Marc Comtois
AP: Massachusetts lawmakers voted Thursday to block a proposed constitutional amendment that would have let voters decide whether to ban gay marriage in the state. The narrow vote was a victory for gay marriage advocates and a devastating blow to efforts to reverse a historic 2003 court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage. MORE: Via the Boston…
For your lunchtime fun…. The Re-districting Game Practice Gerrymandering for fun and political profit! Actually, it’s a neat little game that shows the average guy and gal how a lot of elections are pre-determined by legislative redistricting. Have fun!
OK, I suppose it would appear that I’ve been flakking for Fred Thompson, so, in the spirit of encouraging debate, here are Rudy Giuliani’s just-announced “Twelve Commitments” (via Powerline): Rudy’s Twelve Commitments are based on the principles of giving people more freedom, more power, and more responsibility over their own lives, while protecting our nation,…
I’ll readily admit that I don’t know much about the state of Providence schools other than what I get from the news, but it seems that Providence Superintendent of Schools Donnie Evans has some good ideas. Evans announced a series of new initiatives that address his strategic plan, Realizing the Dream, which calls for improving…
Rhode Island Chief Justice Frank Williams made headlines a few months ago for his smackdown of Governor Carcieri’s idea of across the board cost-cutting as “draconian.” Well, the Governor is waving a bloody steak in front of the Judicial lion again: Governor Carcieri is criticizing legislators for authorizing up to $71 million in borrowing for…
So, I read the story in today’s ProJo about the ongoing budget battle and came across this: “This isn’t a Democratic budget by any means. This is a Republican budget. Let’s face it,” said Tom Slater, D-Providence, who did not sign the petition and said yesterday he wasn’t aware of it. “I would never have…
Two polls for your commenting pleasure. First, LA Times/Bloomberg (reg. req’d.) indicates Thompson trails Rudy Giulianni by 6 points: Republicans antsy for a conservative standard-bearer in the presidential race have begun to rally behind Fred Thompson, propelling the former Tennessee senator to within hailing distance of the lead for the party’s nomination, a new Los…
Thanks to the “flat-funding” (or maybe not) of education that is included in the House’s budget plan, Governor Carcieri and the NEA find themselves on the same side of an issue. Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said….“There is no doubt…that Governor Carcieri has grave concerns about the House Democrats’ short-sighted plan to balance the budget by…
State Rep. Paul Crowley of Newport commends the special commission that has recommended a new school-funding formula, but has some questions: Does it make sense to invest millions of additional dollars in a system that has remained structurally unchanged? Do we need, and can we afford, more than 35 school districts to educate about 120,000…
In case you missed it, State Treasurer Frank Caprio told Dan Yorke last Friday afternoon that he thinks that the quickest and easiest way for the Governor to lay off 1,000 state workers would be to focus on the non-union employees. Caprio added that non-union employees make up 1/3 of the state work force and…