Published Fri Jan 24 2020 21:29:18 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

by Ian Donnis

Question of the Week: Can a powerful but obscure legislative committee become grist for the mill of reform? With that in mind, thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. As usual, your tips and comments are welcome, and you can follow me through the week on the twitters. Here we go.

1) While RI House GOP Leader Blake Filippi says his lawsuit against House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello is based on the merits, the legal case is going to unfold in what happens to be an election year for state lawmakers. During a news conference Thursday, Filippi said the objective of the lawsuit is to stop Mattiello (and his eventual successors) from single-handedly executing decisions for the five-member Joint Committee on Legislative Services, the hiring and spending arm of the legislature. Filippi said the lawsuit, filed in Superior Court by former GOP Chairman Brandon Bell, could expose wrongdoing involving JCLS, long operated with disproportionate influence by a string of speakers. Mattiello fired back, accusing Filippi of politicizing the issue and holding back on a probe long sought by Republicans. On the same day when the lawsuit was filed, the speaker cancelled his request for state Auditor General Dennis Hoyle to perform an audit of the RI Convention Center Authority. Mattiello declined to specify his precise reason for seeking the audit, but he said the request was justified based on information he received. (As WPRI first reported, the timing coincided with the disciplining of a friend of the speaker’s, James Demers, who works at the Convention Center.) Filippi says Republicans will press ahead with their lawsuit even with the scrapping of the audit. While the outcome of the case remains unclear, it (perhaps with the Jeff Britt case) threatens to place a spotlight on the inner workings of the General Assembly as lawmakers gear up and run for re-election.

2) It's not every lawmaker who is a lawyer and organic cattle farmer with a strong libertarian streak and whose father ran a landmark Providence jazz club. Suffice it to say, Blake Filippi has had an interesting profile since he first emerged as an independent candidate for state representative from Block Island in 2014. In the time since, Filippi became a Republican and a deputy to House GOP Leader Patricia Morgan before succeeding Morgan in November 2018. But Filippi charted an entirely new course this week by eviscerating his previously cordial relationship with Speaker Mattiello. He also won plaudits across the ideological spectrum by calling out an ‘Order of Merit’ awarded (to Morgan) by President Trump and the Republican National Committee. “In this country we don’t pledge our ‘undying commitment’ to individuals or political parties,” Filippi tweeted. “We pledge it to the Constitution and the rule of law.” In previous interviews, the House GOP leader has downplayed his level of interest in running for governor in 2022. But the Republican bench in Rhode Island is on the thin side, and Filippi’s bold moves this week suggest, at minimum, that the GOP is taking a more aggressive stance for the 2020 election year, in a way that sets it apart from President Trump. Asked if his recent steps point toward a gov run, Filippi tells me, “No. Our caucus’ actions are to uphold the rule of law and we will not back down until this is permanently fixed.”

3) Last year, the 'Reform Democrats' who didn't support another leadership term for Speaker Mattiello in January wound up voting for the speaker’s budget in June. Does the more aggressive posture of the House GOP, combined with the ongoing concerns of some House Democrats (not to mention Gov. Gina Raimondo’s lawsuit against the legislature over marijuana regulations, and fallout from the Republicans’ JCLS lawsuit) change the dynamic this year, or are the critics too few in number to make a real impact?

4A) In the aftermath of the audit controversy, Speaker Mattiello said he believes regular audits for the state’s quasi-public agencies would be a good idea. He became speaker in 2014, so I asked Mattiello why he didn’t surface this concept sooner. His response: “Never gave it much thought, but I think they all have to have a regular audit time frame. And we’re going to put some legislation in this year to in fact do that. You address one issue at a time. You can’t address every issue every year and I’ve, quite frankly, just never thought of it. But they’re governmental agencies -- they’re independent -- but they utilize and spend tax dollars and they have to be accountable to the taxpayer.”

4B) Meanwhile, during a House GOP caucus news conference at the Statehouse on Thursday, I asked why Republicans didn't pick a fight sooner over JCLS, considering how various speakers have used the committee largely as a fiefdom (and barely held meetings) for years. Rep. Brian Newberry of North Smithfield, who preceded Patricia Morgan as Republican leader in the House, offered this response: “Most of what JCLS does is not controversial. It’s run of the mill operational stuff. You should have meetings for appearance sake -- I’ve always thought that. But most of it’s done informally because we’re all in the building [at the Statehouse]; we can talk to folks. It’s not really an issue. When issues do arise, they have in the past, you probably already know about them. They get worked out.” Since Republicans are the minority in the legislature, “There are fights you pick in politics and fights you don’t pick. What happened here was there’s an allegation, a very public allegation. We didn’t bring it out. It came out in the press. And I’m not saying it’s true or not -- I don’t know. But the allegation out there is the speaker is using the JCLS and the auditor general, a public function of the state, paid for by state tax dollars, for his personal political retribution and clearly in violation of the law. There’s no doubt about that. So if we don’t act, we are acquiescing in that, and we simply are not going to do that. That is the fundamental difference now between the past.”

