The legislative history of the RhodeMap RI, as well as grant-related documents, suggest that Rhode Islanders’ elected representatives aren’t really the ones calling the shots and are following the bait-and-switch path that brought us 38 Studios.
A friend forwarded me an interesting and alarming e-mail thread with regard to RhodeMap RI. Below is the text of two of the e-mails, which went out this afternoon, followed by the author and his title. On Thursday morning, the State Planning Council will vote on a proposed Economic Development Plan which largely incorporates the […]
The following statement was received via e-mail this afternoon. Attached was a letter addressed to Kevin Flynn, Associate Director of the R.I. Division of Planning.
State Planning Division Faulted For Pursuing “Predetermined Result” With Little Economic Development Focus
Senators, Representatives To File Legislation To Correct Imbalance
State House, Nov 18 – A group of five Republican, Democrat and Independent legislators today called for a delay in approval of the hotly-criticized RhodeMap RI.
The legislators want to correct an imbalance that seems to exclude meaningful action to improve Rhode Island’s poor economic performance, something the State Planning Division has continually tried to characterize as the goal of the effort.
Last week, the Warwick Beacon reported some local legislators’ results on the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Freedom Index. The article bore the bizarre and inaccurate headline, “McNamara debunks legislative scorecard.”
The reference appears to be to the following statement from one of Warwick’s representatives in the General Assembly, Joseph McNamara, who is also the chairman of the State Democratic Committee:
“Their formula is so convoluted, it borders on insanity,” said McNamara, who in addition to being a Warwick/Cranston legislator chairs the State Democratic Committee, when asked about the results.
“They gave lousy ratings to their own Republican colleagues that voted against virtually everything.”
On the first count, the formula is not at all convoluted. A team of reviewers grades legislation from -3 to 3, the Center gathers up the legislators’ votes (with partial credit for non-votes), and each legislator’s score is his or her percentage of what an “ideal” senator or representative would have scored.
McNamara is also wrong on the second count, in two ways. First, the Republicans in the General Assembly are not the Center’s “own Republican colleagues.” The Center is non-partisan; it’s organized around policies, no matter which party or politicians choose to champion those policies.
Second, it’s simply not true that Republicans in the General Assembly “voted against virtually everything.” The Freedom Index itself is evidence. Because “nay” votes on bad bills give legislators positive scores, and because the great majority of bills counted in the index were negative, “nay” votes would have produced positive scores for Republicans.
Of course, that’s on the limited number of bills that the Center counted. For a broader view, we checked with BillTrack50.com, which has automated tracking of events in the legislatures of all 50 states.
According to the data that BillTrack50 provided, only 5% of all Republican votes were “nay.” Granted, that was twice as contrary as the Democrats, who voted “nay” only 2.4% of the time, but it’s hardly “virtually everything.” In fact, it would be more accurate to say that Republicans voted for virtually everything.
If we look at individual legislators, and include votes that they missed, the average Republican voted “nay” only 4.4% of the time, ranging from Senator Dennis Algiere, with 0.9%, to Representative Brian Newberry, with 7.2%.
Rep. McNamara should be more careful with his words, and the Warwick Beacon should be more careful with its headlines.
Don’t let people scare you into what “could” happen at the Constitutional Convention. Vote YES on Question 3 and let’s take this opportunity to fix the government and improve the way Rhode Island works.
My clock for blogging has run out, already, today, but an opinion essay that Representative Donald Lally (D, Narragansett, South Kingstown) sent out through the legislative press office merits a quick response.
The essay, which does not appear to be online, yet, expresses concern about the cost of a Constitutional Convention and about the possibility that “special interests… could hijack the convention and call for changes to the Rhode Island Constitution that actually weaken the rights of the citizens of our state.” Moreover, he says, “supporters of a Constitutional Convention… tend to also be detractors of the General Assembly.”
While considering Lally’s comments, Rhode Islanders (especially voters in Rep. Lally’s district) should note three things.
First: Lally’s Freedom Index score, from the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, was -56.6 for 2014, ranking him 73rd in the whole General Assembly. According to the interactive Freedom Index Live, Lally’s three-year average score is -60.1, which is handily the worst of any legislator from either town that he represents, including progressive stalwart Teresa Tanzi.
