New lawmakers are settling in, and Governor Raimondo is getting ready to unveil her latest budget. So the political year is starting in earnest, paving the way for the 2018 campaign season. 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. Here we go.
1. With Donald Trump getting inaugurated next Friday, Rhode Island Democrats and are stepping up their response to the incoming administration. As part of a national effort, Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and Representatives David Cicilline and Jim Langevin are staging an event at the Johnston Senior Center on Sunday, January 15 (1 pm) to encourage support for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. The RI Working Families Party — which emerged as a force in legislative elections last year — is helping organize a “Resist Trump community meeting” at 2:30 pm at Hope High School on Saturday, January 14. Meanwhile, more than a third of the 64 Democrats in the Rhode Island House turned out Thursday to support what they dub the “Fair Shot Agenda,” a four-point plan calling for paid sick days and a gradual move, over five years, to a $15 minimum wage, among other things. Rep. Gregg Amore of East Providence said the proposal was a response not just to Trump, but “decades of economic policy that has continually tilted the scales toward the wealthy and large corporations.” Democratic control of state legislatures and governor’s offices sharply declined under President Obama. Back in the Ocean State, Rhode Islanders haven’t show an inclination to elect more than a small minority of Republican elected officials (even while backing a number of Republicans for governor). Yet with Trump bringing his unprecedented approach to the White House, Democrats in RI and other states face the same question: can they surface the policies and messaging that will enable their party to regain a stronger national footing?
2. State Republican Chairman Brandon Bell said he doesn’t have a problem with the idea of an independent panel examining unverified allegations of collusion between Russia and Donald Trump. But Bell also contends that such a review is beyond the point. “Vladimir Putin didn’t set up the secret server in Hillary’s house,” Bell said on this week’s RI Public Radio Political Roundtable. “A lot of these things” involving Trump’s putative Russian connections, “they’re blown out of proportion, and then you start to talk about some of the salacious fake stories. At the end of the day, this election was won fair and square. Donald Trump would not have lost votes with any of these ridiculous allegations of activities. He’s going to build support when he builds the wall, when he repeals and replaces Obamacare.” (Bell was less willing in our Bonus Q&A segment to engage with Trump’s role in spreading the false charge that Obama was born outside the US, or how, in the view of some political scientists, the president-elect has embraced authoritarian tactics.)
3. It hardly seems a coincidence that Governor Gina Raimondo chose the week before two big events — her State of the State address and the unveiling of her next budget proposal — to collect two resignations over the troubled rollout of UHIP, the $364 million IT system for administering human service benefits. The move offers the opportunity for a bit of a reset, with Department of Human Services Director Melba Depena and Chief Digital Officer Thom Guertin taking the hit, although the governor’s critics appear unsatisfied. Eric Beane, part of a group of former Maryland staffers who joined the governor’s office in early 2015, has been assigned to a new role in diagnosing problems with the United Health Infrastructure Project. He’s expected to detail his findings in about 30 days. Separately, House Oversight Chairwoman Patricia Serpa (D-West Warwick) is vowing to keep a close focus on state agencies: “We’re going to hold their feet to the fire by demanding efficiency and accountability in every facet of government. If there’s a problem specific to an agency, then we will demand that problem be solved with immediacy, alacrity and professionalism.”
4. Governor Raimondo‘s latest State of the State address comes at the mid-point in her term, so watch for her to cast her first two years in office in a positive light while setting the stage for 2018. While a string of late December job announcements suggested the possibility of better days, many Rhode Islanders are still vexed by broader economic changes. Raimondo is expected to respond by touting efforts to make Rhode Island a place for everybody, with additional skills training, car tax relief, heightened college affordability and a higher minimum wage as all part of the mix. The General Assembly has funded most of Raimondo’s key priorities for the last two years, so it won’t be a surprise if she responds with kind words for the legislature — while seeking more money to replenish the Commerce Corporation’s economic-development toolbox. RIPR will carry the governor’s address live at 7 pm Tuesday.
5. As The Times of Pawtucket notes, the newly inaugurated Central Falls City Council might be one of the most diverse bodies in the state right now: Council President Bob Ferri (Italian-American); Council President Pro Tempore Carlene Fonseca (Cape Verdean-American); Councilman Thomas Lazieh (Syrian and Lebanese-American); Councilwoman Maria Rivera (Puerto Rican); Councilman Jonathon Acosta (Colombian-American); Councilman Hugo Figueroa (Salvadoran-American); Franklin Solano (Dominican-American). This diversity — a validation of signs proclaiming, “The whole world in one square mile,” comes on the heels of James Diossa wining election as CF’s first Latino mayor in 2012, and state Rep. Shelby Maldonado becoming the first Guatemalan-American to serve in the General Assembly.
