The budget awaits Senate approval, and the General Assembly could end its 2018 session in the week ahead. So thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. As usual, your tips and comments are welcome, and you can follow me through the week on the twitters. (This week’s column is abbreviated due to some other commitments; cry me a river, right?)
1. Thursday’s House budget debate offered a preview of the 2018 race for governor in Rhode Island. House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello said the $9.2 billion spending plan approved on a party-line 64-11 vote moves the state in the right direction, delivers tax relief via the start of a car tax phaseout, and continues investments to bolster economic growth. Mattiello sounded not unlike Governor Gina Raimondo in touting a sense of momentum for the state and said he’s hearing good things about Rhode Island during his out-of-town travels. The speaker called the budget a result of compromise. “I’m very proud of the balance that we struck,” he said. “It’s a budget that balances interests.” Yet House Minority Leader Patricia Morgan (R-West Warwick), a potential GOP candidate for governor, offered a dark view of the budget and its implications. She repeatedly described the condition of Rhode Island’s economy as weak, rapped Democrats for raising year-to-year spending by $300 million, and criticized the ruling party’s lack of support for a series of GOP initiatives. “A budget is more than just a way to pay the bills this year,” Morgan said. “It should also be a document that sets a path to a better future, a brighter future for the people of Rhode Island. Instead, she said, the legislative spending plan will allow the state to plod along. In recent weeks, Raimondo has been speaking softly on the budget (publicly at least) and carrying a big stick (with more than $2 million in her campaign account). With 2018 drawing ever closer, her re-election hopes will turn on whether Rhode Island voters prefer Mattiello’s more upbeat view or the case for sharper change made by Republicans like Morgan.
2. According to House spokesman Larry Berman, the House budget results in projections similar to what was previously estimated by Governor Raimondo‘s team: $140 million for FY 2019 and $223 million by 2022.
3. Although the legislative spending plan cuts back a series of Governor Raimondo‘s initiatives, it also includes, in some form, money for the priorities she mentioned during her State of the State speech earlier this year: Commerce RI incentives; workforce training; green energy jobs; overdose prevention; minimum wage increase; a raise for home care workers; investment for manufacturers; car tax cut; PSAT/SAT funding; the RI Promise free tuition plan; and the PrepareRI dual-enrollment high school/college program.
4. Minority Leader Morgan guested this week on RIPR’s Political Roundtable and Bonus Q&A. Here’s her answer on why she thinks she could be a better candidate for governor than Allan Fung or other Republicans like Joe Trillo and Giovanni Feroce (and perhaps Ken Block): “I think I have a really clear vision of what Rhode Island needs to get out of its own way, and I’m not afraid to take on the hard choices … it takes political will to turn around what’s broken in Rhode Island. I think I have that political will, and I honestly think that I have a different vision to bring Rhode Island into the future.” Morgan said she enjoys being minority leader in the House, and will decide on her potential run for governor this fall.
5. Frank Montanaro Jr., director of the General Assembly’s Joint Commitee on Legislative Services, apologized this week for the controversy involving his benefits from Rhode Island College, while also partially defending his stance: “As a Rhode Island College employee, my contract enabled me to take leave-to-protect status when I was named the executive director of the Joint Committee on Legislative Services in June of 2014. As a RIC employee on leave, I was able to receive the tuition waiver benefit. In order to ensure the tuition waiver was properly obtained, I consulted with a labor attorney, Joseph Penza, who reviewed the pertinent documents and concluded the tuition waiver was appropriate. Although this was a contractual right, the public has determined the decision I made on behalf of my family was inappropriate. These past few days of public scrutiny have allowed me and my family to revisit the decision we made to exercise the tuition waiver benefit.” As a result, Montanaro said, “I believe the best thing to do is return the monetary equivalent of the tuition benefit my children received after I transitioned to my new role at the General Assembly.” For now, the story still has legs: state GOP Chairman Brandon Bell is calling on Governor Raimondo to direct RIC to make Montanaro’s documents public. For her part, the governor said she would have asked Montanaro to resign. Meanwhile, WPRI’s Ted Nesi and Tim White deserve credit for bringing to public attention the story of Montanaro’s benefit.
