Columns | EastBayRI.com - News, Opinion, Things to Do in the East Bay

The state budget is back to its pre-Covid ways

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: In some ways, the $14.3 billion budget approved by Rhode Island’s House Finance Committee this week is a return to the pre-COVID norm. But in other ways, it’s a … more

By Ian Donnis | 6/16/25

After House passage, assault weapons bill hangs over Smith Hill

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: When does the calculus of doing nothing outweigh the value of doing something at the Statehouse? That question will hang over Smith Hill until the resolution of the proposed … more

By Ian Donnis | 6/9/25

AG Neronha gets aggressive on R.I. health care crisis

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: When Attorney General Peter Neronha makes a presentation, he really goes to town. A case in point was the news conference in his office Wednesday, about confronting Rhode … more

By Ian Donnis | 6/2/25

Rhode Island is awash with conflicts

Politicians in the state no longer hide their conflicts of interest. It is probably because the voters have become anesthetized to abuses. Here are just a few recent examples. Speaker of the … more

By Arlene Violet, Esq. | 6/2/25

This so-called Colony House in Newport is the oldest (1739-1741) of Rhode Island’s five surviving historic state house and court house buildings. It was the site of the May, 1790 convention that ratified the federal Constitution by a margin of 34 to 32, the narrowest of any state. Ironically, due to space limitations, the convention delegates also met and debated at the nearby Baptist Meeting House of Rev. Gardner Thurston, while vigorously defending Rhode Island’s famed separation of church and state. This anomaly was repeated in November, 1842 when the new state constitution was debated by the Law-and-Order Party, first in the East Greenwich State House and Court House, but then moved to the town’s Methodist Church for debate and a final vote of approval. These occurrences indicate that our Founders believed in freedom for religion; not freedom from religion. This fact was attested to by founder John Adams when he correctly observed that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

In recognition of Rhode Island Statehood Day

Many American states conduct special observances on the date that they entered the Union under our Constitution. Rhode Island does not. Is that reluctance because of embarrassment over the fact that … more

By Patrick T. Conley | 5/28/25

Whitehouse wants the Democrats to come back fighting

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Three primary factors seemingly fueled Donald Trump’s win for the White House last year -- Democrats’ slow response to voters’ concerns about inflation and … more

By Ian Donnis | 5/19/25

Should Rhode Island raise taxes on its wealthiest residents?

STORY OF THE WEEK: Legislative leaders in Rhode Island have for years reflexively opposed efforts to raise broad-based taxes. The trend has been more in the other direction, with a four-point cut in … more

By Ian Donnis | 5/12/25

Balancing interests for the leader of the Senate, who's the leader of the union

STORY OF THE WEEK: After Val Lawson won election Tuesday as the new president of the Rhode Island Senate , she faced a battery of reporters’ questions about her dual role as head of that … more

By Ian Donnis | 5/5/25

Farewell to the longest-serving lawmaker in Rhode Island

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: The unexpected death of Rhode Island Senate President Dominick Ruggerio at age 76 on Monday marks the end of an era in more ways than one. Ruggerio, widely revered by his … more

By Ian Donnis | 4/29/25

Do deportation efforts show 'a complete disrespect for the Constitution'?

STORY OF THE WEEK: If the sine qua non of President Donald Trump is about pushing boundaries, the apex of that tendency is coming front and center. The showdown over Kilmar Abrego Garcia in … more

By Ian Donnis | 4/21/25

This portrait of Julia Ward Howe was begun by John Elliott in 1910 and completed by William Henry Cotton in 1925. It hangs in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Julia Ward Howe — author of America’s proud ‘Battle Hymm’

On April 12, 1861, South Carolinians opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor to begin America’s bloody Civil War and put our Union in peril. Several months later, a Rhode Island woman … more

By Patrick T. Conley | 4/15/25

Reaction to global trade war is mostly breaking along partisan lines

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Decades after supporters lauded the North American Free Trade Agreement as a way to add American jobs, there’s plenty of criticism of NAFTA from both the left and the … more

4/14/25

For Democrats, it's not too early to start thinking about midterm elections

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: The mid-term elections of 2026 are almost 20 months away -- and that’s an eternity in politics. But after months of soul-searching after the Democrats’ devastating … more

By Ian Donnis | 4/7/25

Questions about the homeless pallets are spot-on

Amazon has a small house for sale, 20’ by 40’, which is larger than the pallets now housing the homeless, with three bedrooms (or choice, like a living room or den if one bedroom is … more

By Arlene Violet, Esq. | 4/2/25

Still waiting for the state's professional cannabis regs

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Almost three years have passed since Gov. Dan McKee signed adult-use cannabis legalization into law , and the state has yet to open the application process for handing out … more

By Ian Donnis | 3/31/25

Will voters assign bridge blame at the polls?

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: As we roll into the weekend, perhaps you’re savoring the emergence of spring, the arrival of March Madness in Providence, an expected return to form of the Red Sox or any … more

3/24/25

Expect R.I.'s 'tax the rich' debate to be heating up soon

1. STORY OF THE WEEK: “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree!” -- the timeless aphorism from the late U.S. Sen. Russell B. Long of Louisiana -- speaks … more

By Ian Donnis | 3/17/25

Keeping close watch on the on-again, off-again tariffs

STORY OF THE WEEK: Tariffs “will always tend to crush the spirit of enterprise and cripple the productive energies of a country.” If that sounds like a gripe from Canadian Prime Minister … more

By Ian Donnis | 3/10/25

AG believes the courts will help balance the power shift in D.C.

Despite the breakneck pace of President Trump and Elon Musk as they try to remake the federal government, Attorney General Peter Neronha said, “I think you can, for the most part, put Humpty Dumpty back together again.” more

By Ian Donnis | 3/3/25

I pledge allegiance to Trump

Nobody would argue that government is not corpulent and needs a diet, which the President is doing. While scholars are focused on whether much of President Donald Trump’s purge of programs and … more

By Arlene Violet, Esq. | 2/18/25

Providence will be Ground Zero for an array of federal cuts

STORY OF THE WEEK: Providence is Rhode Island’s ground zero for an array of possible cuts sparked by the administration of President Donald Trump and his GOP congressional supporters. With … more

By Ian Donnis | 2/18/25

The President's moves incite a range of countermoves

STORY OF THE WEEK: Everyone talks about waste and fraud, but no one does anything about it. That may sum up the view of many, if not most, supporters of President Donald Trump as his administration … more

By Ian Donnis | 2/11/25

Turbulent waves keep rolling out of Washington

Ian Donnis’ Rhode Island politics roundup for Jan. 31, 2025 1. STORY OF THE WEEK: If the past week tells us anything, here are a few starting points: 1) Democratic-leaning states like … more

By Ian Donnis | 2/4/25

Trump comes out swinging, pushes immigration to the forefront

STORY OF THE WEEK: President Trump ’s use of an executive order to try to eliminate birthright citizenship — a right enshrined in the Constitution not long after the Civil War — … more

By Ian Donnis | 1/27/25

Is Rhode Island's glass half-full, or half-empty?

STORY OF THE WEEK: Gov. Dan McKee had a high-profile platform last Tuesday, using his State of the State speech to assert that Rhode Island is “flipping the script” from some of the less … more

By Ian Donnis | 1/21/25