The loss of the Pawtucket Red Sox to Massachusetts has revealed far more than the lack of leadership among Rhode Island’s major elected officials.
Two interrelated issues jump out. First is the power that the office of the R.I. Speaker of the House has amassed. Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello is certainly not the first speaker to hold the state’s economic health hostage to his personal agenda. He has shown little interest in the health of anything but retaining his seat of power. But enough is enough.
Rhode Islanders need to be asking themselves, why is the state satisfied with being held at gunpoint to the needs of a small piece of it?
Which brings us to the governor. In fact, Gov. Gina M. Raimondo is the highest-ranking official elected by the entire state. Isn’t it time she started acting like that?
Gov. Raimondo, for the sake of future governors, as well as her own ability to get things done, needs to figure out a way to make her office an agenda-setter in the state. Short of that, she is more a ceremonial figurehead than an effective head of state.