Choose for yourself which one of Projo columnist Charles Bakst’s thoughts on election reform is worse.
- Bakst opposes requiring photo-IDs at the polls…
Without more evidence than I know of that voter fraud is a genuine problem, [Secretary of State Ralph Mollis] courts heartache by raising the prospect of requiring a photo ID at the polls. The idea will engender ill will and suspicion among disabled, elderly, or minority Rhode Islanders who now lack such cards and would find it inconvenient, or insulting, to have to acquire one.
In other words, we have to wait until voter fraud occurs before we do anything — even though we already know how we would improve the system if massive fraud were to occur. It’s like saying a dam might break, and we know how to make some improvements that will improve its strength, but since it hasn’t broken yet, there’s no need to do anything right now!
There is a serious dose of the soft-bigotry of low expectations built into the anti-photo ID argument; if voter registration cards that include a photo are issued during the standard voter registration process, then why should disabled, elderly, or minority Rhode Islanders be more insulted than anyone else who registers to vote? And on top of that, shouldn’t suspicions held by law-abiding individual citizens towards a lax process that can be easily gamed count for anything in our civic culture, or do you have to declare yourself as a member of an identity politics-focused interest group to have a voice in these matters? - And then, for something completely different…
A bold step would be to find a way to deter candidates from hurling slime at one another, or at least improve the public’s ability, now nearly nonexistent, to sort through it.
Would this panel have an ability to impose penalties? If so, there’s a real first amendment problem with the government potentially punishing people for the content of their speech.
Negativity and distortion especially plague races for higher office. One candidate runs an attack ad, the foe retaliates with a response ad yelling “Liar!” and the arms race is on. People decide one candidate is as bad as the other and throw up their hands.
Let’s see Mollis & Co. propose a vehicle, some kind of legally constituted arbitration tribunal, to which candidates aggrieved by a particular ad or exchange of ads could turn and obtain a judgment as to whom is telling the truth. Maybe retired Supreme Court justices could sit on it.
But penalties or not, ask yourself this question: who would ultimately be responsible for disseminating the findings of Bakst’s panel to the public. The answer, of course, is the media — the media that is already capable, on its own, of explaining the truth, falsehood, and nuances of the political and policy issues arising during a campaign.
Whether he meant it or not, Bakst’s implication is that mainstream media credibility has slipped to the point where the MSM now needs the voice of government behind it in order to make statements during political campaigns that will be trusted.
This idea of forming a Ministry of Truth to monitor political campaigns needs to be filed under the category of “things not entirely thought through”.
In honor of today’s worldwide May Day celebrations, I present to you the slogan of the Western Hemisphere’s leading socialists, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban Leader Fidel Castro…
“We will triumph. Fatherland, socialism or death.”[Open full post]
From Kate Bramson of the Projo’s 7-to-7 blog…
The Federal Election Commission says that the Democratic Party in three states did not break federal campaign contribution laws when they gave money to Rhode Island U.S. Senate candidate Matt Brown last year.The non-scandal (and Brown’s non-reaction to it) effectively ended former Secretary of State Brown’s U.S. Senate campaign.
The Democratic Party in Hawaii, Maine and Massachusetts funneled a total of $25,000 to Brown, who was then Rhode Island’s Secretary of State, in December 2005. He was seeking the Democratic Senate nomination.
Cynics will be tempted to say that this proves that campaign finance laws work exactly as intended by making political fundraising rules too onerous to be survived by candidates who are not incumbents or challengers hand-picked by party leadership. [Open full post]
The Utah voucher plan for funding public education is being challenged under a provision of Utah law that permits the voters to repeal laws via referendum. From the Salt Lake City Tribune…
Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert on Monday declared a referendum petition drive to overturn Utah’s school voucher law “sufficient,” meaning the law is on hold until the public votes on a repeal.[Open full post]
Herbert’s office verified 124,218 valid signatures among more than 131,000 reportedly submitted to county clerks this month by Utahns for Public Schools, a group of voucher opponents made up mostly of parents, teachers and school administrators…
The petition drive shelves Utah’s new Parent Choice in Education Act, which provides public tuition assistance to help parents transfer their children to private schools.
