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FGHIJ Democracy in the dark


an independent newspaper EDITORIALS


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F A GENETICALLY engineered salmon is cleared for America’s supermarkets, it will be because of convincing evidence the fish is safe to eat and not harmful to the environ- ment. Scientific review to date shows the fish to be indistinguishable from its traditional coun- terpart. So demands that the altered fish be re- quired to carry a government label seem to be more an attempt to scare off consumers than an effort to provide necessary health or nutritional information. Clearly, there must be caution in approving the first genetically altered animal for human consumption, but government reg- ulators should stick to their long-held, sensible rules about what information must be disclosed for the public good. The Food and Drug Administration is consid- ering whether to approve a fast-growing salmon developed over the past two decades by a bio- tech company from Massachusetts. The Aqu- Advantage salmon has been modified to include a gene from the Chinook salmon and DNA from an eel-like fish so that it grows twice as fast as conventional salmon. The FDA recently con- cluded two days of public hearings, and the ex- pectation — based on data showing that the salmon pose no risks to humans or the environ- ment — is that it’s just a matter of time before the fish will be marketed. What has emerged as the hot-button issue, as The Post’s Lyndsey Lay- ton reported, is labeling and the implications of that for other genetically engineered animal products likely to follow. A number of consumer groups pushing for


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mandatory labeling say that people have a right to know if the food they are eating comes from products that have been genetically modified. The not-so-subtle suggestion, of course, is that there is something different — or even wrong — with genetically modified food products, de- spite the science showing otherwise. The FDA’s own rules say that once it is determined that a genetically modified food is not “materially sig- nificant” from naturally derived products, there is no reason to label it differently. Products from


genetically modified crops, long permitted, do not carry special labels, nor does milk from cows given a growth hormone to produce more milk. The food labeling rules, which have been test- ed in the courts, are properly focused on safety and nutrition and not on aspects of production such as, say, whether the product is the result of artificial insemination or cross breeding. Vol-


untary labeling is allowed as long as it is not false or misleading, so producers of convention- ally raised salmon can publicize that fact as long as they do so truthfully. Public comment is still being accepted by FDA officials, who say that they will study the record before issuing a rul- ing. They are right to be careful and to base their decision on proven facts, not unfounded fears.


Gold star for Montgomery schools The county gets innovative on education. If only it and the state could learn to work together.


help develop and then market its curriculum. One would think the effort would be hailed as an in- novation in education reform. Instead, Maryland state education officials have taken a dim view of the arrangement in what is yet another example of the unsettling rift between Maryland and its premier school system.


S At issue is a $4.5 million contract between the


Montgomery Board of Education and Pearson Education Inc. to craft a curriculum for kinder- garten through fifth grade that integrates reading and math with other subjects. County officials had already been working on a new curriculum, but entering into the public-private partnership


O IMPRESSED is an educational publish- ing company with Montgomery County’s efforts in education that it has agreed to give county schools millions of dollars to


will allow them to speed the process and save tax- payer dollars. Pearson said it was attracted to Montgomery because of its national reputation for quality and new approaches to learning. State officials got involved when a county parent ob- jected to the unusual agreement and petitioned the state board to intercede. The state board refused to overturn the con-


tract, but in a ruling last month it criticized Mont- gomery for duplicating the state’s efforts, wasting resources and balkanizing Montgomery from the state’s reform efforts. Never mind that Mont- gomery was well ahead of the state with its cur- riculum work or that its plan got an important en- dorsement from federal education officials — who awarded the project, which will conform to new common core standards, a special grant. What is sticking in the state’s craw is Mont-


gomery’s penchant to go its own way. Proud of its status as the state’s top-performing school system, the county sees itself as aiming higher than the rest of the state. Montgomery, for example, was highly critical of what it saw as the low standards in the state’s high school assessments and more recently refused to sign on to Maryland’s applica- tion for Race to the Top funds. Part of the issue is the two strong personalities of Montgomery Schools Superintendent Jerry D. Weast and State Schools Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick. Sure- ly, though, both sides should see they have more to gain by working together than being at cross purposes. Montgomery, for example, could have had a share of the Race to the Top money, while the rest of the state surely can benefit from prac- tices that Montgomery is pioneering and that have worked well for its students.


