Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis
One of the genius things about Gov. Gina Raimondo’s budget is that it seems to make people from all over the political spectrum equally pleased and disappointed with her proposal. Such seemed the case with both John Brien and I, who debated it on NBC10 Wingmen.
Governor Gina Raimondo’s proposed budget would cut funding to the poor, fully fund the state education aid formula and create new taxes on high-end second homes and rental properties. You can read her full address to the House and Senate here.
Most significantly, Raimondo seeks to cut about $91 million from Medicaid, socialized health programs for poor people, and has already appointed a high profile task force to “reinvent” the program. It costs $2.3 billion a year, but about half of that is paid for through the federal government. Raimondo has already identified about $45 million in cuts and her budget executive summary says the task force is expected to find another $46 million.
But the poor aren’t the only ones who will pay to balance the budget. So will the state’s beach culture, as she’s proposing a new tax on million dollar second homes and AirBnB-style rentals.
The proposal calls for what has quickly been dubbed the “Taylor Swift tax”- a property tax levied on second homes worth more than $1 million. It will raise $11.8 million in new revenue, according to this briefing.
She’s also proposing an “AirBnB tax” that would raise $7.1 million in new revenue. From the executive summary: “The budget also closes an existing loophole that exempts vacation houses and small bed and breakfasts from paying the sales and lodging taxes. Finally, the budget would apply sales and local lodging taxes to unlicensed rentals, which have increasingly become an alternative to hotels, bed and breakfasts and other licensed lodging.”
Both these taxes will disproportionately affect the touristy areas of Rhode Island – the islands and South County. But Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, of Newport, where untaxed vacation rentals and million dollar second homes are commonplace, didn’t seem to mind.
“I think it’s a bold and brave look across the spectrum,” Paiva Weed said. “Just as she is asking for $90 million in Medicaid savings she is also reaching out to our wealthiest citizens to also assist us in moving forward.”
Even House Speaker Nick Mattiello, who never met a tax he didn’t want to cut, gave some early – though conditional – support to the Taylor Swift tax. “It’s an interesting initiative,” he said. “It seems like something I’d be inclined to support but right now I want to look at the details of it.”
As did her predecessor, she is fully funding the state education aid formula – for an overall increase of $34 million from the previous year.
Raimondo also called for statewide all-day kindergarten, and an end to the school construction moratorium. Through refinancing debt, she proposes a $20 million “to create a capital fund to help address school facility needs.”
According to the executive summary, “Lifting the moratorium and setting the annual construction aid appropriation at $80.0 million starting in FY 2017 will create fiscal stability with predictable funding and allows for projects to be prioritized.”
Raimondo would like to see the Earned Income Tax Credit increased from 10 to 15 percent in one or two years, depending on the early summer revenue predictions. Massachusetts Earned Income Tax Credit is 15 percent and Connecticut’s is 27.5 percent.
Her proposed budget would raise an additional $7.1 million by increase by 25 cents the tax on a pack of cigarettes.
To promote construction, Raimondo proposes, “a package of real estate tax incentives will encourage construction of job-producing projects, with a focus on development near transit hubs and historic structures. The package includes Rebuild Rhode Island tax credits, tax increment financing, and partial assistance for local tax stabilization agreements that will make investing in construction and development in Rhode Island a compelling proposition,” according to the executive summary.
She’s also proposing what she calls the Anchor Tax Credit. “This tax credit incentivizes our largest employers —the anchors of our economy — to attract their suppliers and affiliates to Rhode Island. These employers will benefit from proximity to their suppliers, while the state gains new jobs and develops industry clusters,” said the executive summary.
Here’s a link to Governor Raimondo’s budget website and below is the text, as prepared, of her budget address to the House and Senate tonight:
Speaker Mattiello, Senate President Paiva Weed, Members of the General Assembly, the Judiciary, the Cabinet, City and Town Leaders, and my fellow Rhode Islanders.
Good Evening. It is an honor to stand before you to address how we can work together to expand opportunities for all Rhode Islanders and create jobs.
The budget I present to you tonight is rooted in the core belief that every hardworking family deserves the chance to make it in Rhode Island. Despite starting with a nearly $200M deficit, this budget is balanced, makes significant progress towards eliminating our structural deficit, involves no broad based tax increases, and calls for significant investments in economic growth and education.
From my first conversation with Speaker Mattiello and Senate President Paiva Weed, we agreed that priority one was jumpstarting our economy and creating jobs. I couldn’t ask for better partners in this effort and I’d like to thank you both for the time and support you’ve given me these past few months.
Our biggest problem is that our state’s economic engine is out of gas – we’ve lost 80K manufacturing jobs in the last few decades and we haven’t positioned ourselves for job-creation in advanced industries with higher growth and higher wage jobs. The jobs we are creating are low wage and, as a result, our per capita income is about $47K a year compared to $57K in Massachusetts and $60K in Connecticut. We remain among the last states in the nation in employment and in job growth, and we are one of the oldest states in America because our young people are fleeing to find work elsewhere.
All most people want is the chance to earn a decent living that lets them provide for their family. Parents want the chance to give their children a better life than they themselves led.
That’s what my parents wanted. My mom is here tonight – she and my dad worked so hard to provide stability for our family.
But now, not enough Rhode Islanders have the opportunity to do the same for their children because we aren’t creating enough good jobs, and too many of the jobs we are creating don’t pay a sufficient wage.
Our weak economy contributes to our budget deficit, forcing us into the same crunch every year: not enough jobs means lower state revenue, so we make painful cuts to balance the budget. But some of those cuts have been to economic development or infrastructure, which hurt our economy more. It is time to break this downward spiral and set in motion a virtuous cycle of progress and momentum driven by economic growth.
We need to cut in areas where we are inefficient or spend too much, and then invest in economic growth. Over time, our growth will lead to even more revenue, which will allow for further investments in education, infrastructure, and an adequate safety net.
Our turnaround won’t happen overnight but we have to start immediately because Rhode Islanders are struggling right now.
A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Warwick Mall reading to kids, and a young mom told me about how she was barely scraping by.
I took my mom shopping and a man who has worked the same full time retail job for more than a decade told me that he can barely sleep because he’s worried about the fact that there’s no money in his checking account.
We need to give a boost to Rhode Islanders who are working hard and trying to provide a decent living for their family. No one who works full-time should be forced to raise their family in poverty.
That’s why I’d like to work with you to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
We need to do more to make work pay.
This budget expands the Earned Income Tax Credit from 10% to 15% over the next two years, putting more money directly in the pockets of working Rhode Islanders. If the revenue forecasts in May improve, I’d love to see us go to 15% this year.
