Rhode Island Politics
Two interesting points are buried within Randal Edgar and Philip Marcelo’s article on voter-ID legislation currently under consideration in the Rhode Island House. The first is the degree to which Rhode Island ACLU Executive Director Steven Brown’s inane argument implies ulterior, political motives: “When we have no charges filed, when we have no convictions filed…
I’m not sure if everyone is feeling the same way I am about the budget Governor Chafee introduced to the General Assembly a few weeks go. Besides talk radio, the reaction has been muted. And even more maddening are the people that don’t mind the new taxes (like Ernie the Barber) or say “eh, what…
Thanks to left-leaning Politico, Congressman Cicilline is getting some national pub for his Providence past. The lede: So much for the honeymoon period. Less than three months into his first term, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) has nose-dived in the polls and is under fire back home in Providence, the embattled city where he served as…
Tip for the Governor and his budget staffers: here is one of a long list of spending items that needs to be addressed before you even think about jacking revenue, a.k.a., taxes. [Thanks to the Providence Journal’s Katherine Gregg, Philip Marcelo and Randal Edgar for picking up on and reporting this item.] The salary paid…
In his Engaged Citizen post, Mark Zaccaria describes the very odd and self-serving format of the inaccurately named “town hall” held by Congressman Langevin Wednesday: the complete inadibility of the congressman’s remarks followed by his refusal to take questions publicly from the audience, choosing, instead, to speak to people one on one privately. It just…
That recent Brown poll determined that Congressman Cicilline has a shockingly low approval rating. The consensus seems to be that this is a reflection of the recently renewed (it’s not accurate to say “new”) revelations as to how the former mayor handled and obfuscated Providence’s budget problems. Oh, the consensus is not quite unanimous. Rep.…
Perhaps it’s a function of idealism, but the continual penchant for racism in our country wearies me. By racism, I mean the division of people into racial groups and inclination to treat them as separate communities: Without the 39,835 additional residents who identified themselves as Hispanic, Rhode Island would have lost 35,587 people from 2000…
After I looked at how other states deal with sales tax, I began to think that it would be a clever move by Governor Chafee to lower the overall rate while expanding its application. It would both increase “revenue”–its a tax hike after all–but also would provide a lower number for the various state tax…
Here’s an interesting tidbit from last week’s Political Scene. The Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, which collects dues from the state’s municipalities in order to act as their advocate to the state — thus lightening the necessity of representatives and senators to do their job, one suspects — held some focus groups while…
Yes, for six months, David Cicilline, you willfully withheld from the City’s Internal Auditor financial documents. Yes, James Lombardi – an auditor for the City of Providence, not some meddling outsider – had to file a public information request under the state’s open records law (!) in order to obtain from your administration the documents…