Rhode Island Politics
Major congrats to the Moderate Party and their signature fiends … er, petitioners for the 30,000 signature that they have collected in jig time. Now, unnecessary confusion is being created as to where those signatures must be turned in. A little incident arose out of last year’s election that Republicans remember with a wince and…
Your representative and senator need to be replaced if… They didn’t vote to eliminate unaffordable mandates to help cities and towns. They approved a budget without knowing the costs They voted to keep their free healthcare or just pay a “token” co-pay while everyone else pays 20%+ if they even have health insurance They voted…
Today, we get the advocacy profile — a standard newspaper fare by which readers are made unequivocally aware of the “objective” reporter’s opinion: Inside the Liberty Elm Diner Thursday, the lemonade was cold and the bacon was hot. But the mood hung heavy with a sense of foreboding. Customers who devoured BLTs and pancakes wondered…
This was the basic outline of former Providence’s mayor Joseph Paolino’s strong municipal consolidation proposal, published in a Projo op-ed in May…In the interest of efficiency, economy and equity, Rhode Island should unify its 39 cities and towns into six county governments with full municipal powers. There would be a Mayor of Kent County, Newport…
Here’s a curious mid-summer press release: Fewer and fewer workers are approaching retirement age with a comfortable amount of savings, either through traditional defined benefit pension plans or other savings accounts. Some 49 percent of Rhode Island employers do not offer retirement benefits to their full-time workers (which mirrors national figures) and only 19 percent…
For the file of quotations that nobody noticed, but that ought to open eyes: “Legislators know what the issue is, they just lack the political will to do it,” says Stephen M. Robinson, a Providence lawyer who has been retained by the school committees in Pawtucket and Woonsocket to work on a school formula lawsuit.…
Add ballot inaccessibility to the list of Rhode Island’s dubious distinctions. With its requirement that a new party collect signatures from 5% of registered voters, Rhode Island is in a four way tie for dead last in this category. [Insert the well known list of Rhode Island’s problems directly attributable to poor managment.] But with…
Following upon the court ruling [Press Release PDF] in May that extended the timeframe for collecting the nearly 25,000 signatures needed to gain official recognition as a political party in Rhode Island, the Moderate Party has wasted no time buckling down to the task. Below, Max Bradshaw and Jack Crook collect signatures at the Stop…
John DePetro observed Monday that certain members of the General Assembly are not inclined to close this legal loophole because its continued existence might increase Rhode Island’s convention business. (Wouldn’t it be far preferable on a number of levels to draw business here with an economically friendly climate instead of via our children?) Those legislators…
Katherine Gregg’s Providence Journal article on Rhode Island’s pension fund losses has an interesting frame. Toward the beginning (emphasis added): Despite this recent run of losses, state officials say there is no immediate danger for state and local employees and teachers whose retirement checks are drawn from the pension fund, which is made up of…