April 2, 2014 – RI Future

April 2, 2014April 2, 2014

Two views on SCOTUS campaign finance ruling

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“If the court in Citizens United opened a door,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, “today’s decision may well open a floodgate.” But his was the dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that strips back prohibitions on how much money people can give to candidates.

The New York Times called it “a sequel of sorts” to the highly controversial Citizens United ruling.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a staunch advocate for campaign finance reform in the other direction, said in an email, “This is a step in the wrong direction for democracy. With these limits now gone, wealthy donors will be able to give millions of dollars directly to candidates and political parties. Money is getting more and more of a voice in Washington, while the voices of hardworking American voters matter less and less in our elections.”

But Sam Bell, who is running for Gordon Fox’s seat in the House, said there’s at least some evidence that our democracy can survive without limits on campaign donations from individuals. Here’s what he wrote in an email:

Campaign finance laws will be completely gone soon enough. But I’d like to offer some words of comfort: Things are pretty bad right now. Big money already controls our politics. Sure, it’s going to get worse. But honestly, this is a battle we’ve already lost. Before you get too discouraged, I encourage everyone to take a look at Oregon and Virginia.

Oregon is a moderately blue state, one that Obama won by twelve points. Virginia, he won by 3 points. Democrats control the Oregon state legislature and governorship. In fact, Oregon was one of the first state legislatures to elect a progressive as Speaker (current US Senator Jeff Merkley). Democrats have the governorship and a razor-thin majority in the Virginia Senate, although the House is solid red. Compared to other swing states, that’s actually not so bad, especially considering Virginia only holds its elections in odd-numbered years, where Democrats are at an even worse turnout disadvantage. Those states aren’t such horror stories. And yet both of them have no campaign finance restrictions whatsoever. Corporations can actually give money directly to candidates. So even when things get much, much worse, all hope is not lost.

In total, 12 states have no limits on the amount of money individuals can give to candidates. They are: Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Virginia. See how all the state handle it here.

April 2, 2014April 2, 2014

Anti-poverty coalition rallies today for tax equity at State House

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Today in the State House Rotunda at 4:30 the newly formed “RI Mobilization Against Poverty”(RIMAP) is demanding bold action to address the economic woes of Rhode Islanders with plans that start with what Franklin Deleno Roosevelt called “the forgotten man” – the unemployed, the underemployed and the under-paid workers.

As growing wealth inequality pressurizes the streets, squeezing the middle class into poverty and those in poverty into despair, people of moral consciousness will not allow budget cuts to eviscerate what remains of the social safety net so that politicians can pad the bank rolls of the elite who fund their campaigns and profit off of side deals.

Mr. Elmer Gardiner of the George Wiley Center Leadership Committee explains:

“They recently announced that NORAD, the 7th largest auto importer in the US located in Quonset, are going to ‘create’ almost 300 new jobs paying only $10/hour -which means still they would be still economic slaves. We can’t be subsidizing these large corporations profits by paying for food stamps (SNAP) which wouldn’t be necessary if paid a living wage of $15/hour. Then these workers to have pride and self esteem, not feel that their work isn’t even enough to sustain themselves.”

We have more people today living in poverty than at any time in the history of this country, including the highest rate of children in poverty of any industrialized nation. Here the top one percent owns 38% of all the wealth in America while the bottom 60% own 2.3% collectively. In fact one family, the Walton’s of WalMart, are worth 138 Billion Dollars, more than the bottom 40% own all together. At a freezing cold Black Friday protest, a student said had to quit his job at WalMart and work for a local business the pay wasn’t enough to live on. While protesters chanted “low pay is not OK,” Scott DuHammel of the Painters and Allied Trades Union said “I think this is a terrible situation. The workers obviously deserve more.”

In fact one family, the Walton’s of WalMart, are worth 138 Billion Dollars, more than the bottom 40% own all together. At a freezing cold Black Friday protest, a student said had to quit his job at WalMart and work for a local business the pay wasn’t enough to live on. While protesters chanted “low pay is not OK,” Scott DuHammel of the Painters and Allied Trades Union said “I think this is a terrible situation. The workers obviously deserve more.”

UniteHere has been confronting the same poor pay and benefits at the Renaissance Hotel and the Weston, where the owners multi-millionaire owners lawyer threatened the city with “consequences” if they were not given tax credits for a development project.

And the story is the same all across the service industry. A mother of two children on strike at Wendy’s said “I am tired of getting paid $7.75/hour, and that’s sad…after working there for 4 years.” Women across the country have been earning 78 cents compared to every dollar that a man earns for doing the same job. Carolyn Mark, President of RI National Organization of Woman elaborated. “The number is higher now – 84.8 cents to the dollar, although it’s much lower for women of color. The common wisdom is that it’s not that RI women are doing so much better than women around the country, but that men in Rhode Island are doing that much worse.”

