July 2, 2012 – RI Future

July 2, 2012July 2, 2012

Sen. Rhoda Perry Isn’t Seeking Reelection

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Senator Rhoda Perry, a strong and influential voice for progressives all over Rhode Island, announced today that after 22 years serving the people of the College Hill area of the East Side in the State House, she won’t be running for reelection this year.

“As a private citizen, I will continue to fight for the progressive causes in which I believe,” she said according to a press release sent out this morning. “It has been an honor and a pleasure to represent the residents of the East Side during the last two decades, but it is time for me to step aside and give new leaders the opportunity to emerge. Together with my colleagues, and so many committed Rhode Islanders, I am proud of all we have been able to accomplish.”

According to the press release, some of her “major legislative accomplishments are enacting needed protections for our state’s nursing home residents, adopting mental health parity, gaining funeral rights for domestic partners, leading the successful battle for medical marijuana, increasing penalties for sex trafficking, putting in place the first anti-racial profiling law in the Northeast, gaining significant adoption reforms and helping to realize separation of powers.”

She is the third-longest serving member of the Senate, next to Senators Dominick Ruggerio and Mary Ellen Goodwin. Perry is one of the most progressive legislators in the state Senate and indeed the entire State House.

For 20 of her 22 years, Perry has served with her good friend, Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, whom she is pictured with above.

“I’m going to miss Senator Perry,” Paiva Weed said. “She’s been a friend and a colleague and a strong advocate on so many important issues. She knew how to successfully achieve passage of important legislation without ever compromising her values, and she was never afraid to fight for more progress on an issue.”

Senator Juan Pichardo, also a progressive state Senator from Providence, said Perry has been a mentor to him, a positive force at the State House and a role model for the many women who have gotten involved in politics over the past two decades.

“Rhoda Perry has been an icon for the progressive movement in Rhode Island as well as an icon for women in politics,” he said. “Her holistic approach to policy and her compassion with people and her respect for different points of view has been a great thing for those who served with her.”

He said she will be very difficult to replace.

“We thank Senator Rhoda Perry for her years of dedicated public services,” said Kate Brock of Ocean State Action. “Senator Perry has been a champion for the progressive values and ideals we work for everyday. She will be sorely missed at the Statehouse. While Senator Perry is impossible to replace we look forward to helping elect a strong, progressive leader to represent the East Side of Providence.”

Ray Sullivan, of Marriage Equality Rhode Island: “Senator Perry was a tireless advocate for her constituents and a tenacious voice for the LGBTQI community. Her leadership helped advance the rights of countless Rhode Islanders, and we are grateful for her remarkable commitment to public service. She was the lead sponsor of the 1995 civil rights act barring discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and credit on the basis or sexual orientation, and has been the longtime prime sponsor of marriage equality in the Senate. Most recently, she led the effort to pass the transgender hate crime reporting act, which was singed into law by Gov. Chafee this year. ”

An unrelenting champion for civil rights, she fought the battles that weren’t always popular, but unmistakably necessary. We will miss sincerely miss our dear friend, Rhoda, and thank her for truly making a difference.”

Ian Donnis, of RIPR, reports that Jessica Holden Sherwood is running for Perry’s seat, as is charter school advocate Maryellen Butke, who works for RI-CAN.

Sherwood is a progressive, who testified for income tax reform this year at the State House and helped to organize local activities in conjunction with Netroots Nation this year. Butke is pretty politically liberal, but she may have a hard time appealing to progressives because of her work with RI-CAN, which advocates for more charter schools in Rhode Island.

July 2, 2012July 9, 2012

Gordon Fox Is ‘Miffed’ at RI Future

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

The ProJo reports that House Speaker Gordon Fox, or at least his staff, is “miffed” that Mark Binder, who is challenging him for his seat in the House, is blogging about it for RI Future. Who can blame him? I’m sure Fox would much prefer to run either unopposed or against a candidate that doesn’t write for a local news website. (Here’s a piece I wrote this weekend about why we allow candidates to blog on RI Future.)

Well, we’re a little miffed, too. Here’s why:

The Providence Journal misreports Binder’s role with RI Future. Political Scene says this morning that Binder is “now a columnist for a left-leaning website.” But at least one of the authors of the weekly political column knows this isn’t accurate – Binder was a contributor long before he declared for office. In response to an email from Kathy Gregg last week about Binder’s role with RI Future, I wrote, “Mark was an RI Future contributor before declaring for office.” Our archives corroborate this as well – so does his post that the column quoted.

