Rhode Island Politics
What’s the famous H.L. Menken quotation? “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” I suspect that’s going to be the unofficial slogan of the Linc Chafee years in Rhode Island. It came to mind when the Department of Revenue found that Chafee’s…
Ed Achorn laments the political reality of East Providence. Noting that voters supported a local tax cap, he points out that they removed from office the very people who would strive to meet it. The unions, in short, outhustled, outspent, out-deceived and out-organized the public-spirited incumbents in East Providence, making sure that they won’t be…
File this under “it figures”: A First Amendment lawyer who regularly litigates cases involving access to government records said Monday that compared with other states, Rhode Island appears to have far more exemptions in its laws allowing government officials to hide information from the public. “Let’s say that Rhode Island seems to really have more…
Steven Frias, a Steve Laffey ally of old and author of a book on Cranston’s political history, relates the origin of school committees’ authority to negotiate contracts (even though they can’t tax to pay for them) and binding arbitration for police and fire. Sadly, there are some discouraging parallels to our proximate future: The leader…
With the expectation that it’s a reminder that will often have to be made, over the next four years, let’s note once again that Lincoln Chafee will be running Rhode Island based on the smallest victorious slice of the electorate ever: As the winner of what came down to a four-man race for R.I. governor,…
So says our governor-elect when talking about his pledge to revoke the E-verify Executive order. Hey, he’s honest, right? I guess that means we can be sure that a 1% sales tax increase is coming. Yippee.
As has been reported (I saw it tweeted first by Ian Donnis), governor-elect Chafee has tabbed erstwhile liberal Democrat political insider–lobbyist, Chairman of the Board of NARAL—Richard Licht (h/t Ted Nesi for the link to Licht’s bio) to head up the Department of Administration. The liberalness isn’t a surprise, but lest we forget, there is…
General Treasurer candidate Gina Raimondo had refused to release her tax returns during the campaign but indicated that she would do so if elected. And she reaffirmed to a ProJo reporter just last week that she would do so. Oops. State Treasurer-elect Gina M. Raimondo on Thursday refused to release her income-tax returns after promising…
Marc’s already splashed into the political hay of the issue, but we should take a moment to look more directly at the raises received by Rhode Island’s top office holders: The salaries go up only once every four years and when they do, they reflect the Consumer Price Index for the Northeast region for the…
Conservative Rhode Islanders haven’t been shy about criticizing Governor Don Carcieri. His tendency to spin the state’s financial health in a positive light has been tinny on the ear. The Deepwater Wind process has been a travesty. I’m even very suspicious of the recent revamping of the state’s tax code. But the governor’s recent op-ed…