May 13th, 2013 at 6:19 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Rhode Island’s congressional delegation slammed the Internal Revenue Service on Monday for giving special scrutiny to conservative groups, but U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse suggested the scandal reflects a broken national campaign-finance system.
May 9th, 2013 at 12:49 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – President Obama, Congressman David Cicilline and other Democrats were propelled to victory last November by a surge in voting by Hispanic and black Rhode Islanders as well as a sharp drop in participation among white citizens, a WPRI.com analysis of new Census data shows.
May 8th, 2013 at 5:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Three of the four members of Rhode Island’s all-Democratic congressional delegation will take aim Wednesday at someone who’s an unusual target for them: President Obama.
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman David Cicilline are among the eight members of Congress co-hosting a summit on Capitol Hill to criticize a proposal in Obama’s latest budget that would trim Social Security benefits by switching to a measure of inflation known as “chained CPI.”
Rhode Island’s entire delegation slammed the policy when it emerged, and Cicilline has garnered national attention for introducing a resolution that would have Congress express formal disapproval of chained CPI. U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont are also among the summit’s hosts, giving it a decidedly New England flavor.
There were 207,122 Rhode Island residents receiving Social Security benefits in December 2011, the most recent month for which figures are available – meaning nearly 20% of state residents are on Social Security. Two-thirds of Rhode Island’s beneficiaries were 65 or older, while 35,905 were disabled and 15,704 were children. The Rhode Islanders’ combined Social Security benefits totaled $236 million that month.
The congressional event at 12:30 p.m. will be streamed live online by Strengthen Social Security, a coalition of unions and progressive groups that supports increasing benefits.
• Related: RI congressional delegation slams Obama over Social Security (April 10)
April 10th, 2013 at 5:21 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
President Obama isn’t getting any support from Rhode Island’s congressional delegation for his controversial proposal to trim future Social Security benefits.
All four Democrats – usually loyal defenders of the president – issued statements Wednesday criticizing Obama for his proposal to use a different measure of inflation, known as “chained CPI,” to calculate Social Security benefit increases, which would reduce payments over time compared with current law.
The harshest critique came from U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a leading liberal in the chamber. “The so-called ‘chained CPI’ proposal included in President Obama’s budget is nothing more than a benefit cut disguised behind technical jargon,” he declared.
Whitehouse said he thinks the way Social Security currently calculates inflation already “shortchanges” senior citizens and should be changed to increase benefits – the exact opposite of Obama’s proposal. “I made a promise to the people of Rhode Island that I would always oppose cuts to Social Security, and I’m going to keep that promise,” Whitehouse said.
March 22nd, 2013 at 9:46 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
U.S. Sens. Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse were among the 79 senators who voted Thursday night to get rid of a tax on sales of medical devices passed in 2010 to help fund President Obama’s health reform law.
The two Rhode Island senators joined 31 of their fellow Democrats and all 45 Republicans in voting to repeal the 2.3% excise tax on medical devices, which took effect Jan. 1. Getting rid of it would cost the federal government $29 billion from 2013 to 2022, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning Washington think-tank that opposed repealing it.
Whitehouse and another stalwart liberal, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, were among those who sided with the device industry on the repeal measure, which was introduced by Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah and has been the subject of a heavy lobbying effort.
Stephen Lane, chairman and chief venture officer of the Providence-based medical-device firm Ximedica, said at a manufacturing forum last year co-hosted by Congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin that the tax was causing his industry to move production to Asia. Cicilline and Langevin voted to keep the tax, and Cicilline clashed over the question with his Republican opponent Brendan Doherty in a WPRI 12 debate last fall.
February 12th, 2013 at 6:47 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
It looks like U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse will get another chance to pass his “Buffett Rule.”
A growing number of reports from Washington indicate top Senate Democrats will make a version of the Buffett Rule – which would set a minimum tax rate for millionaires – a key part of their proposal to avert the so-called “sequester” of mandatory spending cuts set to take effect next month.