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has suggested he’ll put the referendum on the February 2008 Western States Presidential Primary ballot because that is the nearest funded election. It would cost $3.5 million to hold a statewide vote during a special June election or November’s municipal general
election.
Huntsman probably will announce the election date during a special legislative session he intends to call in mid-May, spokesman Mike Mower said. The session will enable legislators to amend state law, which currently allows referendum elections in only June or November.
Rhode Island’s education aid “funding formula” debate is moving from the sublime to the ridiculous. Pat Crowley (an assistant executive director with the Rhode Island chapter of the National Education Association) has posted on his blog a link to a video clip of Senate Majority Leader Teresa Paiva-Weed discussing the purpose of redesigning the formula. The Senator says that the current formula needs to be rebalanced to better address the needs of “second-tier” urban and suburban communities…
The focus has been on the urbans. That’s not to say that the urbans don’t need to continue to be important, but the question is there was a lot of challenges from the communities, both in the second tier and the suburban communities, that we were relying on an antiquated formula and that different things had occurred in the various communities that weren’t being addressed by the funding formula.Meanwhile, former interim Central Falls school superintendent William R. Holland argued in yesterday’s Projo that Rhode Island’s education funding priority should be more money for urban districts — and he has a study paid for by the state legislature that Senator Paiva-Weed helps lead to back him up…
The recent Wood Associates Education Adequacy Report commissioned by the General Assembly calls for increased funding in urban districts, citing the high percentage of low-income families and the high cost and percentage of special-education and English-language learners in those districts.Providence Mayor David Cicilline expects a revised funding formula to bring more aid to Providence. Yet officials from urban ring cities and suburban towns from Cumberland to Scituate expect the revised formula to bring more aid to them.
They can’t all be right about what the effect of the new formula will be, because there is no way that a funding formula can by itself increase the percentage of aid to the smaller cities and towns at the same time it increases aid to the urban core. Isn’t it about time for the General Assembly to tell the people of Rhode Island what the goal of the new formula really is and to stop pretending there’s a something-for-nothing solution to Rhode Island’s education problems? [Open full post]
Jim Baron has an op-ed in today’s Pawtucket Times where he discusses a possible improvement to the Presidential primary system (and once again, Rhode Island Secretary of State Ralph Mollis seems to be at the cutting edge of reform)…
Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, a Democrat, has embraced a plan put forward by the National Association of Secretaries of State – one that might get us past the parochialism and opportunism that is at the root of the states elbowing each other for position on the primary schedule.Here’s another, lottery-based system proposed by Bill Whalen in the Weekly Standard…
Under this scheme, the nation would be broken into four regions: the East, the South, the Midwest and the West. There would be regional primaries in March, April, May and June and the regions would rotate the order in which they hold their primaries every four years.
The first year the East would be in March, the South in April, the Midwest in May and the West in June. Four years later the West would be in March, the East in April, the South in May and the Midwest in June and so forth.
Each region would hold its primary first once every 16 years, and would be last once every 16 years. The exception would be that the New Hampshire primary and the Iowa caucuses would keep their status as first-in-the-nation contests so lesser-known and lesser-funded candidates would still have a chance to campaign in states where person-to-person retail politics is as important as big-money advertising campaigns.
Rule One: No presidential primaries or caucuses until the first Monday in February. Let the public have a peaceful January breaking resolutions and watching football.The lottery idea is a bit fanciful, but the idea of a two-round system, where a round of individual state primaries is followed by round of regional super-primaries with the order of regions rotating from election to election would be an improvement over what we do now.
Rule Two: Start the selection process with the same first four states as in 2008. Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina all are relatively small states. And they reflect four regions of the country with distinctly different economies and cultures. That makes for a level playing field.
Rule Three: Once those four states vote, the game changes. From here on, primaries are held among seven states, every Tuesday, for the following six weeks. That mix would include one “mega” state with at least 20 electoral votes, three mid-size states with a minimum of 10 electoral votes, three smaller states worth four to nine electoral votes, plus one small state with three electoral votes (on the seventh Tuesday, one “mega” state, two mid-sized states and one small state would vote).
