Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. You probably haven’t heard much about what may be Rhode Island’s biggest policy undertaking this year: the local rollout of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. In a basement office, a small staff of true believers and outside consultants led by Christine Ferguson are working around the clock to set up the state’s new health insurance exchange – the marketplace where individuals and small businesses can buy coverage under the law – in time for enrollment to start Oct. 1. The exchange’s insurance costs should be finalized before mid-July, with announcements about its brand name and new call center, plus a big marketing push, to follow. (Policymakers also need to figure out how to fund the exchange’s operating costs locally once federal money runs out in 2015.) The Chafee administration is focusing more on business users than some states; unlike the federal government, Rhode Island’s exchange will let workers whose employers use the new Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) buy any insurance plan they want with their premium money. Ferguson is envisioning more than an Expedia for insurance – she wants the exchange to drive changes in how health care gets delivered in Rhode Island, with an eye on reducing costs and improving quality. The stakes are high: health care costs are strangling small businesses in Rhode Island, as elsewhere, yet health care also has been one of the only sectors of the state’s economy adding jobs.

2. Here’s something that may surprise you: Rhode Island’s economy grew faster than the New England average last year, expanding 1.4% to $43.8 billion, after barely treading water in 2011. The only state in the region that performed better was Massachusetts (up 2.2%), while the one often held up as a model for Rhode Island to emulate – New Hampshire – managed to grow just 0.5%. (Connecticut’s economy actually shrank.) Some of the outperformance, then, is the soft bigotry of low expectations for growth in New England: Rhode Island’s 1.4% expansion only placed 34th nationally. Also interesting is which three sectors were responsible for much of Rhode Island’s 2012 growth: real estate, finance and wholesale trade. Notably – and perhaps ominously – the biggest drag on the state economy was actually health care and social assistance, which had been growing steadily in recent years. Rhode Island’s real GDP was $41,678 per capita last year, just below the national average.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Warwick Rep. Frank Ferri offered a short-term solution to the 38 Studios bond-payment controversy at Thursday’s Finance Committee hearing: “Maybe we should pay this year’s payment,” he suggested, “and then do our due diligence to come up with a clearer answer.” That sounds sensible. It’s important to remember that lawmakers aren’t being asked to pay the whole $90 million this year; Governor Chafee’s request for this year is only for $2.5 million, which is just 0.03% of next year’s budget – and far less than the $12.5 million that will be required annually starting in 2014. Making the initial payment preserves Rhode Island’s options on the remaining $87.5 million; skipping it will put the state in effective default, with all the consequences that could follow. If lawmakers are upset about the situation, they should amend this year’s payment and require Chafee, Treasurer Raimondo, Speaker Fox and Senate President Paiva Weed to commission a formal study of the consequences of default, as suggested by MMA’s Matt Fabian. (In fact, why wasn’t that done months ago?) In this age of bailouts and austerity, it’s understandable that lawmakers don’t want to pay bondholders money to which they aren’t even legally entitled – but if the direct and indirect costs of default top $90 million, they shouldn’t cut off Rhode Island’s nose to spite its face.

2. Staff changes are coming to Congressman Cicilline’s office as he settles into his second term. Word from the Beltway is that Scott Fay, who’s been Cicilline’s chief of staff since the former Providence mayor went to Washington, is preparing to leave Capitol Hill. Fay has spent more than a decade working in Congress for Cicilline, California’s John Garamendi and the late Ted Kennedy. The pair are scouting for a new chief of staff to be put in place before Fay’s departure.

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If you didn’t hear, Ted turned 29 on Friday and spent most of the week attempting to lock down a disability pension. So I hijacked his desk, took his car for a spin and tried not to get chocolate all over his stuff. He’ll be back next week, but for now, welcome to another edition of the Saturday Morning Post – and feel free to send your takes, tips and trial balloons to dmcgowan@wpri.com or tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow both of us on Twitter: @danmcgowan & @tednesi.

1. Spin artists from every likely gubernatorial candidate’s camp were out in full force this week following Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s decision to join the Democratic Party, but here’s one thing they all seem to have in common: they all believe their horse will perform well in Providence, the city that made all the difference for Myrth York when she eked out a Democratic primary victory over Sheldon Whitehouse in 2002. York won that race by 926 votes thanks in large part to her 2,379-vote win in the capital city. For Mayor Angel Taveras, supporters can point to his convincing victory in the 2010 Democratic primary and a 2012 Brown University poll that showed 60% of Providence voters believed he was doing an excellent or good job as evidence that he’ll perform well in his home city. Then again, Chafee’s decisive victory in Providence – he won with 50% of the vote – was one of the key reasons he held off Republican John Robitaille in 2010 and he has continuously gone to bat for the city since taking office (just wait until his campaign commercials feature Taveras praising his commitment to Providence). But don’t count out Gina Raimondo either. The treasurer has a strong base on the East Side and was the second-highest vote-getter – less than 1,000 behind Taveras – in the city in the 2010 general election. (By the way, don’t miss Ted’s smart analysis on Chafee’s big switch and what it means for the 2014 race.)

2. Campaign finance fun: We know Raimondo is lapping the field when it comes to fundraising; she has $1.7 million compared with the mayor’s $561,000 and Chafee’s $358,000. But guess know how many people have cut $1,000 checks to at least two of the three likely primary opponents in 2014 since they all took office in 2011? The answer: 84. The list of donors that have hit the trifecta and written $1,000 checks to all three is much shorter: 11. (Note: that does not include donors who have made several smaller donations that add up to $1,000.) Something tells me things will be getting quite awkward at the Hope Club come this time next year. (more…)

Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. An iconic local property is empty, with its famous corporate tenant gone. Politicians want to see the place occupied and thriving, but the developer says he needs government support. Think it’s the Superman building? Think again – this was Boston’s Downtown Crossing, longtime home of Filene’s Basement. Back in 2010 Steve Roth, chairman of the developer that owned Downtown Crossing, boasted about using a “blight” strategy in New York City: “I was thinking in my own awkward way, that the more the building was a blight, the more the governments would want this to be redeveloped; the more help they would give us when the time came. And they did.” After hearing this, an outraged Mayor Menino threatened to seize the Downtown Crossing site by eminent domain, and eventually revoked Roth’s permits; a new developer is now in place. Here in Providence, High Rock Development says the economics of the Superman building won’t work for the firm without a public subsidy to convert it into apartments – and High Rock also says it won’t sell, leaving the structure in limbo. Spokesman Bill Fischer told me High Rock won’t rule out mothballing the Superman building, either: “That’s not a political tactic; it’s just sound real estate to take a step back and say, who can we get in there?” The tale of Downtown Crossing, though, illustrates why Rhode Islanders are wary: developers know they have serious leverage when they control the fate of a beloved local landmark, and they may not be afraid to use it.

