Politics as Usual by Jim Baron

In this hyper-sensitive day and age, it is probably politically incorrect to use the phrase “too many chiefs, not enough Indians,” but I can’t think of a better way to describe the predicament of Republicans in the Rhode Island Senate.

They have four (4) guys there (and, yes, they’re all guys) and they are having a fight over who is going to be the Minority Leader. Not only is there a fight over this virtually cloutless title, but it is a tie. The four GOP senators are split 2-2 over who should lead them.
You can see how well situated they are to provide a united opposition to the majority Democrats.
Westerly Sen. Dennis Algiere has been the majority leader since 1997 and is looking to keep the job. He is being challenged by Sen. Leo Blais of Coventry, who has been in the senate since 1992.
Algiere has Barrington Sen. David Bates on his side, while Blais is allied with Senator-elect Francis Maher from South County.
Before they decide who they want to lead them, Senate Republicans have to decide where they want to go.
When you are outnumbered 34-4, is it the better part of valor to try to go along to get along, hoping to achieve small victories at the margins by working with, rather than against the majority? Or is it the opposition’s duty to oppose, to put up a fight no matter how futile, so at least your side gets heard before it gets crushed — over the cliff with all flags flying, blaze of glory and all that?
Once they choose a direction, the question of picking a leader will answer itself.
Current Majority Leader Dennis Algiere is a really nice guy. He’s smart, friendly and reasonable — you couldn’t find a more go along to get along type of person. Really, I defy you to find a nicer guy than Dennis Algiere.
I don’t want to say that Blais isn’t as nice a guy as Algiere, but if someone were to make that claim, I doubt even Blais would seriously try to refute it. There is no doubt he is more blunt and abrasive than not only Algiere, but many other people — hell, most other people. But feistiness is not a bad thing, especially in the leader of an opposition party. Blais’ candidacy, however, is somewhat hampered by legal problems connected with his private pharmacy business, so that could be a factor in the race.
If you were on a diplomatic mission, you would want Algiere to be your partner. If you were wading into a bar fight, you would want Blais by your side.
For years, Algiere has led the Senate Republicans on the go-along course. Heck, most votes in the senate (I’m tempted to say almost all, but I don’t have the numbers in front of me) are 38-0 or however-many-senators-are-present-that-day to zero.  On those pitifully few occasions where the Republicans do put up a fight, it is usually led by Blais.
This doesn’t seem to have gotten the Republicans very far in the Senate, but the similarly outnumbered GOP in the House has taken the opposite tack, and that hasn’t gotten them very far, either. We’ll see if that holds true with the election loss of Coventry Rep. Nick Gorham. Can House Minority Leader Robert Watson and Joe Trillo pick up Gorham’s slack? That task may become a bit easier with the election of Tiverton Rep. John Loughlin to replace Gorham as whip. Loughlin is a nice guy, but his sense of humor can be wicked and biting.
He may get listened to a bit more, since Gorham was sometimes too earnest for his own good and sometimes seemed to like to irk opponents into acrimonious, vitriolic fights. Even when being funny, which he often was, Gorham could tick people off. Loughlin will be no less partisan or passionate, but he probably will be easier for opponents to put up with. He will poke fun at them without poking them in the eye.
It will be interesting to see that dynamic at work.
But that is the House. Senate Republicans have to choose between the path of going along to get nowhere or of picking up the cudgel of activism and acrimony to go down fighting —between amity and the Alamo.
Neither strategy is likely to make the minority a winner in the Senate anytime soon. What the Republicans have to decide is how they want to lose. Once they do that, they will have their minority leader.

Time to re-think Twin River
You hate to kick someone when they are down, but perhaps the time has come to kick Twin River as we know it to the curb.
The financially strapped dog track and slot machine parlor has done yeoman work for the state of Rhode Island, serving as the collector of hundreds of millions of state revenue every year. The problem is, even if it does manage to avoid bankruptcy and get back on its financial feet, the place has no future.
The future is a full-fledged casino, with table games and poker rooms and, as Joni Mitchell might add, a pink hotel, a boutique and a swingin’ hot spot.
That could be done, it could probably be done well by the Twin River people themselves. They are not doing a bad job right now. Twin River is making money for the state, oodles of it. Their problem is that they are overextended with debt and are not keeping enough of the take to pay their bills. But even if we let the same operators run the state’s full casino, they can’t do it AT Twin River. Never, no way, nuh-uh. The people of Lincoln would never sit for it.
Eventually, Rhode Island is going to sanction a full resort casino, because it needs the extra tens of millions of dollars that one would bring in. Even simply having the state buy Twin River, as General Treasurer Frank Caprio has suggested, wouldn’t solve the problem. Nor would letting Twin River go bankrupt and be sold by a receiver for dimes on the dollar to a new owner. Neither way would solve the problem; you still couldn’t make a casino out of it because it would still be in Lincoln.
You would have to find a new site, in a community willing to accept it.
The constitution requires a referendum both statewide – if you think that won’t be difficult, talk to the Narragansett Tribe – and in the host community as well before there can be any “expansion of gambling”. That’s not a law, that’s right in the state Constitution – for the very reason that people wanted to make the mandate hard and fast so the legislature couldn’t find a way around it.
In Lincoln, that means never. Hell will turn Methodist before Lincoln approves any referendum for a full casino in Lime Rock. 
You might think an up-against-it community like Central Falls would be willing to welcome a casino for the share the host community gets, but between the gambling space, the amenities and parking, you would need an area almost the size of Central Falls to build in.
West Warwick was willing to host the Narragansetts’ casino. They might be happy to host one owned by the state.
Providence has a nice port with an already active nightlife nearby and is close enough to downtown that it could spin off economic benefit. The port could be gentrified for a big hotel/casino with marina access for the high rollers.
The fiscal crisis is getting more urgent by the day. If we are going to upgrade to a casino in a year or two, we might as well get moving on it now. Do some polling, find a good site for a casino where the locals will accept it, and start working on voters statewide to approve a casino from which the taxpayers would get their 60 percent cut (or close to it; we are already compensating the owners of Twin River and Newport Grand handsomely for being landlord to state-owned slot machines.
We may have to pay a bit more to build and properly maintain a casino operation — perhaps for a set price rather than a percentage of the take — but not that much more) of the divvy. The argument that a casino paying 25 or 30 percent to the state would undercut the slot parlors where the state was taking 60 percent was perhaps the biggest reason why the Narragansetts lost.
If voters thought that even 50 percent of the take was going to ease the deficit and, ultimately, keep taxes lower, they might change their minds on a casino.
A casino won’t solve the state’s deficit problem by itself, but it will make the hole easier to fill. What are we waiting for?