I conducted such a lottery with the aid of four baseball caps and one shredded piece of paper. Based upon the new rules, if this system were implemented a year ago, here’s what the 2008 primaries would look like:
- Feb. 5, Iowa
- Feb. 10, Nevada
- Feb. 13, New Hampshire
- Feb. 20, South Carolina
- Feb. 27, Ohio, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Oregon, Alaska
- March 6, Illinois, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Idaho, Rhode Island, North Dakota
- March 13, California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, South Dakota
- March 20, Florida, Virginia, Minnesota, Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii, District of Columbia
- March 27, Texas, New Jersey, Indiana, Nebraska, Utah, Arkansas, Wyoming
- April 3, New York, Missouri, Tennessee, Connecticut, Mississippi, West Virginia, Vermont
- April 10, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maryland, Delaware, Montana
The natural question to ask here is is there anyone who likes the system as it is? [Open full post]
It’s somewhat surprising how little segue is deemed necessary, in America’s letters to the editor sections, to bash the president or the pope. On the death of Kurt Vonnegut, Ivan Wolfson from Riverside explained:
Vonnegut’s novels explored, often with humor, the inexhaustible ability of humans, as individuals, governments and corporations, through their greed, thoughtlessness, stupidity and plain cruelty, to cause misery and destruction.
What could follow more naturally from the annunciation of humans’ greed, thoughtlessness, stupidity, and plain cruelty than the following?
I imagine his reaction would have been the same, as was mine, had he read the only other headline on the page with his obituary: “Pope says evolution not proven.”
I suppose it would be fruitless to note that the Pope Benedict’s statement appears to have been more that the broad historical claims of evolution can’t be proven, in the laboratory sense, within the context of his larger argument that:
The question is not to either make a decision for a creationism that fundamentally excludes science, or for an evolutionary theory that covers over its own gaps and does not want to see the questions that reach beyond the methodological possibilities of natural science … I find it important to underline that the theory of evolution implies questions that must be assigned to philosophy and which themselves lead beyond the realms of science.
Although, it might be surmisable that Mr. Vonnegut would have found fodder in the notion that we ought to trust the global media to properly handle such a subtle thing as context when it comes to matters of religion.
[Open full post]In response to Marc’s post on the DJs’ being fired from Roger Williams’s WQRI, program director Mike Martelli has left the following comment (which I’ve also read his expressing in an email that reached me through a series of forwards):
As the Program Director of WQRI it is my responsibility to determine what content is inappropriate to be aired on the station. After much discussion with the entire air staff I have come to the conclusion that the infamous phrase, “nappy headed ho” should not be repeated over our airwaves. I have given the air staff a lot of freedom with the content of their shows. However, when Dee Jays have pushed the envelope sometimes I have to bring them back to a reasonable level.
At the air staff meeting we discussed the First Amendment issues regarding the Imus phrase. It was at this meeting, which took place on Wednesday April 18th, we discussed whether or not the air staff felt as if they would be censored if I asked them not to repeat the Imus phrase. Mr. Peloso and Mr. Porter were not in attendance. The consensus from the air staff was that there was no problem to the ban. I had to call a special meeting with Jon Porter and Dana Peloso on Monday the 23rd in which I passed on the order. We were all in agreement that the phrase should not be said.
I don’t think that the phrase needed to be said again, especially since the Imus incident had taken place more than 2 weeks prior and was no longer newsworthy. I also felt that phrase could be offensive to some and with WQRI’s FCC license up for renewal I did not want to risk offending the community. We are a music station and we have spent lots of time trying to build up a reputable image with the community and have successfully done so.
The issue here is that the College Republicans have failed to comply with direct orders and station policy. My decision was based on WQRI issues only; my personal beliefs had to stay out of it. It is unfair that the media is pulling my blog posts and taking them out of context. The only reason I chose to suspend and fire Dana Peloso and Jon Porter is their blatant insubordination. The First Amendment was not an issue here as there was an obvious disregard for WQRI policy and leadership.
The accusations that I acted in collaboration with Vice President John King to censor the College Republicans is completely false and completely ridiculous. I have stood against VP King on many occasions and I can describe our relationship as professional but not one of great chemistry. VP King and I have clashed on issues of Student’s Rights and I have consistently stood as an advocate of these Student Rights. The issue with King and the CR’s has been misunderstood. VP King had only mentioned in passing to our General Manager that the content of the show might not be the best to display during the Accepted Students Day, and I completely agree.