2. A programming note: I’ll be away next week but never fear – Nesi’s Notes will be as good as ever. I’ve commissioned thought-provoking guest posts from four Rhode Islanders that are sure to spark some debate. Plus, my colleagues Dan McGowan and Tim White will be posting their usual must-read reports on the blog as always. (And yes, the individual entries are called posts – not “blogs.”) Check in every day and follow @NesisNotes_WPRI on Twitter. I’ll be back June 4.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Providence’s push for a new Ocean State Regional Water Authority deserves a closer look. The bill, which was supposed to get a hearing Thursday but got yanked from the agenda, would pave the way for the city-owned Providence Water Supply Board to lease its system to the new authority. Notably, any lease or sale agreement entered into by the Ocean State Regional Water Authority wouldn’t be subject to approval by the R.I. Public Utilities Commission; if the capital city got a big upfront payment under the terms of the lease, the new water authority would presumably need to borrow a significant amount to pay the tab – money that would come out of ratepayers’ water bills. The new authority would also still need to come up with a lot of cash over the coming decades to pay for more than $300 million in water-infrastructure projects. Selling a water supply isn’t a new idea – London’s system is privately owned and operated, though not without its critics – but if Providence needs cash and the water system needs capital, it’s unclear if a quasi-public is the best approach. An alternative option would be selling or leasing Providence Water to a private company. For example, Aquarion Water Co., a division of Australia’s Macquarie Group, is in talks to buy yet another Connecticut town’s water system, with the promise of cash and new property-tax revenue once the deal goes through. Perhaps a firm like Aquarion could bring capital from outside Rhode Island to invest in the water system. The privatization option is at least worth considering if Providence Water is keen to change the current regime.

2. This week marks the 65th anniversary of the end of passenger trolley-car service in Providence. The United Electrical Railways’ last streetcar ended its final trip at the Swan Point trolley shelter in the early hours of May 15, 1948. “It was, thus, officially ending a transportation era, which began in Rhode Island in 1864, with horsecars,” a local journalist remarked at the time. “The first line was electrified in 1892 and trolley cars hung on despite introduction of busses [sic] in 1932 and trackless trolleys in 1931.” Has the time come for streetcars to make a grand return to Providence (if not Blackstone Boulevard)? Mayor Angel Taveras included the idea in his big economic-development plan, though funding remains elusive; possible solutions have been offered by Jef Nickerson and Stephen Miller.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Now that we know both Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras have hedge funds managing big chunks of Rhode Island’s biggest and second-biggest public pensions, it’s likely citizens and other policymakers will want to take a closer look at their investing strategies. (Taveras aides emphasize that, unlike Raimondo, the mayor didn’t actively move money into hedge funds – he just left it there after taking office.) The treasurer has defended her use of hedge funds as a way to, well, hedge – to invest in assets that won’t move in lockstep with the stock market à la 2008. Yet while publicly traded stocks have rebounded smartly since the recession, The Economist reports that hedge funds are “going nowhere fast.” An index fund with 60% equities and 40% bonds would have returned more than 90% over the past decade; hedge funds returned only 17% after fees. Raimondo doesn’t dispute this, saying that she and the State Investment Commission have made a strategic choice to accept lower returns in order to minimize losses. Still, government pension funds are the ultimate long-term investors: should they have piled into public equities when they were cheap in 2008-09 rather than run away from them – particularly for systems whose funding levels are only 59% (Rhode Island) and 36% (Providence)? Without big investment gains, taxpayers and retirees will be left to fill those sizable shortfalls. Josh Barro, though, says Raimondo has this right: “Higher equity rates of return are purely compensation for risk, and downside risk would be born by RI taxpayers. … Hedge funds might be bad for other reasons, e.g., they charge too many fees. But she’s right not to chase returns by adding risk.”

2. With private-sector labor in a seemingly unstoppable decline, there’s been some interesting discussion on the left lately about alternative ways of organizing workers outside of traditional unions. Josh Eidelson tackled the question in The American Prospect earlier this year, and this week The Washington Post’s Harold Meyerson weighed in. Some of the ideas sound reminiscent of Fuerza Laboral, the Central Falls-based group that helps low-paid workers fight employer exploitation. Josie Shagwert, Fuerza’s former executive director, explained its work on Executive Suite last Labor Day.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. The Superman building wasn’t the only important economic story in Rhode Island this week. You may recall the “Kickstarter for T-shirts” startup Teespring and its 24-year-old founder, Walker Williams, from Williams’ appearance on Executive Suite last fall. Well, a just-published New York Times article reveals Williams and his co-founder have left Rhode Island for Silicon Valley in exchange for a $100,000 investment – and priceless connections – provided by Y Combinator, the famed startup accelerator and the subject of the Times story. (Imagine: at $100,000 a pop, the $75 million borrowed for 38 Studios could have backed 750 Teesprings.) Williams is the star in the article, which reports Teespring just topped $1 million in monthly revenue and has raised $1.3 million from investors; its founders hope to make $1 billion someday. Not that Teespring has bolted Rhode Island: Williams tells me Teespring remains headquartered in Providence and still has 14 people in its local office. Yet the fact that its two founders decamped for the Bay Area shows what an uphill battle Rhode Island faces in retaining its most promising prospects, a challenge that has less to do with high taxes – California ain’t Texas – and more a lack of early-stage capital or a tech sector that can compete with San Francisco and Cambridge. Indeed, even what exists now is imperiled: Providence recently ended its $50,000 equity investments in Betaspring graduates, of which Teespring is one.

