Rhode Island Politics
As a third party locked out of tax-form-based public campaign donations, the Moderate Party is striving to prevent the unfair system from continuing through this election season without repairs for fairness: The party, which sued last month in federal court, argued in a request for an injunction that the formula used to divide the money…
Complaints that the State of Rhode Island has allocated more money for the Department of Corrections than for higher education miss the point. Put aside the fact that the comparison is arbitrary; the real concern should be the underlying policies that wind up making imprisoning people such a large expense. That would be a pretty…
The national press loves the independent candidate and USA Today (h/t Ian Donnis) is the latest to report about them in this year of the disgruntled voter. RI’s own Lincoln Chafee plays prominently in the story and all of the classic Chafee themes are there. First, there’s the typical RI attitude towards “name candidates” like…
It appears that vocal Tea Party figure and District 31 candidate for the General Assembly’s House Doreen Costa has attracted the attention of some mentally deficient (probably unstable) supporter of the status quo: According to a police report, the car also contained “expensive electronics such as a navigation system, CD player, and IPod which was…
A Sunday that happens also to be a holiday seems well suited to this minor observation concerning a man who left the public sphere before my time, as it were. From a recent op-ed by former Governor Lincoln Almond: Every insurer in this state is seeking rate increases, some higher than Blue Cross, some modestly…
This statement will surely draw heat, but it seems to me that an objective view of perceptions among Republicans and, especially, conservatives in Rhode Island is that Governor Carcieri chose to end his term as a leader early (in contrast to his term as an administrator), for the reason that Larry Ehrhardt expressed succinctly in…
… because the senate president picked up an opponent Wednesday and her smirky lieutenant has decided not to seek re-election. I learned this double scoop of delightful news Wednesday night at the RIGOP Convention (with apologies to Andrew for whooping in his ear when the second item was announced from the podium). Beth Moura is…
For some reason a statement released by the Moderate Party’s candidate for lieutenant governor, Jean Ann Guliano, capped for me a little wave of inexplicable optimism, yesterday: Many have pointed out that my running for state office is admirable, but what we really need are committed people in the General Assembly, people who are going…
On last night’s Matt Allen Show, Monique talked government spending and legislative grants with Matt. Stream by clicking here, or download it.
The ProJo highlighted the RI General Assembly’s “Legislative Grant Program” (nee earmarks or the “rub-n-tug), focusing on the legislators (mostly State Rep’s) who believe it’s essentially a political spoils system. As reported by the ProJo’s Randall Edgar, Rep. Karen MacBeth (D-Cumberland) is one of those questioning the “process”: Testifying before the House Finance Committee this…