Tampa Trib editors say “no” to animal radicals

The Tampa Tribune has become the first major Florida newspaper to unequivocally condemn “proposed ballot measure that would permanently enshrine animal rights in the state’s constitution.” In a Saturday editorial, the Tribune wrote: “If there is one ballot initiative this year which least deserves protection in the state constitution, it is Amendment 10.”

Calling the proposed amendment “an abuse of the initiative process” that would “cheapen” Florida’s constitution, the Tribune noted that the initiative would have “no practical effect here, except as propaganda for animal rights activists nationally.”

The Florida Farm Bureau’s director of agricultural policies told reporters yesterday that the ballot measure (supported by illegal campaign contributions from Farm Sanctuary), was a bad idea all along. “It is a cynical – one might say greasy – attempt,” Cockrell said, “by national animal-rights groups that would lard up our state’s constitution in order to advance a national agenda and perhaps to fatten those organizations’ treasuries.”