EDITORIAL: Sean Shaw is the clear choice for Florida attorney general

Sept. 30--Floridians have the chance this November to elect a different kind of attorney general -- one who vows to fight for sensible gun laws, support the repeal of Stand Your Ground, prosecute hate crimes and push against the Legislature's poor funding of public schools and its disdain for Amendment 1, the measure overwhelmingly approved by voters to guarantee spending on land conservation.

"I'm running to go up there and be an independent watchdog and that's how the office is going to be used," Democrat Sean Shaw said in an interview. "It's the office that is most able to stick up for the people."

He would be, in short, a counterforce to the Republicans' long control of the Legislature.

Shaw, 40, a state representative from Tampa, is the clear choice over Circuit Court Judge Ashley Moody, the Republican candidate, who avidly aspires to fill what she calls Pam Bondi's "very, very, high, high heels." We've already had eight years of an attorney general who has slavishly followed the NRA, opposed same-sex marriage, sided with polluters and allied with Donald Trump. We don't need a Pam Bondi 2.0.

Moody thinks it's just swell that Bondi joined a Texas lawsuit that seeks to have Obamacare declared unconstitutional. She backs Bondi's defense of abortion restrictions passed by the Legislature, some of which have been rejected by the state Supreme Court.

Shaw, in contrast, has put women's rights, abortion rights and women's health care square in the middle of his campaign.

Moody, true to form, opposes Amendment 4, which calls for automatic restoration of voting rights for most felons upon serving their sentences. In sharp contrast, Shaw supports the much-needed addition to Florida's Constitution -- and regardless of the measure's fate, he would be a voice of sanity on the state's clemency board that now makes it impossible for all but a handful of ex-cons to return to full citizenship. And he would revive the moribund civil-rights division.

Significantly, Shaw pledges to restore the role of consumer watchdog to the Attorney General's office and crack down on scammers. He has the experience for it. A lawyer, he served two years as Florida's Insurance Consumer Advocate.

Shaw would be Florida's first African American attorney general. He'd be following in the pioneering footsteps of his father, the late Leander Shaw Jr., first black chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court.

Most important, Shaw vows to use his power as state's chief legal officer to look out for average Floridians. The Post endorses him for attorney general.

Read all of The Post's endorsements online at www.MyPalmBeachPost.com/2018-endorsements.

___

(c)2018 The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.)

Visit The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Fla.) at www.palmbeachpost.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.