LOCAL OPINIONS 3Join the debate at washingtonpost.com/localopinions


What would D.C. schools be like without Michelle Rhee?


As a resident of Northern Virginia for 30 years, and as someone who focuses a lot of at- tention to and does volunteer work on behalf of public education, I have long lamented that the D.C. public schools never seemed to get better over the years — at least as I perceived them. Even a retired Army general, Julius W. Becton Jr., couldn’t get things straightened out after he took the helm in 1996. Seeing Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee in recent years cut through the stranglehold that the entrenched interests have had on this school system seemingly forever has been a pleasure and a relief. Despite Chancellor Rhee’s rough edges, the improved results of her work, which are just beginning to be seen,


probably could not have been obtained with- out her aggressive efforts.


While I could not understand Chancellor


Rhee’s willingness to campaign for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s reelection, the thought that the D.C. schools are probably going to revert to their pre-Rhee ways is more than painful to contemplate. If the reforms are stopped, the D.C. schools stand to lose millions in federal and private monies that have been pledged to help pay for the changes that are underway. Let’s hope that that looming threat will prevent things from reverting to the deplorable state of affairs we all remember.


PETER A. BYRD, Falls Church ABCDE


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Passing the Disclose Act would shed some light on stealth campaign spending.


HE PROSPECT of secret money flood- ing into federal elections has pro- gressed from disturbing theory to full- fledged reality. Groups with anodyne names like Americans for Prosperity,


Americans for Job Security and Crossroads GPS are, with no legal requirement that they reveal the names of their donors, spending millions of dollars on television advertising and other activ- ities designed to support favored congressional candidates. Tax laws permit a certain degree of political ac-


tivity by nonprofit advocacy groups and trade as- sociations without requiring reports on the source of the spending. Corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals that want to in- fluence elections without revealing their involve- ment can use such entities to do so. But the Su- preme Court invited even more of this activity with its decision in the Citizens United case,


Set the table


Let the FDA follow its rules on labeling and genetically engineered salmon.


which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited sums to target particular lawmakers for election or defeat. In advance of the November election, especially on the Republican side, that opportunity is being taken up with vigor. This development is unhealthy for democracy.


As the Supreme Court itself explained in the por- tion of its Citizens United ruling rejecting a chal- lenge to existing reporting requirements, “The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a prop- er way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.” The current disclosure void threatens that balance, with an electorate clueless about the interests try- ing to influence their votes. The Senate has before it a measure, known as the Disclose Act, that would fix this mess; the


House has already passed its version. Unfortu- nately, it has not been able to attract any Repub- lican support and therefore is short of the neces- sary 60 votes. In its current form, the measure would go beyond expanding disclosure require- ments to prohibit certain kinds of corporations — for example, government contractors — from seeking to influence federal elections. But sup- porters are said to be willing to strip out all but the disclosure portions of the legislation and to delay its effective date until after the upcoming election. That should be enough to pry loose a Repub- lican vote or two; the most obvious candidates are Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe. It should be enough — but it hasn’t been so far. If that remains true when the Senate votes on the measure Thursday, we hope that they or others will reconsider after the election and take the nec- essary steps to turn off the secret-money spigot.


TOM TOLES


THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR dletters@washpost.com


Courts got death-penalty call right


I have read with great interest about the saga of Virginia death- row inmate Teresa Lewis and her self-admitted “heinous crimes.” The reporting in The Post has been without bias toward a particular side of the death-penalty issue, which has encour- aged me to thoughtfully reconsider my stance. Iron- ically, however, it was the words of Ms. Lewis’s at- torney — who referred to his client as “a good and decent woman” — that shocked me awake and gal- vanized my position. Ms. Lewis is a cold and evil woman — able to kill two innocents, pander her teenage daughter and stand idly by as her husband bled to death. She is anything but “good and decent.” The courts got this one right. Ms. Lewis is a monster.