Second: A look at Rep. Lally’s political donors shows he’s got no problem taking money from “special interests.” Here are his top 10 donors since 2002:
It’s enough to make one wonder if Lally’s largest concern is actually that his contributors will have another option for their political donations for a couple of years.
Third: According to the Secretary of State’s candidate list for the General Assembly, Rep. Lally had no competition in his primary and has no competition in the general election in a couple of weeks.
In short, Rhode Islanders who aren’t happy with the laws that Rep. Lally has helped to put in place to weaken their rights and who fear the influence that his special-interest donors have over him have no other option than a Constitutional Convention.
At the height of election fever, let’s not lose track of the latest developments in the disturbing situation involving the Central Coventry Fire District.
The following report, on “Central Coventry Citizens Taskforce for Fire Protection” letterhead and inclusive of two contact names and phone numbers, was sent out via e-mail this afternoon. It appears that at the Monday meeting and in other venues, Governor Chafee has had no compunction in carrying out the almost certainly unconstitutional order of the General Assembly to the taxpayers of the Central Coventry Fire District: – an order that could well come to every fire district in the state: No voting; just shut up and pay.
Trends in the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Legislative Freedom Index show the unhealthy attitude of the state’s legislators.
Campaign finance filings may provide a clue showing that different candidates (often from different parties) operate in ways that might reflect where they’ve been and what they’ll do.
Justin and Bob Plain discuss the campaign for lieutenant governor and the possibility of a constitutional convention, and (in text) Justin corrects an assertion of Bob’s.
Dawson Hodgson, candidate for Rhode Island attorney general, is attempting to enforce ethics through the only system that might still work in the Ocean State — politics.
An advisory opinion from the state Ethics Commission leaves Senator Conley’s contract work for the state in an ethical gray area that ought to be resolved.
If there were an award for a Rhode Island political item beyond what anybody would make up, the first item in today’s Providence Journal Political Scene might take it.
Former state representative (and Democrat) Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, now mayor of Woonsocket, just fired former state representative (and Democrat) Jon Brien, who had been serving as the city’s part-time prosecuting attorney. Delivering the news to Brien was current state representative (and Democrat) Michael Marcello, who is the city’s solicitor. Filling the prosecutor job on an interim basis will be Thomas DeSimone, brother of current representative (and Democrat majority leader) John DeSimone.
Here’s the kicker. Asked how she settled on Mr. DeSimone as her guy, Baldelli-Hunt:
… she said she called the House speaker’s office and asked for a recommendation when she found herself on a Friday with no one to go to court for the city the following Monday, Aug. 18.
Ultimately, all that can really be said about this farce is that the people of Rhode Island voted for it.
My op-ed in today’s Providence Journal places the match of Rhode Island’s experience of the tobacco settlement money (a one-time-fix turned bad debt) on the pile of bad decisions that the state government has made in the past decade or so:
According to a review by ProPublica, Rhode Island has just refinanced some of the resulting debt, with the expectation that “the deal would shave $700 million off a $2.8 billion tab due on the bonds in 2052.” In that regard, it’s a bit like the state’s pension reform, which was marketed as salvation but merely shaved about $3 billion from $9 billion of unfunded liability.
The people who operate Rhode Island’s government are racking up quite a list of these liabilities.
My op-ed in today’s Providence Journal places the match of Rhode Island’s experience of the tobacco settlement money (a one-time-fix turned bad debt) on the pile of bad decisions that the state government has made in the past decade or so:
According to a review by ProPublica, Rhode Island has just refinanced some of the resulting debt, with the expectation that “the deal would shave $700 million off a $2.8 billion tab due on the bonds in 2052.” In that regard, it’s a bit like the state’s pension reform, which was marketed as salvation but merely shaved about $3 billion from $9 billion of unfunded liability.
The people who operate Rhode Island’s government are racking up quite a list of these liabilities.
State Senator William Conley (D, East Providence, Pawtucket) has served as legal counsel for the state Ethics Commission, but records show that he may have violated the Code of Ethics when he took additional work from the state after having been elected to office.
Whether it violates the Code of Ethics for legislators or their employers to take money from state agencies depends on the specifics of the case and requires clarification from the state Ethics Commission.
Government insiders want to do to the constitutional convention what they do to any opposition that comes their way — kill it before it can be born.
