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THERE’S A NEW GAME IN TOWN |
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Friday, 07 August 2009 |
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Moderate party seeks verification New political party in Rhode Island wishes to be the alternative choice.
By CARL CRITZ
NARRAGANSETT - A day after handing in a mountain of petition signatures to the state board of elections in Providence, moderate party volunteers hit the pavement throughout Washington and other counties Wednesday to begin the next step in the creation of a new political party in Rhode Island.
On Wednesday morning, South Kingstown resident Matthew McHugh brought forward 1,234 signatures to be verified at the Narragansett Town Hall. This would not be his only stop. Throughout the day he would stop by each town hall to drop off 251 in Charlestown, 1,866 in South Kingstown, and 181 in Westerly for verification.
Since June 3, Moderate party advocates have drummed up petition signatures throughout the state. In order for a party to be recognized, they must submit 23,589 signatures to the board of elections. To make sure they would have enough bona fide names, the party went the extra mile and collected over 33,000.
McHugh is part of a larger contingent of over 40 volunteers winding through the state to verify every signature with each town’s board of canvassers. According to McHugh, the party has six days to accomplish this feat.
“None of the town clerks are happy I’m dropping off these signatures for verification,” McHugh said.
The towns are hard pressed, as many staff members are on summer vacation and verifying thousands of often illegible signatures in only six days, which is the deadline to return the verifications to the board of elections.
Ken Block, chairman of the Moderate party of Rhode Island, said the party was created to reach out to what Block calls dissatisfied centrists. “The Democratic party has a majority of seats in the legislature,” Block said on the Moderate party web site. “The Republicans have ten seats out of 113. What happens is we don’t get good, representative government within the legislature. There is no need to compromise; there is no ability of the party in opposition to affect any legislation that comes down the pike. To reduce this, you’ve got to have a better balance within the legislature, and that’s what this whole effort is all about.
The party’s platform focuses on what Block calls the four E’s: Economy, ethics, education, and environment.
Moderates wish to trim up underperforming government spending and remove from office any elected official who is found guilty of a major ethics violation. The party wishes to disallow politicians the option of paying a settlement to the Ethics Commission without admitting guilt.
The party has underlined a dramatic series of changes to the state’s education foundations in an attempt to fix the state’s expensive and often under-performing school systems. Lastly, the party wishes to focus on the environment for conservation as well as a business opportunity.
“We are uniquely situated to take advantage of wind, solar, and other alternative energies, we should be at the forefront of these industries, we need to make sure that we are,” Block said.
McHugh and other moderates hope that they will be able to produce candidates to run for office in the Rhode Island General Assembly and at other general election offices like Governor, General Treasurer, Secretary of State, and Lieutenant Governor.
“The party could certainly be represented on the town level, but we’re going to start off by focusing on state-wide positions with an emphasis on the general assembly,” said McHugh.
The push for the Moderate party began after the 2008 general elections, mostly from citizens dissatisfied with the two-party system. “The question is are you really happy with your general assembly, or should there be an alternative?” McHugh said. “We need more choices. We can’t have candidates running unopposed in our general elections.”
Rhode Island has the nation’s most restrictive ballot access laws, allowing only a five-month window to collect signatures. For this, the Moderate party of Rhode Island has already put its political wheel in motion by filing a federal lawsuit against the State of Rhode Island over the onerous ballot access laws.
The collection of signatures equivalent to 5 percent of the last voter turnout for either a presidential or gubernatorial vote in RI is one of three ways to recognize a new political party in Rhode Island. No party has ever qualified for the RI ballot via the signature collection process.
U.S. District Judge William E. Smith struck down a provision of the state law that said political parties must wait until Jan. 1 of an election year to obtain the required signatures to land a spot on the statewide ballot. That decision enabled the party to begin circulating its petitions on June 3.
According to McHugh, the next step for the Moderate party once they are on the ballot is to raise money and endorse candidates for the next general election. McHugh, a South Kingstown resident, is no stranger to political office. He was a member of the South Kingstown Town Council from 1998-2000 and served on the general assembly from 2002-2006, both times as a Democrat.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 04 September 2009 )
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