Master lever politics: Fox responds to Block
Here’s my unedited interview with House Speaker Gordon Fox, who expressed no small amount of frustration with Ken Block for the way in which he has handled his campaign to make straight party voting more difficult in Rhode Island. Important update: I’m told this is the first time Fox has publicly taken a position on [...]
Pew On Payday Loans: They Don’t Help Consumers
“Payday loans fail to work as advertised,” concludes a new report from the Pew Charitable Trust. The predatory practice of payday lending has been a highly charged issue for several legislative sessions. Standing in the way of reform is House Speaker Gordon Fox’s loyalty to former speaker Bill Murphy, who has been hired as an [...]
Fox Is Wrong To Say No Alts. To Payday Loans
It’s simply not true that payday loans are the only option to low wage borrowers as House Speaker Gordon Fox suggested to RIPR this morning. “I don’t like predatory lending practices,” Fox told RIPR, “but I also understand for folks that have nowhere else to go, it might be a valid tool for them to [...]
Gordon Fox, William Murphy and Payday Loans
After a short stint spent ostensibly serving the public, former House Speaker William J. Murphy now pointedly serves himself at the public’s expense working as a hired gun for predatory lenders Advance America, which has paid Murphy $50,000 to lobby the General Assembly on its behalf. Like any hired gun stripped clear of conscience, Murphy [...]
RI – What Went Wrong: Have We Learned Lessons?
What is so sad about the mess Rhode Island has fallen into is that it was completely avoidable. Governor Carcieri did not have to launch a jihad against public sector employment. Nor was it necessary to hand massive tax breaks to the wealthy. Had we avoided those tax breaks, we wouldn’t have had to slash [...]
Progress Report: For, and Against, Fox; Patch on Walmart; Warren for Banking; Belcourt Castle and Karen Silkwood
There’s an interesting – and small – mix of conservatives, moderates and populists who seemingly aren’t supporting Gordon Fox’s effort to be re-elected speaker of the House. His detractors from the left – Reps Scott Guthrie of Coventry and Spencer Dickinson of South Kingstown – have a disdain for pension cuts in common. Guthrie may [...]
Speaking to the Speaker
Winners in political races have it easy. They thank everyone and move forward. The Silver Medalists analyze what went wrong and fade into the shadows. Is it possible to write a post-election column as the loser and not sound self-serving, shrill or sour? I’m going to do my best. From the beginning, this race was about [...]
Huge Night for Rhode Island Progressives
Brendan Doherty, Mark Binder and even, to some extent, Mitt Romney, all made Rhode Island progressives nervous throughout the 2012 campaign season. But once the campaign was over and the votes were counted, it turned out to be a great election day to be a local liberal. Easily the biggest victory was Congressman David Cicilline [...]
Leave Gordon Fox in Hen House of Representatives
This endorsement is one of the most difficult to make because, based on this author’s personal, professional and procedural experiences with Speaker Fox, he is unlikeable on all counts. In the spirit of full disclosure, when a written appeal for help on a personal level as well as a statewide plea for any continuing aid, [...]
Progress Report: Defining Moment in Cicilline, Doherty; Ugliest Campaigns; What EG Is Debating; Guy Fawkes Day
A defining moment of the David Cicilline v. Brendan Doherty campaign was captured by Phil Marcelo of the Providence Journal this weekend … both candidates were in a South Providence fruit store when a Cicilline “Spanish-speaking emissary,” according to Marcelo, said of Doherty, “He shouldn’t be in this neighborhood. He talks about undocumented immigrants posing [...]
Machinations in District 4
I have long argued that the key to contemporary Rhode Island politics lies almost entirely within the RI Democratic Party. “With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans,” I quipped. In 1995. The laws our General Assembly has FAILED to pass undermine our “most liberal state” reputation. The keystone legislation for any liberal issue area never [...]
Dickinson Helps Binder; Gordon Fox Cries Foul
Soon after learning from Ted Nesi that South Kingstown Rep. Spencer Dickinson invested another $3,820 in a somewhat brazen attempt of defeating his political enemy House Speaker Gordon Fox, we learn that Fox’s campaign has filed yet another complaint with the Board of Elections “against opponent Mark Binder after learning that Rep. Spencer Dickinson donated [...]
Progress Report: State of Local Media; At Last, Three-Way Debate; Energy Politics; Dems on Doherty Gets Little Press
Every progressive – indeed every Rhode Islander, if not all Americans! – owe it to themselves to spend some time reading Providence Monthly’s awesome feature on the state of journalism in Rhode Island. The magazine put together a group of the best and brightest reporters we’ve got here in the Ocean State who kicked around [...]
Reforming the Legislature
Ask 100 people about Rhode Island’s government and 105 will say it’s broken, and probably not fixable. Phase 1: Attack the Assumptions From day one, my campaign for House District 4 has been about challenging that truism. It was clear to me at the start that the Speaker of the House used his power to [...]
Progress Report: Gordon Fox Gets Kicked; Gina’s Coffers; Comparing Pay Grades; Pirate Party, Lawrence Lessig
Gordon Fox’s reelection battle has become one of the most watched contests in Rhode Island, and Ian Donnis yesterday busted out what I think is the best local campaign journalism of the year summarizing his race against Mark Binder. “Fewer than 9,000 voters will decide one of Rhode Island’s most important elections on November 6,” [...]
Progress Report: Ugly Campaign Olympics; Brien Down to Last Strike, ProJo for Warren; NEA-RI to NK: We Bat Last
I’m starting to get the feeling that Brendan Doherty doesn’t even want to serve in Congress. If he did, he’d probably audition for the job a just little bit rather than just trying to convince voters to reject incumbent David Cicilline. This campaign has become ridiculously negative, and their debates remind me of when my [...]
Speaker Fox Promises to Reconsider Voter ID Law
First he promised to bring a vote on marriage equality if he gets re-elected, now he says he’ll force the House of Representatives to take another look at the newly enacted voter ID law too. “Should I be fortunate to be re-elected, I will be sponsoring legislation to include a ‘sunset provision’ in the law,” [...]
Progress Report: Langevin Moves Left; Legislative Grants; Quid Pro Quo or Campaign Finance Law; POTUS debate
Jim Langevin may not be the most progressive member of Congress, but he could be a whole lot less liberal too. John Mulligan, the Providence Journal’s Washington corresponden,t sums up Langevin’s place on the political spectrum well in this graph: “…he has built a voting record that makes him solidly liberal on most issues by [...]
Progress Report: Elastic Rhode Island; Mark Schwager, Typical Candidate; More Binder v. Fox; Kerr on Grinding
Rhode Island, says New York Times number-crunching blog FiveThirtyEight, is the most politically elastic state, meaning that “a large swatch of its electorate are persuadable voters unaligned with either political party.”In a separate piece on political elasticity Nate Silver describes elastic states as “those which have a lot of swing voters — that is, voters [...]
Progress Report: Binder vs. Fox; Dalai Lama, Springsteen on Progressive Values; WPRI Debate Snobs Get Promoted
Shaping up to be one of the most interested races for a State House seat, author and RI Future contributor Mark Binder’s challenge to Gordon Fox is attracting a lot of media attention. Fox is more conservative than we’d like in a Speaker and Binder is less experienced than we’d like in a state Representative. [...]
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