2. Food for thought: Lincoln Chafee defeated John Robitaille in 2010 by only 8,600 votes. That means the choices of fewer than 1% of Rhode Islanders – or half the population of Central Falls – determined that the governor would be a socially liberal independent rather than a socially conservative Republican. It’s no understatement, then, to say the 8,600 voters who put Chafee over the top are the reason same-sex marriage will become legal in Rhode Island on Aug. 1, 2013; Robitaille opposed gay marriage and presumably would have vetoed the bill, which might never have reached the governor’s desk in the first place without clear gubernatorial support. Elections matter.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. When the Rhode Island Senate backed same-sex marriage, the biggest winners included two people who voted no: Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed and Senate Judiciary Chairman Mike McCaffrey. Gay marriage was a rare issue that not only split the Senate Democrats’ ruling coalition but represented a real political liability for its socially conservative incumbents, McCaffrey foremost among them. While most people aren’t experts on the General Assembly, it wouldn’t have been hard for Ray Sullivan to educate Democratic primary electorates next year if their local senators were blocking same-sex marriage – and to recruit activists to make that case at voters’ doorsteps. (Think about it: How many Warwick voters tick off McCaffey’s name every two years assuming they’re getting someone with relatively Obama-ish views?) Paiva Weed – one of the shrewdest political minds on Smith Hill – has deftly removed the biggest electoral threat facing men like McCaffrey, Dominick Ruggerio and Frank Ciccone, all without any apparent damage to her authority as leader of the upper chamber. She also cleared the path for McCaffrey, a labor ally, to succeed her as Senate president – while simultaneously earning plenty of goodwill from liberals in her caucus, not to mention Speaker Fox. Well played, Madame President, well played.

2. How’s the 2014 race for governor shaping up? Read my new Bloomberg View op-ed and find out.

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What a week.

For reasons I’m sure you’ll understand I ran out of time to do a full column, so this is going to be an abbreviated edition. As always, though, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Is Providence ready? That question lingered all week as alarmed Rhode Islanders watched Boston deal with a serious terrorist attack followed by a massive manhunt that shut down America’s Athens. The incident offers an opportunity for officials, organizations and individuals in Providence to double-check their own preparedness for a major catastrophe. To understand how much that could matter – particularly for employees at Lifespan and Care New England – read The New Yorker’s Atul Gawande explain “Why Boston’s Hospitals Were Ready.” Also read Harold Pollack on why all of us should learn first aid.

2. Rhode Island is back on the national radar screen this week. The state’s 2014 governor’s race is already attracting significant attention, with National Journal and National Review both hyping it up in recent days and The Fix moving it to #2 on its list of the most competitive races. (I’ll have my own take on the 2014 state-of-play next week in a new op-ed for Bloomberg View.) And that’s not all. I’m told The New York Times’ Matt Bai will publish a major examination of the 38 Studios debacle in this Sunday’s newspaper – check the business section tomorrow.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. The conventional wisdom about same-sex marriage has changed jarringly fast. Just last month many questioned whether the measure could pass the Rhode Island Senate; this week I talked to a State House veteran who predicted a signing ceremony by mid-May. The strongest sign came when Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed announced there will be a floor debate on the topic this month – signaling the bill will pass the Senate Judiciary Committee soon. Ray Sullivan, who’s leading the legalization campaign, is cautiously optimistic, telling me: “We think when a vote is called, we can win – in the committee and on the floor.” If so, it’s a credit to the big grass-roots campaign Sullivan and his team have run over the past two-plus years and particularly the last six months, which has convinced many lawmakers that their constituents want them to vote yes – and will remember if they don’t. Supporters have also played a shrewd inside game by not demonizing Paiva Weed, a decision that was clearly already paying dividends when she appointed the new Judiciary Committee. (“We respect the process in the Senate and look forward to continuing to make our case,” Sullivan says.) No doubt the local activists have also gotten a boost from a shift in the national conversation, with figures including Barack Obama and Rob Portman coming out in support of gay marriage rather dramatically over the last 12 months. It seems Rhode Island could be the “hip, happenin’ place” of Lincoln Chafee’s dreams sooner than anyone expected.

2. Whither the “Knowledge District”? Just two days after Chafee and other leaders broke ground on the old 195 land, Brown University revealed its engineering school won’t be moving to the Jewelry District after all – despite school officials’ past suggestions to the contrary. Brown’s reasons for keeping engineering on College Hill make sense, but the decision means the district still lacks a major anchor. One option would be a URI-RIC nursing school at Dynamo House, but it’s not clear that will come to fruition – or how soon it will if it does. These questions will top the agenda for two new executive directors: Marcel Valois at EDC and Jan Brodie at the 195 Commission. Valois is a known quantity; does Brodie have what it takes?

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Gina Raimondo came out swinging Friday against Forbes.com contributor Ted Siedle in response to his blistering attack on her management of Rhode Island’s pension fund. While there was no smoking gun in Siedle’s broadside, his details about the $7 billion pension fund’s new hedge fund portfolio may have surprised those who didn’t read the Institutional Investor story about the treasurer. Putting nearly one-fourth of the fund in illiquid assets represents “massive risk,” Siedle argues. But Raimondo says she’s actually reduced risk compared with the equity- and cash-heavy portfolio of three years ago. “It is right in line with best practices throughout the industry,” she said. For Raimondo, the key fact is this: Rhode Island’s pension plan is only about 60% funded – and it was only 48% funded before the 2011 overhaul, a status quo that could be restored if Judge Taft-Carter throws out the law. Rich investment returns are the only option to close the fund’s shortfall without bigger contributions from workers and taxpayers. Still, even Raimondo seemed to acknowledge it’s fair to worry about the fees charged by hedge funds – something Dean Baker also noted when I interviewed him. Many states “pay huge management fees on pensions, and that’s something that really should be scrutinized,” Baker warned. “I think oftentimes they’re being ripped off. … So that would be a place you’d just be carving fat out of the system.”