5) Gov. Gina Raimondo contends it's too soon to consider DOA the parts of her budget already scorned by Speaker Mattiello and President Ruggerio, including her concept for state-run marijuana shops and a slowdown of the car tax phaseout. “A few years ago, I put in tolls,” she noted on Political Roundtable this week. “They said it was dead on arrival. We have tolls. Last year, the speaker insisted -- no new compassion centers; they approved six new compassion centers. The point of government, you know, one person shouldn't have all the power. The people of Rhode Island have been crystal clear about what they want. They want line-item veto on the ballot. They want better roads and bridges. They want more job training, they want better schools. So let's do our job and invest in proven successes that allow Rhode Islanders to have opportunity.” In an ongoing display of the more combative stance she’s taken toward the General Assembly, Raimondo repeated how she might back legislative challengers later this year or even veto the entire budget “if they give me a budget that I think is bad for Rhode Island, puts jobs at risk, puts prosperity at risk.”

6) Speaking earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse faulted Senate Republicans for what he called “a partisan forced march to a pre-determined outcome.” Writing at National Review, Rich Lowry says that Democrats should consider their impeachment effort carefully: “If Trump were actually convicted, the 2020 election would proceed under a cloud of illegitimacy. Tens of millions of Trump voters wouldn’t accept the result. They’d see it as an inside job to deny the incumbent president a chance to run for reelection, without a single voter having a direct say. The GOP would be brought to its knees by internal bloodletting, a prospect that Democrats surely would welcome, especially given that it would deliver them the presidency. Republicans would be out for revenge, and instead of a halcyon return to normalcy, our politics would be even more poisonous than before.”

7) Although Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in her 2016 race with President Trump, Gov, Raimondo believes that a male candidate will give Democrats a better chance of reclaiming the White House. “It's just harder for women to be the chief executive,” Raimondo said on Bonus Q&A. “People, unfortunately, there's still a double-standard. I think you see it with Amy Klobuchar, who is a very capable candidate and barely cracking 3 percent in most states. I would like to say yes, I would like to say yes, and of course, anything is possible. And Elizabeth [Warren] is a formidable, talented woman. But there is a double-standard. It's harder for a woman to be the boss, the top job, not going to senate but to be the chief executive. I worry that we still have a way to go.”

8) Amid growing attention on the housing issue in Rhode Island, the RI Association of Realtors reported this week that the median sales price for single-family homes reached $285,000. While rising costs and limited housing growth pose challenges, Realtors President Shannon Boss offered this perspective: “Yes, prices are rising but when taking the pulse of the housing market, it’s important to remember that prices had fallen drastically following the boom of the earlier part of this century and it’s taken us some time to fully catch up. In fact, 2019 was just the second consecutive year following the housing boom and subsequent downturn, in which a median-priced, single-family home sold for more than it had ten years earlier. We’re back to where we should be, seeing good, but not exaggerated gains in equity.”

9) Although Rhode Island lawmakers passed a bill last year to guarantee abortion rights, the situation is quite different in some other states. As Julie Rovner reports for NPR, “People on both sides of the furious debate say this could be the year when everything changes. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear its first abortion case since Justice Brett Kavanaugh replaced Anthony Kennedy, who had been the swing vote on abortion cases. A decision is expected by summer. The case, June Medical Services v. Gee, challenges a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. It's a reprise of a case decided in 2016, when a five-vote majority (including Kennedy's) struck down a similar Texas law in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. On Jan. 2, more than 200 Republican members of the House and Senate filed a brief in the Gee case urging the justices to use it to overturn Roe once and for all. ‘Forty-six years after Roe was decided, it remains a radically unsettled precedent,’ the brief said. And the 1992 case that reiterated a curtailed right to abortion, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, did not help, the members argued. ‘Casey clearly did not settle the abortion issue, and it is time for the Court to take it up again.’ But many legal scholars say the court is far more likely to rule narrowly in the case than to use it to overturn Roe and/or Casey, because that's what the Supreme Court tends to do.”

10A) Via RI Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea's office, here’s the latest on which candidates are on track to qualify (with the collection of 1,000 signatures) for the Ocean State’s presidential preference primary on April 28: Democrat: Deval Patrick; Andrew Yang; Tulsi Gabbard; Bernie Sanders; Tom Steyer; Amy Klobuchar; Elizabeth Warren; John Kevin Delaney; Michael Bennet; Joseph R. Biden; Pete Buttigieg; Michael Bloomberg. Republican: Roque ‘Rocky’ De La Fuente; Bill Weld; Donald Trump; Darius La’Ron Mitchell.

