland Legal Aid Bureau and other civil legal services groups that help the poor, the elderly, children and the disabled with their critical legal problems.
Just like Anna Mantegna, the newly hired prosecutor who works as a waitress at the ESPN Zone to make ends meet on her low salary in the city state's attorney's office, some civil legal services lawyers work two jobs. For example, I know of one talented staff attorney in Legal Aid's Upper Eastern Shore office in Easton who waits tables so that she doesn't have to live paycheck to paycheck.
While a recent, modest increase to civil court filing fees was signed into law this spring (with the full support of the General Assembly and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.) and will add about $5 million to the coffers of the Maryland Legal Services Corp., that money will only offset several years of declining funding for the 28 agencies it assists.
Currently, only about 20 percent of eligible potential clients can be served at Legal Aid and other legal services providers for the poor.
Starting salaries for a Legal Aid attorney around $35,000 only compound that problem, as young lawyers burdened with six-figure student loans must choose employment in the private sector rather than serve the public.
Andrew Jay Graham
Baltimore
The writer is chairman of the Equal Justice Council, a private legal group that raises funds to support legal aid programs.
New taxes drive out businesses, residents
The Sun's editorial "Taxes fairly shared" (June 23) was ill-considered.
The energy and cellular phone taxes proposed by Mayor Martin O'Malley and passed by the City Council will be burdensome to businesses and residents, and some will leave Baltimore, taking their tax payments with them.
The Sun needs to be more evenhanded in its evaluation of the government process. Its liberal slant is growing old.
Paul Kinnear
Abingdon
Heavy tax burden hinders economy
Why is it that on the same day The Sun announced that 8,100 new jobs in Maryland were created in May and the state's revenues are now expected to exceed earlier projections by $149 million ("Md. adds 8,100 jobs and eyes rebound," June 24), the editorial page calls again for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. to consider developing plans to raise taxes ("Reinventing budgets," editorial, June 24)?
A part of good government is to relieve unnecessary tax burdens so businesses and individuals can have more money to fuel free-market forces that are the true powerhouse behind the economy.
In turn, a robust economy will naturally generate the tax revenues needed to keep an appropriate amount of government programs in place.
Scott Appelbaum
Catonsville
A reward for Putin to change his tune?
Isn't it interesting that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, after joining the world in vehemently criticizing the United States for invading Iraq, has suddenly had a "yeah, but" moment ("Putin notes Iraqi plots on the U.S. before war," June 19)?
More than a year after the administration attacked Iraq, Mr. Putin suddenly reports that Russian security agencies warned the White House after Sept. 11, 2001, that Saddam Hussein was planning terrorist attacks in the United States.
This makes one wonder what the Bush administration has provided Russia in exchange for this turnaround revelation, especially as support for President Bush's Iraq policy continues to drop.
Ellen Moats
Timonium
Restore voting rights of former inmates
Michael Hill's article "A Growing Need for Reform" (June 20) rightly identified a need to invest in inmate rehabilitation, so that when ex-offenders are released, they will have opportunities to move beyond their criminal pasts. This would increase public safety and decrease recidivism.
Mary Ann Saar, secretary of the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, has also supported such a change in policy from the simplistic and politically facile "tough on crime" stance to one that takes into consideration the human and fiscal toll of warehousing people, then releasing them into our communities.
All of that is both encouraging and sane.
The problem, however, will be the political will to carry through such reforms -- and that is inextricably tied to another issue.
In Maryland today, there are between 175,000 and 200,000 ex-felons who have been denied their constitutional right to vote for life, under a law that is nothing short of draconian relative to most states in the country. Is it because the percentage of Maryland's population that is African-American is more than twice the national average?
This denial of basic rights should be relegated to the same graveyard as poll taxes and literacy tests.
