Sam Howard has accomplished some of
the best quantitative analysis of local elections that you will ever see
produced by an unpaid journalist in his ongoing series about why mixed-member proportional voting would
alter Rhode Island politics and power structures.
WPRI’s Ted Nesi touched on the same subject in a piece about why the Ocean State would benefit from more competitive elections. Meanwhile, it turns out Ken Block is considering running for governor as Republican rather than a Moderate.
WPRI’s Ted Nesi touched on the same subject in a piece about why the Ocean State would benefit from more competitive elections. Meanwhile, it turns out Ken Block is considering running for governor as Republican rather than a Moderate.
All three events point to a similar
conclusion: that a more influential GOP would improve political discourse in
the Ocean State. Well … making political discourse less one-sided is a good
thing only if it ALSO makes it more representational of the people the politics
purports to represent.
“…Rhode Island Republicans have a
good point – local officeholders deal with a whole range of issues that don’t
easily fit into the national parties’ widely recognized platforms. If you tell
me what position someone takes on Obamacare or climate change, I could probably
tell you which party he or she belongs to – but I still couldn’t tell you what
he thinks about mandatory parking minimums or actuarial standards for pension
plans.”
I’m sure both Block and Howard would
agree – though Block may feel this “good point” belongs to Moderates and Howard
progressives. All three actually make the same good point – but it’s most
applicable to progressives who, electorally at least, far outnumber both
Republicans and Moderates in Rhode Island.
Remember Occam’s razor, the notion that the explanation
with the fewest assumptions is most likely right. In other words, why assume
our elections and or party structure is broken when it’s much more likely that
a state with a strong blue collar, union tradition and a pristine,
well-protected environment would attract anything other than a bunch of
liberal-minded voters?
So why then are we seeking ways to
make our politics more inclusive of of a party system that doesn’t represent
our community’s political ethos?
A simpler and more holistic solution
would be to make local elections nonpartisan. Of course, this has the same
snowball’s chance in hell of happening as does doing away with the master lever
or instituting mixed-member proportional voting…
Hopefully this would address the real disconnect between Rhode Islanders and the people we elect to
public office instead of artificially giving
conservatives more influence than they deserve.
Bob Plain is the
editor/publisher of Rhode Island's Future. Previously, he's worked as a
reporter for several different news organizations both in Rhode Island and
across the country.