General Assembly
Imagine a young Christian Rhode Islander running for office with a team of Republican candidates of the Make America Great Again mold taking to Twitter to say: The LGBTQs are coming for the Christian community. Who will look out for our best interests, if not ourselves? Run for office. Support local Christian candidates. Fight back.…
Whether I’ve been failing or succeeding, all these years, I’ll leave to others to judge, but one of my core objectives has always been to foster the habit of making the sorts of connections that are too often covered over for political reasons. Let’s look at a big one. Perhaps with the mixed motivation of…
Well, we have to thank Rhode Island Republicans for trying: The Rhode Island Senate Republican Caucus is proposing the state eliminate gas tax for the remainder of the year. “We want to direct the influx in tax revenue back to residents and provide relief from the crushing pain at the pump,” Senate Minority Whip Jessica…
You know you’re dealing with greedy special interests most concerned with maintaining their own position when you read something like this, emphasis added: The plan has the support of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, the Rhode Island School Superintendents’ Association, the National Education Association Rhode Island and the Hassenfeld Institute for…
General Assembly politics are a mystery to most Rhode Islanders. They don’t really understand why anybody wants the job, figuring that some people are just into that sort of thing. Yes, some people are really, really into it. John G. Edwards, the Fourth, has been the Democrat representative from district 70 since 2008, having previously…
John DePetro and Justin Katz go over some of the revelations and unknowns of Rhode Island politics.
Don’t get me wrong. RI House Minority Leader Blake Filippi is right to be pursuing his lawsuit against the Joint Committee of Legislative Services, which is undoubtedly a central hub of our legislature’s corruption. But the judiciary isn’t where these disputes should have to be resolved. Think about it: Filippi, the top Republican in the…
About one hour and fifty-five minutes into Wednesday’s hearing of the Rhode Island House Education Committee, Democrat Representative Justine Caldwell (East and West Greenwich) jumped in with her cat from the comfort of her home to ask Democrat Senator Tiara Mack (Providence) a question about “pleasure-based sex education” legislation, of which Mack is obviously a…
Online and in testimony, enough people spoke out against legislation that would mandate the sexual grooming of school children that legislators clearly felt the heat. To my experience, they often sign onto these bills with next-to-no thought — like people signing a meaningless petition on their way into the local pharmacy. “What’s this do? OK,…
If that question seems like hyperbole, think it through. Either our legislators are deeply sick or criminally susceptible to manipulation by people who are.