Let’s Slow Down There, Mr. Speaker

I will admit that I like a few of the things coming from new House Speaker Mattiello. He says he’s pro-business and pro-jobs (is anyone on the record as being anti-business?), but it’s a good start. I’ve long thought the #1 priority of the Assembly needs to be improving the RI economy with who knows what as a distant second. I’m on board with the speaker there. But so far, in his admittedly only three days on the job, those are words and we will need to see what actions he can put in place.

I’m interested in hearing as much as I can about what his plans are and RIPR’s Ian Donnis had him as a guest on the Political Roundtable. In reading through Ian’s writeup of the interview, a couple things stuck out to me.

First, we previously heard Mattiello say that he wants to give the power back to the body of the House. He wants the House to be run by its members. But in Ian’s article, I see multiple references to “I” and the amount of time in the Assembly session. Such as when he was asked about the master lever legislation:

“That’s going to be something that I’m going to try to give consideration. Once again, unfortunately, time constraints. But there seems to some public support for that. Now that I’m speaker, I’m going to give it a little more attention.”

I don’t understand. Why not simply give the issue to the appropriate committee, let them do their work on it and get it to the House floor. Isn’t that what he meant by letting the House members do the work?

And again in regard to taking up ethics bills:

The new speaker offered this answer when asked if the House will vote this session in favor of restoring the state Ethics Commission’s oversight of the General Assembly: “Not sure. That’s going to be something we have to take a look at. I’m not sure if I’m going to have time to even consider that.”

What’s with the “I’m not sure I’m going going have time to even consider that.”? Give it to the committee, let them do their work, if it passes out of committee, it goes to the House floor. Why does he need the time to consider it? He wants to give the power back to the House members, so do it. Actions over words, Mr. Speaker.

And finally, the topic of line item veto:

The speaker opposes giving a line item veto to the governor, he says, because it would “dilute the interest of the Assembly. Just have the governor write it [the budget] and pass it and give it to the taxpayers. Why do you need the Assembly involved at that point?”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is exactly how the separation of powers is supposed to work! Right now, the governor submits a budget and the House can do virtually anything it wants with it. The governor can of course veto it, but I don’t remember the last time a veto on the budget was sustained. Giving the governor the ability to line-item veto parts of bills, and especially in the budget, will restore some power to the governor’s office. The General Assembly will still have the ability to override a veto, no one is looking to take that away. The line item veto would allow for removing things that could get put in a budget simply because we know the budget must pass.

Speaker Mattiello, please back up your words to give the power back to the members of the House and let them do their job. Let them vet bills and decide whether they should go to the House floor for a vote. Go ahead and take your time with what you think you need to focus on but let others do their work too. And give that line-item veto idea another thought. It’s good government, and good government is what Rhode Island needs right now.

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