Rhode Island Politics

Raising Concerns

By Justin Katz | May 5, 2008 |

Methinks there’s a missing “my” in Karen Lee Ziner’s “Remarks raise concern” piece on the front page of yesterday’s Local News section: A nonprofit group whose board members include First Lady Sue Carcieri asserts that nearly 45 percent of all immigrants in Rhode Island — legal and illegal — lack high school diplomas and “this…

Singleton Retiring from the House

By Carroll Andrew Morse | May 5, 2008 |

According to Vinaya Saksena of the Woonsocket Call, former Republican currently Independent State Representative Richard Singleton will not seek re-election because he is moving out of state. This creates an open-seat election in House district 52 (Cumberland).

A System of Scapegoats

By Justin Katz | May 3, 2008 |

Although I haven’t yet managed to get a handle on the realistic role and responsibilities of Rhode Island’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), I can’t help but feel that a little outrage on the part of its president, Saul Kaplan in response to legislative hammering: Lawmakers yesterday demanded answers from Rhode Island’s Economic Development Corporation about…

Term Limits Proposed

By Marc Comtois | May 2, 2008 |

Via N4N: Rep. Stephen R. Ucci (D-Dist. 42, Johnston, Cranston) has introduced legislation that would allow voters to decide on a proposal to increase term lengths for and impose term limits upon members of the General Assembly. Under the proposal, elections held after 2010 would be held every four years. Legislators would serve four-year terms…

Supplemental Budget a Go

By Justin Katz | May 1, 2008 |

The RI Senate has approved the supplemental budget, largely in the form that the governor proposed. I haven’t had the time to figure out this, though: The plan restores $5 million of the $7 million the governor had proposed to eliminate for the Neighborhood Opportunities Program, which supports affordable housing initiatives. That funding will go…

Indicative of Obviousness

By Justin Katz | May 1, 2008 |

Times are so dark — and the general thrust of the solution so obvious — that special interests and other general-revenue soakers can’t even escape to the Lifebeat section for relief. Credit goes to Rita Lussier for using her influence for the cause of sanity: Not to alarm you, but this situation is a ticking…

Pure Politics as Usual

By Justin Katz | April 30, 2008 |

It is simply not possible that a reasonable person acting out of a desire for mutual, productive dialog could attempt to paint an extremely recent executive order pertaining to illegal immigration from a relatively powerless governor as a contributing factor in our current economic crisis. The strategy is transparent and disturbing: push policies that benefit…

Time to Re-Tort

By Monique Chartier | April 29, 2008 |

A caller to WPRO’s Matt Allen Show today came up with the idea of charging a fee for every bill that a Rhode Island legislator wishes to file. Matt suggested $500 a pop, to be deducted from the legislator’s annual salary. In view of the many look-at-me, pointlessly distracting bills that are filed every session,…

Cuts for Thee but not for Me

By Marc Comtois | April 29, 2008 |

Sure, it may be an easy mark, but just because they make it easy, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be noted: During their marathon House budget-cutting debate last Friday, lawmakers talked again and again about the need to “share the burden” and “share the pain.” But they decided to spare themselves from making any contribution to…

What a Crock

By Justin Katz | April 26, 2008 |

Pat Crowley’s complaints about a letter that Governor Carcieri apparently sent to Bob Walsh, Crowley’s NEA boss, are transparently two-faced in so many ways that I won’t enumerate them. Simply put, the idea that Walsh would respond otherwise than with the mind-numbing reply that Crowley publishes is laughable. It is, let’s just say, improbable that…