Surreal at the State House II: John Simmons Versus the Rule of Law

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During testimony before the Rhode Island House of Representatives Oversight Committee last night advocating for full payment of the 38 Studios moral obligation bonds, John Simmons of the Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council repeatedly made the point that the bond market will not recognize any difference between non-payment of moral obligation versus non-payment of general obligation debt. They will both be considered “default” by the state of Rhode Island.

Simmons stated that, based upon the bonding agreement, there was “fully an obligation of the state of Rhode Island to make the payments if the underlying transaction went under”. Representatives Spencer Dickinson and Mike Chippendale both challenged this.

Rep. Dickinson paraphrased an Economic Development Corporation bond prospectus, referring to a statement that “there’s no possible way that the state or any municipality is intended to obligate itself in the case of these bonds” (on page 35, according to the Rep). Mr. Simmons responded that he had seen similar language in other prospectuses “30, 40, 50 maybe a lot more times”. Pressed by Dickinson as to why this did not establish a clear difference between moral and general obligation bonds, Mr. Simmons read from a ratings agency statement, and said that the agency “is saying to you that it doesn’t make a difference to them if it’s GO, moral obligation or appropriation debt. If you do not pay it is default on debt. They’re giving an equal weight, in the sense of how they approach it”.

Rep. Chippendale quoted from the law that authorized the bonds…

I’m just going to read it. “The 2010 bonds and the interest thereon do not constitute a debt, liability or obligation of the state or any political subdivision thereof, and neither the faith or credit nor the taking or taxing power of the state or any political subdivision thereof is pledged to the payment of the bonds, or the interest thereon. That’s a fairly clear statement. Of course, you did address that and you said that’s fairly boilerplate…

Mr. Simmons’ reply was that…

What you have in the language is fairly standard boilerplate language on this type of debt, constant debt, this is a fairly large amount.

But a blithe dismissal of some very clear language in the bond authorization is a blithe assertion that everyone — legislators, citizens and investors — should know that the rules that the financial industry makes up for itself (and for its own benefit, by the way) can automatically override the plain text of a law. Finance industry decrees are the real final law of the land; the law made by legislatures, on the other hand, is only real to the degree that it does not conflict with the limits that financiers lay down.

This kind of system, where the people are expected to accept that there are privileged classes who can ignore the plain meaning of actual laws made by the government chosen by the representatives of the people, cannot be reconciled with the rule of law. If the best argument that John Simmons can muster about there being no difference between moral obligation and general obligation bonds is that bondholder and ratings agency decrees can override what the law says, his opinion on this aspect of repayment deserves summary dismissal.

More to come on this topic…

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Errata: Four Sets of Bills Being Heard by the House Finance Committee on May 7

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In this week’s legislative review, I inadvertently overlooked on entire agenda: the House Finance Committee agenda for Wednesday, May 7. Here’s the four sets of bills that should have been included in the regular list:

• H8039 reduces the state sales tax rate to 3%, beginning on January 1, 2015. H8033 reduces the sales tax rate to 6%, while restructuring the rules on the meals and beverage tax, the lodging tax, and the telecommunication services tax. (H Finance; Wed, May 7)

• H7208: Requires fiscal notes on legislation to be provided to committees 3 days prior to the hearing on an applicable bill. (H Finance; Wed, May 7)

•H7728: Requires that zero-based budgeting, where appropriations requests are “based upon a justification by each department head of the budget of the department from a zero base”, be implemented across all state departments by FY2018. (H Finance; Wed, May 7)

• H7350: Repeals the restriction currently in the law that “no hotel will be constructed or operated at Lincoln Park or by the then owner or operator of Lincoln Park…in close proximity to the facility”. (H Finance; Wed, May 7) For any young children reading this, “Lincoln Park” is now known as “Twin River”.

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Coming up in Committee: Twenty-Six Sets of Bills Being Heard by the RI General Assembly, May 6 – May 8

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1. H2059: Prohibits standardized testing from being used as a graduation requirement from Rhode Island high schools until after July 1, 2017. (S Education; Wed, May 7) What’s going on inside the Rhode Island’s Senate backrooms, with regards to education testing? (More detail after the jump).

