Question of the Week: Is politics catching up with public opinion on gun issues in Rhode Island? Thanks for stopping by for my first weekly column of 2020. As usual, your tips and comments are welcome, and you can follow me through the week on the twitters. Here we go.
1) With this being an election year for RI legislators, it’s worth noting some of the points emphasized by House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio during the first day of the General Assembly session on Tuesday. Ruggerio touched on one of the important issues that often get short shrift in Rhode Island – housing; he vowed “to explore ways to remove barriers to housing development and to incentivize growth.” Both leaders pledged an ongoing focus on efforts to improve the state’s under-performing public schools. Perhaps most interestingly, Mattiello, a traditionally strong supporter of guns rights, signaled a new emphasis on efforts to fight gun-related violence. “While I strongly support Second Amendment rights, we need to get guns out of the hands of those with mental illness, as well as those who do not follow the laws.” Both leaders pledged to consider banning 3-D guns and ‘ghost guns.’ Gun rights supporter are well-organized in Rhode Island, and they can be expected to turn out in force to register their views at the Statehouse later this year. Meanwhile, a new coalition, The Campaign For Gun Violence Prevention Rhode Island, plans to fight for its policy goals. (Erich Haslehurst, who has helmed a series of winning local political campaigns, is the campaign manager for the effort.) Mattiello and Ruggerio have traditionally opposed some of the key goals of advocates who favor more restrictions on guns, like a ban on new sales of semi-automatic weapons, and there’s no sign of a shift on that. Looking ahead, the question for legislative leaders, one year after the abortion debate roiled the Statehouse, is whether they can strike a balance that satisfies both sides in the sharp debate over guns. (And if not, how does that affect legislative races this fall?)
2) Then again, most issues in the General Assembly this year pale in comparison to the overarching importance of the state budget. With Gov. Gina Raimondo set to deliver her sixth State of the State address Tuesday, and to unveil her latest budget proposal next Thursday, battle lines are already emerging. During his Opening Day remarks, Speaker Mattiello fired a shot across the governor’s bow, expressing hope “that her administration is following corrective action plans to tighten the spending in some departments.” While asserting that lawmakers have provided the necessary funds to care for vulnerable Rhode Islanders, “These funds need to be managed properly in order to take care of the people who need it most,” Mattiello said. For her part, Raimondo has already waved the white flag on some measures not backed by legislative leaders – like expanding the RI Promise college tuition program or renewing last year’s failed effort to impose payments on large companies whose employees use Medicaid – while vowing to push ahead with other initiatives that appear DOA on Smith Hill (like legalizing recreational marijuana for adults). Then there’s another big deficit that needs to be wiped out – about $200 million – ahead of the July 1 start of the next fiscal year. Rhode Island has had annual deficits for so long that they seem unremarkable. Yet the day will come with the national economy takes a turn for the worse (fyi, the latest jobs report came in below expectations), and as RI House GOP Leader Blake Filippi notes, slumping revenues could become a crisis for the state.
3) Thoughts from Leader Filippi on cutting Rhode Island’s $10 billion budget, via his appearance on Political Roundtable this week: “I think we need a cultural change in state government. I’ll just give a couple of examples where I think we could save money. You look at what Oklahoma does with its DMV – they’ve virtually eliminated their DMV by allowing municipalities and towns halls to handle most transactions. That’s something that we could do in this state easily. Towns could compete against each other – you could go to any town to do these transactions. Towns make money off it. That’s something that we could do in the state to save tens of millions of dollars.”
4) Gov. Raimondo’s office has indicated to the Senate that it expects to submit a letter next week nominating Brett Smiley, the governor’s chief of staff, as director of the state Department of Administration, Senate spokesman Greg Pare tells TGIF. (Back when the governor’s office announced a series of staff changes in December, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio released a statement citing the need for Smiley to go through the chamber’s advice and consent process, even if he was taking on the job in an acting role. Ruggerio called this a matter of law, yet some saw the move as fallout from the back and forth between Smiley and Twin River exec Marc Crisafulli.) Meanwhile, it hardly seems coincidental that Michael DiBiase’s last work day as director of the state Department of Administration is next Wednesday, January 15 — one day after Raimondo’s State of the State address and one day before the unveiling of her budget proposal. Suffice it to say, the budget proposal cake will be baked by the time DiBiase heads off for his new job as the executive director of the RI Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC).