VP King never, I repeat never, gave us an order to take any kind of action against Mr. Peloso or Mr. Porter. In fact he never even suggested that anything should happen to the College Republicans. Just because he mentioned that the content was not appropriate for Accepted Student’s day does not mean he wanted us to give the CR’s the Axe. He is an ambassador for the University and he has the right to comment. The comment had nothing to do with my decision. At no time did VP King or any other Administrator tell me what to do.
Jon Porter and Dana Peloso were suspended because of insubordination and have consequently been fired because they did not have the patience to take part in an investigation by the station’s student run executive board. If Jon and Dana let us examine the tape of their show they would also have had time to defend their actions in front of the board. Since they decided to jump the gun and go to the press I am lead to believe that this has little to do with concerns of censorship and has more to do with gaining attention. Jon and Dana mentioned the Imus Phrase more than 30 times in 28 minutes, they did little to actually discuss the first amendment and it was quite clear that Jon and Dana were trying to cause trouble. Their actions were irresponsible and had no journalistic character. This is the reason I have decided to let them go. The University has nothing to do with this decision, it is 100% mine.
Mike Martelli
WQRI Program Director
(401) 254 3282
Programdirector_wqri@hawks.rwu.edu
Personally, I’d be interested to hear the offending tape, myself (and if Porter and Peloso wished, I’d be happy to host a streaming version on Anchor Rising). From what I’ve read so far, although one can argue the merit of each decision leading up to the firing, my impression remains in sync with the instinct with which I received the initial “breaking news” announcement: I worry that coastal conservatives — by necessity a countercultural lot — can too easily be manipulated by attention-seeking yutes. That a particular incident reinforces our beliefs or advances our cause doesn’t mean that we ought uncritically to pounce on it.
It might arouse less suspicion if the students were out in the public offering their own intellectual position and explanation, as Mr. Martelli is, rather than merely pointing to the fact that they’d been canned.
It’s a tricky business responding to the personal anecdotes that opinionists sometimes use in their columns. The reader was not there, for one thing, and it isn’t always evident what emotions the memory revives, for another. But the stories are offered, ostensibly for the purpose of illustrating an important point relevant to current events, and so they would seem fair game for commentary.
The disclaimer thus expressed, this in-my-life anecdote from M.J. Anderson is a doozy:
I WAS AN ELF ONCE. At the campus dining hall where I worked, somebody thought it would be fun if the servers dressed as elves for the Christmas dinner, so we did.
I am hazy now on what our exact duties were. What counts in memory is that a diner in his cups — a large, athletic-looking guy — grabbed me, threw me over his shoulder, yelled “I got one of ’em!” amid a roar of male laughter and marched toward the door.
What counts is that I pounded on him with all I had and it did not matter. Suddenly, I was in a world I did not know. …
As for my dining-hall abductor, he had me out the door and into the night before finally putting me down. What to him was a game was to me an education. I had found myself helpless against force, and never forgot the sensation.
This, we are meant to understand, relates to the ordeal of those Duke lacrosse players who took on the role of evil white males for the mainstream media for more than their promised (or threatened) fifteen minutes. See, M.J. was “put down” — spared the rape, one gathers she means — just as the fellas at Duke had the resources to ensure that they, too, were “put down” — spared wrongful prosecution and sentencing.
To be honest, I’m not sure how this observation should work into and/or unravel Anderson’s parallel, but it seems not insignificant that the reason the elfish M.J. was powerless that evening wasn’t that Mr. Athletic-Looking Guy could have done anything he wanted with her. Surely even some among his roaring peers would have stepped in had she been in any real danger. Rather, the reader mightn’t be presuming too much to wonder whether her powerlessness derived from her inability to sense the joke.
It is precisely the humorless sense that all males — in their cups or otherwise — are potential abductors and rapists that set the scene for the actual and rending violation of those young athletes and, perhaps as bad, lured the unfortunate young woman who made the allegations, lacking the boys’ “strong families and skilled lawyers,” into that overly bright and wasting spotlight from which one is put down only after years of anonymity.