10B) The RI Democratic Party is staging a series of workshops for those who wants to learn more about the DNC in Milwaukee later this year and how to run for one of the delegate slots: Feb. 13, 6 p.m.-7:30 p.m., R.I. Indian Council, 807 Broad St., Providence; Tuesday, Feb. 18, 6 p.m.-7:30, p.m.. Rogers Free Library, 525 Hope St., Bristol; Monday, February 10, 6 pm-7:30 pm. East Greenwich Public Library, 82 Peirce St., East Greenwich; Thursday, Feb. 20, 6-7:30 pm, Pawtucket Public Library, 13 Summer St., Pawtucket. For more details, see the RI Democrats' gude on delegate selection.

10C) Via Aaron Regunberg, a supporter of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign: “A week after Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign moved a fundraiser scheduled to be held at The Dark Lady, a premier gay bar in Providence, because of a dancer pole at the establishment, local Bernie Sanders supporters announced a Sanders signature gathering event at the Dark Lady. The event, on Friday, January 24th from 7-9pm, will feature a drag show from local performer and activist Naomi Chomsky. Naomi said, ‘I am happy to back a candidate who respects, fights for, and supports the whole working class whether they work in an office, a coffee shop, or dance on a pole.’ ‘We are thrilled to support the Dark Lady and RI's LGBTQIA+ community and welcome everyone to join us to help put Bernie on the RI ballot,’ said Jeanine Calkin, an organizer of the event and founder of Rhode Island for Bernie Sanders."

11) Via Sam Howard: “If we actually want to make politicians more responsive to their constituents, we need ways to promote people running for office. The threat of election needs to be present at every step of their career. We could accomplish that by doing things like making it easier to form political parties or removing the signature requirement to run for office. We could allow child care to be paid for with campaign funds. We could increase legislative pay so it’s worthwhile to be a legislator for someone who isn’t a retiree, a teacher, or a lawyer. There certainly places where it fails, but the current system is currently more effective at removing people from office than term limits would be, and with fewer of the negative effects term limits bring. And it’s a lot easier to reform it into a better system.”

12) If you want generally anxiety-provoking news, followed by some feel-good stuff to let you down easy, watch World News Tonight with David Muir. If you want to be a well-informed citizen, you might enjoy the PBS NewsHour. Rest in Peace, Jim Lehrer, who helped to make the NewsHour what it is. Here’s an excerpt from one tribute: “The nine tenets that governed his philosophy included the assumption that ‘the viewer is as smart and caring and good a person as I am,’ that ‘there is at least one other side or version to every story,’ that separating ‘opinion and analysis from straight news stories’ must be done clearly and carefully, and last but not least: ‘I am not in the entertainment business.’ ”

13) Not to sour your weekend, but the Doomsday Clock, operated by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, has moved closer to metaphorical doom, due to the threat posed by nuclear proliferation and climate change.

14) Kudos & congrats to Josh Block, hard-working press secretary for Gov. Raimondo, and his fiancée, Alice Berenson, a second-year medical student at UMass Medical School, on their engagement. The couple met after being introduced by mutual friends while living in Boston in 2016.

15) Meet Dorothy Day - the woman who combined traditional Catholicism with radical politics.

16) If you like politics and books, put this Bristol event in March on your calendar (thanks to Chris Vitale for sending this along): “Online registration opens Friday, January 24, for the inaugural Bristol BookFest, a free two-day public humanities program on March 27-28 that takes a close look at Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, probably the best novel about American politics ever written. Speakers include the legendary Texas political consultant George C. Shipley and the country’s two leading Robert Penn Warren scholars: Ernest Suarez of The Catholic University of America and John Burt of Brandeis University. Joining them are film historian Alexandra Keller of Smith College and Bristol-based historian Charles Calhoun. "We're excited to offer the community an intellectually challenging event that brings together serious general readers and a really big book," said BookFest co-founder Calhoun. Warren's 600-page novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947, tells the story of the rise and fall of Willie Stark, a charismatic politician based on the real-life populist demagogue Huey Long of Louisiana, assassinated in 1935. 'We're going to ask George what advice he would have given Stark had he lived to run against FDR,' Calhoun said.

17) So you think La Cosa Nostra -- once a dubious source of local pride for some when the New England branch was headquartered in Providence -- is a pale imitation of its former self? Not so much in Italy. As author Alex Perry tells Slate, “The ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, is actually the mafia that you’ve never seen pictured in a movie, or really in any books. For the same reason, it’s more powerful than it’s ever been. It was actually kind of a revelation to me—and I thought I knew something about the world—[to learn] quite how powerful it is. It’s an enterprise that draws in somewhere between $50 [billion] and $100 billion a year. It smuggles 70 percent of the cocaine in Europe. It runs arms all around the world. It embezzles tens of billions from the European Union and the Italian government. All that activity requires a secondary industry of money laundering. So good has it become at money laundering, and its penetration of the financial market, that other major organized crime groups ask the ’Ndrangheta to wash their

cascash as well.”







