Rhode Island family accompanies Senator Reed (D-RI) for the signing of a bill which calls for $150 million in funding for youth cancer research
“The Haights, who are from Warwick, were at The White House Tuesday as President Bush signed a bill, honoring their son. Vince and Nancy Haight asked Senator Jack Reed to help secure funding for childhood cancer research, after their son, Ben, died from the disease.” -WPRI
Gov. Carcieri had the chance to sign a renewable energy bill that overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate and would have created good-paying, green-collar jobs in Rhode Island as well as reduce our dependency on pollution-causing fossil fuels. But once again, Gov. Carcieri let us down and vetoed the bill.
Just a few miles away in Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick today signed a bill that puts his state light years ahead of us and will make MA a real hub for the renewable industry. Here’s the video from NBC10’s story at 6:00.
Lynch files formal ethics charge against Carcieri regarding nepotism violation
Yesterday afternoon, the Rhode Island Democratic Party filed an official complaint with the Ethics Commission about the Governor’s well-publicized nepotism violation.
Here is the press release from the Party:
PAWTUCKET- Rhode Island Democratic Party Chairman Bill Lynch filed a formal complaint with the Rhode Island Ethics Commission today over the governor’s 2002 hiring of a niece who continues to earn more than $52,000 annually working in Carcieri’s State House office.
In May, the governor recognized the likely conflict and announced he would seek an “advisory opinion” on the matter. But Lynch says the Ethics Commission can only issue advisory opinions when a person subject to the ethics code seeks a ruling on a potential conflict prior to committing the act, which in this case, would be the hiring of his niece. The only other way the Ethics Commission can issue a binding decision is after a complaint is filed.
Earlier today the commission voted to acknowledge receipt of a letter from the governor asking for an interpretation of the code of ethics but was procedurally bound from issuing a definitive ruling.
“We need to hear from the Ethics Commission on this matter, and since no binding opinion can be offered after the fact, I am filing a formal complaint today and I believe the commission will agree that Governor Carcieri violated the spirit if not the letter of the ethics law when he hired his niece to join the executive staff,” Lynch said.
“The ethics laws are in place to prevent elected officials from doing exactly what the governor has done – handing out taxpayer-funded positions as a reward for campaign work, and that’s why I’m asking to have this issue properly investigated and adjudicated,” Lynch continued.
Lynch also questioned whether it was appropriate for the governor to replace a member of the commission with his own appointment at a time when he was supposedly seeking an opinion from the ethics board. On Saturday, The Providence Journal reported that Carcieri had recently appointed Edward A. Magro – an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the State Senate – to replace the current chairman. The chairman had continued to serve on the commission even though his term expired two years ago. Commission appointments do not require Senate confirmation.
“I find the governor’s timing suspicious. He was in no great rush to remove the former chairman for nearly two years and now, as more questions are raised about the governor’s ethical judgment, he conveniently finds Mr. Magro, who just happens to be another failed GOP candidate,” Lynch said.
“If the governor was really serious about getting an honest and complete opinion from the ethics commission, shouldn’t he have waited until the nepotism issue was settled before making a new appointment?” Lynch questioned.
“Speaking on talk radio earlier in the month, Kass, a former talk-radio host, said Republican Mitt Romney would give Carcieri a cabinet position should Romney win the presidency.”
This is following Carcieri’s announcement of support last May for Romney’s presidential run.
And during the whole “budget crisis,” the Don found time to make his way up to New Hampshire to campaign for Romney leading up to the January 5th primary.
The most unfortunate part of all this news, Carcieri will still be Governor until 2011. I suppose the silver lining is that Plastic-Man can’t just buy his way into the presidency.
Governor Carcieri just doesn’t get it. Last night, his state of the state address was long on rhetoric, but once again, short on details. What’s worse is, some of the details he did provide just don’t make sense, the math simply doesn’t add up, and you need to know that.
While House and Senate Democrats are working to streamline government and make it more lean and efficient, the governor is spouting empty rhetoric that doesn’t solve the problem. Here’s just one example:
The governor is banking on $5 million in new revenue from a proposed law to ban and fine folks who get caught talking on a cell phone while driving. At $50 per offense, that means that 227 would need to be ticketed every day of the year in order for the governor’s numbers to work.
Whether or not the proposal is a good public safety measure is certainly a matter for debate, but there is no way state and local police are going to have the time to stop and fine one-tenth of our state’s population for driving while talking on a cell phone, it’s just not realistic.
Check out what Carcieri flack Jeff Neal told Pawtucket Times scribe Jim Baron when asked how they expect the numbers to jibe.
Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said the administration “has no reason to believe” that the estimate for the revenue the measure would generate would not hold. He did allow, however that, “Since it is entirely new, it is difficult to project. If the General Assembly believes the initiative will garner less or more” revenue, it can make adjustments.
UPDATE: OK, so we had the resignation part right. Now we hear news that they just shuffled her off to take a new job as deputy secretary of the state Office of Health and Human Services. Here’s the BIG question: What former Old Stone employee is going to land Orifice’s former gig?
Lame Duck Governor Don Carcieri is rumored to be losing Department of Labor and Training Director Adelita Orefice, who is expected to announce her resignation later this afternoon.
Is it safe to say that we can expect more high-level departures from the increasingly less-relevant Carcieri administration in the coming months?
The gov sat down to dish a little yule-tide joy with The Pawtucket Times’ Jim Baron on the night before Christmas..In a story that mostly focuses on the challenges facing Rhode Island in the new year, Carcieri offered the following:
“There are some cases where individuals are dependent upon the state, people with disabilities, seniors in nursing homes, people who are very poor,” he noted. “The debate, and I think it is a policy discussion, is where do you draw that safety net.” Once you draw that line, he added, you have to find a way to take care of the people on the other side of it.
Who wants to take a guess at what he’s REALLY saying? You can catch the rest of the story here.
Steve Kass just doesn’t get it.
Every couple of weeks the folks at The Journal manage to squeeze another gem out of Gov. Carcieri’s communications director, who recently waxed poetic to Political Scene on all the reasons why he doesn’t think it’s important or plausible for the administration to communicate with a Democratic Lt. Governor.
From today’s ProJo:
Asked what difference it might have made in the handling of the storm if Carcieri had had a lieutenant governor of his choosing back in Rhode Island, Kass said: “If you’re the governor and the lieutenant governor is part of your team and you have philosophical similarities, etcetera, it’s easy for the governor to be out of the country or out of state and his right-hand guy is in charge and there is no political stuff going on between the two, which there always is in this state.
“Would you run your company with one guy at the top and the deputy is trying to get his job? It’s just not good. … I don’t know why Rhode Islanders like that.”
That’s about as intellectually dishonest of a characterization as you’ll ever see. Kass would like us all to believe that if Republican Kerry King had been elected lt. governor, he’d have no interest in the succeeding Carcieri. Yeah, right….ok?
announce her resignation later this afternoon.
communications director, who recently waxed poetic to Political Scene on all the reasons why he doesn’t think it’s important or plausible for the administration to communicate with a Democratic Lt. Governor.