Arlene Violet: General Assembly Democrats No Different Than Congressional Republicans

Arlene Violet: General Assembly Democrats No Different Than Congressional Republicans

Apparently, Lapdog disease has infected Congressional Republicans and General Assembly Democrats.

That disease prevents even a yelp from a politician for the most blatant violations of citizens’ rights. The Republicans in Congress, except for a few, hide their heads in their dog bowls as they slop up campaign contributions and Trump endorsements despite violations of the Constitution. 

Nary a burp emanates from them as they look at the attacks on the Freedom of the Press, the institution of a war without their consent,  the politization of the Justice Department to go after political opponents and to fund $1.6 billion dollars for a fund for folks who bashed in the heads of security folks on January 6 and while giving a lifelong “pardon” to the Trumps for present and future tax returns, no matter how blatant the tax dodging is.  With a pat on the head from dog officer Trump, the solons allowed the gutting of affordable health care, the passage of legislation that made the rich richer and the poor poorer, and the steady attack on judges who dare to uphold the Constitution.

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It’s no wonder that the lapdog disease has spread in Rhode Island. Nary a growl emanates from the chihuahuas in the General  Assembly as they fortify the public education system without any changes or competition. Rhode Island ranks among the highest spending states on a per-pupil basis in the United States, without much to show for it, with the testing of 4th and 8th-grade students mired in low reading and math scores.  Instead, these legislators opted for continued mediocrity by passing a 3-year ban on new charter schools.

Yet, demand for charter schools outstrips their supply by a 10-to-1 margin, with some 30,000 plus applications for the 3,170 seats now available.  The legislators also rejected a proposed amendment by Republican Senate Minority Leader Jessica Cruz that would have protected a bilingual charter school for grades K-12  that had already won preliminary approval from the state education office, and which would have provided education to 600 new students. So much for the Democrats’ commitment to minorities and the perception of dastardly state Republicans who don’t care about them.

The legislature sent the bill to  Governor Dan McKee, who made his bones as Cumberland Mayor and then Governor in 2021 by staunchly defending charter schools. He had a chance to maintain his legacy, but instead, like the Republicans in Congress, he opted for his political survival at the expense of the people. He signed the ban to curry favor with the teachers’ union for his upcoming primary.  The legislation also capped the number of charter schools. Competition just got thrown out the window.

These same Rhode Island lawmakers also blocked the Governor from opting into President Trump’s controversial school choice program, which is slated to allow public money to go toward private school tuition across the Country next year. In effect, it is a voucher program, but it promises to have assistance for public school children as well. Here’s the catch: The General Assembly blocked access to this upcoming program even though the rules for the program won’t be available until this fall. In other words, the Assembly blocked participation without any information on how it would also benefit public school children.  

This program is a tax credit program where private citizens can redirect up to $1700 of their federal income taxes to a scholarship organization, which would issue grants to children for private tuition, tutoring, after-school programs, and technology costs.

Democrat Susan Donovan led the frontal attack on this program by asserting that public funds will be diverted away from public schools and that these schools are beyond public oversight and could lead to fraud, waste, and abuse.  Such has not been the history in Rhode Island,  but you probably want to get your hands on the same crystal ball that  Representative Donovan has in order to know this before the regulations are public. As former Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, who is a member of Democrats for Education Reform, recently wrote, ”It’s such a no-brainer that every state should participate. The decision is: do we want our dollars to leave the state and go to the US Treasury, where they will be spent on Donald Trump’s priorities, or do we want money, potentially hundreds of millions of dollars, to stay in the state”?  

I know how I would answer that question. And you?