The Buffett Rule started out as an idea in an op-ed by Warren Buffett. After President Obama mentioned it in last year’s State of the Union address, Whitehouse quickly introduced legislation to put the measure into law. Whitehouse’s bill died in April when it failed to overcome a filibuster.
To pass the measure under normal Senate filibuster rules, Democrats would need every senator in their 55-member caucus to vote in favor and then win over five Republicans. That seems unlikely. But the idea’s continued prominence is another sign that Whitehouse has a feel for the legislative zeitgeist.
As for the fiscal impact, the CBO said Whitehouse’s “Buffett Rule” bill would raise $47 billion over 10 years. Whitehouse himself included the Buffett Rule in his new plan [pdf] to offset the sequester without spending cuts earlier this week, though he acknowledged the whole proposal was dead on arrival.
• Related: Not one, not two, but 18 views on Whitehouse’s ‘Buffett rule’ (April 16)
January 25th, 2013 at 9:57 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Zack Colman reports for The Hill:
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Thursday outlined a slate of climate change actions that President Obama could execute with his own authority.
The lawmakers conveyed a bleak outlook for climate legislation this Congress, noting considerable Republican opposition in the House. But they said Obama’s climate comments during his Monday inaugural address raised the prospects for administrative action to address the issue. …
Whitehouse, Waxman and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) laid out a menu of options for executive action on climate change in a Thursday letter to Obama [pdf]. Among them were moves federal agencies could take to curb greenhouse gas emissions and enlisting national laboratories to pump out clean-energy technology. …
Whitehouse also suggested the federal government could use its procurement powers to strike deals with cleaner, sustainable contractors.
Whitehouse has made clear in the weeks since he won re-election last fall that one of his core priorities during his second term will be pushing Washington for action on climate change, as well as new efforts to protect the health of the sea through his bipartisan Senate Oceans Caucus.
“I think it’s going to take some hammering to open the window [of what's possible] up a bit, but the public is now so clearly behind doing something about climate change that it puts the Republican opposition in a very different – and I think, before long, untenable – position,” Whitehouse told me during an interview in his Capitol Hill office earlier this month.
With that in mind, on Thursday Whitehouse also restarted the series of weekly floor speeches about climate change he’s been giving for the past year. The video of yesterday’s edition is here.
(photo: Whitehouse’s office)
January 22nd, 2013 at 5:31 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said Tuesday the United States needs to step up its support for opposition rebels in war-torn Syria, arguing they need America’s help just as the U.S. needed France to win independence from Britain – though he ruled out putting troops on the ground.
• Related: Reed: US on track to exit Afghanistan, fix Pakistan relations (Jan. 10)
January 4th, 2013 at 12:24 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
WPRI.com’s Ted Nesi is reporting from Capitol Hill this week.
WASHINGTON – Wayne Gretzky retired more than a decade ago, but he’s still inspiring congressional Democrats from Southern New England.
In separate interviews this week, Rhode Island U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and newly elected Mass. Congressman Joe Kennedy III both cited the wisdom of the legendary Canadian hockey star as a model for how they’ll approach the 113th Congress.
“If you remember the great Wayne Gretzky,” Whitehouse told WPRI.com, “he used to say you become a great hockey player not when you go to where the puck is but when you go to where the puck is going to be. And I think there’s four issues where the puck is going to be where we really need to be working hard even if it’s not the so-called issue of the moment.”
Whitehouse’s four issues: climate change, the oceans, cybersecurity, and streamlining the way health care gets delivered.
The next morning, Kennedy had the same lesson on his mind.
“Wayne Gretzky was famous for saying he doesn’t go where the puck is, he goes to where the puck’s going to be,” he said, arguing that members of Congress need to think the same way.
Informed that Senator Whitehouse had used Gretzky’s famous aphorism less than 24 hours earlier, Kennedy said, “Did he really? You’re kidding me!” He laughed and added: “Maybe he and I can talk about that.”