Poverty is the root community problem creating a cycle of crime leading to do to lack of opportunity – a downward spiral caused by a lack of jobs and unequal quality, materials for and access to education which is the key to social mobility. John Prince, founding member of Direct Action for Rights and equality points out that victory of the Ban the Box campaign, which a means amends employment laws to limit inquiries like “have you ever been convicted of a crime” helps to break a cycle of economic inopportunely. “I never heard a judge sentence anyone to a lifetime without employment. What we need now is for the City of Providence to finally enforce it’s First Source law to hire residents first so there are real jobs developed here.”

Today, the the House Finance Committee will be hearing Rep. Cimini’s bill H7471 would raise taxes by 2% for people making over $250,000 and Rep. Valencia’s Bill H7552 would raise taxes by 4% for people making over $200-250k. This is the way to raise revenues to develop the economy of the state, not by balancing the books on the backs of the poor and shrinking middle class. Austerity cuts are not an option. We need a law to raise the minimum wage to a living wage of $15/hour. Build Rhode Island “from the bottom up. Keep Martin Luther Kings Dream alive with action.

RIMAP is a coalition of organizations and individual from a wide array of backgrounds among anti-poverty, social justice, civil rights, women, human rights, community, labor, seniors, disabled, student, immigrant, and LGBT with a steering committee modeled after tho one formed by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Poor Peoples Campaign in 1967.

April 2, 2014April 2, 2014

How the press won the speaker’s gavel

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Any realistic account of what happened last week when Representative Nick Mattiello became Speaker of the House has to account for the actions of our state’s media. Our state’s political press played an essential part of making Mattiello Speaker. The reporters will complain this is unfair, but let’s look at the time line.

On Friday, March 21, — while FBI agents were still in Gordon Fox’s office — golocalprov was tweeting exactly the rumors that Mattiello wanted everyone hear: that he had control, that he had the votes, that resistance is futile. Immediately afterward, Kim Kalunian of WPRO radio followed, and Dan McGowan at WPRI, too. Could Mattiello have realistically asked for more? These reporters let everyone know that it was Mattiello’s office to lose. At that point, coverage like that is what his bluff needed most.

On Friday evening, Mattiello held a “caucus” to shore up his support and only about two dozen people showed, up, far short of the number necessary to win the Speaker’s gavel. So we went to bed and woke up on Saturday, March 22, and then look what happened. On Saturday, Mattiello was clearly losing, according to accounts I’ve heard and corroborated since. After some disarray on Friday, and Mattiello’s failure to show a clear majority on Friday night, what became Mike Marcello’s team had arranged a clear majority of the necessary votes.

But in the press, you had Channel 10 and Cranston Patch (or what’s left of it) reporting that Mattiello’s succession was a done deal. At the very least, this inaccurate reporting sowed confusion and at worst it actually interfered with the Marcello team being able to consolidate its gain. Apparently the confusion, plus a personal appeal from Paul Valletta, the firefighter’s union president, to the two Woonsocket representatives who are firefighters, started the erosion of Marcello’s support. Republicans Joe Trillo and Doreen Costa indicated that their caucus would weigh in, and would choose Mattiello, and they sped the erosion. But they were just trying to bet on the winners, since an hour before they had been supporting the other side.

Then on Sunday March 23, the next day, Kathy Gregg at the Providence Journal and Ian Donnis at RIPR buried Marcello’s team and that was pretty much that. As if what was won on Saturday couldn’t be lost on Sunday or Monday.

Randy Edgar made a little effort to report that it wasn’t a done deal on Sunday, but he was all alone so had no effect.

So what do we learn? The reporters named here will say that they had no choice but to report what was coming at them. Great, so political reportage necessarily resembles a mob? But not all reporters played along, as Randy Edgar and a few others showed. Even so, true or not, it is irrelevant to the point that the political press played a crucial role in making Nick Mattiello’s ascension to speaker possible. In their breathless chase of what’s happening right now right now right now, they amplified his claims to have the votes and seemed to ignore the possibility that anything else might happen. They served the powerful.

I hope the reporters whom I count among my friends will eventually forgive me for saying so, but in many ways the state’s political press did Nick Mattiello’s bidding, from the broadcast of his unsupported claims on Friday to this curious post on Monday where WPRI’s Ted Nesi said Mattiello won’t rock the boat and that his fervent embrace of every item of the Chamber of Commerce’s agenda constitutes being a “moderate.” (And, of course, since the Chamber’s agenda already ruled the House, Mattiello is unlikely to feel the boat needs rocking at all.) This kind of calming article was exactly what was needed to consolidate the Mattiello team’s votes, to prevent fear of a conservative takeover of the House. Which, of course, was precisely what was going on, as even that article makes clear.

I suppose it is possibly true that there is no other way to do political reporting except in a mob that provides support to those who already have power, but that seems a dubious proposition to me. Reporters have a responsibility to their readers, and a responsibility to the state they live in, and it seems to me that the responsibility is an individual sort. Actions have consequences and none of us are free from the moral dimension of those actions. There will likely be another election for Speaker after this fall’s elections, and will we see the same presumptions, the same blind repetition of idle boasts, the same rush? We will see.