Question of the Week: What does the new year hold for the power dynamic at the Statehouse? With that in mind, 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) Gov. Gina Raimondo and House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello embraced warmly before the start of Raimondo’s State of the State speech in the House of Representatives’ chamber on Tuesday. But appearances can be misleading. If politics is the continuation of war by other means (to flip Clausewitz’s famous maxim), Raimondo is ramping up her collision course with the powerful speaker. A few examples: 1) the governor’s budget includes a plan to legalize marijuana, even though Mattiello warned her against doing that; 2) Raimondo stepped up her support for putting a line-item veto on the ballot, a move opposed by Mattiello; 3) she’s pressing ahead on renewable energy and said Mattiello is wrong to downplay RI’s potential impact; 4) Raimondo is arguably poking the bear by once again trying to slow down the speaker’s signature project, the ongoing phaseout of the car tax; 5) she’s also slow-walking the nomination of the 17 voting members of the new board of trustees at URI, a panel that becomes effective February 1; Raimondo opposed creating the new board. All this follows the governor’s renewed talk a few weeks ago about possibly using some of her ample campaign funds to support legislative candidates. So why is this happening? Raimondo got most of what she wanted in previous budget cycles after taking office in 2015. But that changed in 2019, when a number of the governor’s priorities didn’t get funded. Before she turns into a lame duck (if she serves out her two terms), Raimondo has signaled a more aggressive posture toward the legislature. On issues like marijuana legalization and the line-item veto, the governor still may not get what she wants. But her approach will spark more public debate, and that could change the dynamic.
2) During a budget briefing for reporters on Thursday, Brett Smiley, the incoming head of the state Department of Administration, said the governor’s new concept for marijuana legalization — an unspecified number of state-run cannabis shops, akin to how alcohol is sold in New Hampshire — deserves a fresh look. Speaker Mattiello and President Ruggerio quickly poured cold water on the approach. Despite this, the state’s regulatory regime on marijuana is acknowledged to be an ongoing mess. During a scrum with reporters Tuesday, Mattiello said the state has issued far too many licenses to marijuana cultivators. “You need more retail outlets, you need more competition,” he said. “Right now, you have three compassion centers, they can grow as much as they want. They’re not buying from anyone. There’s really no marketplace. So we’re trying to create a marketplace.” Meanwhile, Massachusetts cannabis shops racked up more than $400 million in sales last year. While marijuana regs remain another front in the battle between the governor and the legislature, the changes taking place in the region suggest it’s a matter of time until Rhode Island legalizes cannabis. For now, the debate is set to continue when the House Judiciary Committee meets Tuesday, January 21, to discuss a related bill sponsored by Mattiello.
3) IGT and Twin River are said to be close to an agreement that will end the bitter fight over Rhode Island’s lucrative gambling business. Watch for an announcement as soon as next week. IGT spokesman Bill Fischer and Twin River spokeswoman Patti Doyle would confirm only that the two entities have been talking.
4) Remember before the Great Recession when new units raised the specter of rampant gentrification even in Olneyville? That may seem a long way away, but it underscores how policy advocates have sounded off for years about a shortage of affordable housing in Rhode Island. Gov. Raimondo has now elevated the housing issue by making it a prominent part of her budget proposal. The governor outlined two approaches: 1) increasing the real estate conveyance tax paid by buyers about half a percentage point for the value of residential/commercial properties above $500,000. (State officials say the added hit on a $750,000 house would be about $1,000.) 2) As part of three ballot questions that would be decided by voters in November Raimondo is also advocating steering $25 million toward the creation of affordable housing. “We think this is vitally important to make sure we have affordable housing in the state,” Jonathan Womer, director of the state Office of Management and Budget, said during the budget briefing. “There’s a great benefit of an improving economy, but one of the downsides is often real estate prices going up. Nearly every state has a mechanism of a permanent funding stream, and that’s why we’ve proposed this today.” For now, Senate President Ruggerio is more supportive of the real estate conveyance tax concept than Speaker Mattiello. But getting public attention for policy issues is a big part of building public support, and the discussion about housing in Rhode Island appears to be about to start in earnest.
