"Never give up"

This is Part Two of a series based on an interview by Progressive Charlestown editors Tom Ferrio and Will Collette with state Representative Donna Walsh (D-Charlestown) on the recently ended General Assembly session. Part One covered what went well, like Donna getting fourteen bills passed when the average state representative generally gets only three.

But there was a lot of unfinished business left when the final gavel sounded.

Rep. Donna Walsh’s main regret over the now adjourned session of the General Assembly is that so many good, creative ideas to reform taxes to make them fairer and to boost job growth and the economy did not pass. Instead, lawmakers balanced the budget through cuts to programs vital to working families and the poor.

Donna with colleague Teresa Tanzi

Donna’s ambitious legislation to promote job growth, economic development and RI agriculture received hearings, but did not advance beyond the committee stage. Her colleagues in the House Progressive caucus, especially Larry Valencia, Teresa Tanzi and Chris Blazejewski pushed for fair tax reforms for working families and small businesses right up till the final budget vote. But they did not succeed.

“We were too much for them,” Donna told us. The General Assembly leadership focused mainly on getting through the session feeling pressure on the one hand from the Governor’s plan to broadly expand the sales tax, and on the other hand, from business owners who mobilized to oppose any tax increases at all.

“Equitable taxation did not get on the board,” said Donna. “Conservatives dominated, and the members, who listen a lot to talk radio, were afraid.”

She disagreed with the many pundits who credited the Tea Party and the RI Statewide Coalition with dominating the General Assembly in its final weeks. “Yes, they did do a rally or two, but the turn-out was minimal,” Donna said. “It was the business lobby that did the best job of killing the Governor’s sales tax proposal, and the town managers and councils that were more influential on binding arbitration.”

Tea Party darling Doreen Costa

Rep. Walsh had nothing good to say about the new crop of Tea Party Republicans in the House. She singled out Dan Gordon and Doreen Costa as “really over the top.”

But she acknowledged that the Tea Party “does come to hearings and maintain a presence.”

She smiled when she described the Tea Party’s positive reaction to Donna’s corporate tax bill (H-5060) which would have repealed the state corporate tax on most Rhode Island businesses (because most of them are small) and replaced the revenue with a graduated tax on larger corporations. “They liked that bill, but ultimately supported a version by one of their own that would have simply repealed the tax without creating any substitute revenue.”

The bills Donna introduced on behalf of the Farm Bureau got hearings but no more, even though their impact on the state budget would have been negligible at the start and would be made up for by increased economy growth in agriculture. Donna explained: “Most House members come from urban districts. They don’t really understand farm issues. They had no desire to add any new tax credits or change the tax code and estate tax. They didn’t even like the idea of a check-off box on RI income tax forms for agricultural land preservation which would have cost the state nothing.”

Representative Walsh said that farmers were going to need to do some education work with legislators and put more into lobbying for their interests if they hope to get the attention they deserve and action on their needs.

Donna sighed when we discussed other worthy issues she has long championed in the General Assembly that deserved to be passed, but just haven’t made it yet.

Scratch-A-Tick. Tick-borne diseases in Rhode Island are a serious public health menace. The University of Rhode Island has an excellent program that researches tick-borne illnesses and does a great job of public education, given their very limited budget. For several years, Donna has sponsored the House version of a bill that would create a special short-run Rhode Island Lottery Scratch-A-Tick game that would help fund the URI tick center. No luck this year, but there’s always next year.

Road Safety. Though Donna was pleased to get H-5122 enacted, two other bills that would have made the roads safer did not pass. H-5506 would have required the cars driven by convicted drunk drivers after their driving rights have been restored to be equipped with “auto interlock” devices. These are basically breathalyzer devices connected to the ignition. If the driver’s breath fails the test, the car won’t start. Donna’s other auto bill, H-5684, would have made it harder for repeat offenders to get traffic crimes expunged from their record.

Rep. Walsh plans to meet with road safety advocates, law enforcement and others to discuss what needs to be done to make Rhode Island’s roads safer, especially by taking bad drivers off the road. 

“It takes a lot of patience to get good legislation passed,” Rep. Walsh noted. “More often than not, it takes more than one try. It may even take years of trying before you finally get a bill passed.” Donna’s bill on tape recording criminal interrogations is a case in point – she introduced it for many years before it finally passed this year.

“I’ve introduced bills to require merit selection of magistrates, and criminal penalties for the crime of betraying the public trust year after year because those issues are important. You just have to stick to it.”

In the third and final installment, we’ll go into the heart of the sausage factory and see some of the things that a savvy, experienced legislator like Rep. Donna Walsh can do to get things done. That will be Part 3