2. It didn’t get much attention, but a set of economic rankings came out this week that saw Rhode Island place pretty high – the Beacon Hill Institute’s annual State Competitiveness Report [pdf], which ranked Rhode Island 23rd. (Mississippi was last.) PBN has a summary here, and the main takeaway is that Rhode Island looks better when the scope of the survey is widened beyond government finance. The bad news: Massachusetts is #1, and as Rob Atkinson once told me, “You can be Minnesota, where you have high costs but super-good quality, or you can be Mississippi, where you’ve got low costs but bad quality. And the whole problem is Rhode Island’s got the costs of Minnesota and the quality of Mississippi.”

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. I’m not Walter Cronkite, but I think I know the big reason Lincoln Chafee’s approval rating is so low. It’s not the media – it’s this chart. The percentage of Rhode Islanders with a job was at a historic low when Chafee took office, and it’s barely budged after two years under his leadership. To Chafee, fiscal responsibility means one thing: balanced budgets. But the best way to balance a budget is robust economic growth, and Chafee has shown little imagination when it comes to boosting short-term demand in Rhode Island. No wonder then that people are warming up to the idea of abolishing the sales tax: doing so would put money in Rhode Islanders’ pockets, which is a more obvious response to the state’s present crisis than anything Chafee has put forward. The governor’s aides complain that he doesn’t get credit for deficit reduction, but it’s hard to give him much when his best-known proposal for doing so – the 2011 sales-tax overhaul – crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. Chafee does have accomplishments – ending transportation borrowing, fixing the DMV, repairing Central Falls, avoiding a supplemental budget – but they’re limited. And while there are issues where his views are broadly popular – 38 Studios, municipal pensions, gay marriage – he’s not an op-ed columnist (or a U.S. senator); he’s the governor, and people care more about his effectiveness than his prescience. One reason why coverage of Angel Taveras and Gina Raimondo may seem more favorable is because they’re both much more committed than Chafee is to explaining themselves clearly – and repeatedly. Until Chafee improves, his approval rating won’t.

2. Three recommended reads about economic development. Stephen Miller offers lessons for Providence, inspired by Buffalo. “It’s time Providence started playing to its natural and historical advantages instead of ignoring them,” he writes. James Kennedy issues a call-to-arms: “Allowing the Superman Building to be demolished for more car-oriented development could be the straw that breaks Providence’s back, while a successful push to save the building could be an opening hurrah for making our city more transit and bike oriented.” Finally, while we’re talking development, what about switching to a land tax in the capital city?

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Friday’s ominous news about coming cuts at Lifespan should make Rhode Island leaders think again about banking on the “meds and eds” to power the state’s economy in the years ahead. There is growing pressure from regulators and insurers for the health-care industry to tighten its belt, a push that got new support from Steve Brill‘s big exposé on hospital prices. The story is similar in higher education (though Brown University could probably charge as much as it wants and still fill the dorms). Down in Washington, apparently the debate is over about whether the federal government should cut back – the only question now is how much austerity and how soon, with health a top target for savings. Researchers in Providence’s vaunted Knowledge District are heavily dependent on the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, both of which are being cut by the sequester; Rhode Island stands to lose nearly $8 million in funding from the NIH. It all presents a huge challenge, one which Margot Sanger-Katz nailed in a must-read National Journal article about Pittsburgh, a city often held up as an eds-and-meds model for Providence. “The health care boom that is propping up the American economy could eventually come back to haunt us,” she warns. Does Rhode Island have a Plan B?

2. Another reason to worry about the meds-and-eds model: it’s not clear it helps the less educated Rhode Islanders who’ve been hit hard by the recession. Aaron Renn suggested recently, “there’s no flow-through to people who aren’t directly tapped into the knowledge economy itself. … [T]he majority of residents are missing out.” What to do? Harvard’s Ed Glaeser thinks the answer is simple: ”The best policy for local economic development is to attract and train smart people and then get out of their way.”

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Why is the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association sending up smoke signals about how much he’d love to have independent incumbent Lincoln Chafee join the party ahead of the 2014 elections? One reason: the White House. Barack Obama clearly likes Chafee and would be glad to give him the same treatment as Charlie Crist. But here’s another reason: Governor Raimondo – specifically, fears about that possibility on the part of national public-sector unions. Blocking the treasurer from winning the governor’s office could be their last shot at preventing her from becoming a national figure who could put a smiling, Democratic spin on cuts in government workers’ benefits. Their voice matters in intraparty debates thanks to the deep pockets of labor groups like the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which spend big bucks backing Democratic candidates. Still, blocking Raimondo’s ascent won’t be easy in light of her campaign’s deep pockets and the fact she’s already got full-throated support from the head of Emily’s List.

2. House Speaker Gordon Fox’s allies undoubtedly think their maneuver this week to bottle up the ethics bill served a higher cause: same-sex marriage. The speaker and his allies are locked in a delicate dance with Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed on the issue – trying to find the right balance between pressuring her and protecting her, in the hopes the result will be Senate passage of gay marriage by July. Sending over an ethics bill that Paiva Weed is known to dislike – and takes heat for squashing – was probably not going to butter her up on the marriage issue. Plus, they see Tuesday’s committee vote as an act of revenge by Paddy O’Neill, not a principled stand. Such reasoning is a tad ironic, though, when you consider the majority leader’s own lawyer argued it’s the speaker’s critics who think the ends justify the means.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Is Rhode Island suffering from hysteresis? As the FT’s ​Clive Crook​ defined it, hysteresis is “the likelihood that lengthening spells of unemployment become self-perpetuating, as skills erode or grow irrelevant.” The possibility of that phenomenon happening here should be an increasing concern for Rhode Island policymakers. Don’t be fooled by the falling unemployment rate: the percentage of the state’s residents who are employed has flatlined, with no real improvement since dropping below 60% during the recession. As of June 2012 one in three Rhode Islanders collecting jobless benefits had been out of work for more than six months, with 13% of them unemployed for more than a year – and there’s increasing evidence employers just aren’t interested in hiring someone who’s been out of work that long. Who are the state’s long-term unemployed? What can be done to put more of them back to work? Every month that goes by is another month when their skills degrade and their hopes dim. They’re at risk of becoming a permanent underclass – and a permanent drag on Rhode Island’s economy.

