So much for summer doldrums. The political beat keeps running hot and heavy in the Biggest Little. Thanks for stopping by. As usual, your tips and comments are welcome, and you can follow me through the week on the twitters. Here we go.
1. The 2018 gubernatorial race heated up this week when Robert Walsh, executive director of the National Education Association, fired a sharp rhetorical shot at Governor Gina Raimondo. “I think that the classified ad is out: ‘Real Democrat wanted for governor of Rhode Island,’ ” Walsh told the ProJo’s Katherine Gregg. That’s a dramatic about-face from March, when Walsh told RI Public Radio that the NEA was likely to back Raimondo for re-election. “I am not advertising for alternative candidates to Gina Raimondo,” Walsh said at the time. “We must retain the governorship and we must retain our Democrats elected in the Senate and in the United States Congress.” But Raimondo’s veto of a bill that would automatically renew contracts for teachers and municipal workers sparked Walsh’s ire. “My life got more complicated because of this,” Walsh tells me, since he would prefer for the NEA to be a part of the Rhode Island Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign next year. “It’s a pain in the neck thing,” he said. “It would have been much easier to move forward with this [automatic contract renewal] bill signed.” Walsh asserted in the ProJo story that Raimondo said she planned to veto the bill since “donors don’t like it.” A source in the governor’s office denies that; the source said Raimondo was referring to people who voted for her. The source said Raimondo attempted to craft a compromise on evergreen contract, and that her concern was how the contracts will increase costs for cities and towns.
2. Back in 2010, the NEA helped put Lincoln Chafee over the top in what was basically a four-way race. Walsh said he’s unsure if Chafee will run for governor next year, although the Republican-turned-independent-turned Democrat is considering running as a D or an I. Yet the NEA executive director said he won’t be surprised if a Democratic or independent candidate emerges “who would intrigue us.” (Walsh would not name names.) Meanwhile, there appears to be a strong chance that the General Assembly will override Raimondo’s veto of the contracts bill (see #5). The governor’s office said she made the veto based on the taxpayer merits of the issue. But some observers may also suspect a political calculation, since the angry response from labor was predictable.
3. A few eyebrows were raised when TGIF last year (#3) floated the idea of a gubernatorial run by state Rep. Patricia Morgan of West Warwick, now the Republican leader in the Rhode Island House. Yet Morgan is increasingly seen as a potential factor on the GOP side of the race, in part due to her message of advocating for taxpayers, trying to cut state spending, and looking for government boondoggles. Rhode Island voters have shown a tendency to elect Republican governors; let’s not forget that John Robitaille placed less than three points behind Chafee in 2010, and how Cranston Mayor Allan Fung ran a competitive race against Raimondo in 2014. Recent controversies involving Democrats like John Carnevale, Ray Gallison, and Frank Montanaro offer ready-made messaging for the GOP cause. But it remains unclear if Morgan can raise the money to run an effective campaign. Other potential GOP candidates for governor include Joe Trillo, Giovanni Feroce and Ken Block.
4. At this point, the state Senate appears very unlikely to return next week to vote on the House budget, and it remains unclear when that may happen. House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President President Dominick Ruggerio made progress in restoring their relationship this week while meeting for a talk at an undisclosed location. Yet the fundamental stumbling block remains: Mattiello wants the Senate to sign off on the House budget and send it on to the governor, while the car tax amendment that helped precipitate the dispute still enjoys strong support from senators. The longer the impasse goes on, the worse it looks in the court of public opinion, and more groups are speaking out. Yet politics remains a fundamentally personal thing. So whether the stalemate gets resolved “has to do with whether these guys wind up trusting each other,” one lawmaker said. Meanwhile, Ruggerio and Mattiello — after scrapping a meeting Friday — plan to talk again early next week.
5. Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien, president of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, offers this message on Governor Raimondo‘s veto of the evergreen contract bill: “The League would like to recognize Governor Raimondo for her leadership and supporting the League’s position opposing the legacy provisions in local contracts. This bill would have made the responsibilities of the municipal leaders much more difficult as we work to keep property taxes from rising. I want to thank my colleagues across the state who helped get the word out about the challenges this bill poses for municipalities and the property taxpayers we represent, particularly Mayors Avedisian, Lombardi, Fung, and Polisena. I’m sure I can confidently say on behalf of every municipal leader that we appreciate and understand the responsibilities of those representing the hard working men and women in our communities. However, evergreen contracts do not benefit labor or management and the expiration of contracts is an important trigger to bring all parties to the bargaining table with equal value.”