It also eliminates state taxes on Social Security benefits for low and middle income seniors. Social Security is a crucial source of income for these seniors, and we should help them make ends meet. Speaker Mattiello is a leader in this effort and I am pleased to work with him to make it happen.
These steps will help families live a little more comfortably. But they will also stimulate our economy, because we know these folks will spend this money in our local economy.
And as this immediate action takes hold, we must together turn our attention to taking bold steps to create opportunities for Rhode Island.
I propose a bold comprehensive jobs plan that operates in waves with the first wave being the most robust to kick start our effort. We can’t sit back and expect jobs to appear.
This budget sets us on the path to Rhode Island’s comeback by focusing on three things:
First, building the skills our students and workers need to compete in the 21st century.
Second, attracting entrepreneurs and investment.
And third, fostering innovation, including in our state government, to enhance accountability and deliver value to taxpayers.
These principles — and an unwavering focus on creating jobs and expanding opportunity — guided every decision we made in assembling this budget.
Helping people build the skills they need to succeed is one of the best investments we can make.
Since being elected, I have dedicated time every week to talk with businesses, asking them what it will take to add jobs in Rhode Island. The thing I hear most often is that they want a skilled workforce, ready to work. We need to provide people with the training so Rhode Island is a more desirable place for 21st century businesses to invest.
This budget invests in each rung of the ladder – our schools, college affordability, and skills training for adults.
This budget invests record amounts in our K-12 public schools.
This budget also commits the necessary matching funds that allow us to more than triple the number of state sponsored pre-k classrooms in Rhode Island. It’s never too early to put our youngest learners on a path to opportunity.
And we still have almost 2,000 kindergarten students who don’t have access to full-day K. My husband and I know firsthand how much our kids flourished because of all day K and every Rhode Island kid deserves the same opportunity.
Senate President Paiva Weed is passionate about this too and I’m eager to work with her and others to bring universal full day Kindergarten to every school by September 2016. This budget makes it possible.
Teachers want it. Parents want it. And our kids need it. Let’s get it done. But how are students supposed to learn if they’re in crumbling school buildings?
Too many of our children go to school each day in buildings that have outdated heating systems; that lack modern security or technology for 21st century learning; or suffer from general disrepair.
And so, the time has come to lift the current moratorium on school construction.
My budget proposes creating a new School Building Authority to partner with cities and towns to address critical renovation needs. We are seeding it with $20 million this year, and to keep it going, starting next year, we’ll create a long-term and stable source of funds for this purpose.
We’ll put our kids in better schools. And we’ll put construction crews to work, many of whom haven’t seen steady work in years.
Building skills also means making education more relevant and effective. I propose an initiative called “Prepare RI” to empower every high school student across the state who qualifies to take college courses while they’re in high school at no cost to the student. Whether you want to go to college, or start a career right after high school, we want to make your path to a degree or industry certification more affordable and more attainable.
My dad took advantage of the GI Bill and became the first person in our family to go to college. That enabled him to get a good job. One person going to college changed all of our lives. Now more than ever, higher education can be the ladder to the middle class because in today’s economy high wage jobs go to people with high skills.
But for too many a college degree is out of reach because of the cost.
So I propose restructuring our higher education grant programs to create a last-dollar scholarship that begins to tackle the unmet financial need of Rhode Island students. In its first year, this program will invest $10M in students with proven academic performance but for whom the costs of higher education might too high and prevent them from going.
I propose we do this by restructuring and consolidating redundant bureaucracies, specifically moving the Rhode Island Higher Education Assistance Authority to the Office of the Post Secondary Commissioner. These moves will enable the state to save money and fund these scholarships for Rhode Islanders. This is the right thing to do – let’s do it together.
Even with these scholarships, we know that college costs are a lot to bear. So we’re establishing a competitive student loan forgiveness program for college graduates who pursue careers in technology, engineering and design. This program will fully cover four years’ worth of student debt for over 100 high achieving graduates per year. We want to stop the brain drain and keep these talented Rhode Islanders in Rhode Island after they graduate, especially in these fields.
Everyone knows that the global economy is changing and to compete we have to provide people access to opportunities to build the skills they need to get a job now.
Soon, I will announce a new approach to workforce training where we partner with businesses to make sure we’re training people for the jobs that actually exist now. This new system won’t require additional money in the budget, but will use existing funds to help Rhode Islanders get jobs, and help businesses get the well-trained workers they need. The difference is that we will put the employer at the center so we’re training people for jobs that are in demand now.
While we are building skills we also have to cultivate conditions to make Rhode Island an attractive place to do business and add jobs.
We’ve already begun addressing our regulatory climate. We are modernizing the way we issue regulations to make sure we’re as business-friendly as possible while still protecting our quality of life, air, water, and public safety. And we’re reviewing old regulations to see what we can eliminate.
We’re clearing away burdensome underbrush in other areas, too. After examining the over 300 licensed occupations in Rhode Island, we have identified about 30 that we can eliminate immediately. Wherever possible we should remove burdensome layers of bureaucracy to promote more economic activity.
The General Assembly to its great credit, recently cut the corporate tax rate to make us more competitive. But it’s no secret that Rhode Island’s taxes remain uncompetitive in some areas. Tonight I propose building on your good work.
To reduce business’s energy costs, I am proposing that we phase-out the sales tax on energy that the state imposes on commercial users. This will provide $5.1 million in tax relief to businesses next fiscal year, and help reduce the burden of rising energy costs.
We also have some taxes that are just a nuisance on businesses and don’t raise much revenue for the state. For instance, we are one of the only states that places special taxes on imaging centers and outpatient health services. To help contain health care costs and promote job creation in the healthcare industry, I am recommending phasing out both of these surcharges over four years.
Despite all this, let’s face it, Rhode Island has developed a reputation as a tough place to do business.
So to get companies to invest and create jobs here, we need to be proactive. This is especially true because so many other states offer incentives and have much more robust economic development efforts. If we want to compete…if we want companies to add jobs here, we can’t put ourselves at such a disadvantage relative to our neighbors.
It is time for our economic development strategy to turn heads, change perceptions, and put Rhode Island back in the game. Now I know we’ve made mistakes in economic development in the past. We must learn from them and never repeat them. We must move forward.
This budget proposes investing to attract high-quality companies, and encouraging the growth of businesses already here.
We are working with the legislature to introduce competitive tax packages that encourage businesses to create well-paying jobs, particularly well-paying jobs in promising industries.
We will implement these credits with rigorous accountability provisions, and won’t spend a dollar of state money until long after the jobs have been created.
There’s so much construction booming in Boston that they say the state bird of Massachusetts is the crane. I want job-producing construction here, so we propose creating a new initiative to encourage more real estate projects. These benefits will only be provided after the buildings are built, and are modeled after similar successful programs in other states.