Representative Peter Palumbo isn’t the only legislator in the General Assembly whose places of business have received money from the state government. The Ocean State Current takes a look at some of the others.
Progressives and Democrats, including in their roles as members of the local news media, like to beat up on former governor Don Carcieri for things that he didn’t stop the General Assembly from doing, and sometimes that he helped legislators do. Some of things, conservatives will agree were lapses in an otherwise good eight years.
Two obvious items on that list are 38 Studios and Deepwater Wind, one that we often neglect to include is using settlement money from a tobacco lawsuit to plug budget gaps. That move was bad on principle and has thus far stood mainly as evidence that the people who govern Rhode Island aren’t serious about repairing its problems. However, Kate Nagle reports on GoLocalProv, today, that the move is coming back to haunt the state in new ways that it can ill afford:
In a report issued by ProPublica — “How Wall Street Tobacco Deals Left States With Billions in Toxic Debt” — Rhode Island is now facing $2.8 billion in debt on capital appreciation tobacco bonds due in 2052, a revelation that comes nearly sixteen years following the landmark United States tobacco settlement intended to combat the adverse impacts of smoking.
There’s another a list that Rhode Islanders might keep if it didn’t make them shudder to do so: deals and decisions that are on a path to sour our future. Think pensions and other post-employment benefits, gambling, years of transportation bonds, renewable energy mandates, and on, and on.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you government control of education:
Eva-Marie Mancuso, chairwoman of the state Board of Education, said Tuesday she was appalled that a cornerstone of the department’s high school graduation policy, one that was years in the making, was discarded by the legislature in the waning hours of the session.
“Maybe everybody should trust the professionals rather than running behind our backs and going to the legislature,” Mancuso said. …
But Rep. Gregg Amore, D-East Providence, the NECAP bill’s sponsor, said he is “shocked” by Mancuso’s misunderstanding of the graduation process. He said the waiver process was introduced because RIDE recognized that the NECAP was an inappropriate measure of student performance.
Linda Borg doesn’t mention it in her article, but Amore is a government-school teacher in East Providence, making him a bit more interested than your average well-meaning legislator. This is what our state’s schools have come to: Government officials, one appointed and one elected, the latter representing the state’s most powerful special interest, arguing about whether it’s a sign that the system did or didn’t work because school districts were able to hand out diplomas to students whom they failed to educate.
We’re so many steps from a working system that this front page story might as well be about tweens arguing who was a Bieber Belieber first.
Sen. James Sheehan uses official State House channels to issue an attack on Education Commissioner Deborah Gist and winds up illustrating the mentality that teachers unions foster.
A Providence Journal article extolling the virtues of lead-paint regulations fails to acknowledge a downside or provide context for the harm it seeks to alleviate.
A retro-liveblog formatted transcript of remarks made by Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives Nicholas Mattiello, at this Saturday’s summer meeting of the Rhode Island Taxpayers organization, on the subject of the aftermath of 38 Studios; including why the Speaker favors paying the bonds, why he opposes using his subpoenas in a House investigation, and what the public should expect at the end.
Even before I’ve managed to work through every bill that made its way through the General Assembly, this session, I’d have to say that legislators did grievous harm to the value of diplomas from Rhode Island public schools. At a minimum, the General Assembly undermined even a pitiful baseline for what the piece of paper proves and catered to the teachers’ unions to limit administrators’ (already meager) leverage in trying to get them to work harder and perform better. There’s really no question, at this point, that the brief ray of work-through-the-system education reform has effectively been blocked out.
That’s a shame, and a tragedy for students who have no choice but to go through government-branded schools in the state.
Salt in the wound is the expressed reasoning of Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello (D, Cranston):
“I became frustrated with the waiver process,” he said. “It produced inequitable results. Depending on where you lived, some communities were more liberal than others.” …
“That’s what government is supposed to do,” he said. “In a unique way, it’s supposed to serve the most humble members of our community.”
Notice that it’s Rhode Islanders, specifically students, whom the speaker sees as “humble”; it’s certainly not the legislature, whose members apparently have the massive competence to micromanage an education system serving over 100,000 children during its six-month, part-time adventure in telling other people how they must live.
