Board of Ed begins to debate Gist contract tonight
Former CVS CEO Tom Ryan envisioned the arena that bears his name at URI hosting high profile sporting events. Tonight at 5:30 the Ryan Center plays host to a high profile political event as the new state Board of Education begins the process of debating Deborah Gist’s future employment in Rhode Island. The Board may [...]
Teacher: RI biz community is ‘below proficient’
This was one of the more interesting statements made at the teacher rally last night – and not because it shows why Deborah Gist isn’t an effective education leader. Rather, because it shows the inherent hypocrisy in our political debate and how varying interests can employ widely divergent logic depending on the situation and where [...]
Rhode Islanders move to end Citizens United
Rhode Island Move to Amend held a meeting Monday night at the Warwick Public Library to discuss ways in which to reverse the Supreme Court’s controversial and unpopular Citizens United decision. House Bill 6051, introduced by Representative Art Handy, seeks to challenge the Supreme Court ruling by asserting that Corporations are not persons and that [...]
What is a 501c(4), how do they affect local politics?
Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is helping to raise a long overdue conversation in American politics, and it’s closely related to the IRS scandal. The role 501c(4) groups play in politics. Read his speech here, or watch it below (John McDaid of Hard Deadlines has a great piece on it here): [...]
Caprio’s road back to office reasonably hazardous
Frank Caprio is beginning what will be his second act in Rhode Island politics. It’s actually a reasonably admirable move; after a stinging defeat in the race for governor, Caprio readjusted his sights and aimed lower. In a political world which seems to be completely about climbing the ladder of positions, Caprio’s decision to stay [...]
On the master lever, I am a hypocrite
On Monday morning, I argued that abolition of the single party option (SPO, better known as the so-called “master lever”) should fail, even though it’s good policy to abolish it. In it, I argue the opposite for what I’d argued about five months before: that regardless of the benefit abolition would accrue for proponents, it [...]
Raimondo pushes pension cuts to Bay Area CEO’s
The Providence Journal reports that Gina Raimondo was in San Francisco recently selling her pension cutting playbook to a group of San Francisco business leaders. The Bay Area Council, which bills itself on its website as a “a business-sponsored, public policy advocacy organization for the nine-county Bay Area. The Council proactively advocates for a strong [...]
Why master lever abolition should fail, for now
About a month ago, Common Cause RI Executive Director John Marion wrote a great piece here on RI Future explaining exactly why the single party option (aka the “master lever” or SPO) on Rhode Island’s voting ballots is a bad idea, citing a 2006 study by researchers at the Universities of Maryland and Rochester that [...]
The Morning After
It seems fitting that the Providence Journal editorialized in support of making Plan B, the emergency contraceptive drug, over the counter the very morning after Rhode Island’s annual abortion restriction hearing in the State House. Over sixty supporters came out in waves of pink to support the work of the RI Coalition for Reproductive Justice and [...]
Keep abortion restrictions out of Rhode Island
The same radical anti-abortion agenda coming out of state legislatures from Arkansas to North Dakota is headed straight for Rhode Island. Today 5 dangerous abortion restriction bills will be heard at the State House that would work to insert politicians between a woman and her doctor – and would bring the same extreme legislation that [...]
What do Seattle, RI pension plans have in common?
Seattle, like Rhode Island, sunk a healthy chunk of its pension investment into hedge funds. And here’s hoping the Ocean State’s 14 percent foray into these riskier alternative investments works out better than the 8 percent gamble did for the Emerald City. From Sunday’s Seattle Times: Shorn of its complexity, the story reads like a [...]
Raimondo pension/hedge fund beat goes on
There’s so many news and blog posts being published about hedging our pension investments in hedge funds and venture capital, I decided to make this Storify to try to keep track of all the different strings to this unfolding financial/political drama that has given credence to our claim that Gina Raimondo is a Wall Street [...]
A closer look at the Center for Freedom and Prosperity
The debate continues here in Rhode Island. How do we repair our sluggish economy and begin the process of putting our citizens back to work? How do we collectively regain the vibrant economy which at one time was the pride of New England? There is no shortage of ideas, strategies and recommendations coming from elected [...]
Cynicism warps view of Senate GOP’s SSM support
Last night a lengthy Twitter discussion erupted about the Senate Republican Caucus unanimously supporting marriage equality which is a first among legislative caucuses; according to the Human Rights Campaign. It was about as substantive as one can be with 140 characters, including people’s handles. Mainly, it sought to suss out the reason why the Senate [...]
On moral obligations
Don’t make the mistake of confusing the what the bond market calls a moral obligation with the more widely-held definition of the term. One may suspect that a moral obligation as it applies to repaying the 38 Studios loan implies that our shared concept of right and wrong compels us to make good on our [...]
Pensions, hedge fund managers, David Boies
As Rhode Island considers whether Gina Raimondo is making a wise gamble with our money by moving more of public sector retirees’ pension account into risky hedge funds, the New York Times Dealbook blog reports that the S&P 500 stock index outperformed the average hedge fund for the fourth year in a row. Swashbuckling bets [...]
Siedle says COLA cuts are paying Wall Street fees
Forbes.com opinion blogger Ted Siedle has posted another piece highly critical of Gina Raimondo’s so-called reforms to the state pension system. This time he suggests that the amount retirees’ cost of living adjustment was slashed might be just enough to afford the new fees being paid to the venture capitalists and hedge fund managers with [...]
For sale from Raimondo: access to public records
It turns out I wasn’t the only one told by Gina Raimondo’s staff lawyer Mark Dingle that public record requests from the general treasurer’s office literally come at a cost. For me, when I asked for records of Raimondo and her staff’s communications with members of Engage RI, the price tag was $435. For AFSCME, [...]
What’s really wrong with the master lever
Bob Plain has spent a lot of time in a back and forth with Ken Block about the issue of eliminating the straight-party option (a.k.a. master lever), even bringing in Speaker Gordon Fox to defend its place on the ballot. I’d like to move the debate away from questions of political motivation and toward some [...]
Conventional wisdom shift on Raimondomania
I love that Ted Nesi kicked off his weekend column by invoking the concept of conventional wisdom. It’s a topic that came up often last week about why RI Future does what it does in the manner in which we tend do it. Conventional wisdom, I explained to Ted in an email, is why I [...]
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