Small businesses are the backbone of our state, and our comeback cannot occur without ensuring they are healthy and growing. Unlike our neighboring states, Rhode Island lacks a state-backed small business loan fund. So we will create a Small Business Program and an Innovation Initiative to expand access to capital for small businesses enabling them to thrive and expand.
Also, to leverage the businesses we already have, we will implement an Anchor Tax Credit that incentivizes our large employers to attract their suppliers to Rhode Island. These employers will benefit from having more of their suppliers close by, and the state will gain new businesses and jobs. If we are going to turn our economy around, everyone has a role to play, including our largest employers.
I am also proposing a series of steps to grow our innovation economy. Since 2010, over 1 million jobs have been created in America in advanced industries marked by technology and innovation – these industries pay more and are growing faster than most. It’s time Rhode Island got its fair share of these jobs for our families.
It is not the time to be passive or timid. We’re falling behind other states, and unemployed or underemployed Rhode Island families are bearing the brunt. If we succeed in sparking a recovery and creating jobs, everything is possible. If we don’t, nothing else will matter.
Finally, we must reinvigorate state government with fresh ideas and new ways of doing things in order to get better results. This starts with an honest and ethical government that the public deserves.
A key innovation priority this year is reinventing Medicaid.
It isn’t sustainable to have a system that has the second highest cost per enrollee of any state in the nation — a cost that is 60% higher than the national average and where a small percent of the enrollees account for the vast majority of the spending.
We have an opportunity to deliver better health care services to Rhode Islanders, and to make our system more affordable at the same time. To do so, we will have to crack down on fraud and waste; improve quality and coordination of care; and make Rhode Island a leader in health innovation by paying for value not volume.
I recently learned of a story from one of our health centers of a homeless man who was in the ER once a week with substance abuse issues. The health center would treat him, but until the root cause was addressed his cost of care continued to mount.
This is why our work to address Medicaid’s structural problems will continue beyond this evening with our working group.
I realize this working group is different than the way we’ve addressed medicaid in the past, but I believe the magnitude and complexity of the challenges we face requires it. And I am grateful to the General Assembly leadership for their flexibility as we work in partnership to find solutions. We have an opportunity with all the stakeholders at the table to put in place changes that will yield savings for years to come. This budget proposes a 9 percent cut in Medicaid expansion this year.
I intend to deliver a budget amendment to more specifically identify the cost savings that the working group generates. The working group is similar to a successful effort in New York.
Our redesigned system will focus on providing a coordinated system of care that delivers better outcomes, and delivers better value for taxpayers.
It’s also long past time to modernize our antiquated personnel rules in state government.We want to recruit and reward the best people, and ensure that there are incentives in place to encourage employees to be their best.
So this budget includes a proposal to provide state government with greater flexibility in hiring and managing personnel. In addition to a more efficient government, our goal is to achieve savings this year. If the revenue estimates in May are stronger, I would ask the General Assembly to reduce this saving target. We will work collaboratively with state employees to reduce personnel costs in a way that causes the least amount of disruption, avoids significant layoffs and honors the pay increases of the most recent contract. For my part, I am going to start by cutting my own pay by 5% this year.
The General Treasurer and I are working on another innovation — the Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank — to put Rhode Islanders back to work, improve our infrastructure, and reduce our demand for energy.
The bank will create a dependable source of capital to complete energy efficiency projects. We will integrate private capital into the mix of existing state funds to ramp up the deployment of clean energy technologies, while at the same time helping to create jobs.
This infrastructure bank — along with the school building authority and full funding for the municipal road and bridge revolving fund – will put people back to work and help our localities keep property taxes stable.
Despite all of our challenges, there’s a lot to love about Rhode Island. We love our neighborhoods, places to eat and shop. We love our beaches and our bay. For my family, a weekend in the summer is never complete without a visit to Sand Hill Cove.
We need more people to experience the things we all love. For too many years, though, we haven’t maximized the effectiveness in our state-funded tourism efforts. Rather than spending the resources in one concentrated way to maximize the bang for our buck, we’ve been sprinkling state-funded tourism dollars among various tourism bureaus around the state.
The time has come to redesign how we market our wonderful state to prospective visitors.
My proposal will restructure our tourism marketing efforts by concentrating resources behind a unified statewide tourism message. I realize that this proposal will cause some initial concern among the local bureaus, and that it is a change from the way we’ve always done it, but let’s work together over the coming months to find a solution. If we do this right, we can supercharge our tourism industry and create thousands of jobs just like other states have and that our families deserve.
The fiscally responsible budget I submit tonight takes a balanced approach to solving our challenges. We started with a nearly $200 million deficit, and we closed it by focusing mainly on spending cuts.
But, we also looked for ways to generate new revenue without imposing broad-based tax increases.
I propose closing a tax loophole on certain real estate transactions. This budget also asks those among us who are most able, to pay a little more. I propose asking those who have second homes worth more than $1 million to pay a modest assessment on those homes. This new revenue source, together with certain other revenue enhancements, is enabling us to invest in creating jobs.
We also have an opportunity now to take advantage of historically low interest rates to restructure some of our outstanding debt. By more actively managing our debt, something other states have done, we will be able to make important investments in job growth to jumpstart our economy.
The funds we will generate through refinancing will not be used to plug a budget hole, but will be part of a long-term plan to jumpstart economic growth and invest in specific economic development programs outlined in the budget.
I look forward to productive discussions and working together in the weeks to come. The truth is the people of Rhode Island are counting on us to because they are struggling and are losing faith in government. They want us to work together and make the right decisions to put Rhode Island on a better path.
I know all of us here tonight are aware of these challenges and want to rise to the occasion. I am asking you to.
Be a part of the team that sparks Rhode Island’s economic comeback. Be a part of the team that restores people’s faith in government by showing that we can get things done. Be a part of the team that restores optimism and confidence in our future. This budget sets forth a path to a Rhode Island full of opportunity, where everyone who works hard has a chance. Now, I know we have a high hill to climb, but let’s start now, and climb it together.
Thank you.
Tolls are the way to go, says Gov. Raimondo, and we need to have her back on that.
As Gov. Raimondo recently pointed out, Rhode Island has some of the highest per-mile costs for road infrastructure. In addition to that, as I’ve pointed out right here at RI Future, much of that road infrastructure is highway oriented, even in our cities. Providence is among a rogue collection of cities in the Rustbelt Midwest, Texas, and California for its lane-miles of highway infrastructure per capita.
