Not to assume too much, but it seems to me that RI Secretary of State and candidate for U.S. Senate Matt Brown is like his fellow state Democrats in that he hasn’t had to speak to or wrangle with anybody with strongly conflicting views in far too long. I mean, think about this:
“I think it [pulling out of Iraq] is the best thing that we can do to help stabilize the situation in Iraq, given how badly the Bush administration has fouled it up,” Brown said. “I do think that the root problem in Iraq is a political problem. It’s an ancient, bitter conflict between the Shiites and the Sunnis … Those groups are not going to solve their political differences as they know that our men and women are there to fight their fights for them.”
So, to “stabilize” relations between these two religious groups that have been at each others’ throats in a part of the world in which violence still carries a Dark Ages tint, we must allow them to fight their own fights. Of course, one could suggest that the reason the problem is a political one — as opposed to, say, a genocidal one — is precisely because the U.S. and coalition forces are around, but then again, not a few people on Brown’s side of the aisle actually gave credence to Saddam’s election returns.
And then there’s this bit of boldness relying on ignorance:
Brown also discussed the problems facing college students in the state of Rhode Island. “I think the people are getting out of school because of the bad decisions that have come out of Washington. It is just very hard to make ends meet,” Brown said. “From the cost of health care, to finding a good job, to paying off your college loans, we desperately need new leadership.”
Busy as they are, I’d suggest that RI’s collegiate youth needn’t look so far as Washington to explain their difficulty making ends meet. In what Machiavellian class, I wonder, do they teach politicians to help create a problem and then to blame it on somebody else?
[Open full post]Dan Yorke is reporting that Brown Adjunct Professor Dennis Michaud–who has testified on behalf of Beacon Mutual and has been on their payroll–has put forth the idea that he will run for Governor on the GOP ticket against incumbent Donald Carcieri. Michaud purportedly gives three main reasons for such a run:
1) Lack of economic progress.
2) State needs more moderate candidates (like Chafee).
3) He’ll bring young people into the process.
He also claims that key Republicans initially approached him to run on the GOP ticket because, as they told him, the governor had financial problems and may not run. Michaud has stated that even if the governor can overcome these alleged financial difficulties, he will still run for governor (and thus in a primary against the governor) anyway.
Hm. Do you think this has anything to do with the focus that Governor Carcieri is bringing against Beacon Mutual? Nothing like good old fashioned threat by innuendo, huh? Rhode Island politics as usual. Yorke speculates that J. Michael Levesque–who happens to work for Harrah’s Casino, who is also opposed by Governor Carcieri–may be one of those unnamed Republican insiders.
As today’s ProJo story said, the Senate Committee on Constitutions and Gaming Issues voted 6 to 4 against bringing Voter Initiative to the voters “after almost four hours of discussion and debate — much of it familiar — at a well-attended hearing at the State House.” Those of us who have followed the VI debate are indeed “familiar” with the arguments. Of course, maybe not many are following the VI debate:
While supporters promoted the 20,000 voters who signed petitions supporting initiative, some lawmakers said they have not received much input from constituents.
“I don’t think I’ve received five phone calls on it,” said [West Warwick’s Stephen] Alves. “Every two years at election time if the voters don’t feel we are responsive they can throw us out.”
The question is, was there no input because there is no voter interest, or is it because many of Alves’ constituents may be confused because he is against Voter Initiative but all for bringing a casino vote to the people? I realize there is a difference between advocating for the concept of VI and advocating for a specific question. Gov. Carcieri has been taken to task for purportedly being inconsistent because he has the reverse stance of Alves: the governor supports VI and opposes a casino vote. On the face of it, it may seem that the Governor and Sen. Alves are both trying to have it both ways, but there is a difference. (And yes, I may drift into some of those “familiar arguments.”)
[Open full post]Projo columnist David A. Mittell likes the Massachusetts universal health care plan even less than I do.
Among other things, Mittell is concerned that using government regulation to force people to buy an inferior quality insurance product seems to be more of a giveaway to big insurance companies than it is good healthcare policy. Here is his complete list of objections…
Based on my speaking with legislators and health-care activists, who could, of course, only speculate, here is the scenario I think we ought to worry about:[Open full post]
- The bill is a sop to the powerful — it protects big business and rewards big, profitable hospitals with big rate increases.
- It does not protect small business and small hospitals. It introduces an initially small $295 tax per worker per year on the labor of businesses not providing health insurance.
- It theoretically increases the number of insured, but has no way of assuring that the expanded coverage is reasonably comprehensive. It becomes, rather, a giveaway to insurance companies, and a bad deal for the newly insured.
- It doesn’t appropriate enough money to provide good insurance. Its mandate for expanded coverage thus becomes what one legislator called “the camel’s nose in the tent.” When, in a year or two, the new plan is broke, without doing enough for the formerly uninsured, it will need a massive infusion of new cash, including a big increase in the $295-a-year tax on the labor of non-participating businesses.