• Related: More stories from Ted Nesi’s trip to Washington this week
(photo: Wikipedia)
January 2nd, 2013 at 5:38 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
WASHINGTON – Robert Caro’s magisterial biography of LBJ gets a reader thinking about what it takes to be an effective senator. It’s not just legislative smarts, and it’s not just political skill – and it’s different in different eras. Johnson himself might have had trouble if he stepped in to take Harry Reid’s place today.
During a 45-minute interview this afternoon with U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who recently won a second six-year term with 65% of the vote, I asked him which senators he admires and how he thinks a lawmaker can be effective in the chamber. Here’s what he had to say:
I’ve had the pleasure and the privilege of serving with some of the real titans in the Senate: Robert C. Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd. My very strong feeling is that the things that make you an effective senator are:
Seniority, which you can’t do much about – it is what it is – but as time goes by you need to be ramping it up the match your seniority.
Very hard work, and I demand that of my staff as well – you can outwork other offices, you can have the report prepared in advance because you know where the public is going to be.
Gradually building enough expertise on an issue so when the discussion comes and you have something to say, people say, “Oh, this is an issue that Whitehouse has put a lot of work into and I’ve heard him before on this – he has credibility with me – I trust him.” You don’t completely cede your vote to another senator, but you trust people more on some things than you do on others, and you trust some people more than you do on others because you’ve seen them put the work in.
And then a certain amount of the rest is just timing and finding your moment where the things converge, so while seniority accrues, hard work and trying to pick the Wayne Gretzky puck locations, and being there when the time comes so that you can influence the debate in the right way, I think, is key.
More quotes from my interview with Whitehouse still to come.
January 2nd, 2013 at 10:58 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
WASHINGTON, D.C. (WPRI) – They didn’t love it, but in the end all four Democrats in Rhode Island’s congressional delegation stood by President Obama and voted for this week’s “fiscal cliff” compromise, once again standing with their party’s leadership during a major confrontation.
December 12th, 2012 at 4:48 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The U.S. Senate’s biannual committee shuffle is over, and Rhode Island’s two senators are staying put.
Jack Reed will continue to serve on the same three committees when the new session starts in January, and Sheldon Whitehouse will continue to serve on the same five, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Wednesday.
Seniority is the coin of the realm in the U.S. Senate, and Rhode Island’s senators continue to move up the ladder. Reed ranked 33rd overall during the current Congress, and Whitehouse ranked 67th – up from 99th when he was first sworn in almost six years ago.
Reed is on fewer committees than other lawmakers because his three assignments are coveted ones: the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Banking Committee.
December 5th, 2012 at 1:30 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse thinks he knows how President Obama can reach a budget deal without reducing Medicare benefits outright: declare exactly how much money the federal government will save by changing how health care is delivered, and then make it happen.
“A clear and specific presidential target will focus federal efforts in an accountable manner, that calls to ‘bend the health care cost curve’ will not,” the senator said in a statement. Whitehouse is a leading congressional champion of what’s known as health care delivery system reform.
The problem, as Whitehouse sees it, is that the Congressional Budget Office won’t “score” savings from changing how health care is delivered because the CBO sees them as uncertain. But if the president puts a dollar amount on the savings, a budget deal can bank the amount.
Whitehouse put forward his idea in a letter to Obama and a Politico op-ed on Wednesday. “Let’s put the full force of American innovation and ingenuity into achieving a serious cost-savings goal for our nation’s health care finances,” the senator wrote in the op-ed. “And in the meantime, let’s resist the urge to cut Medicare benefits and put additional strain on middle-class Americans.”
Meanwhile, Whitehouse is also trying to refocus Washington on climate change as international talks take place in Qatar. “It’s impossible to deny that it really hasn’t been a priority, and now with the fiscal issues all pending and a fairly immediate horizon for solving that, either now or in the first quarter of the year, I think that displaces these other issues,” he told Politico.