2. The 10% drop in Rhode Island’s working-age population isn’t the only troubling stat I found when I dug into the employment data this week. Here’s another: the share of Rhode Islanders ages 25-34 with a job dropped from 80% in 2006 to 72% in 2012. If the state wasn’t losing population, it would have fallen as low as 69%.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Here’s an idea for Republicans who want to boost their woeful numbers in the General Assembly next year: if Senate leaders kill gay marriage again this session, the GOP could run candidates who support the measure in a bid to peel off Democrats and independents. It’s not as crazy as it might sound: the advocacy group Marriage Equality endorsed a number of Republican legislative candidates in 2012, including ​Dawson Hodgson, Chris Ottiano ​and ​Brian Newberry​, and others in the GOP share their stance. The gay marriage issue might allow Republicans to divide Paiva Weed Democrats from Obama Democrats: polling shows majority support for gay nuptials among Rhode Islanders, and low-information voters may be casting ballots for Assembly Democrats whom they wrongly assume are on board with the idea. Of course, Republicans would run the risk of losing support from their own party’s opponents of same-sex marriage – and they’d need to run competent campaigns that target the message to the right voters. But the idea offers a potential way for the Rhode Island GOP to pick the lock the Democrats have on the electorate.

2. Looking over the new Brown University poll, WPRI 12 political analyst ​Joe Fleming​ told me he was struck by how similar the results are to what we found in our big statewide survey last September. “It’s a mirror of our poll,” Fleming said. “There hasn’t been much movement for anybody. Voters’ opinions haven’t changed much.” That’s bad news for ​Lincoln Chafee​, who needs his numbers to improve before long if he wants to win re-election.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Few things are more perplexing than the near-total lack of debate in Rhode Island about how the state should take advantage of rock-bottom post-crisis interest rates. (​Governor Chafee’s​ budget chief ​Pete Marino is a rare exception; he wants lawmakers to move up $11.1 million in “shovel-ready” RICAP projects.​) Rhode Island already knows it’s going to spend huge sums on infrastructure over the coming years; as Evan Soltas argues, there’s a strong case for spending more now while borrowing costs are low and construction workers are idle. ​Rich Overmoyer​, whose Fourth Economy Consulting did this week’s economic report, recalls that in 2003 former Pennsylvania Gov. ​Ed Rendell​ kick-started the Keystone State’s economy with a $2.8 billion stimulus. “I have seen in a lot of states a stimulus can have a profound effect,” Overmoyer told me. He cited Massachusetts, Connecticut, Kansas and Michigan as taking thoughtful approaches: “There are some creative models out there also that become a little more palatable with the legislature, in terms of how to get at that and peg it to something that you’re not bankrupting the future.”

2. CVS Caremark, Rhode Island’s biggest private company and top for-profit employer, is on a hot streak as former chief ​Tom Ryan’s​ vision starts to pay dividends. The Woonsocket pharmacy giant surprised Wall Street with a $3.9 billion profit for 2012 on $123 billion in sales, sending CVS stock to a record high of $52.77 a share. “Obviously we’re very pleased,” CEO ​Larry Merlo​ crowed to investors. The company just made its first foray outside the United States, paying cash for Brazil’s 8th-biggest pharmacy chain. Its MinuteClinic franchise is already growing like gangbusters, and with Obamacare set to give 30 million more Americans health insurance, the outlook for CVS is rosy.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column, back on schedule after a one-week blizzard outage. As always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Scituate’s police pension fiasco is a great illustration of why governments should pay for pension benefits when they’re earned, not when they’re collected. As Josh Barro has explained at length, pensions are a component of employee compensation, and therefore their cost should be covered when the worker is doing whatever job is earning him or her the future benefit. (Think about how your employer puts money into your 401k account with each paycheck.) For obvious reasons current taxpayers seem to prefer promising pensions now but sticking the bill with future taxpayers – it keeps taxes lower. That, however, is neither fair nor sustainable. As we’re seeing, current taxpayers don’t want to pay for promises that someone else made decades ago, especially if they’re dissatisfied with current services. And who can blame them? In addition, the principle of pre-funding is even more important if pensions are an unchangeable contract, as the unions argue in their current lawsuit. Barro thinks politicians just can’t be trusted with defined-benefit pensions, and therefore everyone should move to 401k-style systems. Others – including Dean Baker and, to a lesser extent, Gina Raimondo – say those defined-contribution systems are inadequate and unnecessarily expensive. Perhaps there’s a middle ground that pension traditionalists can get behind: if the law requires pension benefits to be paid in full, the law should require that pension contributions be made in full, too.

2. This will get people talking: Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jim Langevin, David Cicilline and Patrick Kennedy are co-hosting a breakfast fundraiser for Lincoln Chafee on Monday, Feb. 25 at Peck Madigan Jones, a lobbying firm in Washington. Longtime Clinton confidante Harold Ickes is among those on the host committee. The fact that the all-Democratic congressional delegation is raising money for the independent governor doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be joining their party; rather, it may mean he’s preparing to splinter the Democratic Party for a second election cycle in a row. I wonder what Gina Raimondo and Angel Taveras think?

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1. There’s an obvious winner in PPP’s new Rhode Island survey: the state’s political press, because the race for governor looks wide open 21 months from Election Day. (U.S. Senate, not so much.) The poll contains plenty to cheer both of the state’s leading Democrats. ​Gina Raimondo​ led the field in every ballot test, and she’s more popular with liberals and older voters than many believed; that said, she’s far from the untouchable territory of a ​Chris Christie​​. ​Angel Taveras tops the popularity contest with a 63% favorable rating, though he actually placed third in a four-way primary matchup, and his numbers with non-whites are so-so. Then there’s ​Lincoln Chafee​. A normal politician wouldn’t run for re-election with a 32% approval rating and 57% of voters asking him to retire – but Lincoln Chafee has never been a normal politician. His best bet is clearly to run as a Democrat: he has a positive approval rating with voters in the party, and he even tops Taveras in a potential primary. But how many more of his family’s millions is Chafee willing to pour into a long-shot bid for a second term – particularly if he acts as a spoiler, only to hurt his friend Taveras and help his nemesis Raimondo?