2. S2030: Requires employers with 200 or more employees to apply to participate in E-verify by January 1, 2015, and all employers to apply to participate in E-verify by January 1, 2016. Employers are required to keep applying every 60 days, until they are accepted. (S Judiciary; Tue, May 6)

3. Gary Sasse and John Simmons will appear before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, May 8, to give testimony under the heading of “Analysis and discussion of determining the payment or non-repayment of moral obligation bonds relating to 38 Studios and the consequences of such choices”.

4. H7437: Writes into law in-state tuition at RI public colleges and universities for students, including illegal aliens (but not non-immigrant aliens) who graduated from a Rhode Island high school that they spent three years at, including illegal aliens who have applied for citizenship, provided that the Federal government has provides a pathway to citizenship as part of an amnesty law. (H Judiciary; Tue, May 6)

5. S2335: Eliminates tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge, replacing the anticipated revenue with a multi-part formula requiring that fixed percentages of the total state budget be annually appropriated to a “transportation infrastructure fund” and adding a temporary 5% surcharge to motor vehicle fees to help initially seed the infrastructure fund. Also, if a Federal internet sales tax is adopted, instead of the RI sales tax dropping from 7% to 6.5%, as is specified in current law, the sales tax would only drop to 6.625%, with the 0.125% difference going to the infrastructure fund. Also, creates a study commission to look at eliminating the gas tax. (S Finance; Tue, May 6)

6. H7776: State bailout of the Central Falls pension system. According to this bill…

The state is liable to the retirement system for the cost of funding a retirement system for the existing retirees of the city of Central Falls who are members of the system under this section and chapter. (H Finance; Wed, May 7)

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Why RI Languishes, in One Animation

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The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity has released its legislative scorecard and Freedom Index for the 2013 session of the General Assembly.  In summary, everything got worse.

Not a single legislator improved his or her score.  Some of them — including hard-line progressives — improved their rankings, but that was entirely because their peers did so much worse.  The story of last year’s legislative session can best be consolidated in a single animated graphic.

This shows the Freedom Index scores of all legislators for the 2012 session and then the 2013 session.  The 2012 session is the one in which there’s actually some space between legislators; the 2013 session (two seconds later) is the one that shows them moving toward consolidation down the drain.

 

By way of a quick explanation, the Center considers all bills that receive a vote in either chamber, consolidating (as best we can) companion bills to only count once.  With input from outside allies, we score the legislation on a scale from -3 to 3 in terms of freedom (mainly economic) and good government.

We then collect all of the legislators’ votes on those bills.  A “yea” gets a +1, and a “nay” gets a -1.  That way, voting against a bad bill still produces a positive score.  The index is based on a percentage of the ideal legislator (from our point of view), so the total possible range is -100 to +100.

I’d note, too, that we found more bills worth scoring in 2013 than in 2012, and there were a lot more bills that almost made the cut.

To some extent, it can be said that former House Speaker Gordon Fox (D, Providence) and Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed (D, Newport) brought more bad bills (and fewer good ones) to the floors of their respective chambers in 2013.  After all, they almost never allow votes on bills that they aren’t positive are going to pass.

But that isn’t an excuse for legislators, because (obviously) they either could have voted against the bills or prevented the bills from reaching the floor by expressing an unwillingness to vote for them.

Anybody wondering why general employment stagnation in the Ocean State turned into a downturn in the late spring and early summer, last year, should consider the above graphic as one of the factors.

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Coming up in Committee: Thirty-Two Sets of Bills Being Heard by the RI General Assembly, April 29 – May 1

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1. H7512: Eliminates the straight-party option, aka “the master lever”, from Rhode Island general election ballots. Also, H8072 eliminates the the master lever from Rhode Island general election ballots, and provides for “community outreach” in order “to educate the public, including the elderly” about how to vote without using the master lever. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)

2. H7767: Repeal of Rhode Island’s voter-ID law. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)

3. Proposed amendments to the State Constitution, that would require ratification by the voters:

• H7024: Trades an extension of Senator/Representative terms to 4 years, for a term-limit of 3 terms. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29) I’m not in favor of across the board 4 year terms for the Rhode Island General Assembly, but if they were to be implemented, shouldn’t they be staggered so roughly half the seats are up every two years?