That means that our poorest areas where people often don’t have access to cars are choked by highways, causing air pollution and congestion that would otherwise be avoided with a multimodal system. The costs of this type of highway infrastructure are many orders of magnitude higher than other projects, and also at the same time stand in the way of development in urban areas. These factors act as both a push and pull force against our economic development and climate change goals.
One way Gov. Raimondo has sought to fix the imbalance of spending is to use tolls to provide some of our road funding. I know that there’s going to be lots of howling from all sides, so I want to preempt it and say to the governor, “Thank you! Well done!”
Tolls are not popular on the left or the right. The right, of course, unaware of how socialized and unbalanced policies around driving have become, cries that tolls are a “war on cars“. In Rhode Island, we’ve seen tea party vandalism against toll collection efforts on the Sakonnet Bridge. Sometimes elements of the left don’t understand the issue well either, seeing tolls as a way of stepping away from the responsibility of government to pay directly for infrastructure costs through general funds. I believe both are mistaken.
It’s correct to use government to invest in public infrastructure and lessen inequalities. Road spending is simply the least efficient way to do it. Although all classes of people drive to some extent, the poorest drive the least. Certainly if you want to help the odd person who is poor and happens to drive, there are more direct ways to target the aid. Though road projects cause a blooming of development, the revenue from the development does not add up to enough over the long-term to pay back the costs of the maintenance on infrastructure. Tolls are an equitable way to pay for road infrastructure. Paying for roads in this way also means that the general funds we have can be repurposed to more important and directly progressive goals, like an increased Earned Income Tax Credit in the state.
I call on the governor not only to toll highway-type infrastructure, but also to look carefully at how we can reduce unnecessary road expenditures. We need long distance roads in parts of our state, but our urban areas are far too choked by highways. The Route 10 section of the 6/10 Connector is now the oldest highway in the state, cuts neighborhoods in Providence and Cranston off from one another, makes the Washington Secondary bike path less useful, and prevents development along a prime corridor of urban land. Removing highways like Rt. 10 and building them in less expensive, more multimodal ways would lower our state’s costs, allowing tolls to be less extreme (I think Rt. 6 should go too, but its infrastructure is newer–some of it, in fact, is being replaced at great cost right now–so that may have to wait).
The progressive community needs to put its elbow grease into supporting tolling as one of the tools we use in transportation. It’s up to us to organize and educate constituencies for this, or else the governor’s proposal will fail.
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Spray-painted hate speech on the Islamic School of Rhode Island has raised concern among the FBI, the Humanists of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats and also Governor Gina Raimondo.
“Rhode Island was founded on the tolerance of all beliefs,” Raimondo said in a statement. “This hateful act at the Islamic School of Rhode Island has no place in our state. My thoughts and support are with the school and the Muslim community in RI today.”
One day after holding a vigil for three slain Muslim students in North Carolina, vandals defaced this Islamic school in West Warwick. “Now this is a hate crime” was spray-painted on the front door. The issue has drawn national media attention as it occurs after the triple murder in North Carolina and the suspected arson of a Muslim school in Houston, Texas.
Congratulations on your well-deserved inaugurations and new positions! I am deeply proud of the opportunity afforded me to parade with your stickers and flyers and write so freely in papers and on social media about your visions for our beloved Providence and Rhode Island.
We all know that our state faces many challenges. In most cases, good and honest leadership and visions have been unthinkable, especially in these challenging times. Like many others, I am aware of those critical issues and challenges, and I am deeply concerned about what lies ahead for our creative capital and state. However, I stood by and with you through the fight in the past elections, and I still believe and stand with you as you take office.
I have no doubt in mind that you’re ready to transform our city and state by changing it from within.
As you take your respective seats in offices and roll your sleeves, keep in mind that I and thousands of other concerned Rhode Islanders are watching you– particularly those of us who walked tirelessly under scorching summer sun and bitter cold winter. We burnt our fuel and carelessly increased our cars odometers by traveling to every corner of the city and state. We knocked on strangers’ doors despite the dangers and untold and unexpected humiliations that came with it. Above all, we put our own lives on hold, believing it’s worthy. We were ready to tell your stories and share your visions with the rest of the city and state. We believed in you and still do.
Like many others, I am watching you. I am watching you because I care about you and our state. I am watching you because I still believe in One Providence and One Rhode Island, where a mother on the Southside of Providence sends her teenage boy to the nearby corner store without any fear that he might not return home safely. If you do not do what you made us believe and get swallowed by the chronic illness of “cultural and insider politics,” don’t be surprised to read my articles in the papers. Don’t be surprised to see me hitting every medium, criticizing the person you might become. Don’t be surprised to see a movement against your failures. Don’t be surprised when an ardent supporter and a friend becomes a fierce critic.
As your good friend, I am watching you with eagle eyes. Beware and be yourself! Lead with open heart, open mind and integrity!
Your caring friend,
Komlan A. Soe
It’s becoming somewhat of a tradition that one of the first media events of the legislative session is a call to action on poverty – a march to the State House led by interfaith leaders followed by speeches from the House speaker, Senate president and governor.
“The RI Interfaith Coalition, whose mission is to fight poverty with faith,” says this year’s press release, “believes that as people of faith they are called upon to hold their communities and themselves accountable to the moral standards of justice and compassion that are central to religious traditions.”
The march starts at the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church across from the Providence Place Mall at 2pm and Governor Gina Raimondo, House Speaker Nick Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed are scheduled to speak at 3pm in the State House rotunda. Here’s what Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed said last year and this will be Raimondo’s and Mattiello’s first time addressing this audience publicly on poverty.
The Interfaith Coalition is advocating for “payday lending reform, family cash assistance, and homeless prevention legislation,” according to the press release. Bishop Nicholas Knisely of the Episcopal Church will be there, it said. His counterpart from the Catholic Church, Thomas Tobin, wasn’t mentioned.
Here’s a picture from last year:
“School systems that have successfully ignited reforms and sustained their momentum have all relied on at least one of three events to get them started: they have either taken advantage of a political or economic crisis, or commissioned a high-profile report critical of the system’s performance, or have appointed a new, energetic and visionary political or strategic leader.”
Rhode Island’s “energetic and visionary” leader, Commissioner Deborah Gist, wants to keep her job when Gina Raimondo takes office next year. The Board of Education meets tonight and it’s not on their agenda, but you can bet it’s on their minds.
The passage above is from an influential McKinsey & Company report, quoted by Gist in her doctoral dissertation. Although she was not initially interested in being our education commissioner, she recounts in her research, she was actively recruited by Angus Davis, who painted a rosy picture of Rhode Island as a reform-ready state.
In many respects she found this to be true and she is generous in her praise for the work of ex-Commissioner McWalters and ex-Governor Carcieri’s Board of Regents for creating a base she could build on. A founding member of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change and a graduate of the Broad Academy, Gist was warmly welcomed by Rhode Island’s business community and its Republican governor.