6. Speaker Mattiello said he remains undecided on whether the House will override Raimondo’s veto of the evergreen contracts bill, but his support for the measure is clear. “This contract continuation just codifies what the practice has been for the last 50 years, before a Superior Court decision,” Matiello said this week on RI Public Radio’s Political Roundtable. “I understand everybody’s position. I don’t think [the impact] is as significant as some people would indicate, other than everyone wants the best possible position …. You’ve got to understand: these are contracts that the municipalities have entered into. I’ve actually seen the League of Cities and Towns say ‘sweetheart deals.’ These are deals that they’ve entered into, nobody’s given to anybody and they are old contracts. So until a new contract is entered into — and the last time I checked everything goes up, not the other way. So until a new contract is entered into, you respect each other’s position and you move forward as such.”
7. Sean Spicer became unusually well-known as White House press secretary, thanks in part to Melissa McCarthy, but now the Barrington native is out. Will he go surfing with Mike Flynn?
8. Governor Raimondo‘s approval rating slumped a bit, to 43 percent, in the latest survey offered by Washington, D.C.-based Morning Consult. The firm’s methodology has its critics, although some of Morning Consult’s findings have echoed polls in different states. In three different surveys, the firm has reported Raimondo’s approval rating at 38 percent (September 2016), 48 percent (April 2017) and now 43 percent. Those are all in the neighborhood of the 40 percent of the vote that Raimondo got in 2014 (albeit with Robert “Cool Moose” Healey snaring a surprising 22 percent). Naturally, when asked why she has trouble cracking a 50 percent approval rating, the governor said she doesn’t know and doesn’t much attention to this kind of stuff, anyway.
9. Speaker Mattiello said the budget stalemate — the latest in a string of semi-regular bumpy ends on Smith Hill — shows a need to reform the end of the General Assembly session. But he also cites his pledge not to hold House sessions past 10 p.m. as a contributing factor to the latest impasse. “That was one on the reasons that we went home, because if we didn’t go home when we did, we would have been there until 5 in the morning again and I would have broken my promise to the constituents,” he said. Speaking on RIPR’s Bonus Q&A, Mattiello said procedures will be put in place next year to improve the process, although he was short on specifics. One possibility, he said, is renewing the use of joint resolution declaring in advance the final day of session.
10. The debate continues: Is Rhode Island’s economy half-full or half-empty? Governor Raimondo this week celebrated the milestone of how the state has regained the jobs lost during the Great Recession. She touted the news in a video and a news release: “Since I took office, Rhode Island has created 14,000 jobs and our job count is now at an all-time high. Because of RhodeWorks and Rebuild RI, more than a quarter of the jobs created since December 2014 are in construction. Rhode Island is on the move, and our efforts to rebuild, reinvent and revitalize our economy are working.” Yet as Kate Bramson pointed out in the ProJo, the middle class is still missing out, and participation in the labor market in June was “64.7 percent — down from its peak, in January 2007, of 68.6 percent.”
11. Will the PawSox stay in Rhode Island? The outlook remains cloudy. Asked if she’s prepared to ramp up her focus on team, Governor Raimondo told me this week, “No. I’m not planning that …. As I’ve said, I think it’s a good deal. I think it is good for Pawtucket. In the end, I don’t think it will cost taxpayers anything. I think it will help revitalize Pawtucket, and I look forward to the legislature taking it up …. I don’t think I could be any more supportive.” Yet Speaker Mattiello, speaking on Roundtable and Q&A, said the project faces uncertainty without more gubernatorial leadership: “I think you need a collaborative effort. Right now, I’m seeing no promotion of the stadium, no input from anybody. It’s kind of quiet to be very honest with you. If folks want a PawSox stadium, you need to see more activity and promotion by whoever is in favor of the PawSox stadium …. To get the public part of the partnership, you need the governor on board. I think it’s hard to do something like this with a governor that’s not behind it.”