- It creates a new bureaucracy with the impossible mandate of effecting top-down, bureaucratic “cost control.” This entity doesn’t control costs, but rather itself becomes a big cost.
According to Pam Belluck in the New York Times…
Massachusetts is poised to become the first state to provide nearly universal health care coverage with a bill passed overwhelmingly by the legislature Tuesday that Gov. Mitt Romney says he will sign.The plan is a complex mixture of mandatory coverage requirements, tax incentives, and although Ms. Belluck tries desperately to avoid using the term, tax increases. Here’s a few specifics culled from the news article…
The bill, the product of months of wrangling between legislators and the governor, requires all Massachusetts residents to obtain health coverage by July 1, 2007.Losing an exemption on state taxes is a tax increase. A penalty is a tax increase. Tax increases aren’t inherently bad, but let’s be honest on what this program is doing — raising taxes on young people to pay for universal health insurance.
Individuals who can afford private insurance will be penalized on their state income taxes if they do not purchase it. Government subsidies to private insurance plans will allow more of the working poor to buy insurance and will expand the number of children who are eligible for free coverage. Businesses with more than 10 workers that do not provide insurance will be assessed up to $295 per employee per year…
The Massachusetts bill creates a sliding scale of affordability ranging from people who can afford insurance outright to those who cannot afford it at all. About 215,000 people will be covered by allowing individuals and businesses with 50 or fewer employees to buy insurance with pretax dollars and by giving insurance companies incentives to offer stripped-down plans at lower cost. Lower-cost basic plans will be available to people ages 19 to 26.
Subsidies for other private plans will be available for people with incomes at or below 300 percent of the poverty level. Children in those families will be eligible for free coverage through Medicaid, an expansion of the current system…
Individuals who fail to get health insurance by July 2007 will first lose their personal exemption on their state taxes. In subsequent years, they would have to pay a penalty that could be as high as half of what an affordable health care premium would cost.
An aide to Governor Romney explains the focus on the young…
Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor’s communications director, said that for those people with incomes above 300 percent of poverty, “our assumption was that these would be mostly single mothers who just did not have the wherewithal to get insurance. It turned out it was mostly young males. In some cases they are making very attractive salaries. These are people who just don’t imagine themselves needing care, but of course when they break a leg when they’re out bungee jumping they go to the hospital and we end up paying for their care anyway.”This explanation should raise an immediate red-flag. Apparently, to initiate this program, the government needs to immediately grab a bunch of money from young people who don’t use much healthcare and transfer it to others who do.
The problem is that the windfall of dollars added to the system is a one-time-only event that contributes nothing towards controlling costs. Once everyone is forced into the system (that has helped to create the problem by limiting the choices that people have), there’s no one else left to tap, and measures like dropping treatments from coverage and even rationing become the only options as costs continue to rise. Ultimately, the Massachusetts plan does more to delay necessary reform of health insurance than it does to solve the problem.
Incidentally, today’s OpinionJournal editorial mentions one of the simpler solution that would give people more control over their healthcare…
Congressman John Shadegg (R., Ariz.) has a bill to let Americans purchase affordable health insurance from any of the 50 states, thus bypassing state mandates that drive up insurance costs in New York and many other places.[Open full post]
I don’t think that there have been many posts on gun issues hereabouts, but Michael Barone–commenting on David Kopel’s analysis of the spread of concealed carry laws–remarks that the spread of such laws is a good sign for federalism. Nebraska recently became the 40th state to approve a concealed carry (“shall-issue“) law. According to Barone:
Nebraska’s action means that 40 of the 50 states have shall-issue (or even less restrictive) laws on gun possession. This is a great example of federalism: Reforms that could never have passed Congress have swept across the country, as people in some states have learned from the experience of others. While centralized elites have concentrated on restricting gun ownership, with little practical effect, decentralized non-elites in the states have promoted legal gun ownership, with results that seem benign.
Kopel’s analysis and description of the typical process that has occurred in each state that has eventually approved of a shall carry law is instructive. He also explains that, while Rhode Island technically has a shall-issue law, it is not followed. Here’s why:
Rhode Island actually has a Shall Issue law (for issuance by local law enforcement) and a Capricious Issue law (for issue by the Attorney General). The Attorney General has succeeded, at least temporarily, in stifling the local Shall Issue system, but a decision (PDF) of the Rhode Island Supreme Court suggests that this state of affairs is untenable. [Though the Brady Campaign has a different interpretation. – MAC] All that is necessary to implement Shall Issue in Rhode Island is a new Attorney General with a different attitude, or the proper legal challenge. Rhode Island too seems a likely candidate to become a Shall Issue state.