• Related: Whitehouse optimistic on filibuster, wary about ‘fiscal cliff’ deal (Nov. 14)
November 30th, 2012 at 6:12 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Mr. Smith doing his thing
A growing number of U.S. Senate Democrats including Sheldon Whitehouse are pushing hard for their caucus to approve changes to the filibuster early next year that would make it harder for Republicans to block legislation. But Whitehouse’s senior colleague, Jack Reed, still doesn’t sound convinced in this story by The Hill’s Alexander Bolton:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could be short on votes he needs to force changes to the Senate’s filibuster rules, as nine Democratic senators sit on the fence about the proposed reforms. …
Two other senior Democrats, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (Mont.) and Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), have yet to be persuaded. …
“I’m going to work my way through it,” said Reed. “It’s all part of the idea of how you effect change.
“I’m looking at everything,” he said.
Local observers probably won’t be surprised by this. While Reed sounded frustrated about Republicans’ heavy filibustering on “Newsmakers” in late 2010, he didn’t side with Whitehouse’s allies on the actual vote to change the rules two months later. This was my take at the time:
Some of the split can be chalked up to temperament; Reed is a cautious elder statesman type, and though a loyal Democrat, he’s not the most vocal partisan. Whitehouse, on the other hand, is a proud, loud liberal who’s glad to call out the other side.
However, their disagreement may also have something to do with when the two men joined the Senate.
Reed was elected in 1996 after serving in the House, and thus spent almost his entire first decade as a senator in the minority. (Democrats briefly controlled the chamber from mid-2001 through 2002.) He has a clear memory of what it was like to be out of power for an extended period of time, and what it meant to Senate Democrats to have the filibuster available to block Republican initiatives.
Whitehouse was elected in 2006 on a tidal wave of hostility toward the Bush administration, and unlike Reed, he has never served in the minority. So Whitehouse has only known the the frustration of watching Republicans block Democratic initiatives that had the support of a majority of senators, particularly over the last two years. He’s also served in an era when fewer senators cared about the chamber as an institution.
• Related: Reed, Whitehouse split on limiting the filibuster (Jan. 28, 2011)
(photo: Wikipedia)
November 14th, 2012 at 7:07 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Fresh off his re-election victory, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says he’s optimistic the Senate will approve new rules making it harder for Republicans to block bills, and he’s prepared to break with President Obama on a budget deal if it cuts Social Security or Medicare benefits.
November 13th, 2012 at 2:04 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
It’s a testament to the high regard in which Washington apparently holds Rhode Island’s two U.S. senators, Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse, that their names are constantly being floated for high-level Obama administration posts. Just in the past few days there have been suggestions the president could name Reed either defense secretary or CIA director, or Whitehouse attorney general.
It’s extremely unlikely any of that will actually come to pass, because both Reed and Whitehouse really, really like their current jobs and probably can keep them for decades. Why take a cabinet post for a comparatively short time when senator-for-life is an option?
However, one of the arguments against their appointments that’s being floated is incorrect. Here’s Politico:
The problem with pulling [Jack] Reed from the Senate is that the state’s governor is a political independent who could appoint a replacement not as friendly to Obama’s second-term agenda.
Apart from the fact that it’s unlikely Obama campaign co-chair Lincoln Chafee would appoint somebody at odds with the president, Rhode Island governors no longer have the legal power to appoint anyone thanks to a 2010 law enacted by the General Assembly over Governor Carcieri’s veto:
The governor will no longer have the sole power to appoint a replacement if one of Rhode Island’s U.S. senators is unable to complete his or her term, under legislation approved by the General Assembly today over the governor’s veto.
The legislation sponsored by Sen. Paul V. Jabour and Rep. Chris Fierro requires a special election to choose a successor for any U.S. senator from Rhode Island who steps down, dies or is removed from office before the end of his or her term.
The move would eliminate the current process in which the governor appoints a replacement of his or her own choosing to serve on an interim basis until the next scheduled general election. …
The bill (2009-H 5094, 2009-S 0201), which is effective immediately, requires that a special election be held to fill U.S. Senate vacancies, unless such a vacancy occurs after July 1 of an election year. In that case, the vacancy would be filled during the regular general electoral cycle.