12. Lawyer-activist Dawn Euer won a decisive victory in the Democratic primary in Senate District 13, for the seat formerly held by Teresa Paiva Weed. Euer will square off August 22 against Republican Michael Smith, independent Kimberly Ripoli and Green Gregory Larson.
13. Apropos a recent setback for Invenergy’s proposed Burrillville energy plant, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, previously seen as an ally for the natural gas industry, “is outlining new steps to scrutinize a controversial gas compressor station that Enbridge wants to build in Weymouth,” Jon Chesto reports in The Boston Globe. With Democrats raising attention on the issue, Chesto writes, “Baker apparently couldn’t sit on the sidelines.”
14. Nat King Cole‘s 1946 tune “Route 66” is synonymous with the freedom of the open road. But as RIPR’s Chuck Hinton points out, African-Americans faced discrimination and violence while traveling in mid-century America. Because of that, “The Negro Travelers’ Green Book” was an invaluable resource for road trips. Give a listen to Chuck’s compelling story.
15. Michael Solomon, a mayoral candidate in 2014, has been hired by Jorge Elorza‘s administration. The move has attracted widespread praise and is seen as adding someone with considerable political experience to City Hall. (Bygones be bygones. When Brett Smiley endorsed Elorza in 2014, he paired Solomon with Buddy Cianci as two people who should be barred from serving at City Hall.) Meanwhile, Elorza made another move this week, hiring Melissa Malone, most recently principal of M2 Consulting, as the city’s chief operating officer. She’s also a former municipal finance counsel for the state.
16. Give a listen to this conversation — about the ‘Shakespearean Irony’ of President Trump and Steve Bannon’s Relationship — between Terry Gross and Joshua Green, author of Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and The Storming of the Presidency.
17. Governor Raimondo this week signed an automatic voter registration bill. Supporters of the measure introduced at the request of Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea say it protects voting rights while safeguarding elections. Meanwhile, although instances of voter fraud are considered rare, old and underfunded voting systems pose their own concerns.
18. Most Americans are not familiar with “The Singularity,” the idea that artificial intelligence will one day exceed human intelligence, with dystopian consequences. But Elon Musk did his part to raise awareness about AI during an appearance at the National Governors Association meeting last weekend. Via NPR: ” ‘AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, and I don’t think people fully appreciate that,’ Musk said. He said he has access to cutting-edge AI technology, and that based on what he’s seen, AI is ‘the scariest problem.’ Musk told the governors that AI calls for precautionary, proactive government intervention: ‘I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late,’ he said. He was clearly not thrilled to make that argument, calling regulation generally ‘not fun’ and ‘irksome,’ but he said that in the case of AI, the risks are too high to allow AI to develop unfettered. ‘I think people should really be concerned about it.’ Musk said. ‘I keep sounding the alarm bell’ ” Yet “Other Silicon Valley thinkers are skeptical of Musk’s doomsday prophesying. Yann LeCun, the head of AI at Facebook, told NPR’s Aarti Shahani that humans are projecting when we predict Terminator-style robot takeovers. He says the ‘desire to dominate socially is not correlated with intelligence’; it’s correlated with testosterone, ‘which AI systems won’t have.’ “
19. “The rich are different,” F. Scott Fitzgerald supposedly once said to Ernest Hemingway, to which Hemingway dryly responded, “Yes. They have more money.” So that explains how someone like hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz, a former exec at Fortress Investment Group — tHIS ProJo — and Goldman Sachs, “has 10 percent of his net worth invested in virtual money. That’s a stake worth at least $90 million, given a net worth calculated at $925 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.” Bloomberg added, “Cryptocurrencies could become a $5 trillion industry, but they need to develop sound business principles to satisfy regulators and lend legitimacy, Novogratz said June 27 at a fintech conference in New York.”
20. While marijuana legalization would appear to be a few years away, at the earliest, pharmacies in Uruguay have started selling pot.
21. In a victory for open government — noted by Common Cause of Rhode Island’s John Marion — cites and towns now have to put minutes of their meetings online (and weekends and holidays do not count toward giving 48 hours of public notice).
22. “Research suggests people let their guard down when they’re in groups and become less skeptical”