2. Then again, maybe ​the treasurer would be better off running next year in California. A new report on pension reform published in the Golden State rather poetically declares, “Gina Raimondo made her rebellion with heart, with mind, with soul – calm, determined, and triumphant.” Now that’s what I call Raimondomania.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Rhode Island’s flavor-of-the-week in economic development is brain science. On Thursday the Providence Chamber’s ​Laurie White​ pitched a public-private brain science research center to state senators, and ​Governor Chafee​ quickly embraced the idea. If the proposed center is going to be globally competitive, White and Chafee will need to come up with a lot of money: in recent month​s Columbia University secured $200 million to endow a new Mind Brain Behavior Institute, a UTexas-Baylor-MIT group is putting together $50 million for a Neurodegeneration Consortium, and Connecticut’s governor plans to invest $200 million in bioscience. Even with ​John Donoghue​, can Brown University and the Lifespan hospitals compete on that scale? And is it affordable or viable in an era when the “meds and eds” are facing unprecedented pressure to clamp down on costs? The answers to these questions may be yes, but it’s important they get asked. The 38 Studios debacle was the product of economic desperation and a lack of rigor; if a huge amount of money is about to be put on the line, Rhode Island should try to avoid making the same mistakes.

2. ​If you’ve never watched Executive Suite, this is the week to tune in: ​Aaron Renn’s​ interview (already online) will change how you think about economic development in Rhode Island – starting with the fact that you’ll no longer think about it happening “in Rhode Island.” Renn offers a great antidote to the platitudes that often pass for bold thinking locally; when you’re done watching the show, check out his articles about Providence, too.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi at wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. It looks like Governor Chafee​ will indeed try for a second term next year. He was close to unequivocal about running during Friday’s taping of Newsmakers – but much less so when ​Tim White​ and I asked whether he’ll run as an independent or a Democrat. “I haven’t really crossed that threshold of what political affiliation,” Chafee said. “I’m really just focusing on what we’re talking about – getting the economy going, getting these unemployment numbers down.” The obvious question is, can he win? It’s possible: his approval rating in September was 29%, and last time around it only took 36% to elect him. A repeat performance as an independent would require another four-way race, but that looks increasingly likely with Moderate Party leader ​Ken Block​ pledging to field a candidate. Alternatively, if Chafee wants to run as a Democrat, there’s the ​Obama​ factor. The president is already easing the transition of former Florida Gov. ​Charlie Crist​, an ex-Republican, into the Democratic Party; could he do the same for Chafee?

2. After the State of the State I asked ​Gina Raimondo​ whether she’s going to run for governor next year. “Ted, I don’t know,” she said. “I’m thinking about it but I don’t know. I really don’t. I really don’t.” A little while later I found ​Angel Taveras​ and asked whether he’ll be making the State of the State speech in 2015. Taveras laughed and said, “I’m worried about 2013 right now, and what this budget’s going to say.” I didn’t get a chance to ask ​Allan Fung​ whether he’s going to run, but last time I did he made it clear he’s strongly considering it.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. The outlook brightened a bit this week for advocates of same-sex marriage with the announcement of Senate President ​Teresa Paiva Weed’s​ picks for the 10-member Senate Judiciary Committee. Paiva Weed didn’t push the panel decisively in either direction, but she did give ​Ray Sullivan​ and his allies at Marriage Equality Rhode Island a path to get the bill out of committee and onto the Senate floor. They start with five likely yes votes (including ​Paul Jabour​, whose district will likely pressure him not to kill the bill in committee) and three likely no votes. That leaves two big question-marks: ​Leo Raptakis​ and ​Billy Conley. Raptakis would seem to be a definite no, but his support for a referendum on the issue make him sound squishier than expected. As for Conley, while he may have railed against same-sex marriage in the past, there’s a big difference between making a low-profile speech and casting the decisive vote. And then of course there’s the pressure leadership may put on Judiciary members based on any deals they strike with their House counterparts. Stay tuned.

2. The victorious Obama campaign had quite a few southern Massachusetts natives around and about. The president’s bruiser of a spokeswoman, ​Stephanie Cutter​, is from Raynham. His research guru ​David Simas​ is from Taunton. (Simas says Obama ran “a national presidential campaign the way you’d do a local ward campaign.”) Last but maybe most, White House photographer ​Pete Souza​ is from South Dartmouth, as I was recently informed by ace Fall River Herald News scribe ​Will Richmond​.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column. As always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. It’s possible Rhode Island’s current U.S. Senate delegation will be in place for quite a while. Jack Reed​ will almost certainly win re-election next year to serve through 2020, when he’ll be 71 years old; considering how long many senators serve, it’s not inconceivable he could serve into the 2030s. ​Sheldon Whitehouse​ is about six years younger than Reed and just won a commanding victory; a few more of those would keep him in place into the 2030s, too. Those are hardly outlandish scenarios considering the long tenures of most recent Rhode Island senators – ​Claiborne Pell​ (36 years), ​John Pastore​ (26), ​T.F. Green​ (24) and ​John Chafee​ (23) – with only ​Lincoln Chafee​ lasting less than a decade. Then again, periods of Senate stability can end quickly: Massachusetts had the same delegation from 1985 through 2009, but looks set to have two brand-new senators by the end of this month.