Special elections aren’t slam dunks for the dominant party, though, as Republican Scott Brown proved in Massachusetts the same month Rhode Island enacted its Senate vacancy law.
November 7th, 2012 at 11:43 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Rhode Island’s senior U.S. senator, Jack Reed, is the one who usually gets mentioned as a future presidential cabinet member. But his junior colleague Sheldon Whitehouse is now getting some attention, too.
Whitehouse, who won a resounding re-election victory Tuesday, is the first name on The Wall Street Journal’s list of potential successors to Attorney General Eric Holder now that President Obama has won a second term, based on “names people involved with both campaigns have been kicking around.”
However, the WSJ’s Joe Palazzolo also warned there may be no need for a new AG anytime soon: “Folks we spoke with cautioned against assuming that Mr. Holder is ready to step aside. While he isn’t expected to have a Janet Reno-like run, he may be keen for a bit more time to leave his mark.”
There’s no reason to think Whitehouse wants the job, either, considering how much he seems to enjoy being a senator. Perhaps a different high-profile job is in Whitehouse’s future, though: chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
• Related: Whitehouse dismisses more talk of getting Supreme Court seat (April 9)
October 30th, 2012 at 9:50 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi and Tim White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Incumbent Democrats U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Jim Langevin still hold sizable leads over their Republican challengers just a week before Election Day, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Tuesday night.
• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results breakdown
Coming on Tuesday: Obama vs. Romney; Chafee for re-election; schools, business climate
October 28th, 2012 at 10:23 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
He’s back. Sort of.
Ken McKay, the former Republican National Committee official who briefly chaired the state GOP last year, is also the creator of People’s Majority, a super PAC created after the Citizens United decision that re-emerged this month – apparently to go after U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.
People’s Majority attacked Whitehouse on Sunday with a new 30-second attack ad that aired on WPRI 12 during halftime of the Patriots-Rams game, one of the highest-rated broadcasts of the week. The commercial repeated disputed allegations of insider trading against Whitehouse, who had a big lead over Republican challenger Barry Hinckley as of last month.
Cabell Hobbs replaced McKay as the treasurer of People’s Majority at some point last year, Federal Election Commission filings show.
October 24th, 2012 at 5:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
• Related: Analysis: Hinckley proves a worthy adversary for Whitehouse (Oct. 23)
October 23rd, 2012 at 10:21 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Barry Hinckley’s star will be on the rise after Tuesday night’s WPRI 12 debate.
He didn’t land a crushing blow on Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, but the software entrepreneur turned in a more polished performance than his fellow Republicans, Brendan Doherty and Michael Riley, the other two first-time congressional candidates vying to unseat a Rhode Island Democrat this fall.
Not that Whitehouse had a bad night – the freshman senator was competent and comfortable, especially since he hasn’t taken the stage for a TV debate against a Republican opponent in six years. Like his colleague David Cicilline, Whitehouse has an easy time defending the Democratic Party’s major policies, and he mostly avoided “Senate-ese disease” by keeping his answers focused on average Rhode Islanders’ concerns rather than legislative minutiae.
WPRI 12 political analyst Joe Fleming said the debate had no clear winner, and Hinckley surpassed expectations for a political newcomer with an aggressive confidence that improved as the debate wore on. The problem for Hinckley: fighting to a draw doesn’t change the underlying dynamic of the election, which Whitehouse was winning by 26 points in the last WPRI 12 poll.
October 23rd, 2012 at 4:15 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Republican Barry Hinckley’s U.S. Senate campaign says it will begin running campaign commercials on television again Tuesday, after ceding the airwaves to incumbent Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse for the past two weeks.
Hinckley campaign manager Patrick Sweeney told WPRI.com the Republican challenger will go back on the air Tuesday and stay up throughout the last two weeks of the election. The campaign previously aired commercials from Aug. 29 to Oct. 9.