• H7458: Reduces the number of House districts to 50, with two representatives being elected from each district, one male and one female. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)

• H7593: Unambiguously extends the jurisdiction of the State Ethics Commission to the legislature (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)

• H7594/S2420: Removes free-speech protections from any activity that involves the spending of money. (H Judiciary; Tuesday, April 29 & S Special Legislation and Veterans’ Affairs; Wed, Apr 30) The publication of newspaper editorials that offer candidate endorsements could be regulated by the government under this amendment — that is, if there’s weren’t a First Amendment to the Federal Constitution, that supersedes any attempt by Rhode Island’s governing class to limit political speech.

• S2113: Requires “Senators, representatives and general office holders [to] contribute twenty percent (20%) towards the premium for health care coverage paid for by the state of Rhode Island”. (S Special Legislation and Veterans’ Affairs; Wed, Apr 30)

• S2397: Changes the state’s current duty under Article XII to promote schools and libraries into a (judicially enforceable) “right to an adequate education”. (S Special Legislation and Veterans’ Affairs; Wed, Apr 30)

• H8014: Line item veto (including the option of line-item reductions), with the GA able to override any item through the usual process. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29) One thought here: Does a provision like this need some kind of protection, so that the GA can’t just override everything that was line-item vetoed, with a single en masse override vote?

4. S2309: Repeals the the provisions in the law allowing “deferred deposit” loans, i.e. “pay-day” loans, and that allow check-cashing businesses to automatically operate as pay-day lenders. (S Commerce; Thu, May 1) According to the official description, this is a complete repeal of pay-day lending.

5. H7263: Clarifies that existing law states that the home address of someone confined to a correctional facility, for voting purposes, is the address they had before they began serving their sentence, and creates processes to make sure this law is properly enforced. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)

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10 News Conference Wingmen, Episode 27 (Central Coventry Fire District)

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On NBC 10 Wingmen, Bob Plain and I discussed the General Assembly’s entry into the Central Coventry Fire District controversy; in this post, I add some points that I should have inserted into the segment.

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What Rhode Islanders Need To Know About the Crisis in Central Coventry, Part 2

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What is important to keep in mind here is that, unlike the mayors and city councils of cities like Central Falls and Woonsocket, fire districts do not start out from a position, under the general laws of Rhode Island, of being able to tax without direct voter approval. Fire-district levies still have to go to the voters, and it should not be assumed that empaneling a budget commission automatically negates this. A budget commission should have to submit a budget it formulates to the same voters who recently rejected the others, and re-modifying the fiscal stability act to say in effect that the union is permanent while the voters can be relegated to an advisory role (at best) is not a satisfactory solution here.

This means that the final stage built into the fiscal stability act, receivership aimed at an official bankruptcy proceeding, where everything is put on the table including the entirety of existing contracts, will be a real possibility once the state steps in. And rightly or wrongly, the realities of political pressures and “financial market forces” are that it will be much easier to send a fire district into full-blown bankruptcy than sending municipal governments has been.

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What Rhode Islanders Need To Know About the Crisis in Central Coventry, Part 1

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Superior Court Judge Brian Stern’s order liquidating the Central Coventry Fire District describes the crisis the district is in very succinctly…

The yearly operating expenses of the fire district were far in excess of the amount of funds that was being generated by taxes and other fees. The board had created what can only be described as an elaborate Ponzi scheme to hide this from the taxpayers, which resulted in a multimillion dollar structural deficit. A twenty, thirty, or even a fifty percent increase in taxes would not even resolve the entire structural deficit the board had created at the time.
Full detail on how the district got into this position, is in the main post.

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Coming up in Committee: Thirty Sets of Bills Being Heard by the RI General Assembly, April 15 – April 17

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1A. S2511: Mandates that all Rhode Islanders “obtain and maintain creditable coverage pursuant to the provisions of the Affordable Care Act enacted by the Congress of the United States”. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, Apr 15) There doesn’t appear to be an exemption for (Federal) executive-branch waivers in this bill.