6. New charges against former state Rep. John Carnevale could put a damper on Carnevale’s planned comeback.
7. “Not paying legislators is like a very penny-wise, pound foolish thing,” given the size of state budgets and complexity of issues that legislatures tackle every year, Stanford University political scientist Neil Malhotra told NPR for a story that looked at the issue. There’s also an argument that better legislative pay would encourage more candidates to run. Former GOP state Rep. Dan Reilly tells me he agrees with that viewpoint, although “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it would make the Assembly better or worse, but it could help attract different types of people …. I don’t know what the right amount is. The responsibilities of serving seem to grow larger and larger each year, not because your district gets bigger but because the government does. Part of me wants to think that the New Hampshire model is the right way — a greater number of members, making very little pay, and with the expectation that they be true citizen legislators who spend relatively little time at the Capitol compared to other states. The more part-time the legislature, however, the greater the permanent bureaucracy will be empowered …. I think a pay raise, which would require a constitutional amendment, could dovetail quite nicely with an amendment for term limits or further downsizing of the legislature, a legislative and line-item veto, and other reforms which could collectively change the direction at the State House – and incentivize people from different walks of life (business owners, shift workers, etc) to be able to afford to run for office.” I also asked state Sen. Gayle Goldin (D-Providence) for comment. Here the gist of it: “There are certainly pros and cons to having a part-time legislature (and the pay that goes with it). One could argue that a part-time legislature means that running for office is truly open to everyone. In many cases, you can keep your job as you run for office and continue in that capacity if you win. At the same time, the structure of the General Assembly — three days a week for part of the year (with no required end date), starting at 4 pm, also restricts who can run: particularly parents of younger children, people who are primary caregivers, and people who have less flexible work schedules. Rhode Island is lucky that legislators don’t have to be away from home overnight, otherwise parents and people with jobs they can’t schedule in advance would find holding office very difficult. But it isn’t just the structure or pay of the job that’s a barrier: it’s the cost of running a campaign. People who are more affluent are usually in a circle of friends and work colleagues who have the capacity to donate larger sums of money during the campaign process. If we want to make sure our legislature is really a citizen legislature, we should also be talking about creating meaningful changes to campaign financing.”
8. Accessibility to reporters has been a constant for Nicholas Mattiello since he rose to the speakership in 2014. So it was concerning when the ProJo’s Patrick Anderson tweeted Thursday that Mattiello said he would no longer speak to the press on the House floor. We made an inquiry to House spokesman Larry Berman and received this response: “Speaker Mattiello is not changing his practice of speaking with media members. However, he needs time before and after each session to discuss issues with his House colleagues. It has been his experience that if he addresses the media first, he often misses members who wish to speak with him because they have committee hearings and other responsibilities. He will continue to answer questions as always, but wants to have time to leave the House floor first.” All this said, it seems likely Mattiello will still welcome questions from reporters immediately after big events, including the State of the State and the annual budget vote.
9. The state Ethics Commission considered a few high-profile cases this week, deciding to pursue a complaint against City Council President Luis Aponte, and settling a case with former state Rep. Don Lally of Narragansett. To some, the resolutions speak to the watchdog role played by the Ethics Commission. Yet state GOP Chairman Brandon Bell notes how Lally’s $5,000 settlement is just a fraction of the amount he earned while working for the state, in a job that was found to violate the state’s revolving-door law. “That’s the problem. We need some real teeth with the Ethics Commission as well,” Bell said on RIPR’s Bonus Q&A.
10. Rhode Island introduced a work-sharing program in 1992. As Governing explained in a 2010 article, “In a work-sharing program, private-sector businesses partner with states to reduce their employees’ hours rather than undergo layoffs. The program is popular with both employees and employers–the former get to keep their jobs, and the latter maintain a stable work force and don’t have to worry about rehiring and retraining costs down the road.” Meanwhile, an experiment with six-hour workdays in Sweden largest cities found they make workers happier, healthier and more productive, but that the practice is too expensive and unwieldy.
11. Scott MacKay on the exit of President Obama: “Obama’s eight-year legacy, like his background, is more complicated than facile conservative-liberal narratives. He didn’t turn the country into a socialist dystopia, as those on the right claim. Nor did he usher in an updated New Deal era of big-spending government safety nets, as some on the left wanted. He did reshape health care and environmental policy. His policies helped save the economy from a Great Depression-like crash. If you think blue collar Rust Belt workers have it tough, consider how much worse things would be without his rescue of the auto industry. He expanded health insurance to millions of Americans with a template forged by such moderate Republicans as John Chafee and Mitt Romney.”
12. While almost everyone likes the idea of eliminating the car tax, the concept isn’t without risk, particularly since phasing out the tax requires a growing amount of money that reoccurs each year. Here’s a cautionary tale from Virginia: “Car tax relief was a centerpiece of Jim Gilmore’s successful bid for the governor’s mansion in 1997. He proposed eliminating car taxes altogether. The General Assembly passed a plan in 1998 that was supposed to phase in a complete elimination of the car tax over five years. That plan stalled in 2001, when the General Assembly saw how high the total cost was going to climb. Lawmakers froze the relief rate at 70 percent for the 2002 tax year. But even capping the percentage did not do enough to rein in the cost, so in 2004 lawmakers put a hard cap on the program — the state would contribute $950 million a year, no more. Whatever amount each locality received in car tax reimbursement that year was the amount it would continue to receive. That hard cap means the same amount of money has to cover a lot more cars worth a lot more money than when the plan was first implemented.”