Giving communities the ability to set different expectations is exactly the way to ensure that our government is representative. If one town wants to ensure that its diplomas are known far and wide to be proof of a mastery of knowledge and ability to learn, then families that prioritize such things will move there. If a city wants schools that amount to thirteen-year courses in building self-esteem, then it will produce the predictable results.
The General Assembly is not an appeals board for people dissatisfied with their communities to seek a solution that applies to the entire state. Local opposition is one of the few areas of accountability that government-branded schools actually face.
If members of the General Assembly really want to empower families to find the best opportunities for their own children, they should allow parents and guardians to choose where to direct the funds that the system sets aside for their children. It shouldn’t only be wealthier Rhode Islanders who are able to save their children from an unaccountable system that is set up mainly to preserve the high-paying jobs of teachers and the political power of unions.
Mike Stenhouse, the CEO of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity (the Current’s parent organization), testified in some strong terms against H7819, which would declare a specific structure for the state’s healthcare system and put in place the beginnings of a plan to achieve them:
“This is talk you would expect to hear come out of Communist China, not a legislative body in the United States of America,” said Stenhouse.
I would have gone with the old Soviet Union, because at the heart of the bill is a five-year plan. For readers whose secondary-school education didn’t manage to impress upon them the significance of that construct, this About.com page captures the essence:
In the name of Communism, Stalin seized assets, including farms and factories, and reorganized the economy. However, these efforts often led to less efficient production, ensuring that mass starvation swept the countryside. …
While all of these plans were unmitigated disasters, Stalin’s policy forbidding any negative publicity led the full consequences of these upheavals to remain hidden for decades. To many who were not directly impacted, the Five Year Plans appeared to exemplify Stalin’s proactive leadership.
The “health care authority” imagined in H7819 would be no different. It would work to push all healthcare spending in the state through HealthSource RI for the explicit purpose of giving government a monopolistic controlling hand.
Representative Frank Ferri (D, Warwick), who is the bill’s prime sponsor, waited until four more people had testified and Stenhouse was away from the witness table before responding.
By way of partial transcript:
What this says is, “we should come up with a five-year plan. It’s talking about a plan. A comprehensive plan.” …
So what is wrong with having a plan? It’s not a question. I just wanted to make a statement, because give us something better and work with us instead of coming here and shouting “Communism” and “death camps” or whatever it is they want to shout. Why don’t they say, “Let’s get together, and let’s work together on this.”
One thing that jumps out is Ferri’s cowardice, waiting until Stenhouse wasn’t in a position to respond… while asking rhetorical questions that could have been actual questions if Ferri had posed them at the appropriate time. There’s also a dishonesty underlying his objection. Ferri’s bill doesn’t establish a framework for everybody to get together and come up with ideas. It sets a specific policy toward which the authority is mandated to work, and it’s a dangerous one.
1. H7096/S2738: Teachers who receive a “highly effective” evaluation “shall, subsequent to such evaluation, be evaluated not more than once every four years thereafter”; teachers who receive an “effective” evaluation “shall, subsequent to such evaluation, be evaluated not more than once every three (3) years thereafter”. (S Education; Thu, Jun 19) Amongst other problems with this bill, it seems that a single evaluation of effective or better could limit a teacher to a 3 or 4 year evaluation cycle for the remainder of their career in the Rhode Island public school system.
2A. S2332: The Central Falls bankruptcy settlement initially cut a number of pensions to 55% of their original amount, though the state authorized “transition” funds, to set a floor of 75% for five years. This bill extends that floor so that for 2016, “no retiree shall receive less than” 75.6% of their pre-bankruptcy pension amount, and raises the floor over time so that it is 100% of the pre-bankruptcy amount in 20 years. Unlike a similar bill that was submitted to the House, this bill does not expressly make the state responsible for the pension. (S Finance; Thu, Jun 19) So where will the money for the difference between the 55% and the rising floor come from? The bill doesn’t say.
8. S2726: Anyone have an idea about what changing the definition of an employee from someone “employed” by an employer, to someone “suffered or permitted to work” by an employer will do? (S Labor; Thu, Jun 19)
10. S2398: The calamari bill. (S Special Legislation and Veterans’ Affairs; Thu, Jun 19)
No House Committee activity had been posted by the General Assembly, at the time of this blog-post
Legislation to create a “health care authority,” complete with a commissioner with no other duties, is an attempt to crack the door for government-run health care.