Block: It Is Time to Modernize – RI Needs to Adopt Line-Item Veto Now
Monday, March 15, 2021
Rhode Island has a new Speaker of the House and a new Governor. This is a moment in time that is ripe for a big nod towards good government. The time is ripe to bring the line-item veto to Rhode Island.
The line-item veto is a budgetary check and balance that exists in 44 other states, including our next-door neighbors Massachusetts and Connecticut. The veto allows a governor to delete a specific spending line from a budget, subject to the legislature’s override vote.
The Rhode Island House of Representatives has fought hard against the veto since 2014, when a concerted effort began to bring the veto to Rhode Island. Polling shows that a clear majority of Rhode Islanders (more than 60%) want the line-item veto. Members of the House have been at odds with the desires of their constituents when it comes to the line-item veto.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTFormer Speaker Nicholas Mattiello leaned hard on his members to kill the line-item veto for the six years he was Speaker. Mattiello went so far as to create a sham ‘study commission’ to consider the veto. That monumental waste of time included lengthy presentations of history going back to the middle ages. When the time came for the public to testify, there was near-unanimous public support for the veto. The main opposition came from lobbyists. That tells you everything you need to know, doesn’t it?
Based on my many conversations with legislators over the years, it is clear to me that the line-item veto would pass a floor vote if one were held.
This is the year.
I ask Speaker Shekarchi and Senate President Ruggerio to do one simple thing: bring the line-item veto bill to the chamber floor for a vote that would allow the public in the 2022 election to choose whether or not to amend our constitution to implement a line-item veto. A thoroughly thought-out version of the line-item veto has been filed every year for the last four years. It is very similar to the version of the line-item veto that works so well in Massachusetts. That bill is the one to pass.
Every year some terrible budget excesses come to light, many of which emanate from the opaque budget process under which our state spends more than $10 billion per year. It is time to bring more transparency to Rhode Island’s budget process.
Governments should be transparent. Rhode Island cannot afford to be a good government outlier like it is now when it comes to the line-item veto.
The only roadblock to this reform is institutional. The legislature itself is responsible for keeping Rhode Island’s budget process opaque and denying the public the line-item veto. The legislature is completely out of step with the voters.
So, please, Speaker Shekarchi, do the right thing. Let’s move our state together towards a more transparent future with the line-item veto’s budgetary check and balance. Please??
You, dear reader, can help bring the line-item veto to Rhode Island. Please visit www.lineitemveto.org to send an email to your elected leaders asking them to do the right thing and bring the veto to Rhode Island.
Ken Block is the Chairman of WatchdogRI.
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