13. From Bob Plain‘s coverage of Johnston’s decision to sell water for Invenergy’s proposed Burrillville power plant: ” [Mayor Joseph] Polisena and Town Council President Anthony Verado both said they did not factor in environmental impacts when deciding to sell water to the fossil fuel power plant. ‘I really never gave it much thought,’ said Polisena when asked if he believes climate change is caused by humans. ‘This world has been around a long time, it’s gonna be around a lot longer. I don’t really think it will be a major issue. I think humanity is very smart and they will do the right thing.’ Verado said he wouldn’t have voted any differently if the proposed power plant was in Johnston. ‘It’s good for Johnston,’ he said, noting that environmentalists have ‘put a lot of people out of work’ during the past eight years.”
14. Providence College is unveiling its new School of Business, created with the help of a $5 million gift from alumnus Arthur F. Ryan (’63) and his wife Patricia. The building will open its doors to students on Tuesday, January 17, the first day of the spring semester. According to dean of the School of Business, Sylvia Maxfield, “While we already offer a superb business education rooted in PC’s distinctive liberal arts curriculum, this new facility will significantly change the ways we teach and the ways our students learn. Our new classrooms and lab spaces will promote active learning paradigms that create time and space for students to work, individually and in teams, alongside faculty members who will act more like coaches than traditional instructors. Our goal, which the Ryan Center will help facilitate, is to graduate students who will be exceptional employees, prepared to thrive in contemporary work environments that require a sharply honed capacity for collaboration, in addition to the practical skills, critical thinking abilities, flexibility, and versatility that have always been required for success.”
15. Even with more states moving ahead with the legalization of marijuana, conclusive findings about the drug’s health effects are hard to come by. As NPR’s Patti Neighmond reports, “A report published Thursday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine analyzed more than 10,000 studies to see what could conclusively be said about the health effects of all this marijuana. And despite the drug’s increasing popularity — a recent survey suggests about 22 million American adults have used the drug in the last month — conclusive evidence about its positive and negative medical effects is hard to come by, the researchers say. According to the report, that’s at least partly because the federal drug enforcement agency’s designation of the drug as a Schedule I substance — having ‘no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse’ — entails so many restrictions that it has been difficult for researchers to do rigorous research on marijuana.”
16. More veterans and members of the Armed Forces are serving in the House of Representatives, as evidenced by the membership of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. There are six veterans and.or current service members of the on the committee including Chairman Samuel Azzinaro (D-Westerly), First Vice Chair Carlos Tobon (D-Pawtucket); and Reps. Marvin Abney (D-Newport), Robert B. Lancia (R-Cranston), James McLaughlin (D-Cumberland) and Camille Vella-Wilkinson (D-Warwick). Keep an eye out to see if the caucus submits more bills for tax relief on military pensions, an issue already taken up by Lancia.
17. Jim Rutenberg on covering the Trump White House: “A united front [at Trump’s news conference this week] would have given the reporters stronger footing. But that was woefully lacking when Mr. Trump shouted down Jim Acosta of CNN, who said Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, threatened to eject him. The other reporters in the room readily took Mr. Acosta’s place, happy to have their own questions answered. But they could be next. They’re going to have to decide how much they want to abide by Mr. Trump’s decision to selectively quarantine colleagues whose coverage he does not like. There is some precedent for doing the right thing here, from the early days of the Obama administration, when it questioned Fox News’s credentials as a ‘news organization.’ That was followed by an attempt by the Treasury Department to exclude Fox News from a round of interviews, which the rest of the news media resisted. Speaking in Fox News’s defense, Jake Tapper, then of ABC News, publicly criticized the administration for its effort to exclude ‘one of our sister organizations.’ “
18. The Washington Post’s list of 11 Democratic women who could run for president in 2020 includes, at No 8, New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan, a 1980 alum of Brown University.
19. Damien Chazelle, the director of “La La Land,” was born in Providence (h/t CoffeeBlackRI), but further details about his Rhode Island roots appear elusive.
20. We get news releases: “The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) will offer a wild game cooking class with Chef Andy Lussier of Culinary Connections and Addieville East Farm this month. WHEN: Sunday, January 29| 12:00 p.m. WHERE: DEM Division of Fish & Wildlife Education Center, 1-B Camp E-Hun-Tee Place, Exeter. Chef Lussier will share tips and techniques designed to help participants prepare game meals they’ll be proud to serve family and friends. Participants will learn how to process and store wild game, along with special handling and cooking techniques. Chef Lussier will prepare several recipes during the class, and participants will be able to sample each dish. Space is limited and registration is required. Cost for the class is $30 per person. A registration form is available on DEM’s website; send completed registration forms and $30 check/money order per person payable to Culinary Connections to DEM’s Division of Fish & Wildlife Education Center, 1B Camp E-Hun-Tee Place, Exeter, RI 02822. For more information, contact Jessica Pena at jessica.pena@dem.ri.gov.”
