Roach: When the Assembly Doesn’t Listen, Rhode Islanders Must Act
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
It’s time to test a theory. The theory I’m testing is this – Rhode Islanders give a rat’s behind about what their legislators pass and/or kill at the State House. If you’re reading this, you’re already a part of this experiment whether you continue reading or not or whether you take the action I am going to ask you to take. Either way, we will both soon have a very good understanding if Rhode Islanders care.
If I was a betting man, given what I said last week, I’d bet that there isn’t enough concern amongst Rhode Islanders to do something, but I’m feeling optimistic this week for some reason. Maybe it was the nice weather over the weekend. Maybe I’m just a fool believing that change will come someday. Or maybe after I present my case to you, you will be as disgusted as I am and take action. I’m hoping that’s the case.
With the setup out of the way, I am calling on you Rhode Island to sign this Master Lever change.org petition. The petition calls for the elimination of the use of the master lever during our elections. If you’re not sure what the master lever is, let me give you a brief overview. The “master lever” allows for voters to select a straight-party option. For instance, if voter X would like to cast all of her votes for the Democrats she has the option to do so without casting a specific vote in every race on the ballot. There are three problems with this as I see it.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTFirst, in Cranston and other communities there are a number of non-partisan races. We have the school committee so selecting a straight party means that all of those folks’ opinion on the organization the doles out a significant portion of the city budget directly impacting our children’s lives are never counted. The master lever is not omniscient and can’t read people’s minds. This leads to under voting and is silly in the 21st century.
Second, many times people actually cast a vote even though they’ve selected the straight party option. Essentially, this is voting more than once in the same race if the selection isn’t the same party pulled as on the master lever. Just this alone should be reason enough to eliminate the master lever. But there’s more.
Lastly and perhaps most embarrassingly is the prospect of pulling the master lever for a party when that party doesn’t even have a candidate in the race. Moderate Party founder, Ken Block, has been talking over the past year about the over 8,000 voters who pulled the master lever for the Moderate Party during the 2012 races even though there were only 3 – yes, 3 – candidates listed as Moderates. Now that’s just ridiculous and it’s mind boggling how this archaic tool is still in existence today.
But, that’s where you and I come in. Sign this Master Lever change.org petition and let’s tell the State House that they need to address this issue. Just so you know, last week the Senate Judiciary held a hearing on a bill that would eliminate the straight party option. Do you know how the committee voted? They held the issue for further study , effectively killing the bill this legislative season. Yes, they feel that more analysis needs to be done on the bill because the Master Lever is just a new 2014 issue.
If you’re not seeing the sarcasm in my last sentence, this must be the first column of mine you’ve read. You see in 2013 this same committee held this bill for further study. And it seems that over the past year, they’ve either learned nothing new about the master lever or the study they began last year hasn’t completed. Either way, they want more analysis.
Come on, we’re not that dumb. But, if we want to hold the Gotta Study Six (Metts, Lombardi, Jabour, Lynch, Goodwin, & Nesselbush) accountable for holding this bill for further study, then we must sign this petition. So here’s what you need to do.
Sign the Master Lever change.org petition and then tell at least one friend in Rhode Island to also sign it. My goal – 5,000 signatures. That’s a bit crazy but we can do it, if you sign the Master Lever change.org petition and tell a friend. When you tell your friend, ask them to tell one of their friends and so on. I believe that there will be enough people who believe as I do that we need to get rid of this thing, that we should be able to reach the goal of 5,000 signatures. The only reason we won’t reach this goal is because you do not care if our General Assembly makes boneheaded decisions.
Yes, holding this bill for further study falls into the “boneheaded” decision category given the exhaustive discussion and analysis on this issue over the years. And, as I continue to say, if we elect people who make bad decisions over and over again, we only have ourselves to blame when they continue to make poor decisions. Yet, today I want to give you an opportunity to do something different.
Please, I beg you to sign the Master Lever change.org petition and let’s tell the State House that the days of boneheaded decisions without public recourse are over. I’ll post the results of this little experiment next week. Don’t let me down Rhode Island!
Don can be reached at [email protected] . Don is on twitter at @donroach34.
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