RIDE ‘s development and implementation of a new teacher evaluation system is the focus of her self-study dissertation: “An Ocean State Voyage: A Leadership Case Study of Creating an Evaluation System With and For Teachers”. Most teachers are not with and for Gist. Her dissertation discusses her difficult relationship with teachers through the firings in Central Falls and Providence and teachers’ strong resistance to the use of student standardized test scores in their own evaluations.
Now that the Common Core has arrived in the suburbs, there is growing discontent with her leadership among parents as well, which is likely to flare up with the the first administration of the PAARC (Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) test in the spring of this school year.
Gist regarded Carcieri as “reform-minded and open to taking aggressive steps to bring about the necessary changes to Rhode Island’s education system” and, although she didn’t have the same rapport with Governor Chafee, she made her peace with him after a difficult start.
Given Governor-elect Raimondo’s celebrity as a pension reformer, some assume that she is committed to the entire union-busting privatizing program of corporate reform. The Fordham Institute’s Michael J. Petrilli, for example: “Of particular note is Rhode Island—Rhode Island!—which just elected a pro-education reform, pro-pension reform Democrat as governor and a bona fide charter school hero as lieutenant governor. All while voters in Providence rejected a union-backed convicted felon in favor of a charter supporter. Remarkable!”
Governor-elect Gina Raimondo and her husband, Andy Moffit, are parents of children attending school in Providence and Raimondo has said positive things about public schools and public school teachers. Moffit is a senior consultant in education with McKinsey & Co. He had a hand in the report, “How the world’s best school systems keep getting better,” that introduces these comments and that Gist quoted in her dissertation.
He was a principle author of Deliverology 101: A Field Guide for Educational Leaders, which Gist admires. After Governor Chafee’s election, the Board of Regents changed significantly which worried Gist. It must also have dismayed Moffit, who was nominated to the Board by Carcieri but decided not to serve under Chafee. Both Gist and Moffit have interests in large-scale change of school systems and educational organizations. Like Gist, Moffit has serious corporate-reform credentials. If the two don’t know each other well, at the very least they are professional acquaintances with common contacts.
I don’t know if this connection will work for or against Gist and I’m not even going to guess how the next lieutenant governor’s opinion might figure into the decision. Certainly Raimondo will not want to add to the the anger and distrust that Rhode Island educators feel over pension issues by retaining an unpopular Commissioner. Nor will she wish to create the impression that her husband’s career has undue influence on her decision. On the other hand , her sensitivity to the business community, the input of pro-corporate reform campaign contributors, and a shout-out from Washington could work for Gist.
While there was jubilation in the Rhode Island Democratic Party election night party because of the biggest sweep since 1960, that mood was not shared by Democrats in South County.
From Exeter to Westerly, Democrats, and especially progressive Democrats, took an awful beating in General Assembly and Town Council races. Majorities in several South County towns also shifted from blue to red in their votes for state offices.
Since I started living in South County in 2002 and covering local politics at Progressive Charlestown, I had enjoyed watching what seemed to be a steady shift from the region’s historic Swamp Yankee conservatism to more progressive politics. South County sent a high proportion of solid blue Democrats to the State House and voted mostly Blue in state and national races.
But that changed on November 4.
Of the 11 South County communities, only four voted for Gina Raimondo over Allan Fung.
In addition to going GOP for governor, South County lost three terrific progressives – my own state Representative Donna Walsh, Sen. Cathie Cool Rumsey and Rep. Larry Valencia. Each of them faced appallingly unqualified opponents. Donna Walsh lost to a radical “Tenther” who doesn’t even seem to live in the District. Cathie Cool Rumsey lost to Hopkinton’s honorific Town Sheriff who was caught using her uniform to impersonate a police officer.
Larry Valencia lost to a guy whose only previous experience was running as a delegate to the Republican National Convention as a delegate for Ron Paul – and who came in fifth out of five.
In Charlestown, we were totally crushed, losing every single elected office in the town to a group called the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party), an off-shoot of the RI Statewide Coalition. If you mixed the Tea Party with the Nature Conservancy and the worst rich people’s homeowners association you can imagine, you’d get something that looks like the CCA.
The CCA Party gets more than 60% of its funding from out of state donors. They provide vacation property owners with the ability to vote with their checkbooks in local elections. The CCA Party has increasingly put Charlestown on a “pay to play” basis where the attention you get from town government is in proportion to the amount you donate to the CCA Party.
But those of us in Charlestown were not alone in our misery. Exeter Democrats also took a terrible beating. Exeter rejected all five state general office winners and provided winning margins for Tea Party Rep. Doreen Costa (R) to be re-elected and for progressive Sen. Cathie Cool Rumsey (D) to be ousted.
It was only 11 months ago that Exeter Democrats rallied to crush a gun lobby-sponsored recall of their Democratic Town Council majority. The “Exeter Four” won a huge victory last December 14 only to see two of the four defeated on November 4, costing them the Town Council majority. The level and sophistication of campaigning in Exeter for the general election bore little resemblance to the way Exeter Democrats won last year’s recall.
Larry Valencia’s home base in Richmond also went very bad. Voters rejected the state slate except for Seth Magaziner and also flipped their Town Council from a Democratic majority to Republican control.
Even in Westerly, a Democratic stronghold, Democrats lost control of the Town Council. So it went in North Kingstown, Narragansett and Hopkinton. When the dust settled, the only solidly Democratic town left in South County is South Kingstown.
South Kingstown was the only municipality not swept up in the red tide. South Kingstown was one of only three South County towns to vote for all five Democratic state office candidates. They also re-elected progressive Democrat Rep. Teresa Tanzi by six points despite a $100,000+ campaign mounted against her by mortgage banker Steve Tetzner.
In another closely watched race, South Kingstown also elected Democrat Kathy Fogarty over her Republican opponent, Lacey McGreevey. Fogarty defeated incumbent Rep. Spencer Dickinson in the primary to get her shot at the seat. She won the general election by 16 points.
On top of all that, South Kingstown voters also elected three Democrats and two independents to their Town Council. One of those independents is RI Sierra Club lobbyist Abel Collins.
So what happened?
Like elsewhere in the country, 2014 voter turn-out in South County was low. It was lower than expected even considering the normal drop-off in non-presidential election years.
In Charlestown, we expected turn-out to drop by 900 from the 2012 count for the presidential race. But the drop-off ended up being more than 1,100. With a total voter registration of just over 6,000, that drop-off had a huge impact on the results.