5) Cyd McKenna, executive director of the Rhode Island Democratic Party, said the party is taking steps to avoid a repeat of the endorsement controversy that caused a big backlash when a former Donald Trump supporter got the nod over Rep. Moira Walsh in 2018. But there’s still a division between the party and the activists who last year created the Rhode Island Democratic Women’s Caucus (while maintaining a caucus within the party). That’s probably inevitable, given how House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello is effectively the leader of the RIDP and how the women who make up the Women’s Caucus generally have more progressive views than the speaker. “I wouldn’t call it a rift at this point,” McKenna said while guesting on Political Roundtable. She said the main area of disagreement was solved by how the Women’s Caucus created its own apparatus, capable of raising money and endorsing candidates, outside the party. But to hear women activists like Liz Gledhill describe the situation, the RIDP remains a top-down institution where the levers of power are controlled by Speaker Mattiello and Chairman Joe McNamara. For her part, McKenna was unable, when asked on Bonus Q&A, to identify what percentage of Democratic State Committee members are women, although she said the party hopes to bolster diversity with forthcoming selections for 14 new at-large committee seats. (Update: McKenna later said she had a brain cramp when asked the question, and that half of State Committee and Executive Committee members are women.)
6) In related news, Cyd McKenna rejected the notion — suggested by RI House GOP Leader Blake Filippi a week earlier on Bonus Q&A — that Republicans are artificially under-represented in the General Assembly due to gerrymandering by Democrats. TGIF asked for a ruling by John Marion, executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island. Here’s Marion’s analysis: “There are a lot of ways to measure whether redistricting plans are fair. One way is to look at whether they create districts that allow voters to elect legislators that reflect their partisan preferences. Partisan gerrymandering can prevent that. A 2016 analysis by the Campaign Legal Center suggests that if Rhode Island House of Representative districts were not drawn as partisan gerrymandering an additional nine Republicans might be elected. Another analysis shows that this has been a problem in the 2000’s, 1990’s and 1980’s as well. Common Cause has long supported independent redistricting commission because they could weigh what are really fair maps without trying to protect the power of the incumbent political party.
7) The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision was made in January 2010, so has the effect of more money in politics been devastating or minimal. Writing in The Boston Globe, David Scharfenberg points out how progressive candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have raised lots of money through small contributions. “Money, it would appear, isn’t everything,” Scharfenberg writes, although he acknowledges that most candidates can’t replicate the fundraising prowess demonstrated by Warren and Sanders. Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse — a leading critic of the Citizens United decision — blames it for halting congressional progress on climate change. “I came to the Senate cheerful and eager to work on climate change,” Whitehouse tells TGIF. “For my first three years there was constant bipartisan activity on climate. Then in January 2010, that stopped dead. The Supreme Court had decided Citizens United, a decision that allowed unlimited money into politics. Armed with that new power, the fossil fuel industry squelched Republican efforts on climate. It is an obvious truism that allowing unlimited money into politics advantages those with unlimited money and the motive to spend it in politics. That’s the fossil fuel industry. So as we mark the miserable 10th anniversary of that terrible Citizens United decision, we also mark a lost decade in the fight against climate change – a decade which the fossil fuel industry stole from us with secret unlimited political spending and bullying; and which not coincidentally is the hottest decade in recorded human history.”
8) What’s up with the audit of the Convention Center requested by Speaker Mattiello?
9) This Sunday, January 19, marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of former Gov. Bruce Sundlun (who, among other things, parachuted behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Europe during WWWII). So we offer this tribute from a former aide, David Preston, originally published in the ProJo in 2009. Excerpt: “You will not find Sundlun on the list of ‘Most Cuddly’ governors. But you will find him high on lists labeled Effective; Straightforward; or Plain, old-fashioned leadership. There were distractions and stumbles, but Sundlun was a governor who knew what he wanted and how to get it done. He did not shrink from controversy, and he did not let conventional obstacles – like the financial meltdown that greeted him on his first day in office – deter him. In answering the question “When?” the governor was always consistent: “Right now.” The highlights of Sundlun’s two terms are Rhode Island legend. On his Inauguration Day, the Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corporation (RISDIC) – an orgy of insider dealing and lax regulation disguised as a deposit insurer for the life savings of 300,000 hard-working Rhode Islanders – collapsed. Three hours after taking office Sundlun closed the 48 banks and credit unions affected. He then set about quickly to clean up the mess and protect the depositors. Eighteen months later, those depositors were reunited with their money – more quickly than any other state faced with a similar challenge. Sundlun tamed a massive budget deficit by bringing to bear principles that made him a success in business. ‘We don’t have a revenue problem,’ he said. ‘We have a spending problem.’ For the first time in memory, he reduced state spending from one year to the next, and significant reductions in the size of the state workforce were made.”
