The Phoenix Network:
 
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
50bands-gif-port

State House status

In a purportedly liberal state, the Rhode Island General Assembly has a stubbornly conservative bent. But can progressive politics make a dent in 2010?
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG  |  August 12, 2009

 

progressive main

THE LEFT Sullivan, Handy, Ajello, and Guthrie. 

Rhode Island voters, for all their supposed insularity, are an increasingly progressive bunch.

Barack Obama won a landslide victory here. The most Catholic state in the union is overwhelmingly pro-choice. And a recent survey out of Brown University found fully 60 percent of voters in favor of same-sex marriage, with just 31 percent opposed.

Rhode Island is not merely a Democratic bastion. It is, by many measures, a liberal one.

And yet, the State House remains a curiously conservative place. Republicans have had a near monopoly on the governor's office for the last two decades. And the General Assembly, the most Democratic state legislature in the country, often seems as if it is doing its best GOP imitation.

Rhode Island remains the only state in New England that fails to recognize gay marriage. There is an odd obsession with illegal immigration on Smith Hill. Leading Democrats speak, with surprising fervor, about the importance of tax cuts for the Ocean State's wealthiest residents.

"You'd get laughed out of DC if you proposed that in Congress as a Democrat," said Matthew Jerzyk, a liberal lawyer and activist who has been haranguing the state legislature for years.

The General Assembly's conservative bent owes something to the power of incumbency: old-school pols, often resistant to generational shifts on prickly social concerns, have had little trouble winning re-election here. And in a legislature known for its centralized control, a relatively conservative Speaker of the House, William J. Murphy, has managed to keep a lid on ideological ferment.

But now, for the first time in memory, a progressive ascendancy is in view. And a State House long to the right of the electorate could, in a year-and-a-half, reflect something approaching the will of the people.

Governor Carcieri, a conservative Republican, is terming out of office and the leading contenders to replace him include two Democrats and an ex-Republican, Lincoln Chafee, who is arguably as liberal as his rivals.

Meanwhile, new Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed is shaping up as a friend to progressive legislators. And with Murphy widely expected to step down at the end of the 2009-2010 legislative session, despite his public pronouncements to the contrary, the House seems on the brink of change.

Majority Leader Gordon Fox, an openly gay Providence liberal, is the heir apparent for the speakership. And the Progressive Caucus, a loose assemblage of 12 to 20 lefty legislators centered in the House, seems positioned to move from agitator to insider.

But the left, for all its promise, is hardly assured of primacy.

The progressive wing of the legislature, if emergent, is still small. And it took a blow in the last couple of weeks, with the death of State Representataive Thomas C. Slater and State Representative Elizabeth M. Dennigan's announcement that she will challenge Congressman Jim Langevin in a Democratic primary next year.

Moreover, the imminent shift in Smith Hill leadership may not be the panacea it would appear. And the swirl of national events, so helpful to the local left in the last couple of years, could prove a problem in the not-so-distant future.


THE OBAMA FACTOR

President Bush was, in many respects, a godsend for Rhode Island Democrats.

His failures helped the party pry a Senate seat away from Chafee, in his Republican days, three years ago. And in November, deep disenchantment with the Bush administration led to big GOP losses in the state legislature.

It is, of course, difficult to imagine the current commander-in-chief provoking anything like the enmity his predecessor inspired. Indeed, a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found the public continues to blame President Bush for much of the nation's economic strife.

But the same survey suggested the gloom is rubbing off on the new administration. President Obama's overall approval rating has dipped below 60 percent for the first time. Faith in the stimulus package is eroding. Concern about the deficit is growing.

And if the push for major health care reform falls flat, Obama's progressive, interventionist approach to the economy could take a serious tumble in the public estimation.

"The new openness to an expanded role in government is entirely dependent on the government's success," said Darrell West, a former Brown University political science professor now at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Indeed, a backlash to Obamanomics has already cropped up in this state. A new conservative think tank is churning out white papers. A passel of bloggers is beating the drum ever louder. And a protest group known as the Rhode Island Tea Party has proven remarkably adept at grabbing headlines in recent months.

Of course, that conservative impulse has little chance of ushering in an era of Republican rule here. This is a deep blue state, after all. But it could mean trouble for the most liberal Democrats — if not at the polls, then at least in the State House corridors, where policy is made.

1  |  2  |  3  |   next >
  Topics: News Features , Barack Obama, U.S. Government, U.S. State Government,  More more >
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
Comments

BEST MUSIC POLL 2009
VOTE IN PORTLAND BEST MUSIC POLL 2009
Today's Event Picks
[CAT:CONCERTS] Laugh and Bang
ARTICLES BY DAVID SCHARFENBERG
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   THE MIGHTY WIND  |  August 19, 2009
    The Rhode Island recession, among the worst in the country, has become something of a national curiosity: how could such a little state be in such big trouble?
  •   LIMITS OF NON-TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP  |  August 20, 2009
    John Maeda arrived at the Rhode Island School of Design a year ago pledging a different sort of leadership.
  •   STATE HOUSE STATUS  |  August 12, 2009
    Rhode Island voters, for all their supposed insularity, are an increasingly progressive bunch.
  •   THE MUSIC MAN  |  August 05, 2009
    Forty years after a half-million hippies descended on a sprawling dairy farm in upstate New York, Woodstock has become shorthand for an entire epoch.
  •   LYNCH'S BUMPY ROAD  |  August 05, 2009
    There is nothing all that unusual about Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch's now well-publicized travels to New Orleans, San Francisco, and other far-flung locales. Just the networking and fundraising forays of a pol gearing up for a gubernatorial run.

 See all articles by: DAVID SCHARFENBERG

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2009 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group