“I don’t want to go into strategy, but we are confident over the last two weeks that we will be able to close this 9-point gap,” Sweeney said, citing a recent Republican survey that showed a much closer race than independent polls from WPRI 12 and Brown University.
Whitehouse campaign manager Tony Simon expressed optimism. “We’ve been encouraged by the widespread support the campaign has received throughout this race,” he told WPRI.com. “As we enter the final stretch, our campaign continues to grow, and we continue to receive positive feedback on the senator’s message of standing up for Rhode Island families.”
The Republican remains at a huge financial disadvantage in the Senate race. Whitehouse’s campaign had $2.4 million on hand as of Sept. 30, while Hinckley’s had $452,783, their latest Federal Election Commission filings show. Hinckley has raised more than $1.5 million since last year to Whitehouse’s $3.1 million.
Whitehouse and Hinckley will meet for their first live televised debate tonight at 7 p.m. on WPRI 12.
October 23rd, 2012 at 5:00 am by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
October 22nd, 2012 at 12:17 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Is Rhode Island’s quiet U.S. Senate race getting tighter? One Republican pollster thinks so.
A survey conducted Oct. 11 by GOP polling firm McLaughlin & Associates [pdf] shows Democratic incumbent Sheldon Whitehouse at 49% and Republican Barry Hinckley at 41%, with 10% of voters undecided. The telephone interview poll of 300 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6 points.
The 8-point gap between Whitehouse and Hinckley in the McLaughlin poll is much closer than in recent polls from WPRI 12, which had Hinckley down 26 points, and Brown University, which showed the Republican trailing by 29 points. Hinckley was 16 points behind Whitehouse in a July 18 McLaughlin poll.
The McLaughlin poll was released by People’s Majority, a super PAC created after the Citizens United decision by Ken McKay, the former Rhode Island Republican Party chairman and Republican National Committee chief of staff. The reemergence of People’s Majority on Oct. 9 was first noted by OpenSecrets.org.
Whitehouse and Hinckley will debate live for the first time Tuesday at 7 p.m. on WPRI 12. McLaughlin & Associates did not release the full poll results but rather just a one-page summary. The firm was Republican Catherine Taylor’s pollster during her strong bid for secretary of state in 2010.
October 8th, 2012 at 2:03 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The Washington Post is doing an interesting investigative series called “Capitol Assets” which looks at the personal finances of members of Congress, many of whom are, well, rich. On Sunday, The Post reported the wealthiest members of Congress “were largely immune from the Great Recession.”
As part of the series, the paper crunched the numbers for each member of the House and Senate to see where their fortunes comes from. Since their financial disclosures use broad ranges, The Post took the midpoint as each asset’s value. The disclosures don’t include personal homes or non-interest-bearing bank accounts, which don’t have to be disclosed.
Three of the four members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation are wealthier than their colleagues, with U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse having four times more money than the median senator; U.S. Sen. Jack Reed is the exception. Click the links for a breakdown of each man’s financial profile.
October 1st, 2012 at 9:50 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Jim Langevin both hold commanding leads over their little-known Republican challengers with five weeks to go before the election, according to an exclusive WPRI 12 poll released Monday evening.
• Interactive: Check out the complete WPRI 12 poll results
Coming on Tuesday: Obama vs. Romney, approval ratings for Chafee, Reed, Raimondo, Taveras.
September 18th, 2012 at 4:23 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Is Rhode Island’s U.S. Senate race about to heat up?
It will be an upset for the ages if Republican Barry Hinckley defeats Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse this November, but stranger things have happened. The GOP U.S. Senate candidates in neighboring states – Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Linda McMahon in Connecticut – are both nearly tied right now, and six years ago an offbeat Rhode Island Republican won 46.5% of the vote amid a nationwide landslide for Democrats.
