But you can help Cimini keep her seat and the progressive State House caucus keep one of its most loyal members by attending a fundraiser for Cimini Monday, 5 p.m. at the Elmhurst Pub (670 Smith St, PVD). See Facebook event here.

Cimini has fought hard for progressive causes during her tenure as a legislator – including leading the charge in the House for the NEARI-backed tax-equity bill that would increase income taxes on the richest Rhode Islanders. She’s also been adamantly against using the NECAP test as a high stakes graduation requirement. She drew the ire of Speaker Mattiello when she challenged an amendment in the budget bill that prevented Providence from passing a hotel industry minimum wage. NEARI said it believes McKiernan can be a more effective legislator.

“Our PAC committee determined her opponent, who strongly supports our issues, would have a greater impact on those issues in the legislature,” said NEARI President Larry Purtill. “Difficult decision but one we felt was in best interest of our members which is how I believe we should be making decisions.”

In the Democratic primary for House District 7, NEARI is backing Dan McKiernan, a lawyer in private practice.

Cimini administers the state SNAP program as a research associate at the University of Rhode Island, and as such she is dues-paying member of the NEA. More importantly, she says, she worked towards teacher-friendly education reforms as a legislator.

“I’ve been extraordinarily proud to support and champion issues related to supporting educators, administrators and students,” she said. “I’ve been proactive in researching issues of high stakes testing and teacher evaluations, I’ve been vocal in my opposition to some policies as well as supportive of reforms promoted by the NEA.”

She added, “I’m disappointed that as an ardent union supporter in my personal life and my professional and political career that the NEA has chosen to support my opponent.”

Mark Gray, president of the Young Democrats of Rhode Island, took issue with the endorsement.

“We have great respect for the members of NEA and their continued advocacy for children in our state, but we disagree with the NEA endorsement in House District 7,” he said. “Representative Cimini is a champion for Rhode Island workers—NEA members included.  Last year, she successfully argued for over $12 million to be returned to the state budget to ensure we met our commitment to the pension fund for workers.  She has consistently advocated for fully funding school districts and for ending the malpractice of high-stakes testing. Finally, she’s been a fearless advocate of our state’s most disadvantaged people: those who can’t afford child care, housing, or food for their own families.  We feel that the interests of teachers, students, and young Rhode Islanders have been well represented by real Democrats like Maria Cimini.”

McKiernan could not be reached for comment. (I’ll update this post if I hear from him)

Both candidates address education on their campaign websites.

McKiernan says on his website:

“I will focus on the economy because it impacts ALL of us.  A down economy makes it hard for those in private enterprise to make a living. It reduces tax revenues, stressing those who work for the government.  This makes it harder for the government to fund other activities, including educational and social welfare programs.  A down economy hurts all of us.”

Cimini’s website says:

All young people are deserving of a high quality education that prepares them to be successful in the workforce, in the community, and in life. Schools have a responsibility to develop the next generation of leaders, not test takers. Rhode Island needs a statewide school funding formula to ensure that all children have equitable access to high quality education.  Schools must support young people not only academically but also by being safe places for social emotional growth both during the school day and after school time. 

Legislative Impact

• Increased higher education funding by $4 million
• Serves on the Commission to Study the Affordability and Accessibility of Public Higher Education in Rhode Island
• Co-sponsored the Safe Schools Act to direct RIDE to create and implement statewide policy on cyberbullying prevention
• Passed legislation to create the RI Family Engagement Advisory Council.  The Council, composed of teachers, parents and administrators, will make recommendations on developing policies to make families more active in the life of their children’s schools

For years, she has lead the charge – against the richest special interest group in Rhode Island – for a less regressive income tax structure. And this year she valiantly defended on the House floor during the late-night budget bill debate, the Providence hotel house keepers – some of whom live in her district – as House leadership effectively nixed their effort to implement a city-wide hotel-industry minimum wage. She’s always standing up for the poor and standing up to the powerful.

Such progressive bravery has won Cimini not just the respect of this blog, but also the ire of House Speaker Nick Mattiello. He tells the Providence Journal he’s backing Cimini’s primary opponent because she didn’t back him for speaker, didn’t apologize for that and because she doesn’t agree with him on policy.

According to the ProJo Mattiello said, “Representative Cimini didn’t support me for speaker and never came to me to indicate she would support me in the future. She didn’t ask for my support in her race and Dan McKiernan did come and ask. Like me, he is a moderate, and his political viewpoints are more in line with the voters of his district and the state of Rhode Island.”