On this point, we believe the newspaper owes its readers a correction. To incorrectly claim that Binder is a new RI Future writer gives credence to the false claim that we are targeting Fox. Projo readers should absolutely be informed that the Speaker’s staff thinks this, but they should know that there is evidence to the contrary.

We’re also a little bit miffed with Fox’s spokesman Larry Berman, who told the Projo that RI Future “has chosen to target one of the most progressive Speakers of the House in modern history.”

This is not at all the case. Berman and I had several long and heated discussions about Binder’s role with RI Future last week, and I explained to him what was in my other piece this morning on why candidates blog for RI Future and what was in my email to Gregg: It isn’t an endorsement, Fox is more than welcome to blog as well and candidates’ posts are about giving Rhode Islanders access to information about the progressive movement, not picking winners or losers.

We’re not targeting Fox. In fact, we wholeheartedly agree with Berman’s description that he is one of the most progressive speakers in recent history. We’re giving a progressive the ability to express his message to Rhode Islanders. That’s what RI Future does! The converse would be to silence one of our contributors because he is taking on a powerful member of the establishment, something that I think would be unfair both to the small business we are trying to get off the ground and to the people of Rhode Island.

Some have suggested to me that there will be political ramifications for giving a political opponent of the Speaker of the House, known as the most powerful person in state government, a platform. I don’t think there will be. I believe that Gordon Fox and his staff respect greatly the rights of a free and open press as well as a diversity of voices in the local marketplace of ideas.

July 2, 2012July 2, 2012

Why RI Future Allows Candidates to Blog

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

A number of people have asked about my decision to allow candidates for public office contribute posts to RI Future about their campaigns, so I thought it was a worthwhile editorial decision to address here.

To set the scene, Libby Kimzey and Mark Binder – both of whom are self-described progressives, semi-regular contributors to RI Future and active members of our online community – are running for seats in the state House of Representatives.

It’s my hope that they both post many more times throughout the campaign season, and I hope many other candidates for office do as well. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman David Cicilline, both self-described progressives, have contributed posts in the recent past and I hope they take the opportunity to do so again during the campaign. In fact, there is literally little that would make me happier than if every candidate for office posted to RI Future during the campaign. Maybe if they all commented with their real names, to boot!

I know the internets are still a relatively new animal to some, and more than a few wish news and information still came packaged the way it did 20 and 50 years ago. But we can’t turn back now any more than the early humans could have left fire alone. Nor should we. Candidates for public office having another way to communicate with people is a good thing – especially when the people can communicate right back, and publicly. And the more the web is incorporated into the political process, assuming it’s kept free and open, it should serve to mitigate the problems with unfettered money in the political process.

Being a blog that blends news reporting with opinion writing on issues that matter to progressives, we’re in a pretty unique position to give our audience – a vast majority of whom I’m guessing are voters – a variety of ways to learn more about the candidates – one of those ways is the candidates can submit their own posts. The candidates, for the most part, seem appreciative of the opportunity as well. (Though I wish more weren’t so afraid of the comments section … the anonymous comments aren’t nearly as influential as some seem to think – people generally recognize them for what they are: a sometimes good and sometimes bad side dish meant to add a little value to the main course. Conversely, the ones with real names carry greater weight.)

Here are our general guidelines for submissions, in particular as applied to contributors who are running for and writing about their candidacy:

We want to know about progressive issues rather than about your campaign or yourself, though we veer from this frequently and interpret it rather loosely and broadly.
There is no non-compete clause inherent with you post so don’t be surprised if you see a post from your competition on RI Future as well.
There are plenty of other places where you can dump on the progressive movement, if that’s your thing, so we choose not to compete in that sector of the marketplace of ideas.
It’s neither a tacit or an explicit endorsement for the seat you seek.

This last point is an interesting one, especially as it applies to Binder’s campaign against House Speaker Gordon Fox. Binder is probably more progressive than is Fox. But Fox may well be the best Democrat to lead the House of Representatives. It’s possible we could give Binder a platform during the campaign, but still endorse his opponent.

I probably should have done a post prior to campaign season letting our readers and all candidates know we planned to do as much … just as much as a news/opinion hybrid blog is a good medium for communicating with candidates, it’s also a pretty good place to tackle issues of journalistic integrity and political communication.