Life, like politics, is full of surprises. You go, Boston Red Sox — keep playing your hearts out. Your tips and comments are welcome. You can follow me through the week on the twitters. Here we go.
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1) Every year, scores of people make impassioned arguments about gun-related bills under consideration at the General Assembly. There are marathon hearings like the one that started in the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday afternoon and ended around midnight. Supporters of new restrictions call these a matter of common sense. They point to public support and a connection between gun violence and the sheer number of guns in America. Gun-rights supporters respond by citing individual rights and the Constitution, how law-abiding gun owners are not the problem, and how new laws won’t stop people with a propensity toward violence. These arguments, pro and con, get made year after year. Not much changes, even after the 2012 Newtown shooting that claimed 26 lives, 20 of those children who were six or seven years old. This time around, a bill to ban guns from schools (except for police) has a higher likelihood of passage, as seen by how the sponsors are Senate President Dominick Ruggerio and House Whip Katherine Kazarian (D-East Providence). Given the prevailing stasis of the legislative gun debate, would it make more sense to focus attention elsewhere? While mass shootings get the greatest attention, most gun violence comes in two forms: suicides and shootings in poor neighborhoods. At the same time, there are examples of how communities and law enforcement can work together to reduce the bloodshed (and crime has mostly trended down over recent decades). As Thomas Abt writes in “Bleeding Out,” “All guns are not the problem – guns in the hands of the most dangerous people and places are. All drugs are not the problem – violent drug dealers and substance abusers are. The more we fetishize guns, gangs and drugs, the more we miss the subtle truth that it is the behaviors, not the items themselves, that drive most of the danger.”
2) Kate Coyne-McCoy, who is now leading the RI Democratic Party, is working to resolve a major bone of contention for progressives – the party’s heavy-handed control of the Voter Activation Network (VAN) product that allows candidates to sort, target and identify voters. In past election cycles, Democrats like Megan Cotter, who ran against Rep. Justin Price (R-Richmond) last year, have expressed frustration about the difficulty of getting access to VAN. Coyne-McCoy said she is focused on addressing that and plans to unveil a new policy in the near future. “I am modernizing the party and bringing it in line with every other the state in the US,” Coyne-McCoy tells me. “All Democrats will have access to VAN moving forward. The days of asking the party for ‘denial letters’ are ending.” (A denial letter allowed candidates a work-around to buy VAN from a different organization.) Update: Not surprisingly, given tensions between progressive and more establishment RI Democrats, Sen. Sam Bell (D-Providence) said he is hoping for clarification from Coyne-McCoy regarding VAN. In particular, he said, it is vital for candidates to be able to set up and maintain their own voter data without having to share it with the party.
3) It’s widely expected that Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza will be part of the Democratic field for governor next year. He’s term-limited at City Hall and ended Q4 last year with almost $900,000 in his campaign account, so why not go for it, right? Elorza was non-committal when asked this week during Political Roundtable about a possible gov run (although he conceded that governor is the only office he’s looking at). The two-term mayor insists he has a good story to tell, despite questions about various nagging issues (schools, pension, tough tax climate) and his ability to deliver on his various policy initiatives. More than 60 years have passed since a Providence mayor was last able to make the jump to the governor’s office, though, other Democrats are waiting the wings (most notably Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea and General Treasurer Seth Magaziner), and Gov. Dan McKee is holding a stronger hand than anyone could have once expected.
4) U.S. Rep. David Cicilline fired a major salvo this week in setting the battleground for the potential loss of one of Rhode Island’s two congressional districts. “Thanks to your INCREDIBLE support, we raised over $650,000 last quarter – that’s more than any other candidate running for the U.S. House in Rhode Island has EVER raised in a single quarter!” Cicilline crowed in an email. Cicilline and U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin have long pooh-poohed the disappearance of one of their two districts as so distant as to be unthinkable. But the missive by the better-funded CD1 rep telegraphs his interest in remaining in the House. A head-to-head match-up between Langevin and Cicilline is considered unlikely, but the exit strategy pending upcoming reapportionment news remains a matter of speculation. In the meanwhile, enjoy this cartoon featuring my NPR amigo Hansi Lo Wang, who has been all over the redistricting story – explaining the stakes for states.
5) From Russell Berman’s look in The Atlantic at “The Blue States That Make It Hardest to Vote”
“Unlike Delaware’s restrictions, Rhode Island’s voter-ID law can’t be described as antiquated: The statute is just 10 years old and won adoption under a Democratic majority with support from powerful Black elected leaders. Voting-rights advocates trace the law’s passage to the conservative bent of the state’s Democratic Party and tension that pitted Black and white Democrats against the state’s rising Latino population. Backers of the bill included the first Black speaker of the General Assembly. They shared stories of voter fraud they had witnessed, but opponents of the law saw it as an effort to suppress Latino turnout in Providence. ‘It was bizarro,’ said John Marion, the executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, the state affiliate of the national government-watchdog group. ‘Ten years later, I still don’t know how it happened.’