1B. S2533: Creates a panel operated under the leadership of the healthcare commissioner (“referred to herein this chapter as ‘the authority'”) charged with creating a plan for making “HealthSourceRI the sole hub for securing insurance or health services coverage for all Rhode Island residents”, aggregating all medical funding for health insurance and/or health care services through HealthSourceRI, establishing “global spending targets” for the provision of healthcare, and developing a plan to pay for it all that includes a payroll tax. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, Apr 15)

2. H7285: Repeals the section of the law allowing “deferred deposit” loans, i.e. “pay-day” loans, also repealing the provisions in the law that allow check-cashing businesses to automatically operate as pay-day lenders. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 16) According to the official description, this is a complete repeal of pay-day lending.

3. H7944: Adds fire districts to the “fiscal stabilization law”, the law that allows the state to displace the elected local governments of financially distressed communities and supersede them with budget commissions and receivers. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 15) The Senate version will be heard on the floor on the same day; it looks like a budget commission, at least, for Central Coventry is coming soon.

4. H7067: Prohibits building schools anywhere in Rhode Island on the sites of former mines, but really intended to prevent construction of the new Blackstone Prep elementary school. This bill is listed under the “scheduled for consideration” portion of the agenda, which means it is very likely to be voted on, though it’s possible that an amended version will be introduced. (H Education and Welfare; Wed, Apr 16)

5. On Tuesday, April 15 the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear this year’s raft of gun-control bills. Here’s a link to the entire agenda, plus there are two gun-related bills from an earlier hearing that day, S2719 and S2720. The two most important bills in this set are:

  • S2814: Reduces the right-bear arms in Rhode Island, to a government-granted privilege, by changing the “shall issue” process by which municipalities grant concealed carry firearms permits to a “may issue” criteria.
  • S2774: Provides for information related to mental-health related involuntarily commitments to be added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) database used for conducting firearms purchase background checks.
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$5,000 – or .000022 – Worth of Sunday Morning Grins & Giggles Courtesy PolitiFact RI

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On a personal note, I’d like to sincerely thank PolitiFact RI for starting my day with a big smile this morning, though perhaps they would not be altogether pleased at the reason.

In today’s Providence Journal, they’ve rated a statement by the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity (hereinafter “the Center”) pertaining to the $224.5 million in wasteful spending identified by the Center in the governor’s proposed 2015 budget. PolitiFact is not questioning that the state gave away the $5,000 example offered by the Center of an expenditure item in the Governor’s Workforce Board from a prior year. PolitiFact is only saying that the Center did not fully explain what the $5,000 in hard earned taxpayer dollars was spent on.

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38 Studios Bonds and Default

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The 38 Studios bond buyers got an extremely high interest rate on the bonds because of the risk they took, and the state purchased insurance against the chance of default. But should we still repay the full amount of the bonds?

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Consolation Prizes for East Bay Legislators?

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The rise of East Bay representatives with the ascension to Speaker of the House of Nicholas Mattiello (D, Cranston) is an interesting development to watch. John “Jay” Edwards (D, Portsmouth, Tiverton) is now House Majority Whip.  Raymond Gallison (D, Bristol, Portsmouth) is now chairman of the House Finance Committee.

Some folks have suggested that it’s an indication that the tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge may be removed, despite Mattiello’s having been the main proponent for the tolls the night they passed the House two years ago.  In Rhode Island politics, however, explanations that work from the top down tend to be more predictive than those that work from the bottom up.  Assume that leadership’s objectives are being maneuvered, not regular members’.

Another possibility is that leadership positions are consolation prizes for the East Bay representatives.  I’ve been suggesting that the legislative fight against the tolls has been little more than a distraction dance.  For all intents and purposes, the only legislators who must fear the displeasure of the East Bay are our own, and if they are boosters of the Democrat leaders, then it makes sense for them to contrive some cover.

