Two weeks into the hostage-taking of Rhode Island by House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello and Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio, and with no end in sight, it’s time to consider extreme measures.
Unfortunately, it seems that the Ocean State’s citizens don’t have many available to them, including what would be the most powerful one – a recall.
The state constitution allows for a recall of the state’s general officers only, and then only for specific criminal and/or ethical breaches. Incompetence, apparently, is not enough to cost someone elected office.
Members of the General Assembly, on the other hand, can hang on for however long they want, no matter their infraction, which brings us to the heads of the legislature’s two houses.
Speaker Mattiello and President Ruggerio have allowed personal and institutional power politics to prevent the passage of a fiscal 2018 budget. And the negative effects of their actions will have real consequences. Reduced school funding to the tune of $45 million is already expected, and that is only the start of the funding shortfalls.
The positive momentum that Gov. Gina M. Raimondo has been creating for bringing jobs and companies here could be halted, a recovery blunted, should the state remain without a fiscal 2018 budget through the fall.
Of course, voters can register their disapproval for the two legislators in the 2018 election, but by then, the damage will have been done.
It’s time for a constitutional amendment that would allow timely legislative recall as a way to keep the Smith Hill crowd on its toes.
