Rhode Island Politics

The cases against current Senate President Joseph Montalbano and former Senate President William Irons go before the State Ethics Commission today. Jim Baron has described the charges in the Woonsocket Call…The principal complaint against Irons is that, while receiving commissions from CVS Pharmacies and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island in his private insurance…

This puff piece on House Deputy Majority Leader Peter G. Palumbo (D., Cranston) that details his efforts as a summertime vendor at the Misquamicut Beach Cafe provokes some questions. It’s about 3 p.m. on a hot summer day, and Peter G. Palumbo, a deputy majority leader of the state House of Representatives, is greasing doughboys.…

A staff report from today’s Pawtucket Times makes it sound like both Governor Donald Carcieri and the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce support allowing insurance companies to authorize automobile repairs whether or not the owner gives permission…The Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce applauded Gov. Donald Carcieri’s rejection of three bills that attempt to…

I’m not sure why the Providence Journal is making such a big deal about public workers’ overtime. My understanding is that such employees’ benefits packages cost significantly more than 50% of their salaries, so it’s cheaper to have them work extra hours than to bring on somebody new to share the workload. If there’s a…

The ProJo’s Mike Stanton helps to narrow the focus on the Beacon imbroglio to the Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s involvement: The report also focused on efforts by Beacon’s then-CEO, Joseph A. Solomon, to solicit campaign contributions for Whitehouse’s Senate campaign. From May 27, 2005, to June 30, 2005, the report says, 14 Beacon employees, board members…

The State DBR (Department of Business Regulation) has released it’s own report (300+ pages) concerning the Beacon Mutual scandal (before the Governor shook it all up). As the ProJo 7to7 blog summarizes: Here are some of the report’s specific findings, according to the DBR: — Certain employers related to board members and other favored employers…

Brian C. Jones reports in this week’s Providence Phoenix on efforts by the city of Providence to enforce local-residency hiring preferences that can extend to privately-owned businesses…It’s been nearly a quarter-century since Providence enacted an ordinance giving city residents the first crack at jobs from companies and organizations benefiting from grants and other financial arrangements…

I was blissfully away on vacation for two weeks (where I was again reminded that most people don’t really care about politics, btw) but was greeted by this politics-as-usual bit in today’s ProJo Political Scene column: To fill the long-vacant position of director of e-government and information technology in his office, Secretary of State A.…

Andrew suggested to Jim Hummel, on this morning’s On the Record, that the Democrats in the General Assembly are, in some sense, biding their time until they manage to place another Democrat in the Governor’s chair. I’m not so sure the Democrats are (or should be) desirous of such a visible monopoly on Rhode Island…

Katherine Gregg’s piece in the Providence Journal about state contract employees has a bit too much of the editorial page aroma. Her opening line, a construct intended to tell the reader how to feel about the information being conveyed, is in keeping with the execution of her “gotchas.” The employee list appears “in the blink…