How many times has Buddy Cianci said that Edwards has done the “yeoman’s work” trying to stop the tolls?  And yet, the delays remain only delays.  Some firey speeches on the House floor (though Edwards never withdrew as deputy majority leader under Gordon Fox), some commission hearings, some unlikely legislation (requiring other reps to impose new taxes on their own constituents), and voila the people of the East Bay think their reps did everything they could. And now those reps are in “leadership” positions… why rock the boat?  Maybe they’ll be able to help in other ways, moving forward.

Out of ceaseless hope and optimism, I haven’t wanted to pick between these two possibilities in the past couple of weeks.  I must say, though, that news that first-time, mostly quiet Representative Dennis Canario (D, Portsmouth, Little Compton, Tiverton) has become deputy majority leader begins to sway me back toward the distraction-dance thesis.

It just feels like preparation for the election-season line that “the East Bay shouldn’t give up its big role in leadership.”

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Superman Building Bill Submitted

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The “Superman Building” bill was submitted in the Rhode Island Senate today. It is clearly a private appropriations bill…

This chapter shall establish the 111 Westminster historic redevelopment program and revolving fund. The program shall be for an amount not to exceed thirty-nine million dollars ($39,000,000), provided that the projects total QRE’s equal or exceed one hundred million five hundred thousand dollars ($100,500,000). The amount of the direct allocation to the owner shall be allocated over four (4) consecutive fiscal years in equal amounts of nine million seven hundred fifty dollars ($9,750,000), commencing with fiscal year 2015, and administered by the Rhode Island department of administration. No funds from the program shall be released until the project is placed in service.
…which should mean that it needs 2/3 of both chambers to pass, according to Article VI section 11 of the state constitution…
Section 11. Vote required to pass local or private appropriations. — The assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the general assembly shall be required to every bill appropriating the public money or property for local or private purposes.

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How Senate Judiciary Distorted the Rules on the Master Lever

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John Marion (and others) are correct that yesterday’s Senate Judiciary hearing on the master lever was an example of how rules don’t matter in the General Assembly, but I think they’re missing the larger problem (which includes elected officials’ not understanding the rules of order).

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Metts, Master Lever, and the RI Merry-Go-Round

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Yesterday, Patrick mentioned the statement of Sen. Harold Metts (D, Providence) that he supports the master lever (i.e., straight-party voting on Rhode Island’s ballots) because his constituents know what party is best for them.  As that hearing happened, I saw a number of tweets of astonishment that he would say such a thing.

But this is just the annual tradition.  Here’s a paragraph from my liveblog of the corresponding hearing back in 2012:

Senator Metts commented that his father always knew what party was for poor people and what party were for rich. (His grandparents were Republicans.) People may not know the specifics and all the complicated political things that candidates fight about, but people know which party “is going to put food on the table.”

Add it to the long list of evidence that nothing will change until Rhode Islanders start changing the people making the speeches.

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Senator Harold Metts on Master Lever

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Two things struck me today about the master lever bill and Senator Harold Metts’ words and actions. I wish I had an exact transcript but he made two comments about it that I will do my best to paraphrase and others are more than welcome to correct me if they have the exact words. He […]

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The Plan is to Let Councilman Brien Stay on the Woonsocket Budget Commission but Step Down as Council President

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2B. H7943: Replaces the town/city council president on a budget commission of a town/city that’s under one, with a member chosen by a vote of the town/city council. (H Municipal Government; Thu, Apr 10) This bill could also be described as “replaces Albert Brien on the Woonsocket Budget Commission with someone yet to be determined (at least as far as the public knows)”. People have a better case for taking to the streets shouting “It’s a coup! It’s a coup!” in response to this bill (though it would still be a stretch) than they do in response to Gordon Fox’s resignation.

A knowledgeable and trustworthy Woonsocket source heard an interview on WNRI (1380 AM) this morning with Woonsocket City Councilman Albert Brien, where this bill was explained. According to the interview, the purpose of this bill is not to move Councilman Brien off of the budget commission, it’s to allow him to keep his seat on the budget commission, while relinquishing the City Council presidency. Councilman Brien, apparently, doesn’t really want to be council president. Councilman Robert Moreau, on the other hand, does, but because he is a retired police officer, and there is a retiree lawsuit underway against the budget commission, his taking of the budget-commission seat would create a conflict-of-interest. By splitting the jobs apart, Councilmen Brien and Moreau are allowed to take on roles they’d prefer to have.

