Rare event at the General Assembly: bill gets killed on the floor
April 5th, 2012 at 8:01 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Here’s something you don’t see every day: the House of Representatives voted 28-37 late Thursday afternoon to kill a bill supported by the Democratic leadership.
State Rep. Scott Slater’s bill [pdf] would have amended last year’s Henry Shelton Act – which created a program to help low-income Rhode Islanders address utility shutoffs – to let National Grid recoup its losses by charging other ratepayers. The current law says the utility has to write off any losses as bad debt.
House Speaker Gordon Fox, House Majority Leader Nicholas Mattiello and House Majority Whip J. Patrick O’Neill were among the 28 lawmakers who voted to pass the bill, but other members of their caucus and most Republicans broke with the leadership to block passage. Ten representatives missed the vote.
Tags: democrats, general assembly, national grid, politics, ri division of public utilities, state house
Nesi's Notes covers politics and the economy in and around Rhode Island for WPRI.com. (Twitter: 
It’s an election year!! Legislating another tax on ratepayers, especially when National Grid is requesting a rate increase, would be the equivalent of political suicide for the reps.
It could be that this bill vote is the intended consequence………..
Or, could the be the rumored coup starting to take shape?
Patrick O’Neill must be pleased as punch!!!!
The bill was a bad one, but where is the surprise? So many of them are, yet they couldn’t get this one to pass…hmmmmm…..wonder what’s going on?????
I totally agree – its a political story, not a policy one…who is messing with the Speaker? This stuff doesn’t just happen…
Reading the the earlier bill, it said:
“The amount of the arrearage, so forgiven, shall be treated as bad debt for
purposes of cost recovery by the gas or the electric company.”
But then it was changed to read:
“The amount of the arrearage, so forgiven, shall be fully recovered by the gas or electric distribution company for each year from all gas and electric customers through a fully reconciling funding mechanism to be submitted annually to the public utilities commission for review and approval.”
A very sneaky stealth tax hike supported by the leadership. They need to be removed.
Thanks for the great coverage Ted!
Who thought this was a good idea? The Democrats that broke ranks did the right thing for once. Anyone who voted for this turkey should be drummed out of office this fall.
Below is the voting list (Y are the stealth tax supporters)
Y AJELLO
Y BENNETT
Y BLAZEJEWSKI
Y CIMINI
Y DESIMONE
Y DIAZ
Y FERRI
Y FLAHERTY
Y GORDON
Y GUTHRIE
Y HANDY
Y KEABLE
Y LALLY
Y MALIK
Y MATTIELLO
Y MCCAULEY
Y MCNAMARA
Y MELO
Y MORRISON
Y O’NEILL
Y PETRARCA
Y SILVA
Y SLATER
Y UCCI
Y VALENCIA
Y WATSON
Y WINFIELD
Y MR SPEAKER
N AZZINARO
N BRIEN
N CARNEVALE
N CHIPPENDALE
N CODERRE
N COSTA
N DASILVA
N DICKINSON
N EHRHARDT
N FELLELA
N HULL
N JACKSON
N JACQUARD
N JOHNSTON
N KENNEDY
N LIMA
N MACBETH
N MARCELLO
N MARTIN
N MCLAUGHLIN
N MEDINA
N MENARD
N MESSIER
N MORGAN
N NAUGHTON
N NEWBERRY
N NUNES
N PALUMBO
N PHILLIPS
N REILLY
N RUGGIERO
N SAVAGE
N TANZI
N TARRO
N TOMASSO
N TRILLO
N WALSH
NV BALDELLI-HUNT
NV CORVESE
NV EDWARDS
NV GALLISON
NV HEARN
NV O’GRADY
NV SAN
NV SCHADONE
NV SERPA
NV WILLIAMS
Great list, the “Y” votes all need to go! Dan Gordon showing his true colors and voting Y. I can’t wait until this piece of work is gone!
Why in the world did anyone think that taxpayers should be fitting the bill for those who screwed the electric company to begin with? Common sense should tell politicians that there would be less of an incentive for some people to pay at all when they know someone else would pick up the tab and National Grid would no longer aggressively pursue those who owed them money. For that matter National Grid would likely layoff a dozen people who’s sole function was to chase down those who were in arrears. You have thousands of people who struggle to meet their obligations and this bill would have encouraged a small group of them to ignore their obligation. It’s always the RI taxpayer who gets screwed!
Craig,
You hit the nail on the head! Those deadbeat accounts would now turn into a profit center for the utilities instead of those accounts being rolled back into the operations budget (a big accounting difference and a big problem for rate payers).
As a profit center, the costs of operating the profit center (people chasing the accounts) would be scaled back to maximize the utilities profits. After all, the loss is being fully covered by rate payers.
How dare anyone go against Gordo and Rattiello… They will have to pound their chests and threaten these rep’s like they always do.. Dirtbags.
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Lally and Tanzi (Narragansett) speak of themselves as for the “people”….they have some ‘splaining to do.
Chris G.
Not sure what you are trying to say Chris G., Tanzi voted against putting the burden on rate payers, and Lally voted with leadership. So since they voted differently, please ‘splain.
[...] House voted 28-37 on Thursday to defeat a bill sponsored by state Rep. Scott Slater [pdf] and backed by Fox’s [...]