MATT BRESSLER, Sterling An answer for unemployment


In the Sept. 17 Washington Forum piece “What America needs is a payroll tax cut,” Nouriel Roubini correctly argued that broad income tax cuts and tax cuts encouraging capital investment do not neces- sarily benefit workers, and that a better approach is to reduce labor costs through a payroll tax cut. After decades of stagnant real wages and the cur- rent high unemployment, it’s obvious that neither broad income tax cuts nor targeted investment in- centives are doing much to increase wages or employment. Unfortunately, President Obama and the Demo-


cratic Party seem to be too politically cowed to offer anything but an extension of the Bush tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans. Their tax-cut plan will in- crease the deficit over the next decade by $3 trillion instead of the Republicans’ $4 trillion plan. And we have the spectacle of some Democrats, such as my representative, Gerald E. Connolly (Va.), siding with the Republicans on this. How will either party pay for these cuts? Will the Democrats continue to cut nutrition and other pro- grams for the poor, even in the face of record poverty rates? Is it any wonder that Democratic voters lack enthusiasm when this is the leadership we are offered?


JOHN PENDER, Annandale Stay the course on Cuba


In his Sept. 18 op-ed, “Easing the impact of Cuba’s coming crisis,” Edward Schumacher-Matos wrongly suggested that the United States bail out Fidel and Raúl Castro by lifting the U.S. trade embargo. He claimed such action will help prevent an economic crisis on the island, kick out the supports propping up the regime and reward the Castros for their re- cent release of political prisoners. None of this makes sense. The economic crisis is forcing Cuba to make lim- ited market reforms and renew a lapsed experiment in self-employment. Lifting the embargo and U.S. tourist restrictions would help replenish govern- ment coffers with foreign currency and revive Cu- ba’s army-run tourism industry, helping to prop up the status quo. As for encouraging positive behavior by Cuba’s leaders, there is little to reward when po- litical prisoners must agree to exile as a condition of their freedom. In his final sentence, Mr. Schumacher-Matos warned of another Mariel-style exodus of dissatis- fied Cubans. Yet instead of a giving Cuba a bailout, the United States should look to experience that shows that clear policies and effective immigration enforcement are better migration deterrents. So far, the Obama administration has chosen a prudent course, denying aid to a repressive regime, pursuing purposeful contact and looking for ways to help ordinary Cubans expand their civil liberties un- til a true transition is at hand. STEPHEN JOHNSON, Silver Spring


The writer was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs from 2007 to 2009 and is currently an associate at VisionAmericas, a Washington-based international business consultancy.


The U.N. summit and abortion In his Sept. 19 op-ed, “U.N. goals must omit abor-


tion,” Chris Smith politicized the broadly accepted Millennium Development Goals. Contrary to Mr. Smith’s assertions, there was no


danger that initiatives about access to legal abortion would be on the agenda of the Millennium Devel- opment Goals Summit this week in New York. The key U.N. document on this issue makes clear that na- tions have the right to set their own abortion laws. Instead, world leaders focused on how to rid the world of extreme poverty and hunger and how to make dramatic improvements to the health of wom- en and children around the globe. Ensuring access to health services, including modern family planning, can play a critically impor- tant role in saving the lives of women. In fact, it can reduce 40 percent of maternal deaths worldwide. More than 200 million women in the developing world want access to family planning but can’t get it. This situation has a dramatic impact; it increases maternal deaths during childbirth, leaving millions of newborns behind.


Listening to the voices of women in the devel- oping world, not injecting American domestic poli- tics into the summit, was the surest way to promote the goals on which we could all agree. TIMOTHYE. WIRTH, Washington


The writer, a former Democratic senator from Colorado, is president of the United Nations Foundation. 


Chris Smith’s rambling piece about not including


abortion services in efforts to achieve the Millenni- um Development Goals had a surprising omission. He wrote, “We have known for more than 60 years


what actually saves women’s lives: skilled attend- ance at birth, treatment to stop hemorrhages, access to safe blood, emergency obstetric care, antibiotics, repair of fistulas, adequate nutrition, and pre- and post-natal care.” Nowhere in the piece did he mention the provi- sion of family planning services. Control of fertility and the spacing out of births are huge contributors to women’s good health, and they reduce demand for abortion.


KITHOPE, Silver Spring d


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