Rhode Island Politics
And since the title of the previous post is based on a quote from legendary hotel magnate Leona Helmsley…We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes,… it should be noted that State Represenatative Bruce Long (R-Jamestown/Middletown) appears to believe that he has also left the ranks of the little people. According to a…
An unbylined story in today’s Projo, working off of a report issued by the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s office, fills in some details about how the Rhode Island legislature regularly conducts the people’s business in a less-than-transparent manner…On his way out the door, Secretary of State Matthew Brown has given state lawmakers a D…
Edward Achorn backs up what many have already concluded: the Democrat margins of victory were attributable to straight-party (mostly Harrah’s “inspired”) voters: On Nov. 7, the straight-party system worked its wonders for Rhode Island Democrats. Some 61,357 voters cast a straight-party ballot for the Democrats — a whopping increase of more than 23,000, or about…
Robert Healey, Cool Moose Party Lt. Governor candidate, writes in a letter-to-the-editor that appeared in Friday’s Warwick Beacon (and probably in other local papers): In the aftermath of Question 1 there is an interesting point for those who support Voter Initiative. Too often labor and others with vested interests in maintaining the status quo of…
It’s no big surprise that the R.I. Senate Democrats–33 out of the 38 State Senators–unaminously re-elected Joseph Montalbano (D-N. Providence) to be Senate President and M. Teresa Paiva-Weed (D-Newport) as Senate Majority Leader. This despite the fact that Montalbano may currently be the target of an FBI invesigation. (Something, by the way, that both Bill…
Today, the Projo is running its second Scott MacKay story in three days on the dismal state of the Northeast GOP. Today’s story is focused on Rhode Island; Sunday’s story was about the Northeast in general. Neither story breaks much new ground, although today’s does confirm that Patricia Morgan is seeking another term as Rhode…
According to Benjamin N. Gedan in today’s Projo, Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Stephen Fortunato has ruled that the state Board of Elections must make copies of “ballots that [did] not register a vote during a recount” that can be examined by individuals not associated with the Board. The BOE objects to Judge Fortunato’s ruling…
Charles E.F. Millard wrote a New York Post op-ed about the NY Republican Party that, with a few details changed, could have been written about the RI Republican Party…New leadership is needed. [Former New York Republican Chairman Bill Powers] summed up the keys to me after last week’s bloodbath: “You have to have a plan,”…
I think an important distinction needs to be made in this discussion about re-invigorating the Rhode Island Republican Party by “defining conservatism.’ The attempt to excise the social aspects from the holistic definition of conservatism–essentially smaller government and traditional morality–indicates that it’s not conservatism that is being defined so much as Rhode Island Republicanism. The…
The casino got crushed by a bigger margin than anyone expected, even though the result was consistent with every poll taken in the final weeks. At the same time, the Governor’s race ended up much closer than expected, Elizabeth Roberts won by a bigger margin than projected, and Ralph Mollis won a race that many…