Election Reform
Though I was as surprised as Justin at its passage, bravo that Rhode Island has put a voter i.d. law on the books. Arguments were made against the measure right until and even after Governor Chafee signed the bill, however. Rep Larry Valencia went so far as to say that we would be fixing a…
Justin wonders if there’s a catch with the ease with which voter ID sailed through the legislature and the Governor’s inbox. Here’s a theory for you: RI GOP Chair Ken McKay was in for WHJJ’s Helen Glover this morning and had on someone from GOLOCALProv touting their story about the disparity between census data and…
Voter ID legislation moved along with surprisingly little fanfare, so much so that opponents weren’t sure that Governor Chafee had signed until three days after the fact. Perhaps I’m just too cynical, but I can’t help but feel as if I’m missing something. The bill text is somewhat light on details, so I suspect that…
The second subject I asked Robert Healey about at Saturday’s Tenth Amendment rally at the Rhode Island Statehouse was the status of his lawsuit to eliminate the master-lever from the Rhode Island ballot by this November’s election. In addition to his own suit, Mr. Healey also discussed a second suit, filed by independent Gubernatorial candidate…
Apparently, this is the new definition of “fair voting”: Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair. The election ends Tuesday and results are expected late Tuesday. Although the village…
We’ve heard the caterwauling in reaction to the recent Supreme Court ruling regarding corporate political donations. But, whether you like the idea of big business giving directly to political candidates or not, you have to admit that at least it’s a relatively transparent process. A simple check of any number of sources will readily reveal…
A nearly five year old blog post, reposted here in response to this week’s Supreme Court decision about free speech: Andrew has a terrific, focused posting entitled First They Came for the Radio Talk Show Hosts… that gets to the heart of the latest fallout from campaign finance reform here in Rhode Island. Once again,…
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is being extolled or excoriated as the end of McCain/Feingold type campaign finance reform. There are many places to go for extended analysis and I won’t even pretend to understand the intricacies of the legal arguments. However, Matt Welch’s explanation is the most cogent…
Chairman Lally and the House Judiciary Committee have voted to hold Bill H 5097 “AN ACT RELATING TO ELECTIONS – VOTER IDENTIFICATION” over “for further study”. The vote to do so was thirteen to one; the one “nay” was Rep Rod Driver. What aspect of this concept might still need to be studied? Let’s see,…
A couple freshman RI legislators–one a Democrat and the other a Republican–have introduced a bill (PDF) to discontinue straight-party ticket voting in RI. From the Projo Politics blog: Freshmen Representatives Brian C. Newberry, a North Smithfield Republican and Democrat Michael J. Marcello, of Scituate, have teamed up to submit legislation that would prohibit straight-party voting:…