“Rhode Island Democrats have proposed legislation to expand voting by mail and early voting, including a repeal of the requirement that absentee ballots have two witness signatures. But they’re not likely to touch the voter-ID system. ‘Repealing voter ID was a nonstarter,’ Steven Brown, the executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, told me. ‘So there was no point in putting it in the reform bill.’ Rhode Island’s critics of the ID requirement now find themselves in the same unenviable position as their progressive allies in red states: hoping the federal government will override a restrictive law that their own leaders—in this case, fellow Democrats—refuse to change.”
6) Attorney General Peter Neronha had an active week. He expressed concern over a proposed license for a medical waste facility in West Warwick. “I urge the Department of Environmental Management to closely scrutinize this facility’s application,” Neronha wrote in a letter to DEM. “There is a lot that is unknown about this new technology. We must be satisfied that it is thoroughly tested for its impact on the environment and on the health and safety of facility employees and the general public before it is approved.” Neronha also made rulings in two public records cases, siding with The Providence Journal over the RI Convention Center Authority, and backing disclosure of internal affairs reports (with redactions) in a citizen’s case against Narragansett police.
7) Almost five years ago, in June 2016, GE Digital announced plans to open an office in Providence. “Our top priority is putting people back to work, so I’m thrilled that GE Digital is planning to bring hundreds of new high-paying jobs to Rhode Island over the next several years,” then-Gov. Gina Raimondo said at the time. Five years on, however, the GE Digital office in the Providence Journal Building is holding steady with slightly more than 50 employees. The reason for this is based on woes at GE — summed up by the NYT with this February headline: “Jeff Immelt oversaw the downfall of G.E. Now he’d like you to read his book” Immelt nonetheless remains a draw for business audiences. He spoke this week during an ongoing discussion series hosted by Laurie White at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce. (According to Commerce RI, the state has yet to pay GE Digital any of the incentives used to help lure the company to RI.)
8) Do Americans share journalism’s core values? From a new study by the American Press Institute and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research: “In all, only 11% of Americans unreservedly embrace all five of the journalism principles tested and these people tend to be politically liberal. However, most Americans don’t fully endorse these journalism principles, and the distrust goes beyond traditional partisan politics. How people view those core values of journalism, moreover, is closely associated with deeper feelings they have about what moral values are important generally. People who put more emphasis on the moral values of loyalty and authority, for example, tend to be more skeptical of some of the core values journalists try to uphold, or at least worry that these values could be taken too far. People who put more emphasis, by contrast, on the moral values of fairness for all and caring for the less fortunate tend to be more aligned with core press values. These differences persist even when we control for a person’s political partisanship and ideology.”
9) The most popular Facebook story about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was posted by a conspiracy theorist.
10) A bill, sponsored by Reps. Brian C. Newberry (R-North Smithfield) and Gregg Amore (D-East Providence), that would require high school students to pass a civic literacy test won approval in the House this week. According to a legislative news release, “Commencing with the graduating class of 2025, the curriculum will incorporate project-based and experiential learning, where students would conduct in-depth research on a local issue of choice, then engage with a government body to learn advocacy processes utilized to influence the subject. The Commissioner of Elementary and Secondary education at the Rhode Island Department of Education will implement the program.”
Said Amore, “As we watch our country suffer from division, distrust, and disinformation from all directions, it is vital to the health of our democratic republic that the future generations of our country know and understand how our government functions and how our current society came to be from its inception in 1776. Without this critical knowledge, we are doing a great disservice to our students and hampering their abilities to be engaged and well-informed citizens during their adult lives.”
Added Newberry, “A thorough grounding in civics should be a cornerstone of every education consisting of two parts,” said Newberry. “First it should contain a deep understanding of the foundation of our nation’s government systems and structures, with neither their imperfections whitewashed nor their subtlety, genius and keen reflections of the limitations and foibles of human nature downplayed or diminished. Second, it should contain practical instruction in how government at all levels works, the interplay between those levels, the limitations on power and constructive ways in which to effect change in public policy.”
11) The intrepid John Howell reports on how the world’s largest marina company is closing in on ownership of half of the boat slips in Warwick: “Safe Harbor Marinas was built in partnership with American Infrastructure Funds, Koch Real Estate Investments, Weatherford Capital and Guggenheim Partners. Safe Harbor Marinas is the largest owner and operator of marinas in the world. Safe Harbor Marinas LLC is located in Dallas, Texas. It has 1,965 employees across all of its locations and generates $64.05 million in sales. There are 539 companies in the Safe Harbor Marinas LLC corporate family.”