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Coming up in Committee: Twenty-Four Sets of Bills Plus One Ceremonial Resolution Being Heard by the RI General Assembly, April 8 – April 10

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1. S2091: Repeal of the master-lever, i.e. the option of using a single mark to vote for all of the candidates from one party (while ignoring non-partisan races, and creating general confusion in elect more-than-one races), from RI General election ballots (S Judiciary; Tue, Apr 8)

2A. H7944/S2778: Adds fire districts to the “fiscal stabilization law”, the law that allows the state to displace the elected local governments of financially distressed communities and supersede them with budget commissions and receivers. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 8 & S Finance; Tue, Apr 8) This is pretty obviously directed at the Central Coventry Fire district. It’s a single-sponsor bill — but the single sponsor is Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello, though it had submitted by then-Rep Mattiello before all heck broke loose at the statehouse. Also worth noting is the simultaneous-hearing fast-track the bill appears to be on.

2B. H7943: Replaces the town/city council president on a budget commission of a town/city that’s under one, with a member chosen by a vote of the town/city council. (H Municipal Government; Thu, Apr 10) This bill could also be described as “replaces Albert Brien on the Woonsocket Budget Commission with someone yet to be determined (at least as far as the public knows)”. People have a better case for taking to the streets shouting “It’s a coup! It’s a coup!” in response to this bill (though it would still be a stretch) than they do in response to Gordon Fox’s resignation.

3A. H7939: Provides for information related to mental-health related involuntarily commitments to be added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) database used for conducting firearms purchase background checks. The records sent to database will be from cases where there has been a demonstration of “clear and convincing evidence that the subject of the hearing is in need of care and treatment in a facility, and…continued unsupervised presence in the community would, by reason of mental disability, create a likelihood of serious harm”. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 8)

3B. H7587: Changes firearms permitting by local law enforcement agencies from a “shall issue” process, to a “may issue” process requiring an applicant to show a “good reason to fear an injury to his or her person or property” or another “proper showing of need”. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 8) As noted previously on this blog, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that issuing permits allowing the carrying of firearms off of private private on an exclusively “may issue” basis is violates the Constitutional right to bear arms.

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10 News Conference Wingmen, Episode 25 (Spotlight on Spending)

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Friday’s discussion on Wingmen was about the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Spotlight on Spending report.

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“Spotlight on Spending” Report: Where Have You Been All of My (Political, Taxpaying) Life?

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Fine, tell me I need to get a life. But it is not an exaggeration to say that the “Spotlight On Spending” report compiled by the R.I. Center for Freedom & Prosperity and released Tuesday made my year.

Rhode Island currently has the eight highest local and state tax burden. While this is up from sixth highest, it is clear that we continue to spend beyond our means and our ability. Yet we’ve been told repeatedly – sometimes explicitly (thank you, Rep Tanzi); usually more subtly by the substance of the budget itself that emerges from the end of the legislative session – that there is nothing left in the state budget to cut. The “Spotlight On Spending” report resoundingly contradicts this.

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A Testing Notification Bill Passes a Semi-Present Senate Committee

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Yesterday evening, the Senate Education committee passed a high-school testing bill which, as a result of the amendment process, is substantially different from the bill originally introduced.

The original bill placed a permanent prohibition on the use of standardized testing as a graduation requirement. The amended bill assumes that a “state assessment requirement for graduation from high school” will be in place, and defines procedures for notifying parents and students that assessment requirements are in danger of not being met, and for informing the governor and the executive branch of various test-related results.

The bill passed by a 6-0 vote of the Education Committee with 6 members absent, but only reached 6 votes with the help of the Senate President and Majority Leader adding their two ex-officio “yes” votes to four “yes” votes from regular committee members — to state the obvious here, this means that only four of ten regular committee members showed up to vote on a potentially important bill.