2. Rhode Island’s U.S. House delegation is another story – there’s almost no way the state will avoid losing one of its two congressional seats after the next census, and if it happens there’s no way ​Jim Langevin​ and ​David Cicilline will both be serving in the House come 2023. In interviews this week they acknowledged it’s a real possibility the delegation will be downsized. “Of course, you know, they’ve said that the last two times as well, and each time it hasn’t happened,” Langevin told me. “But eventually there will be a day when, as a result of the census and population shifts and growth in other areas, Rhode Island very likely will lose a seat. It’s always a loss of clout, I believe; it’s better to have more members than less. And again, the more senior you become the more important that seniority is and you have increased responsibility. So we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” For now, though, change is unlikely: Langevin says he’s running in 2014.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. I’m fascinated, as a writer and a nerd, by the future of the printed word. Newspapers’ struggles are well-documented, but lately my thoughts have turned to the changing book industry and the Kindle-powered rise of e-books. For a long time I wondered if people would be willing to pay $10 for the digital text of a book with no physical copy to show for their money afterwards. But recently I read two books on my Kindle - ​Robert Caro’s​ new LBJ biography and Politico’s final look at the presidential race – and the experience got me thinking about the potential for a change in consumer psychology. Perhaps reading with your Kindle is less like buying a traditional book and more like buying a movie ticket – you pay $10 or so for an immersive cultural experience, and you don’t expect to have something physical afterwards. Better yet, maybe that lower price point (compared with a hardcover) will get people to buy more books than they do now. Of course, if too much of the industry moves to e-books it might be bad news for independent bookstores. We’ll see.

2. I’m pleased to announce that my friend ​Dan McGowan​ will be joining WPRI.com next month as our second digital reporter, part of WPRI 12′s continued expansion of our newsroom and our online team. Dan will be covering Rhode Island’s political scene and whatever else is interesting. He first came on my radar screen in 2010, when he was blogging about the Providence mayoral race and related topics for Rhode Island’s Future; since then he’s earned a journalism degree from Boston University and done great original reporting for GoLocalProv. (When McGowan accepted the job, I said to ​Tim White​: “Good. Now he can’t scoop us anymore!”)

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Democrats may rue the day they supported the appointment of John Kerry as secretary of state. A special election will be held within 160 days once Kerry’s U.S. Senate seat becomes vacant, and Republican Scott Brown could be tough to beat. Polls show Brown is still popular with voters despite their decision to replace him with Elizabeth Warren; a special election would allow them to make amends and vote him back in. Democrats will have trouble repeating their argument that a vote for Brown risks giving the GOP Senate control, since Democrats would still have a 54-seat majority after a Kerry-Brown swap. A special election also has its own dynamics. The Democratic candidate won’t benefit from presidential coattails and a national narrative the way Warren did (and Martha Coakley didn’t). Voter turnout will likely be lower and less liberal, and interest could be limited, especially if voters fatigued from this year’s contest default back to Brown. It’s not clear any of the Democratic hopefuls have the right appeal in those circumstances. If Brown wins and then holds the seat in 2014, before long he could provide the crucial vote that gives Republicans control of the Senate, because the midterm elections are going to be especially tough for Senate Democrats.

2. Minnesota Sen. ​Al Franken​ once again organized a Secret Santa gift swap ($10 limit) for his colleagues, and members of the world’s greatest deliberative body exchanged their presents Tuesday on the Senate floor. Rhode Island’s ​Sheldon Whitehouse​ didn’t take part in the swap, but ​Jack Reed​ did. He got Alaska Sen. ​Lisa Murkowski, and Reed’s office reports he gave her an Alex and Ani “Hope” bracelet. (Murkowski is also the ranking Republican member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, which Reed chairs.) Reed’s Secret Santa was New York Sen. ​Kirsten Gillibrand​, who serves with him on the Armed Services Committee. Appropriately, she gave him a West Point ornament and a copy of ​Tom Ricks​’ recent book “The Generals.”

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. After a major tragedy, there’s often a tension between the urge to temporarily suspend normal life and the urge not to allow the perpetrators to make the impact they desired. All of us must decide for ourselves how to resolve that tension. For me, it’s too soon to publish a normal breezy column just 24 hours after more than a dozen innocent children, ages 5 to 10, were executed in their classrooms two hours south of here. My thoughts and prayers are with their loved ones, as I’m sure yours are, amid such unimaginable grief.

2. President Obama: “We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. And each time I learn the news I react not as a President, but as anybody else would — as a parent. And that was especially true today. I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief that I do. The majority of those who died today were children — beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own. Among the fallen were also teachers — men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams. So our hearts are broken today — for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children, and for the families of the adults who were lost. Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children’s innocence has been torn away from them too early, and there are no words that will ease their pain.”

3. Governor Chafee: “The word ‘tragedy’ is used often these days, but it is difficult to think of a more truly tragic turn of events than what occurred in Newtown, Conn., earlier today. … We are taught, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ As the families of today’s many innocent victims mourn this senseless loss of life, the thoughts and prayers of the people of Rhode Island and the people of our nation are with them – and will remain with them.”

4. Bob Schieffer joined CBS News in 1969. “I’ve been around a long time,” he said during live coverage Friday. “I’ve covered a lot of stories and a lot of tragedies – everything from plane crashes to car wrecks to all the things one runs into on the police beat. I have never heard or seen anything that comes up to what we’re seeing unfold here today. I think we are going to see some change. I think we are going to say, this may be as far as we’re willing to go. We’ll find out in the days to come. But I’ve never seen anything quite like this.”

5. It was striking on Friday how quickly the discussion on social media turned to public policy: gun rights, mental health, school preparedness. On reflection, though, it seems like an understandable response – when you see something unimaginable like this, you wonder whether there is something more that could be done to prevent the next tragedy. ”We’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics,” the president said. It remains to be seen what, if any, change in federal policy will be proposed after this event. For now I can point you to two thought-provoking articles about firearms: “The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control),” by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, and “Battleground America,” by Jill Lepore in The New Yorker. ProPublica has much more.

6. This week on Newsmakers – newly elected freshman lawmakers Ryan Pearson of Cumberland and John Lombardi of Providence, plus Joe Fleming discusses 2014. Watch Sunday at 10 a.m. on Fox Providence. This week on Executive Suite – Cox Communications GM John Wolfe and Blooming Blossoms owner Pam Hargraves. Watch Sunday at 6 p.m. on myRITV (or 6 a.m. on Fox). See you back here next Saturday morning.