10) While Gov. Raimondo was criticized by Sunrise PVD activists late last year, she has signed an executive order calling for Rhode Island to use 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030. Over the coming months, her office said, “The Office of Energy Resources will conduct energy and economic analysis as it works to develop policy and programmatic solutions to achieve the governor’s goal and advance the state’s economic, energy, and environmental interests. Stakeholder participation will be a key component of this work to help inform realistic pathways that work for Rhode Islanders, while driving the state toward a lower-carbon electric supply.”
11) RI GOP Chairwoman Sue Cienki has arguably made a smart strategic move by planning to focus on increasing Republican representation in the General Assembly this year. To help with that, the RI GOP is staging a series of workshops to inform potential candidates: Mail ballot access and training (10:45 to 11:45 am on January 18). A series of candidate training sessions are planned from 10 am to 3 pm on February 1, 8, 15, and 22, covering such issues as the ground game, getting a campaign manager, fundraising do’s and don’ts, and more. All the events are at the RI GOP office in Warwick, 1800 Post Road, Suite 17-I.
12) What would Martin Luther King Jr. say about our current moment?
13) RI Medicaid Director Patrick Tigue is leaving that role as of February 1, joining Health Management Associates as a principal in its Boston office. Deputy director Ben Shaffer has been named acting director.
14) There are more arduous tasks in state government than trying to reconnect Rhode Islanders with their missing money. Via Evan England, comms director for RI General Treasurer Seth Magaziner: “It’s been a banner week for unclaimed property in Rhode Island. On Monday, we announced that we had $23 million in new money from 2019 that was ready to be claimed. By Tuesday, we had 4,000 new claims for $1.1 million. We were pleased. Then it kept going. By Wednesday we were up to 8,000 claims for $3 million and we closed out yesterday with 17,400 claims for $5.8 million in just 4 days. There is still about $380 million waiting to be claimed at findRImoney.com so we’re inviting everyone to pile on this week’s success and get back money that is rightfully theirs.”
15) Sam Howard on Twitter: “it’d be interesting to do a retrospective on how the reps elected in 1992 shaped Rhode Island politics for the subsequent quarter of a century.” As Sam knows, that was a big incoming class, due to the credit union crisis that burst into view two years earlier, revealing a host of legislative conflicts. The best-known member of that class is probably Gordon Fox, the former speaker, who served time for unrelated corruption. Rep. Edie Ajello (D-Providence) remains a progressive stalwart. Three other members of that class are still in the House: Reps. Robert Jacquard (D-Cranston); Charlene Lima (D-Cranston) and Anastasia Williams (D-Providence). The only longer-serving member of the House is Rep. Brian Kennedy (D-Westerly) who was first elected in 1988
16) A.G. Sulzberger, the one-time ProJo reporter who is now publisher of The New York Times, this week offered his State of the Times address. He told employees that one of the most important things written by anyone there over the last year was a check: “This check was written by Tony Benten, a longtime leader of our finance team, and it was for a huge amount, $246 million dollars. And when it was cashed last month, The New York Times paid off the last of the debt we took on to weather the financial crisis. This was a milestone we worked a decade to achieve. And it was a fitting capstone to what could fairly be described as our best year in the digital era. Our business is growing, thanks to the colleagues steering us through the greatest period of sustained pressure our industry has ever known. Our audience is expanding, thanks to the five million readers now reaching into their wallets to support the work of The New York Times. And our journalism is thriving, remaining unmatched in depth and breadth, while also being more fearless, creative, and ambitious than ever.”
17) It’s not every day when someone rises from a City of Providence job to a state post and then becomes director of an important federal agency. Congratulations, Peter Gaynor, who got the nod this week as the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
18) “It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart,” the lyrical former commissioner of baseball, A. Bartlett Giamatti, a man gone too soon, once wrote about the game of baseball. He was riffing on the place of baseball in the calendar and the heart, not so much the foibles of men. But the disappointments that come with the game seems apropos given the fall of Alex Cora and questions about the integrity of the Red Sox’ 2018 world championship.