I will point out here that you cannot come to the conclusion that a quorum was present at the committee hearing with a simple answer of “ex-officio members do count towards a quorum” [only 6 of 12 members present] or “ex-officio members don’t count towards a quorum” [only 4 of 10 members present]; you only get to a quorum for last night’s vote by saying that ex-officio members do count when determining how many members are present, but don’t count when determining how many people need to be present.

For reference, here what Roberts’ Rules has to say about ex-officio committee members and quorums…

If the ex-officio member is under the control of the society, there is no distinction between him and the other members except where the president is ex-officio member of all committees, in which case it is evidently the intention to permit, not to require, him to act as a member of the various committees, and therefore in counting a quorum he should not be counted as a member.

Like most parliamentary procedure rules, this one is grounded in solid principle; the principle to consider here is whether committees should be passing bills, dependent on ex-officio votes, when a majority of regular members can’t be bothered to show up or may have decided to avoid a difficult issue.

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Possible Spotlight on Spending Error Makes the Point Better

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Randal Edgar’s Providence Journal front-page article on the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s Spotlight on Spending report (which is much better than the article featured on the paper’s Web site, last night) raises another small-dollar item from another year that we used as an example:

Preserve Rhode Island questioned the assertion that a $3,000 Certified Local Government Grant to the town of Bristol to “produce a smart-phone application to guide visitors” through the town’s historic areas had led to downloads by only about 100 people.

“The Bristol Walking Tour project is only in the planning stage; no walking tour smart-phone application has been developed,” the group said.

As we wrote in the introduction to the report, government spending is so massive and difficult to trace that it would be impossible for interested citizens to assess it without a little margin for error, and in this case, we may have been incorrect to think that the Bristol community app featuring a “historic walking tour” released at the end of the 2013 fiscal year was the one for which taxpayers paid during the 2013 fiscal year.

If it was an error, though, I wish we hadn’t made it mostly because the reality serves our point even better, for three reasons:

  1. We paid $3,000 in FY13 for an app, and as we approach the end of FY14 (and the tourist season), it isn’t even in development, yet, but still in planning? I’d say that’s clearly “non-essential spending.”
  2. If the app that we highlighted in the report was entirely funded by private organizations, why is the government (much less the state government) getting involved at all (much less to produce a duplicate product)?
  3. As phrased, Preserve RI was contesting our characterization of the number of users of the app. Does anybody really think that an app produced by the government and with a much narrower scope than the one we described would actually do better?
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Spotlight on Spending Illuminates Priorities

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A new report from the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity should convince Rhode Islanders that government officials’ priorities are what they fund, and there’s plenty of room to adjust those priorities.

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Coming up in the Relevant House and Senate Education Committees: Banning Standardized Testing as a Graduation Requirement Forever*

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Other 1. H7672/S2185: Prevents a standardized assessment, and possibly any statewide assessment, from ever* being used as a graduation requirement. (H Health, Education and Welfare; Wed, Apr 2 & S Education; Thu, Apr 3)

S2185 was heard in the Senate Education Committee last week, as one of three possible alternatives for postponing/prohibiting standardized testing as a graduation requirement. It’s definitely the prohibit-not-postpone bill, and is the only bill of the three that’s been called back. It’s listed on the Education committee agenda as “scheduled for consideration”, which means there is a very strong likelihood it will be voted on.

If it is eventually passed by the entire Senate, the question will of course become what will the new House leadership (including new House Majority Leader and old Providence Teachers’ Union legal counsel John DeSimone) do with it.

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Coming Up in the House Municipal Government Committee on Thursday, April 3: Replacing the Central Coventry Fire District

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1. H7906: Establishes a new fire district (the Main Fire District) to replace the Central Coventry Fire District, subject to approval by the voters of the former CCFD. (H Municipal Government; Thu, Apr 3)

The Central Coventry Fire District was ordered liquidated by Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Brian Stern on February 24. The firefighters union had originally planned a lawsuit to try to prevent this, but on Friday, Erica Ponte of WPRI-TV (CBS 12) reported…

Firefighter’s Union president Dave Gorman says the union has agreed to hold off on pursuing its lawsuit, pending legislation proposals which may allow the state to appoint a budget commission to oversee fire district finances.