Ted Nesi ( tnesi@wpri.com ) covers politics and the economy for WPRI.com and writes the Nesi’s Notes blog. Follow him on Twitter: @tednesi

Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Which side is going to win the pension lawsuit? Who knows? Both sides have plausible arguments. On the state side, David Boies​ says pension benefits aren’t a contract right since they’re codified in statute – and even if there is a contract right, as Judge ​Sarah Taft-Carter​ has already ruled, Rhode Island’s fiscal situation required changes. On the union side, ​Bob Walsh​ says the unions have already won a key victory on the contract question, and Rhode Island’s situation isn’t so dire that breaking the contract in this way was necessary. It’s hard to imagine Taft-Carter will have the final word on all this, whatever she decides, which means it will wind up coming down to the jurisprudence of ​Supreme Court Chief Justice ​Paul Suttell​ and his four associate justices: ​Maureen McKenna Goldberg​, ​Francis Flaherty​, ​William Robinson​ and ​Gilbert Indeglia​. Are they ready to set a major precedent by upholding the pension law? And will they hand down a decision before Nov. 4, 2014?

2. Speaking of Taft-Carter, there was a funny courtroom moment Friday amid the otherwise painfully awkward period when counsel ​John Tarantino​ was arguing to Taft-Carter’s face why she’d ruled incorrectly on recusing herself and can’t stay on the case because of her family’s stake in the pension system. At one point Tarantino put forward a hypothetical, suggesting that by Taft-Carter’s reasoning she wouldn’t have to recuse herself even if her husband was a plaintiff in the pension case. “Which he’s not!” the judge interjected, laughing nervously. “I want to get that out there.” Considering she made the front page of The New York Times this week, who can blame her?

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. Oy Christmas tree. Governor Chafee’s noble impulse to respect all Rhode Islanders regardless of their faith certainly reflects the state’s long history of religious tolerance, as well as his interpretation of church-state separation. Still, a large lighted indoor spruce festooned with ornaments in December is a Christmas tree, whether the governor calls it a holiday tree or a hippopotamus; the same will be true if he calls a menorah a “holiday candelabra.” And as Bishop Tobin pointed out to my colleague Steve Nielsen, “It’s not just about the name of the tree; it’s about American culture and traditions that are very important to a lot of people.” Moreover, this is a governor whose approval rating has never topped 38%. Every time he fights one of these principled but Quixotic battles – whether it’s the holiday tree or Jason Pleau – he uses up political capital he doesn’t have to spare. Pleau is life and death; the holiday tree is not. The media undoubtedly fanned the flames this week, but that’s no surprise, and an effective governor deals with the media environment he has, not the one he wishes he had. Does Chafee lack the discipline to do that?

2. Gov. Philip Noel created the R.I. Department of Economic Development in 1974. William Parsons went to work there the following year. During the subsequent four decades Rhode Island has gone through multiple economic crises, and the department itself has been remade into the quasi-public R.I. Economic Development Corporation. And through it all – recessions, reprimands, rebukes, reorganizations – Parsons has remained. On Thursday the governor named him to succeed Keith Stokes as its executive director – what luck that the most qualified person in the country to lead the EDC had already been working there for 37 years.

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Welcome to a Thanksgiving edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi (at) wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter (@tednesi).

1. What makes a great mayor? Looks can be deceiving. If roads, services and job growth are all solid the natural inclination is to think the current mayor is doing a good job. But check under the hood. Nobody would buy a car, or even assume it’s in good condition, just because it has a fresh coat of paint and clean interiors – we’d kick the tires, check the mileage and survey the parts as well. It’s the same way with cities, and in Rhode Island particularly so with unfunded retirement liabilities. I’m betting there were decades past when some Rhode Island cities had great services, a contented citizenry and a happy municipal work force – all to the benefit of their mayors. But if part of that work force’s pay was in the form of deferred compensation – pensions and lifetime health care – the contented citizens were effectively borrowing money from taxpayers of the future to afford the level of services they enjoyed at the time. A truly great mayor is one who provides good services without leaving behind large hidden debts to handcuff his successors.

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Welcome to another edition of my weekend column – as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to tnesi@wpri.com. For quick hits all week long, follow me on Twitter: @tednesi.

1. David Cicilline is one of the best politicians Rhode Island has ever produced. While he has a natural advantage as a Democrat in a strongly Democratic state, the self-inflicted wounds from his years as mayor have obscured just how much success the soon-to-be-second-term congressman has had over the last three years. Cicilline won three of his four congressional elections by a double-digit margin (two primaries, one general) and even managed a six-point victory amid the historic Republican tidal wave of 2010. Two of those wins came after his job approval rating touched a low of 15%. He’s also shrewdly effective inside his party, managing to scare off potential primary challengers last year and then using the one who emerged – Anthony Gemma – to his advantage. “I’ve never in my entire life seen a candidate work as hard as he has,” Nicole Kayner, who ran Cicilline’s communications operation in the last two elections, marveled to me after Tuesday’s results came in. The result: the congressional seat Cicilline craved is now his for the foreseeable future. But Kayner thinks many of Cicilline’s opponents miss the key reason for his success – he actually believes in the Democratic policy agenda he trumpets so faithfully and frequently. “He’s a policy wonk who’s also great on the stump – you don’t get that a lot,” she said. “It always makes me laugh when we get the critique that he’s too on-message. He says the same things over and over because that’s what he actually thinks.” After the last few years, Cicilline won’t be underestimated again.

2. Rhode Island Republicans struggling to find any silver lining in Tuesday’s election results can take some solace in the fact that a governor’s race against a weak incumbent is approaching in 2014, and their party has historically performed well in gubernatorial contests. In fact, an endorsed non-incumbent Democratic Party candidate for governor hasn’t won the primary and the job since Joe Garrahy back in 1976. (Bruce Sundlun wasn’t endorsed.) And unlike John Robitaille, who was basically running for Don Carcieri’s third term in 2010, the GOP candidate will be able to place full responsibility for the state’s situation on the Democratic Party in 2014. Granted, there’s little sign the Almond-Carcieri years did much good for the rest of the state GOP – but the governor’s office alone would be better than nothing.

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