Side of the Rhode: Who’s Hot and Who’s Not in RI Politics?

Friday, July 01, 2011

Dan McGowan, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

 

Who’s Hot

Angel Taveras -> Nobody has had a better couple week than the Providence Mayor, who appears to be only a few loose ends (on the teacher contract) away from having worked out agreements with every major union in his city. The Mayor also watched both the Police Chief and Superintendent of Schools leave this week, giving him more of an opportunity to select his own people for those jobs.

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Helio Melo -> The House Finance Chairman ends the budget year as one of the most popular politicians in the state on either side of the aisle. This week he was praised by both Democrats and Republicans for constructing a budget deemed to be fair for most groups of people. Sure it has its flaws, but if in fact the General Assembly was able to balance its budget without a massive tax hike, then kudos to Melo on a job well done.

David Cicilline -> Credit where credit is due. The freshman Congressman is pushing for an acceleration in President Obama’s timeline for bringing troops home from Afghanistan. People have every right to question how he handled his final two years as Mayor of Providence and that will undoubtedly play a major role in his campaign next year, but the Congressman deserves praise for doing everything a first term Rep. in the minority party can do down in Washington.

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RI Tea Party -> Think these guys aren’t for real? Ask any union rep. that was doing everything they can to get binding arbitration passed at the General Assembly this week. The Tea Party proved to be well-organized in getting their message out both through the media and through online campaigns. This might just be the number one group to keep an eye on heading into 2012.

East Providence City Council -> Kudos to this council for passing a resolution in support of the Neighborhood Opportunities Program. Obviously it doesn’t mean much, but it shows the folks in East Providence at least understand that the General Assembly was dead wrong to cut funding to this valuable program.

Karen MacBeth -> One of the most impressive State Reps coming out of recent budget hearings, MacBeth appears to be a legislator that gets it. She’s probably not leadership’s favorite, but MacBeth was consistently a source for strong opinions over the past week and did a nice job creating buzz around the sales tax expansion that includes trips on the Polar Express tour.

New York -> New York legalized same-sex marriage before Rhode Island. Enough said.

Who’s Not

Robert Flanders -> Deservedly drawing some heat this week for closing a library and a community center in Central Falls. Look, we all know the city is in shambles, but as someone appointed to try and get it back on track, isn’t there any other way to save a little cash than stripping away such precious parts of the community?

Theresa Paiva Weed -> The Senate President put a lot of her colleagues in a difficult position regarding binding arbitration only to have it fail to even make it out of committee on the House side. Other than being livid at House Speaker Gordon Fox, you have to wonder if Paiva Weed regrets pushing so aggressively for a piece of legislation that is going make some of her fellow Senators targets in the next election cycle.

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Bishop Tobin -> Rhode Island remains one of the only states where our bishop is more powerful than any of the elected officials. Still, at least the Senate realized civil unions (while totally flawed) are a step in the right direction, even if it means they’re going to be receiving the old “you’re going to hell” crank calls from Tobin.

PriMedia -> Kudos to the bipartisan effort to repeal an agreement that essentially gave PriMedia a monopoly over state media buys. This would have truly damaged a lot of small ad firms in the state and it’s nice to see the General Assembly stand up the little guy for a change.

Providence School Committee -> You have to wonder what the Providence School Board thinks of Mayor Taveras now. At least a handful of the committee members supported him during his campaign, but now he’s doing everything he can to pretty much strip away every ounce of power the board may have had.

Mark Halperin -> Show a little respect for the President, sir.

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