Challengers to incumbents trumpeted the state GOP’s lead issue – 38 Studios – 24/7. Forget that it was unlamented ex-Governor Donald Carcieri’s (R) idea. However, 38 Studios did not affect the state office races or act as much more than buzzkill in most races. Even Republican Attorney General candidate Dawson Hodgson, who probably banged the 38 Studios drum the loudest, admitted after the election that maybe the issue wasn’t so potent after all.
However, 38 Studios may have had a disproportional effect among our South County Swamp Yankees as it was in just about every one of the many mailers, ads and flyers attacking Democrats.
In many South County races, the conservatives out-spent and out-hustled Democrats. In the House District 36 race, Rep. Donna Walsh’s “Tenther” opponent out-spent her 13-to-1 going into the final month.
But money doesn’t always make the difference, as re-elected Rep. Teresa Tanzi can attest. Tetzner went into the final stretch of the campaign having raised three times as much money than Tanzi, mostly through loans he made to his campaign. Tetzner outspent Tanzi by six to one, but she still won.
By contrast, progressive incumbents Larry Valencia and Cathie Cool Rumsey both out-raised and out-spent their Republican opponents, Justin Price and Elaine Morgan respectively, by wide margins, but still lost.
After reviewing Price’s and Morgan’s campaign finance reports, it looks to me that there was a lot more money in their campaigns than they reported. Morgan, for example, reports having spent only $322 on her campaign up to the last week, but she had campaign signs plastered all over Richmond, Exeter and Hopkinton as well as campaign mailers. She only reported $444 in in-kind donations.
There are still unresolved pieces of the puzzle. At some point, Rep. Donna Walsh will get a hearing in front of the state Board of Elections on her charge that her opponent lied about where he lives and is not really a resident of the 36th District. There may be charges filed in other campaigns for misreporting, ethics violations or campaign sabotage. There are a few recounts to be done of some races for town office.
But in the end, there is a new political reality in South County.
Perhaps with more time and perspective, we’ll be able to figure out what went wrong, but we now live with the reality that on November 4, South County flipped from blue to red. We have to figure out how to flip it back.
The votes have been cast and counted, the public has spoken and our officials have been elected. Before our new slate of state and local office holders start to govern, R.I. Future asked some of Rhode Island political experts for their advice and words of wisdom for Governor-elect Gina Raimondo and Mayor-elect Jorge Elorza.
Keep the healthy balance of family and professional roles you showed throughout the campaign. And always listen to your mother! – Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts (to Raimondo, specifically)
Surround yourself with good people and encourage them to disagree with you and each other. Communicate your vision to your team and let them execute it. Have measurements for progress and evaluate honestly. – Providence Mayor Angel Taveras
Never forget how much people are relying on you and the difference your work will make in their lives. Remembering this every day is the best way to remain positive, energized, and focused through the difficult decisions you will be required to make.
Don’t forget the small things, they add up. From taking time to call on a family member’s birthday, to speaking directly with constituents constantly, to writing personal thank you notes, or acknowledging the excellent work of a staff member; these gestures help remind you of the important things and help keep you grounded.
Be sure to hire smart, talented and reliable people who are willing to disagree with you. Surrounding yourself with dedicated staffers who will ensure your work is on the right track is essential to success. – – Congressman David Cicilline
Keep your promises, surround yourself with smart, hardworking people and never forget why you wanted this job in the first place. It’s about the people of Rhode Island, and when you hit a roadblock, turn to them for support and guidance. – Congressman Jim Langevin
What advice would you offer our newly elected officials? Please comment below and let us know.
Congratulations, Gina Raimondo! You’ll soon be Rhode Island’s 75th governor, and you’ve also broken the so-called glass ceiling to become the Ocean State’s first ever female chief executive.
Raimondo is also the first Democrat Rhode Island has elected governor since 1990. That’s a really long time for a state some call the bluest in the nation. Since hope springs eternal, here’s hoping she will also be the most progressive governor since Frank Licht in the early 1970’s. He’s most famous for “push[ing] through a state income tax to end Rhode Island’s fiscal crises of the 1960’s” and is also said to have “approved more business projects than any other Governor in Rhode Island’s history.”
I’ll be happy if she’s as liberal-leaning as Governor Chafee.
Democrats swept the statewide offices last night, but only two of the five had the endorsement of the RI Progressive Democrats – General Treasurer-elect Seth Magaziner and Secretary of State-elect Nellie Gorbea. Only Magaziner had their endorsement in the primary. Still, most new statewide officers will move their newly acquired positions left with the noticeable exception of Dan McKee, who will replace Elizabeth Roberts as the lt. governor.
So does Rhode Island have many conservative Democrats, as the New York Times reported this weekend? Or is there a liberal majority in the Ocean State that doesn’t know how to play nice in the sandbox with each other? It’s pretty easy to argue that he greatest strengths of the Raimondo campaign turned out to be Clay Pell and Bob Healey.
Bob Healey was the big winner last night and, once again, is officially a Rhode Island cult hero. He spent $35 and won 22 percent of the vote. That’s amazingly hopeful news if you hate money in politics. He’s the ’73 PC Friars of Campaign 2014 – the irreverent underdog who broke all the rules and maybe, just maybe, could have even beaten the dynasty team if they got to go one-on-one.
Gina Raimondo has the best ideas about how to better Rhode Island – and her middle class-friendly campaign message is far more appealing than Allan Fung’s policy proposals of cutting taxes and shrinking government. Couple that with Raimondo’s track record of being able to move political mountains and it seems like an easy choice.
But it wasn’t.
Maybe I’m holding a grudge because of her ability to shepherd through landmark pension reforms, which I still feel were too one-sided, but I’d like to think it’s more than that. I’m not sure I want to contribute to The Narrative of ‘A Democrat Can Screw Unions And Thrive’. There may be many short and long term wins to be had there (lower unfunded pension liabilities, for just one), but ultimately I’m far from convinced that’s the best row to hoe if we really want to fend off increasing economic inequality, which I firmly believe to be the root cause of much of our social and economic ailments.
Then there’s Wall Street.
It’s not a place in lower Manhattan, it’s a sector of our economy. Maybe the biggest, depending on how you define it, certainly it’s the strongest, and the only thing it makes is profits. This can be harmless in times of growth but, ultimately, can only be predatory unleashed on a society that consumes more than it produces. As such, Wall Street is the glue that solidifies increasing income inequality as the New American Way.
I’m not sure Gina Raimondo shares my thoughts on these issues. But I’m pretty certain Allan Fung doesn’t either. And in the short term, Raimondo will be far better for Rhode Island.