With Republican hopes for a Senate takeover starting to fade, New York Times numbers guru Nate Silver on Tuesday listed Rhode Island as a “Democratic Seat Where a Republican Takeover Is Possible”:
Republicans risk death by a thousand cuts, with a gradual deterioration in their standing in several important races, and their inability to field optimal candidates in others. …
A true long shot might be Rhode Island, where the Democratic incumbent Sheldon Whitehouse’s fund-raising has been poor and where Republicans have an interesting and unorthodox candidate in the libertarian-leaning Barry Hinckley. But Rhode Island is strongly Democratic and Mr. Hinckley has received little support from the national party.
Whitehouse had a 22-point lead in the February WPRI 12 poll, but his job approval rating was only 38%. He should benefit from President Obama’s coattails and a huge financial advantage – as of Aug. 22, Whitehouse’s campaign had $2.8 million on hand while Hinckley’s had $554,124. But Rhode Island is an affordable media market with more “elastic” voters than any other state, and Hinckley’s platform is “part-Democrat, part-Republican.”
• Related: Hinckley’s firm sold; new ‘flexibility’ for his campaign spending (Aug. 7)
September 5th, 2012 at 2:58 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Independent Gov. Lincoln Chafee got a prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention. But elsewhere in Charlotte the two Democrats who could vie to replace him in 2014 are burnishing their rival reformist credentials.
Treasurer Gina Raimondo and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras are each taking part in panel discussions Thursday to discuss their contrasting approaches to scaling back pension benefits in Rhode Island over the past year and a half. The two first-term Democrats are both expected to run for governor in two years.
Raimondo is part of a star-studded lineup of speakers hosted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and Bloomberg LP, while Taveras will discuss Providence’s pension deal at an “All Politics is Local” forum organized by the Conference of Democratic Mayors.
August 7th, 2012 at 2:17 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Barry Hinckley is a wealthier man today than he was when he kicked off his challenge to incumbent Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
• Related: Barry Hinckley on his ‘part-Democrat, part-Republican’ platform (Aug. 6)
August 6th, 2012 at 1:48 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Barry Hinckley and his aides are adamant that Sheldon Whitehouse’s February poll lead is built on sand, making the first-term Democrat more vulnerable to defeat than he looks. They also downplay the incumbent’s huge financial advantage: as of June 30, Whitehouse had $3.5 million and Hinckley had about $500,000.
“I have to work a little harder – we have to work a little harder,” Hinckley told WPRI.com in a recent interview. “I believe in myself, I believe in my team, and I believe in my ability and my team’s ability to deliver the hard work between now and November 6th to get our message in front of as many as people necessary.”
Hinckley also offered candid comments about the challenges he faces as a Republican in Rhode Island. Here’s how he analyzed the local fundraising landscape:
I’ve got Romney and Scott Brown sucking up a lot of conservative dollars in the region – they really are. I mean, Romney’s based here, Scott Brown’s based here – the rest of us, the congressional and other Senate candidates, are a deep third to those two, and they do affect our ability to raise money because so many people have already written checks to those campaigns.
But what I’ve noticed is, if you work really hard in Rhode Island you can raise about $150,000 a quarter as the challenger. I was able to raise a little more money in February because of the successful video with my son that went viral, and because we actually were able to find pockets of Rhode Island snowbirds down in Florida this winter that had discretionary income that were willing to invest in their own former home state. Of course, that was a winter phenomenon. Brendan Doherty does the same thing. The money he makes over $150,000 is Washington support he’s getting.
And here’s Hinckley describing what makes him different:
Let’s face it: my message is part-Democrat and part-Republican. I’m socially, essentially, a Democrat – I’m pro-choice and pro-gay-rights. But fiscally, I believe that we live in a world where you have to balance the books and you’ve got to live within your means. [My children] didn’t spend the money – why should they have to pay it back? And I don’t see the Democrats with that message today. Their message is spend spend spend spend spend, and $1.6 trillion of extra spending a year has to be paid back. And as a father, I can’t stand for it anymore.
Hinckley sounds like a Dawson Hodgson Republican. Considering the elasticity of Rhode Island’s electorate, the two young political newcomers may be signaling what the future holds for the state’s eternally outnumbered opposition party.