Kopel bases his evaluation of shall-issue in Rhode Island on his own research (PDF, p.20-30 in the file. It is taken from the Albany Law Review).
UPDATE: Meanwhile, David Gelernter believes that a new turn toward federalism can be useful as a way to tamp down the polarization that has arisen in contemporary America. He believes reining in the power of the Supreme Court would be the key. It’s worth a read. (via Ramesh Ponnuru at The Corner)
In today’s Projo, Peter B. Lord reports on the damage determination phase of the Rhode Island lead paint trial…
State lawyers are asking a Superior Court judge to appoint a public health expert to plan and oversee a lead-paint cleanup program in Rhode Island that they say could cost between $1.37 billion and $3.74 billion.However, when contrasted against DuPont’s $12.5 million dollar “settlement” in the same case, the billion-dollar damage figures raise a question or two.
The proposal is part of the final step in the state’s public nuisance lawsuit against Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries and Millennium Holdings…
The state lawyers say their witnesses uniformly argued that the safest and most prudent policy is to remove all lead from homes.
“The single question that remains is not legal, but practical — how should these defendants undertake abatement of the public nuisance in Rhode Island,” the lawyers argued.
The DuPont “settlement”, according to an earlier Peter B. Lord Projo article, took the form of charitable contributions, including “$6.6 million to abate lead problems in 600 houses…funneled through the Children’s Forum”. According to Julie Creswell’s New York Times article, Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch was willing to offer similar deals to the other defendants in the lawsuit…
Mr. Lynch said the other paint companies could have reached a similar conclusion, an assertion disputed by Philip H. Curtis, a partner at Arnold & Porter representing Atlantic Richfield.The questions are…
1. If damages in this case are being determined by the public interest, why was DuPont allowed to settle for a fraction of the amount that the other companies may pay and address only a fraction of the homes (fewer than 1%) that the other companies must address?
2. If all of the companies had taken a DuPont-type deal, where would the billions that the state is now claiming is necessary for cleaning up lead paint have come from? [Open full post]
The Associated Press is reporting on the release of United States Census Bureau report detailing the amounts spent on elementary and secondary education in each state. Here’s the AP summary of New England…
Vermont spent an average of $11,128 on each of its public school students, which is the fourth highest per pupil spending in the nation…Another number from the report that jumps out is that Rhode is 51st (dead last) in terms of “capital outlays” at $28,171,000. Here is the definition of a capital outlay…
Vermont was not alone among its New England neighbors in having a high per-pupil spending level. Connecticut was fifth at $10,788; Massachusetts was sixth at $10,693, Rhode Island was 10th at $9,903, Maine was 11th at $9,534, and New Hampshire was 17th at $8,860, the Census Bureau said.
This category refers to the direct expenditure by public school systems for construction of buildings and roads; purchases of equipment, land, and existing structures; and for payments on capital leases. Amounts for additions, replacements, and major alterations to fixed works and structures are included. However, expenditure for maintenance and minor repairs to buildings and equipment is classified as current spending.For comparison, Delaware, also a small state, spent $158,252,000 on capital outlays. [Open full post]
Julie Creswell of the New York Times had an excellent summary in Sunday’s paper of the Rhode Island lead paint trial and how it may not be as finished as you think it is. In addition to detailing the history of the case and the pending issues involving possible appeals and setting damages, Ms. Creswell also reported on a mostly unnoticed aspect of the case that was heard today by the Rhode Island Supreme court…
As painful and expensive as the case’s outcome could be for the paint companies, it also raises issues that go far beyond that industry. In particular, should state officials be allowed to essentially outsource public-health and public-nuisance cases to private legal firms that will try the cases free but take a piece of any recoveries made? Seven years ago, Sheldon Whitehouse, then Rhode Island’s attorney general, agreed to those terms.
Defense lawyers representing the paint companies say that contingency-fee lawyers are interested only in racking up huge settlements, not in addressing the underlying problem. They have formally challenged the practice before the Rhode Island Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the issue tomorrow.
The official name of the case is State of Rhode Island v. Lead Paint Industries Association.
There’s a slight quibble with Ms. Creswell’s reporting. The use of contingency fees in this case is an issue, in part, because the lawyers didn’t really provide their services for free. According to the Washington Legal Foundation, which has filed an amicus brief in the case,…
The State agreed that if it ever decided to drop the suit, it would be required to pay its attorneys on a quantum meruit basis; i.e., the value of all hours devoted to the case, at the attorneys’ regular hourly rates….
[In their amicus brief], WLF also argued that the contract clause requiring a quantum meruit fee payment if the State seeks to abandon its suit effectively cedes all control of the suit to the lawyers — because the Attorney General does not have at his disposal the millions of dollars required to satisfy that fee obligation.
What the WLF is pointing out is that after contingency-fee lawyers have invested so much time in a case, the state must continue to pursue it, not in the interest of the public good, but because it’s the only way to pay off the lawyers without bankrupting the Attorney General�s office.