6. Sure, the House Finance Committee voted the budget when most Rhode Islanders were sleeping, but Speaker Mattiello said post-midnight votes (or end of session legislative meetings) will not happen any more on his watch. “Nobody plans on staying here until 5 in the morning,” Mattiello told reporters after the budget vote. “It’s incremental. It’s one half-hour at a time before you realize I’ve gone beyond the point of no return. Nobody likes that more than me, but I’ve learned that lesson the hard way too many times, so I’m prepared to do just hard stops at 10 o’clock. My policy for as long as I’m speaker is going to be 9 o’clock, unless I can get done by 10, and no later than 10 o’clock. I’ve heard from a lot of citizens, and the way we used to do business when I first got here — that’s where I learned when I first got here — the way they’ve always done it in the past is unacceptable today. The citizens don’t want it.”
7. Helena Foulkes from CVS Pharmacy got mentioned among the potential new chief execs for embattled Uber.
8. Advocates of tighter gun restrictions have faced an uphill bill at the Statehouse for years, even after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. So it was a significant development when the House Judiciary Committee this week passed the bill sponsored by Rep. Teresa Tanzi (D-South Kingstown), with the stated goal of taking guns away from domestic abusers. Opponents said in part that the bill would violate the principle of due process by taking guns away from the subjects of restraining orders (which are based on an accusation, not a guilty finding.) Tanzi said the bill applies to protective orders, not restraining orders; and she said protective orders allow an opportunity for the accused to be heard by a judge and to make a subsequent appeal. The South Kingstown Democrat said she tried her best to address concerns raised by opponents and remains hopeful of passage in the Senate. Yet a Senate committee vote has not yet been scheduled, raising the possibility that the bill’s fate may decided on the final night of session — if at all.
9. Speaker Mattiello on whether he will support the paid leave bill passed this week by the Senate Labor Committee: “We’ve still been working on it and negotiating, talking to the business community, talking to interested groups. Hopefully, we have something that’s a good compromise. What I’m trying to do is reach a compromise that the business community’s comfortable with as well as the folks advocating for the bill. I think we’re getting close. We’re not necessarily there. I think our bill will be a little different, but hopefully it’s something that both sides like enough to like.”
10. State Sen. Stephen Archambault (D-Smithfield) apologized this week after unleashing an outburst at anti-illegal immigration activist Terry Gorman during a recent committee hearing. Gorman seemed to accept the apology, although he also told the ProJo that the clash revealed a persistently superior attitude among lawmakers. In my experience, legislators have treated citizens respectfully during committee hearings, regardless of their ideology of viewpoint. And at a time when hyper-partisanship remains the rule in Washington, it’s worth noting that General Assembly members generally maintain civility toward one another during their public sessions. For example, Speaker Mattiello, after the budget vote, praised his working relationship with Minority Leader Morgan; she responded by saying he should agree with her more. (Then again, considering how the GOP lacks the legislative numbers to change the dynamic on Smith Hill, is the general lack of friction really a surprise?)
11. Then again, state Rep. Michael Chippendale (R-Foster) was displeased this week when Morgan reassigned him from the House Oversight Committee to the Labor Committee, replacing him with Rep. Bobby Nardolillo (R-Coventry), a candidate for U.S. Senate. “I was removed from Oversight without consent and without notification,” Chippendale told me. “I feel that I have brought a lot of good knowledge and insight to the Oversight Committee and am unsure why I would have been removed.” Morgan said she wanted to give Nardolillo a chance after Chippendale spent a few years on the committee, and believes the Coventry rep will do a good job. Morgan denies that she made the change to give Nardolillo a platform for his U.S. Senate run. Morgan edged Chippendale when they competed for the House minority leadership post last year.
13. Associated Press reporter Matt O’Brien, who has covered the General Assembly for the past two sessions, is moving to a different beat, with the AP’s business team. Working from the Providence office, O’Brien will cover tech, which could include including artificial intelligence and robotics, not to mention New England entrepreneurs and researchers.
13. Cliff Wood has gotten the nod as the new director of the Providence Foundation.
14. Kudos and congrats to Brown alum Robin Amer, who did some freelancing for me back in the day at The Providence Phoenix. A former deputy editor of the Chicago Reader, Robin has joined the USA Today Network to launch “The City,” a podcast on “how cities really work.”