Mattiello is wrong to use his considerable political influence to settle Smith Hill vendettas. And the people of District 7 deserve a legislator elected based on his or her merits, not their loyalty to House leadership.

On the other hand, if he thinks his trickle-down economic policies represent the Elmhurst area of Providence better than Cimini has done, well then it’s his right to oppose her reelection.

But Maria Cimini deserves strong progressive support for her steadfast allegiance to working class Rhode Island. She’s fought hard against high stakes testing and she fact-checked Ken Block (when ). She’s been a champion for tax equity and a higher minimum wage. And she may need our help depending on how adamantly Speaker Mattiello works against her.

Known as the guns and ammo tax, the legislation would put an additional 10 percent tax on the sale of all guns and ammunition in Rhode Island. It’s expected to raise $2 million, which would go to local police departments based on the amount of gun violence in each city and town. Local police departments would disperse the money to area nonprofits that organize against gun violence.

The Senate Finance Committee hearing is at 3pm today.

The Senate version is sponsored by Gayle Goldin and the House version by Maria Cimini. It was co-authored by Providence mayoral candidate Brett Smiley, who has pledged to make Providence the safest city of it’s size in the nation.

“It helps our police departments, it helps our nonprofits, and it helps every citizen of our state who sees the detrimental cost of gun violence each day,” said Smiley in a press release today.

Here’s Steve Alhquist’s Feb. 6 post of Smiley and Goldin announcing the legislation.

Last evening the RI House Finance Committee heard testimony on two bills that would increase the marginal tax rate on people making more than $200,000 a year. Representative Maria Cimini proposed a 2% increase, from 5.99 to 7.99% on incomes over $250,000, while Representative Larry Valencia proposed a 4.01% increase on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,00 for married couples.

Valencia asked the committee to explain the effectiveness of tax cuts for the rich (starting in 1996) given that these were supposed to bring more jobs to Rhode Island, not less, as evidenced by our high unemployment. Appeals to reason however, were not found persuasive by the committee.

At least ten people spoke in favor of the bills, some telling very moving stories about the way they struggle in a state that continues to cut services and cut assistance to our cities and towns, resulting in higher property taxes. In fact, it’s the property taxes that are hitting these Rhode Islanders the hardest, even as the myopic House Leadership continues to champion a policy of across the board tax cuts, curbs on spending and other austerity measures. The impassioned pleas of struggling Rhode Islanders fell on deaf ears, because appeals to compassion were not found to be persuasive.

Everyone knows that the bills proposed by Cimini and Valencia are going nowhere this year. Chairperson Raymond Gallison, recently appointed to his position by Speaker Mattiello, shaped the discourse by calling up all those in favor of the bills and listening politely, reserving the last word for John Simmons, executive director of a right wing think tank, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC). Gallison and Simmons are on a first name basis, and Simmons’ testimony was welcomed as a breath of fresh air.

Simmons simply restated the same things RIPEC says every year. Increasing taxes is wrong. The rich already face a higher tax burden than the poor. We shouldn’t be targeting the job creators. Philosophically, why should we be punishing those who are successful? The rich are rich because they are better than the poor, more deserving than the poor, and more important than the middle class. Here’s Simmons’ closing argument:

“Then there’s the philosophic issue, I guess I want to address that. It’s a little bit different. Is it because we can tax people who can make money and are successful that we should? Is that the philosophy we want for people to come to Rhode Island and grow a business here? If you make money we can take it from you? I don’t know that that’s the right message to send to people who want to come to Rhode Island. It’s the opposite. If you are successful we would like you to come to Rhode Island.”

Note that Simmons is not all that interested in those who already live in Rhode Island. He isn’t talking about improving the lives of Rhode Islanders, instead he’s talking about making Rhode Island a haven for the rich and successful. If Rhode Islanders are lucky, I suppose, we might find jobs shining the shoes and cleaning the yachts of our more deserving citizens.

This is what Gallison, representing House Leadership as Chairperson of House Finance, found persuasive: A naked appeal to everything he wants to believe is true, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s called motivated reasoning, a process of having a conclusion and then searching for reasons to believe it. No contrary examples, no logic, no amount of suffering and no evidence contrary to the deeply held belief will be truly considered.