12) Rhode Island health officials have put new measures in place to try to guard against false cancellation notices for COVID-19 vaccine appointments.
13) Opponents of RIDOT’s plan to move public transit service away from Kennedy Plaza are pressing their case with a march planned for 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 17. In a statement, the Kennedy Plaza Resilience Coalition said, “This will result in added hardship for those who rely on transit by creating longer commutes, as well as more and farther-apart transfers, disproportionately affecting elderly, disabled and minority populations that make up a majority of transit riders. The few bus stops left in Kennedy Plaza are projected to be sited on opposite sides of the Plaza and away from the Terminal Building, making it difficult to get from one bus line to another and to the passenger facilities.” RIDOT contends its plan will deliver a series of benefits, positioning Providence for economic growth and enhancing a unified public space in and around Kennedy Plaza.
14) Apropos President Biden’s plan to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan later this year, here’s an excerpt from a 2018 interview with Rhode Islander C.J. Chivers, with him reading from his book “The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq”: “The scale of waste was almost immeasurable. Much of the infrastructure that the United States built with its citizens, treasure and its troops’ labor lies abandoned. Briefly schools or outposts, many structures are now husks, nothing but looted and desolate monuments to forgotten plans. Hundreds of thousands of weapons provided to would-be allies have vanished. An uncountable number are on markets or in the hands of enemies. The governments of Afghanistan and Iraq which the United States spent hundreds of billions of dollars to build and support are fragile and willing to align with Washington’s competitors or foes. The nations they struggle to rule harbor large contingents of irregular fighters and terrorists who have grown savvy through the experience of fighting the American military machine. The Pentagon specializes in war. Across three presidential administrations with a license to spend and experiment unmatched by any nation on Earth, it managed again and again to make war look like a bad idea.”
15) All the pieces are coming in to place for Gov. Dan McKee ahead of the 2022 campaign season. His partner in state government, Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos, was sworn in this week. And McKee’s campaign spokesman, Mike Trainor, announced some of the team for the coming year: the well-known DC outfit SKDK as campaign consultant, David Binder Research as pollster, and Laurie Bosio’s LB Strategies as fundraising consultant.
16) Antonia Ayres-Brown reports on the effort to reduce the incidence of suicide on Newport area bridges: “Melissa Cotta and Bryan Ganley first connected online in 2016. Cotta lives in Tiverton and, at the time, had recently witnessed someone jump from a nearby bridge. She was alarmed that there were not more physical barriers in place, and she started to see the bridges as a public safety issue. She contacted Ganley, who lives across the bay in Bristol and has been a suicide prevention volunteer since 1981. Together, Cotta and Ganley founded Bridging the Gap for Safety and Healing. From the start, their goal was the installation of safety barriers or netting on the Newport Pell Bridge, the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge, and the Mount Hope Bridge. ‘It kind of started out, as you know — we put it out there,’ Cotta said. ‘And people just got in touch with us and word of mouth happened.’ Over the past five years, they’ve heard from individuals across Rhode Island who have been impacted: surviving friends and family of those who died by suicide, first responders and police officers who work near the bridges, and locals like Cotta who have witnessed people jump. ‘Different things come up — like you go through guilt. You go through, what else could I have done? What didn’t I do? What did I do wrong? That kind of thing,’ Cotta said. ‘And we talked to a lot of survivors that feel that same way.’ ”
17) Rest in Peace, former Brown University President Vartan Gregorian, who has died at age 87.
18) Poutine news you can use, via the Museum of Work & Culture in Woonsocket: “The Museum of Work & Culture is excited to announce the winner of the Fifth Annual Poutine Indulgence & Competition: Adeline’s Speakeasy Kitchen Bar of Cumberland, RI. This is Adeline’s Speakeasy Kitchen Bar’s fourth consecutive Poutine Competition win. There was a tie for runner-up between Competition newcomers, KG Kitchen Bar of Providence, RI and Ming’s Asian Street Food of Pawtucket, RI. The Museum of Work & Culture thanks all seven of the participating restaurants, which each served uniquely delicious poutine …. Over 300 people participated in the Fifth Annual Poutine Indulgence & Competition. Between Monday, March 15th, and Sunday, April 11th, poutine passport holders were able to sample poutine (a traditional Québecois dish of French fries smothered in gravy and cheese curds) from seven restaurants from across the state and vote online for their favorite. Restaurants included: Adelines: A Speakeasy Kitchen Bar in Cumberland, Bywater in Warren, Ciro’s Tavern in Woonsocket, Durk’s Bar-B-Q in Providence, Friskie Fries in Providence and Johnston, KG Kitchen Bar in Providence and Ming’s Asian Street Food in Pawtucket.”
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis@ripr.org