Payday loans don’t stand a chance with Gina Raimondo as governor. I bet she can whip the legislature into raising the minimum wage. I’m confident she can attract vibrant new businesses to downtown Providence and that she’ll be a fantastic ambassador for our tourist economy. She will not only defend our pioneering healthcare exchange, but I’d be surprised if she doesn’t find a way to make it even better. She will prioritize preparing for climate chance and sea level rise, and someday soon Rhode Island will regret if we are not.
Both Raimondo and Fung will support charter schools more than me. But I can see Raimondo turning the focus to a Constitutional right to an adequate and equal education for all. If one thing is obvious about education politics in Rhode Island it’s that we need someone to lead a high level conversation about where it’s going. I hope whoever is the next governor will pick up Bob Healey’s idea to fund education statewide as a way to offer both property tax relief and education equity. Raimondo is the only one who could pull this off.
I wanted to vote for Bob Healey, but it’s just too close with too much at stake. I think he’s the only one telling the truth on the campaign trail, even if he’s sometimes mumbling it. He may well be more popular if he had shorter hair, but instead he chooses to mock our political process. He’s the only one who earned my respect. But I think Rhode Island needs my vote, so it’s going to Gina Raimondo.
There’s been six polls in the last month concerning the governor’s race and taken together they show a increasingly close dash to the finish line between Democrat Gina Raimondo and Republican Allan Fung.
Raimondo’s support has been relatively consistent, though it’s dipped slightly. Fung seems to have had a rough first half of October but has since rebounded. Meanwhile, Moderate Party candidate Bob Healey (combined with other independent candidates) have plenty enough support to make a difference.
At a rally dubbed “Rebuilding the Middle Class,” former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed Democratic candidates Gina Raimondo for governor and Seth Magaziner for general treasurer.
Clinton appeared Friday afternoon at the Rhode Island College Rec Center.
“Gina has a plan to put people to work, she knows how to do it, and has done it in the past,” said the former first lady. “The future of Rhode Island’s middle class depends on who is elected as your next governor, you have one of the best choices in the country.”
“It’s great to be back in Rhode Island,” Clinton said. She smiled and added, “ Rhode Island has been good to me and to my husband over the years, you’ve always stood with me.” She also made reference to her many trips to Rhode Island when she spoke of friend and Democratic candidate for treasurer Seth Magaziner.
Prior to Clinton’s 22-minute speech, Raimondo told the audience, “I will be the governor that turns the economy in Rhode Island around.”
When introducing Clinton, Raimondo said, “She’s done it all – although not everything, yet.” The room exploded into cheers for Hillary. In her speech Raimondo committed to raising the minimum wage in Rhode Island to $10.10 an hour, and promoted her jobs plan.
Michael Sabitoni, president of the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council, kicked off the rally. “We supported Gina in the primary, and we will support her as our next governor.” The Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council is a union made up of 8,500 tradesman and women in Rhode Island.
Senator Jack Reed, who is running for reelection, introduced candidate Raimondo. He told the crowd that “If you work hard and play by the rules you should have a shot at the American dream.” He said Raimondo was a proven leader and the best choice for Governor.
It is estimated that 1,100 people attended the rally to see Clinton. Before the event, a high dollar meet-and-greet with noted democratic donors took place, in support of Raimondo.
After endorsing Clay Pell in the primary, the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats decided not to endorse a gubernatorial candidate in the general election.
“While our concerns with (Republican Allan) Fung are far more severe,” according to a press release from RIPDA, “we see (Democrat Gina) Raimondo as a Wall Street Democrat with unacceptably conservative positions on economic issues.”
Sam Bell, director of RIPDA, said those positions include Raimondo not supporting repealing tax cuts to the rich and pension reform. He also found fault with Raimondo’s plan to fund new school construction by diverting sales tax revenue rather than bonding and her manufacturing plan, which he said will “allow corporations to control curriculum at CCRI.”
The left-leaning group only endorsed two candidates, both Democrats, in the general election: Nellie Gorbea, who is running for secretary of state against Republican John Carlevale, and Seth Magaziner, who is running for general treasurer against independent Ernie Almonte.
In their press release, RIPDA had more to say about whom they didn’t support, than who they did. decided not to endorse in the lt. governor’s race and the attorney general’s race.
For Attorney General, progressives face a difficult choice. We cannot endorse either candidate. Peter Kilmartin has a weak record on core civil liberties issues like racial profiling and consumer protection, and Dawson Hodgson is more liberal on issues of individual rights. As a moderate, pro-choice Republican with a voting record well to the left of the median state Senator, Hodgson is the sort of Republican that liberals can find appealing. However, Hodgson has expressed troubling views on guns, workers’ rights, and economic policy. We also have concerns with Kilmartin’s record on access to public records and open government.
Having served as a top lieutenant to former House Speaker Bill Murphy, Kilmartin has close personal and political ties to the conservative machine politicians who run our state so poorly. Hodgson, however, holds no love for Rhode Island’s right-wing Democratic establishment. Given the Attorney General’s ability to prosecute corruption, this is a vital concern.
And here’s what RIPDA said about the lt. governor’s race.
In the Lieutenant Governor’s race, we have also opted not to endorse. While Catherine Taylor is a moderate Republican, we believe she is superior to the Democratic nominee, Dan McKee. Although we certainly cannot endorse her, we do believe that Catherine is the better choice for progressives, despite her party affiliation.
When Bishop Thomas Tobin cracks his whip on Catholic politicians, it doesn’t serve his cause well. Remember when he manged to make a martyr out of even Congressman Patrick Kennedy?
Tobin hasn’t denied Democratic nominee Gina Raimondo communion, but the Republican bishop did offer a passive rebuke to the Catholic candidate for governor after she won the endorsement of Planned Parenthood. He didn’t mention her by name, but the timing left little doubt.
The very reason Catholics were distrusted in this country in the 1800s and the early 1900s is because Catholics were presumed to be anti-democratic in their allegiance to a foreign king (the Pope) and it was assumed that they would attempt to impose their Catholic values on everyone in the event that they achieved political power. As a result, Catholic politicians invariably hit a ceiling in their careers a few steps before the presidency, unable to convince a majority of Americans nation wide that they could be trusted.
It was John Kennedy who broke this trend, when he gave his famous speech to a meeting of Texas Baptists in which he said that his allegiance was to America, and that the wall of separation between church and state must be high and strong. In bucking the tradition established by JFK, Tobin seeks to take Catholicism back to a time when it was politically irrelevant.
We do not live in a Catholic theocratic state. Most Rhode Islanders, by a factor of 8 to 1, support a woman’s right to make her own decisions regarding her reproductive health care, including abortion. Many religious traditions are not in agreement with the Catholic Church on reproductive rights issues. It would be unconstitutional for government to favor the Catholic heirarchy’s position on this issue, and foolish of us to pay Tobin’s declarations much mind when we can’t be sure if he is expressing himself religiously or politically.