The legislation sought by the union is needed becasue Rhode Island’s fiscal stabilization law enabling the state to take over cities and towns (in stages) via a budget commission and receiver, currently does not extend to fire districts. S2778, not yet scheduled for a hearing, is the bill that would change this.

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10 News Conference Wingmen, Episode 24 (New House Speaker)

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Justin and Bob Plain discuss the new speaker of the Rhode Island House.

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Coming up in Committee: Twenty-Six Sets of Bills Being Heard by the Rhode Island General Assembly, April 1 – April 3

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3. On Wednesday, April 2, the House Finance Committee will hear a raft of bills on state income tax changes:

  • H7207: Subtracts “amounts deemed taxable income to the taxpayer due to payment or provision of social security benefits” from adjusted gross income for calculating state income tax.
  • H7418: Exempts from the Rhode Island income tax “any individual who has reached full retirement age as defined by the Social Security Administration” .
  • H7423: Exempts from the Rhode Island income tax the first “$15,000 per year of income paid to an individual by a retirement plan qualified as such under federal law” .
  • H7471: Adds a 8% tax-bracket for incomes over $250,000
  • H7552: Adds a 10% tax-bracket for individual incomes over $200,000/married couple (filing jointly) incomes over $250,000.
  • H7424: Allows teachers to claim a $250 tax-credit on their Rhode Island income tax “for any amount spent purchasing supplies and equipment, for use in the performance of their teaching duties”.

3B. H7429: Phases back in the former $6,000 car-tax exemption. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 2)

4. H7623 requires at least 15% of the work done on public works contracts of a million dollars or more to be done by apprentices. H7697 changes a current requirement that contractors working on public works contracts of a million dollars or more employ apprentices to a much milder requirement that “all specifications in any invitations to bid in any public works contract awarded by the state valued at ten million dollars or more shall include a notice that all bidders responding to an invitation to bid on a public works project may employ apprentices for apprenticeable crafts”. H7964 makes clear the Federal rules override state rules regarding apprenticeship requirements on state contracts of a million dollars or more. (H Labor; Tue, Apr 1)

5.S2388: Prohibits law enforcement officers or state/local government officials from inquiring about the immigration status or social-security numbers of complainants and witnesses involved in law enforcement/judicial processes. (S Judiciary; Tue, Apr 1)

6. H7818: $75 million bond referendum, to be used “to produce an additional supply of housing units at rents affordable to families working at or near minimum wage”, “to produce additional housing for individuals with disabilities to be coupled with services and case management” and “to provide grants to local communities for renovation, demolition, and homeownership opportunities in neighborhoods designated for revitalization”. (H Finance; Tue, Apr 1)

7. H7066: Bases car-tax assessments on trade-in instead of retail value. (H Finance; Wed, Apr 2)

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When CNN Cares About State Legislators

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Glenn Reynolds links to a Breitbart Big Journalism post reporting that CNN has defended its failure to cover an alleged gun-running California Democrat’s travails based on its practice of never covering state-level politicians. Glenn notes that a search of the CNN Web site produces plenty of stories about a silly comment from his (ahem, Republican) state senator.

Rhode Island can do him one better.

Our Democrat (just-now former) Speaker of the House, Gordon Fox, experienced a multi-federal-agency raid on his home and State House office. And I have to confess that a search of CNN’s Web site on his name does, in fact, produce a story.

Only… it’s a 2010 story titled “Rhode Island House speaker kills immigration bill.” Basically, the story is crediting Fox for toeing the line that “immigration matters are best handled at the federal level.”

Maybe if state-level Democrats were targeted for corruption probes or running guns in order to advance the causes of illegal immigration or abortion, rather than for crass person gain, then CNN would see its way clear to celebrating them for risking it all for the cause.

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Making the Worlds Collide

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There are practical steps to make the legislature reform itself (with or without rules changes), but Rhode Islanders and their direct representatives will have to prove their interest.

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The General Assembly in Multiple Dimensions

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People inside and outside of Rhode Island government really do live in alternate universes, and it’s up to the people to make their representatives admit it.

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