5) URI’s new governance structure – a move approved by the General Assembly last year, with a goal of supporting the university’s development – is supposed to take effect February 1. But Gov. Raimondo, who opposed the creation of a separate board of trustees, has yet to make any nominations for the 17 voting positions on the new board. Meanwhile, as I reported this week, David Dooley, the widely lauded president of URI, is delaying discussion of his future plans until he meets with the new board.
6) Will Speaker Mattiello face an opponent for re-election in his state rep district in Cranston later this year? (And will there be fallout from the law passed by the legislature last year to guarantee abortion rights in Rhode Island? Mattiello voted against the bill, but he allowed the process to move forward in the House, a move that infuriated RI Right to Life, the state’s leading anti-abortion group.) For now, the talk on possible challengers centers on RI GOP National Committeeman Steve Frias, who came very close to defeating Mattiello in 2016 and who ran against him again in 2018, and the first lady of Cranston, activist Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung (who is also considered a potential candidate in this year’s Cranston mayoral race.) Asked for comment, Frias offered this response via email: “I have not made any decision about running again for state representative. Like I said before, let’s see what the Britt trial reveals and what Mattiello does on the IGT no-bid deal.” Fenton, meanwhile, said via text, “No decision has been made yet on any race here in 2020.”
7) RI Media-Poli People on The Move: Kevin Andrade, who’s done some fine work covering the immigration beat at the ProJo, is leaving for a digital desk position at WGBH. “Yet this moment is bittersweet for me,” Andrade writes on FB. “I love Providence and I love the communities that have come to trust me with their stories. There are so many to tell that have yet to be said and, honestly, having spent the majority of the last 15 years trying to climb the journo ladder there, I feel the city is thought to be less interesting than it actually is ….” …. As I first reported on Twitter, longtime WJAR-TV political reporter Bill Rappleye is taking a job doing magazine-style reports for Rhode Island PBS. “In his new role as a senior investigative journalist on the Rhode Island PBS news show, Bill will apply his acumen and fairness to crafting powerful stories about local issues,” the station said in a release …. Alex Miller, the nephew of state Sen. Josh Miller (D-Cranston), is joining Advocacy Solutions, the Providence PR and lobbying shop, as a new managing director. “Alex brings his zoning, regulatory, commercial real estate and government relations experience to our talented team,” said AS President Frank McMahon. “From complex policy work to delicate regulatory issues, Alex brings a new dynamic to our team that will support our clients in their diverse sectors, helping to navigate important municipal, state, and federal matters.” …. Last, but not least, Cecelia Pelkey, most recently chief legal counsel at the RI Department of Education, is joining Capitol City Group as director of government affairs, while also becoming counsel at Harrington & Vitale. “In her new roles, Pelkey will be responsible for representing the firm’s clients in the health care, insurance, education, economic development, energy and public finance sectors,” Christopher Vitale said in a statement.
8) Bernie Sanders is showing a strong rebound in support in the U.S. presidential race. Recent polls show a tight four-way battle in the New Hampshire primary between Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. On Saturday, January 11, from 2-5 pm at the Columbus Theater, there’s a kickoff event for Sanders’ RI campaign. Coming up on January 28: RI Students for Bernie will hold a kickoff event at Brown University, featuring Cornel West and other guests.
9) Speaking of 2020, Eric Hyers, who ran winning campaigns for U.S. Rep. David Cicilline in 2010 and 2012, and for Gov. Raimondo in 2014, is now heading a super PAC, Fire Mitch Save America, working to defeat U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The PAC’s first commercial has already attracted well more than 100,000 views.