Three-way races seem to dominate gubernatorial elections in Rhode Island.
Current Governor Linc Chafee won a three-way race in 2010 with just 36 percent of the vote – almost twice as many people voted against him as for him. In the Democratic primary this year, Gina Raimondo won 42 percent of the vote while 58 percent of voters opted for someone else. In this year’s general election, Republicans fear Bob Healey will peal votes away from Allan Fung, making it even harder for him to compete against Raimondo.
So on NBC10 Wingmen this week, Justin Katz, Bill Rappleye and I debated the merits of instant run-off voting – an electoral system in which voters can prioritize their choices in a field of more than two candidates. Watch our conversation about IRV and then lean even more about it here.
Not only could Rhode Island have its first female governor in Gina Raimondo by 2015, there could also be more women than men in statewide offices.
The general election ballot will feature three women – two Democrats and one Republican – running for five statewide offices. The treasurer and attorney general contests feature four male candidates.
“There’s the potential for a majority of women holding statewide offices,” said Carolyn Mark, the president of Rhode Island National Organization of Women. “That’s huge.”
For governor, Democrat Raimondo is facing Republican Allan Fung. In the lt. governor’s race Republican Catherine Taylor is running against Democrat Dan McKee. And the woman with perhaps the easiest path to victory is Democrat Nellie Gorbea, who after upsetting Guillaume de Ramel, will now face Republican John Carlevale in the general election.
Kara Russo was the only woman who lost on primary night, and she lost to Taylor. RI NOW endorsed Frank Ferri for lt governor, but Mark said the organization is open to reconsidering now that he is out of the race.
“We welcome the opportunity to talk to [Taylor] about that,” Mark said.
In 2010, there were three women were on the primary ballot for statewide offices – Lt Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, Raimondo and Taylor. Both Roberts and Raimondo won in the primary and general election. In 2006, Roberts and Republican Sue Stenhouse, running for secretary of state, won in their primaries. Roberts beat Kerry King and Stenhouse lost to Ralph Mollis in the general election. In 2002, the Board of Elections website says Myrth York, a Democrat who ran for governor against Don Carcieri, was the only female candidate to run in a primary. In 1998, two women ran for attorney general: Democrat Eva Mancuso and Republican Nancy Mayer. Both lost to Sheldon Whitehouse.
While Mark was pleased with the statewide results – RI NOW endorsed Raimondo and Gorbea – she said she Providence Rep. Maria Cimini’s primary loss was “tragic.”
“She is one of those exceptional people smart enough to understand the issues and empathetic to the struggles of everyday Rhode Islanders,” Mark said. “It’s not just a loss of a woman, it’s a loss of HER. And it’s not just a loss for her district, but it’s a loss for the entire state.”
Mark took issue with House Speaker Nick Mattiello targeting Cimini. “If you stand up to leadership, you not only have to duke it out on the House floor, but also in an election, too.”
Correction: An earlier version of this post indicated there were only two women on the 2010 primary ballots.
What do you call a public official who supports equal pay for women and minorities, is pro-choice, supports equal rights for the LGBTQ community, recognizes the seriousness of the threat of climate change, fights income inequality and wants to not only raise the minimum wage, but also index it to inflation?
Apparently you call this person a right wing extremist—but only when you’re talking about Gina Raimondo.
For Rhode Island liberals, it’s taken as an article of faith that Raimondo is a conservative wolf in Democratic sheep’s clothing, based only on her (successful? we’ll see) attempt to stop the state’s runaway public employees’ pension train. The fact that this notion is so pervasive among progressives is a testament to how much unions—especially public sector unions—dominate the Liberal/Progressive scene here in Rhody Land.
We can debate the way in which the Treasurer went about bringing pension reform to fruition, but there is no question that it was both absolutely necessary and very popular with the general public. But let’s set this one issue aside for a moment, step back, and take a big-picture look at our Democratic nominee for Governor.
Remember way back when instead of full marriage equality we got a watered down “civil unions” law? Raimondo supported full equality through all of it. She’s unabashedly pro-choice and has been endorsed by EMILY’s List—and with her Republican opponent being backed by RI Right to Life, we can be sure Planned Parenthood will come out with their endorsement of Gina any minute now.
Sure, she’s “socially liberal.” But what about on economic issues?
I already mentioned her support for raising the minimum wage. Even the more-conservative-than-it-should-be Rhode Island House raised the wage two years in a row. But Gina supports taking it a step further and not just raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour but also indexing it to inflation.
But most significantly, Gina has been a fierce advocate for reigning in the truly evil practice of predatory lending. This is a big deal. Right now, our pseudo-Democratic leaders in the General Assembly are pretty much in the pockets of the payday loan sharks, and the working men and women of Rhode Island are suffering because of it. I hope Gina continues to support Payday Lending Reform—we know how well she wields a bully pulpit, and she’ll have a much bigger one if she wins in November.
So if you are an Angel Taveras or Clay Pell Democrat trying to figure out how you can possibly support Gina in the general election, hopefully I’ve given you enough here to help you to vote for your party’s nominee without having your head explode.
And if you’re seriously considering voting for Allan Fung, well, then you’ve got to ask yourself whether or not you were a Democrat in the first place.
[Oh yeah and before y’all get crazy in the comments, let me save you some time: I’m not “anti-worker” or even “anti-union.” I fully support workers’ right to organize and collectively bargain—just like Gina Raimondo does. You can call me a “DINO” if you like—since I do it to people all the time, that’s only fair. But if you’re over the age of 35 and/or connected to the old school Party, forgive me if I take it with a grain of salt. And Sam Bell: you can say “pension cuts” instead of “pension reform” all you want—the cuts were part of the reform, and I still love you.]
The People’s Pledge has been violated, said Common Cause RI Executive Director John Marion. And as a result, Gina Raimondo and Clay Pell are to make a donation to the charity of Angel Taveras’ choice.
The ad in question was an attack on Taveras, paid for by the Providence Fraternal Order of Police. Marion included it in this letter.
“It is my opinion that the advertising does indeed violate the terms of the Pledge,” said Marion, in an email. “I am not yet able to determine the cost of the advertising buy, and subsequently determine how much must be donated to charity.”
The Taveras campaign has asked the other two campaigns to donate to the Federal Hill House. “Federal Hill House is dedicated to enabling people from throughout the Greater Providence area achieve their potential by removing obstacles that hinder them,” according to its website.
Marion said this has been the only violation of the People’s Pledge in a letter to the candidates. “If this is the only violation of the Pledge we see in this primary election it will be a great success and something I think you should all be proud of having taken part in.”
