State legislators would do themselves a favor by taking seriously the results of a poll conducted by Darrel West, the Brown University political science professor.
The survey was conducted last weekend, after the House Finance Committee approved its version of a $2.8-billion state budget.
It showed overwhelmingly that Gov. Don Carcieri has high job-approval ratings and that he is clearly connecting to Rhode Island voters. The percentage of respondents who rate his job performance either good or excellent is at 72 percent.
By comparison, the percentage of respondents who rate House Speaker William J. Murphy’s job performance as either good or excellent is 20 percent. Regarding Murphy, 21 percent rated his job performance fair, while 50 percent registered no opinion.
The governor clearly benefits from being in the public eye more regularly than Murphy and other legislative leaders. But there are reasons for legislators to be concerned.
The poll also shows that voters – by a wide margin – tend to agree with Carcieri’s thinking on key issues.
For example, they overwhelmingly agree with his initial proposal to end payments to dog owners at Lincoln Park – a proposal that legislators balked at, deciding rather to only reduce the payments. Voters also agreed with the governor’s idea to have state workers and public school teachers increase the contributions they make to their pensions. Legislators, again, sided against the governor.
Carcieri called the spending plan approved by the House “a shortsighted plan that defies the public’s wishes to hold the line on taxes, put the brakes on spending and deal with the state’s built-in problems.”
“I intend to use my tenure as governor to set our state on the right track,” he said. “The taxpayers are demanding no less.”
The poll results tell us that Carcieri’s message of running the state more like a business, of doing things differently than they have been done in the past, is resonating with voters. It also suggests that if the General Assembly is making progress in the same direction, voters aren’t recognizing it.
We would expect the governor and legislative leaders to butt heads during what can be a long and arduous budget process. But we would expect that legislative leaders would embrace more quickly ideas and policies that have not only the governor’s support, but also the support of taxpayers.
The governor appears to be following the will of the vast majority of Rhode Islanders in his attempts to curb government spending and invest in long-term job-creation initiatives.
We hope legislative leaders recognize this during subsequent budget discussions, particularly when they relate to state pension system reforms and projects related to economic development.
The two sides – the General Assembly and the governor’s office – have displayed an impressive ability to work together for the good of the whole. There is no better example of that than the deal to keep GTECH from moving to Massachusetts.
It would be refreshing to see a similar spirit of cooperation attached to the process of adopting a state budget.
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