10) Former RI Gov. and U.S. senator Lincoln Chafee this week unveiled his latest presidential campaign, this time as a Libertarian. During a news conference in Washington, D.C., Chafee pointed to the invasion of Iraq under President George W. Bush as the catalyst for many of the problems now facing the country. “The invasion of Iraq was the worst strategic blunder in American history, without a doubt,” Chafee said as about 200 people watched him on Facebook Live. “The truth is that now, after over four thousand American lives, $6 trillion and a generation of scarred veterans, that Iraq is not starting to side with Iran against us.” Chafee said Democrats and Republicans can’t be trusted. And he said he got a raw deal when reporters portrayed him as metric-obsessed during his 2016 Democratic presidential run. After making what he called one throw-away line about metrics while discussing capital punishment. “Nobody asked me about banning torture,” Chafee said. “Nobody me about asking banning capital punishment. That’s what’s wrong. That’s what’s wrong. That’s why we are where we are. That’s why we have a $22 trillion deficit. That’s why we have endless wars overseas – because we don’t want to talk about the serious issues.” There was a time when this message would have had more purchase. Chafee was well-liked when he lost his U.S. Senate seat in 2006, mostly due to the unpopularity of Bush. But Chafee has lost a lot of political capital since then, and some of the people who once might have backed him now worry about how a well-known Libertarian could hurt the effort to unseat President Trump this year.
11) Short takes from Blake Filippi, via his appearance on Bonus Q&A this week: 1) On regulating such big-tech entities as Google and Facebook, Filippi sounds not unlike U.S. Rep. David Cicilline: “In terms of regulation, I think we have to look at these companies as possibly public utilities. If you have one company that’s responsible for basically disseminating most of our information, at what point do they become a public utility subject to some type of regulation to ensure that they’re not messing with the information that we get?” …. 2) Filippi said the RI GOP is handicapped in trying to increase its legislative representation by gerrymandering by Democrats and by how many people who would be Republicans in more conservative states run as Ds in Rhode Island. But he conceded the GOP has to do a better job in recruiting candidates. …. 3) While the Senate Finance Committee conducted a more rigorous review of the proposed IGT deal than the House Finance Committee last year, Filippi sees it otherwise: “Maybe it took a lot longer to get to the conclusions that we figured out in two meetings. And the conclusions that we figured out in two meetings was that we weren’t getting the information we needed to make a reasoned judgment ….”
12) SaladWorks, a franchise operation, is coming to one of the storefronts that make up the periphery of the Providence Journal building, according to signage. So it was interesting to read in The New York Times last Sunday about “the only restaurant unicorn,” tech-savvy Sweetgreen, which has more than 100 locations across the U.S. Excerpt: “In 2018, Sweetgreen began a program called Outpost, erecting its signature blond-wood shelving units in office and apartment buildings, where the brand can drop dozens of orders at once. For the conscious achiever, this represents a frictionless nirvana, where healthy food simply materializes. There are no delivery fees and no awkward interactions with the assembly line. For Sweetgreen, it means orders that can be prepared in an off-site basement kitchen, cutting down on real estate expense and delivered efficiently by a single courier. In just 18 months, Sweetgreen has built nearly 700 Outposts; as demand grows, the program could potentially turn office building lobbies into a million-dollar ‘restaurant.’ ”
13) Steve Ahlquist has a detailed report on a Rhode Island Ethics Commission discussion about having less transparency of complaints made to the commission.
14) Noted: With all the new energy among women candidates in Rhode Island, not to mention the RI Political Cooperative, there’s only one candidate for the vacancy created by Shelby Maldonado in Central Falls.
15) Will Massachusetts voters favor ranked-choice voting this year? Via WBUR’s Simon Rios: “Rather than the up-or-down ‘plurality’ system that’s now in place, a ranked-choice voting system would allow voters to rank candidates. That means if a voter’s first choice doesn’t win, their ballot could still count, with second and third choices possibly helping decide a winner. While advocates say ranked-choice voting — also known as instant-runoff voting — would ensure that elected officials have broad support from the public, opponents say the system would do more harm than good. Opponents cast ranked-choice voting as overly complicated, while supporters say it’s possibly easier to understand than the current process.”
16) A study cited by the Tax Foundation finds that inbound migration to Rhode Island is a bit more than half of the total moves to or from the state.
17) Will Leitch predicts it will be a while before the Red Sox win another World Series.