There’s another dimension to this problem raised in the WLF brief…
WLF argued that the private attorneys handling the case for Rhode Island have an irreconcilable conflict with the State because it is in their interest to maximize any damage award paid by the defendant — the larger the award, the larger the fee they will receive. WLF noted that a damage award based on the cost of removing all lead paint would be vastly larger than an award based on the cost of ensuring that painted surfaces on older buildings are kept intact. WLF argued that the decision of the attorneys to seek the former remedy — despite the views of the Rhode Island legislature and virtually all scientists that the latter remedy is far better from a public health standpoint — can only be explained by the attorneys’ financial interest in maximizing their own fees.
In other words, since contingency fee lawyers are compensated based of damages awarded, they have an incentive to advocate (in the name of the state) for whatever is most expensive, not for what is most effective.
A third problem with states hiring contingency-fee layers to pursue class-action cases is described in detail in an amicus brief filed by the United States Chamber of Commerce. Remember the cronyism that everyone was upset about after the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court? Well, according to the Chamber of Commerce, it runs rampant through the world of public contingency fee litigation. Their amicus brief lists 7 cases in 7 different states (list) where Attorney Generals made either their political donors or their former law firms rich by farming out contingency fee cases.
Unfortunately, Rhode Island does not seem to be immune to this. Jack McConnell, the lead lawyer in the lead paint case, is a big donor to the Rhode Island Democratic Party. Should the Attorney General be using his office to help enrich big Democratic donors?
Finally, one other campaign contribution of interest has been brought to Anchor Rising�s attention. Last summer, paint manufacturer DuPont “settled” their part of the case for donations totaling $12.5 million dollars to be given to various charities. Not everyone involved in the DuPont agreement, however, agrees that “settling” describes the final result. Here is Dupont’s position, as quoted in the Times…
A spokeswoman for DuPont, Mary Kate Campbell, said, “When you look at the terms of the understanding that we reached with the Rhode Island attorney general, the attorney general and the state of Rhode Island got nothing. Nor did any of the outside lawyers.”
But is it true that the Attorney General got nothing? Last December, after the case was “settled”, a lawyer by the name of Bernard Nash gave a $1,000 campaign contribution to Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch. Mr. Nash works for the law firm of Dickstein, Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky. Mr. Nash’s firm is listed on a website called the “Dupont Legal Model” as a “Challenge Award Winner” with Bernard Nash listed as an “Engagement Partner”
Here’s how the Dickstein website describes their relationship with DuPont…
DuPont continues to rely on Dickstein Shapiro’s attorneys for a competitive edge in resolving complex public policy and litigation matters, and recently recognized the Firm as one of the best among its select network of Primary Law Firms and Service Providers.
Should an Attorney General really be taking a $1,000 contribution from a member of a law firm involved with a corporation that just settled a multi-million dollar case with his state?
[Open full post]Here’s a historical addendum to Andrew’s point about Voter Initiative and it’s purported incompatibility with Representative government. Tocqueville’s observations concerning the functions of each House of the bicameral state legislature’s of the early 19th century seem to imply that they already were getting a bit redundant.
The legislative power of the state is vested in two assemblies, the first of which generally bears the name of the Senate.
The Senate is commonly a legislative body, but it sometimes becomes an executive and judicial one. It takes part in the government in several ways, according to the constitution of the different states; but it is in the nomination of public functionaries that it most commonly assumes an executive power. It partakes of judicial power in the trial of certain political offenses, and sometimes also in the decision of certain civil cases. The number of its members is always small.
The other branch of the legislature, which is usually called the House of Representatives, has no share whatever in the administration and takes a part in the judicial power only as it impeaches public functionaries before the Senate.
The members of the two houses are nearly everywhere subject to the same conditions of eligibility. They are chosen in the same manner, and by the same citizens. The only difference which exists between them is that the term for which the Senate is chosen is, in general, longer than that of the House of Representatives. The latter seldom remain in office longer than a year; the former usually sit two or three years.
By granting to the senators the privilege of being chosen for several years, and being renewed seriatim, the law takes care to preserve in the legislative body a nucleus of men already accustomed to public business, and capable of exercising a salutary influence upon the new-comers.
By this separation of the legislative body into two branches the Americans plainly did not desire to make one house hereditary and the other elective, one aristocratic and the other democratic. It was not their object to create in the one a bulwark to power, while the other represented the interests and passions of the people. The only advantages that result from the present constitution of the two houses in the United States are the division of the legislative power, and the consequent check upon political movements; together with the creation of a tribunal of appeal for the revision of the laws. [Emphasis added]
Of course, the irony here in Rhode Island is that we have effectively created two “aristocratic” houses in our legislature. Maybe one of the first Voter Initiative’s should be for term limits?
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