So what do you say to the man who eases your mind and continues to guide you down the primrose path of massive economic inequality? What do you say to the man who confirms all your biases and tells you that everything you sincerely wish were true is true and good, despite the nagging fear at the back of your mind that tells you it’s all a lie?

Gallison said, “Thank you very much John, I appreciate it.”

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.

But one quick clarification first, Katz says “guns are not designed to be used in crime.” True, but they are designed to cause violence. And that’s why the sale of them should help prevent violence.

News, Weather and Classifieds for Southern New England

But back to the interesting philosophical divide though: Katz says the intent of taxes is to infringe. I think he’s wrong about that. And my great fear is that he knows it, but he is going on TV and the internet and purposefully lying about this as a means to an end: to convince the public to shrink government. (More likely is that he’s just become so entrenched in his cause that he’s not able to see the other side of the coin clearly.)

At the end, he explains how he thinks government works: “This is the problem with government and progressive policies in general. You’re not saying hey this is a good thing, let’s feed people, let’s get people jobs, let’s protect people from guns. You’re saying this is my priority I’m going to take your money and give it people I know and trust to do things I want done. That’s not the way the country is supposed to work.”

Progressives certainly are saying the first part that. Our government is too but it can defend itself (if it wants to). As for the latter part of his statement, he’s just got his pronoun wrong. Here’s the corrected quote of how our government actually works:

“We are going to take our money and give it to people we known and trust to do the things we want done.”

She continues:

“These three programs seem arbitrary to me.  If one of the goals of the NECAP was to be an indicator of college and career readiness, being accepted into a college or university seems in line with that.  By including the National Community Service programs as appropriate alternatives, makes me question the rationale of those making this decision.  Why isn’t acceptance into the military also sufficient?  Commissioner Gist has testified before HEW that our students are ill prepared to join the military just as they are ill prepared for college.  If the deciding body’s rationale was based on a student showing readiness for being successful beyond high school, shouldn’t showing that s/he had enlisted be similar?  Why not allow students who can prove they’ve secured employment be allowed to graduate without meeting the NECAP requirements?

“I’m glad to know that RIDE is reviewing their guidelines and making changes.   I am happy to learn RIDE has decided to grant diplomas to students who’ve been accepted into a college or university.  I believed that such students would exist and we do them, their families and the community at large a disservice by being denied a diploma based on one standardized test that their college of choice didn’t require for admission.

“I wonder, however,  about the likelihood of lower-income students being able to take advantage of this new waiver.  If I’ve read NECAP data correctly, there are more students from low-income communities at risk of not meeting the NECAP requirement than those from middle class or affluent communities.  This policy impacts those students going to college, which may be out of reach for low-income families, or those students able to live on a poverty-level stipend for a year.

“Further, I’d be interested to know how these changes were communicated to high school students.  I hope it was done early so that the students and their families can plan their futures with all pertinent information available to them.

“Finally, if awarding high school diplomas is going to be based, to some level, on the preparedness of a student’s life post-graduation, perhaps we should spend money on guidance counselors, college and career planning rather than standardized testing.”

There are far too many reasons to support Representative Cimini for me to list, but here are the two that lie closest to my heart:  Her signature initiative, paring back the tax cuts for the rich, is perhaps the most important budgetary goal, not just of the Rhode Island progressive movement, but of the Democratic Party nationally.  And in the last legislative session, she was one of only 20 state representatives to vote against the brutal cuts to Medicaid that threw 6,500 Rhode Islanders off the popular single-payer program.

So please join me in supporting Maria at her fundraiser tonight, which will be held at the Elmhurst Pub (670 Smith St., Providence, RI), starting at 5:30.

Contributions can be made online here: http://www.mariacimini.com/en/donate.html

Representatives Maria Cimini, Providence, Frank Ferri, Cranston and Teresa Tanzi, South Kingstown are hosting an event called: “Great Futures for ALL Rhode Island Students: Keeping the Conversation Going”

“Join us for a community discussion of your concerns about using the NECAP as a graduation requirement and how we can work together to build a better future for Rhode Island students,” says a Facebook event.  And here’s a flyer:

On Wednesday, an event at Warwick City Hall pits one member of the Department of Education with five people generally opposed to the NECAPs or high stakes testing. It’s great that RIDE is sending someone but their role is actually to facilitate this kind of debate about their policies.

Other than that, this has pretty much been RIDE’s stock response to the NECAP debate: