Excerpts of recent editorials of statewide and national interest from New England newspapers.
MAINE
Portland Press Herald, June 16
A federal law intended to bully states into stripping the driver’s licenses of those with drug convictions is outdated and ineffective, and a proposal by Gov. Paul LePage that would bring Maine into line with this statute makes no sense.
The bill in question - L.D. 1637 - would suspend drug law violators’ licenses for six months. The Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee issued a divided report Wednesday on the proposal; it now goes to the full Legislature for consideration.
Suspending licenses for drug convictions - even when the offense had nothing to do with driving - dates to the “tough on crime” early 1990s and the passage of a federal law tying a portion of highway funding to mandatory suspensions. However, only 12 states follow this policy to the letter. The rest have opted out and hung on to the federal funds under a provision that requires written certification from the governor or state legislative action.
Up until now, Maine has chosen the common-sense approach. All governors since John McKernan have been willing to attest to their opposition to the policy, including Paul LePage. That is, until last year, when he declared that the scope of Maine’s opioid crisis meant that the state would have to change course and implement mandatory suspension as a way to prevent more people from becoming addicted.
We agree that the urgency of this epidemic demands innovative thinking, but there are huge holes in this line of reasoning.
Addiction isn’t a behavior that people choose after a cost-benefit analysis; it’s a disease, and whether someone develops an addiction is heavily influenced by risk factors such as genetics and mental illness that make people more susceptible.
The idea that mandatory suspension will prevent criminal activity hasn’t panned out, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. The group found in a six-state study that “driver license suspension for non-highway safety related reasons is ineffective in achieving compliance with non-highway safety violations.” In other words, the prospect of losing their driver’s license is the last thing on the mind of someone considering committing a drug offense.
Moreover, this punitive policy puts up new barriers to overcoming addiction at a time when we should be making it easier for people with addiction issues to re-enter society. For someone with a criminal conviction, finding a job and earning a legal income is key to reconnecting with their community and staying out of trouble with the law. In a rural state like Maine where most people need to drive to get to work, having a suspended license puts a job seeker at an obvious disadvantage.
The Legislature has rejected five bills that would have enacted mandatory suspension for drug convictions. Anyone who wants to help the thousands of our fellow Mainers who are struggling with addiction should press their elected representatives in Augusta to vote against this one.
Online: https://bit.ly/2s9S2tD
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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord Monitor, June 16
Email inboxes are like gardens: The longer you go without tending to them, the more daunting the task becomes. Until recently, voicemail boxes have been largely free of the kind of digital weeds that dominate most email inboxes, but that would rapidly change if the Federal Communications Commission decides to officially allow the practice of “ringless voicemail.”
Unfortunately, in this divided age even a general loathing of nuisance calls isn’t enough to unite left and right. This issue, too, is shaping up as a partisan fight over regulations.
Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, it is against the law “to make any call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using any automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice” to a cell phone number. But providers of ringless voicemail claim the rule doesn’t apply to them because they are not actually making a call but rather leaving messages in voicemail boxes without the phone ever ringing.
With that argument in hand, a company called All About the Message is now petitioning the FCC to rule that the ringless voicemail service it provides is not prohibited under the 1991 law. The company is also asking for a retroactive waiver to head off the many lawsuits filed by frustrated and annoyed consumers.
Among ringless voicemail supporters are the Republican National Committee, which has argued that banning the practice would be a violation of free speech, and pro-business groups. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, called the Telephone Consumer Protection Act an “archaic statute.”
Although we are sympathetic to businesses looking for innovative ways to get their messages out, the argument that a call is only a call if the phone rings is specious at best. Logic says that a new voicemail in the box means a call was placed - and that’s true even if the message was delivered through a back door.
All four members of New Hampshire’s congressional delegation agree, with Sen. Maggie Hassan and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter especially vocal in their opposition to ringless voicemail.
On Wednesday, Hassan and 10 other Democratic senators - including independent Bernie Sanders - sent a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai arguing that if the petition is granted, “telemarketers, debt collectors, and other callers could bombard Americans with unwanted voicemails, leaving consumers with no way to block or stop these intrusive messages.” If the petition is granted, they said, the Do Not Call List might not apply, leaving consumers no choice but to sift through their inboxes in search of messages that matter. In other words, it would give people another digital garden in constant need of tending.
For her part, Shea-Porter said she is concerned that the effort “appears to be aimed at allowing political robo-voicemails.” The people of New Hampshire, she said, “know better than anyone that we need more, not fewer, consumer protections to limit intrusive political advertising.”
We appreciate the delegation’s efforts to protect New Hampshire consumers from nuisance voicemail, and we hope New Hampshire voters of all stripes do as well. We urge the FCC to reject the petition filed by All About the Message and supported by the RNC and the U.S. Chamber. To do otherwise would have telemarketers, political action committees and debt collectors joyfully singing an old Jimmy Buffett song over and over again: “If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.”
Online: https://bit.ly/2sjPNlU
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VERMONT
Rutland Herald, June 16
Graduation is when students who have been cocooned all their lives within the safe walls of their schools, nurtured and guided by teachers, coaches and other mentors, are suddenly propelled out into a world that may seem indifferent to their presence, unpersuaded of their worth.
The world may seem like a mad place. Each era has its own form of madness, which newly minted adults must try to confront and understand. The regimented program that shuttled them along from grade to grade, year by year, is no longer there to shelter them. What happens next is up to them.
Certainly, there have been times more challenging or perplexing than the present moment. What was the high school graduate of 1942 to think? Seven months before, the United States had entered World War II and young men were heading off by the millions to who knew what fate? Already, their families had endured long years of depression and continuing political turmoil. Within the walls of their high school, it may have seemed like a distant furor, but once they had graduated it was no longer so distant.
What was the graduate of 1968 to think? If they didn’t have the good fortune of admission to college, they were likely to be drafted into fighting a distant war that fewer and fewer were able to justify. Murder and terrorism had wracked the American South, and assassins’ bullets had claimed some of the nation’s greatest leaders. Whole city blocks were burned up in riots that followed the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Thrust into this world, what were the comforting nostrums that might have prepared the new graduates for what was to come?
Just eight years ago, graduates entered a world teetering on the brink of economic collapse.
The Great Recession had set in during 2008 and 2009, and millions were losing their homes, jobs and life savings. New graduates had a right to wonder about the mess awaiting them.
The uncertainties of today are real and serious, and if they don’t equate to the catastrophes of the past, it is important to recognize the dangers that exist. There is one inescapable reality: The government of the United States is mired in scandal and corruption that are unprecedented in our history. It all stems from the character of the man who has become our president, someone uniquely ill prepared and ill-suited to the office. Much danger emanates from the rot at the top, and here are two specific sorts of danger.
Lack of leadership caused by preoccupation with scandal will cause the government to flounder. Enemies of government may think that is fine, but a government unprepared to serve the welfare of the people will inevitably harm the welfare of the people.
Second, the willingness of the president to abdicate leadership could lead to disaster overseas that catches up today’s graduating class in unnecessary conflict. The president has delegated responsibility for war-making to his generals, and his generals have been talking about the failure of our war effort in Afghanistan. The U.S. could drift into heightened conflict here or there, by default, and with no purpose. Today’s graduates are right to be worried.
But like graduates in all periods, today’s graduates will bring to the challenges of today qualities of courage, steadfastness, patriotism, imagination and compassion that will get them through. No era is without its challenges, and the young people of each era always seem to find their way.
They called the World War II generation the Greatest Generation.
Young people just out of school were guiding battleships on the high seas, storming the beaches of Normandy or working to establish peace in war wracked lands.
Luckily the scale of our problems today is dwarfed by the challenges of that period, but that doesn’t make our challenges any less real or dangerous.
The new graduates will do OK. They will have to find their way, as every generation must do, and one hopes they gain the wisdom to carry us forward to something better.
Online: https://bit.ly/2sjRa3W
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MASSACHUSETTS
The Lowell Sun, June 15
Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ voluntary appearance before the Senate intelligence Committee on Tuesday certainly didn’t satisfy the Democrats on that panel, but it did provide the former Republican senator from Alabama an opportunity to vehemently deny any collusion with Russian interests during his time on President Trump’s election campaign team.
He also rejected there had been anything inappropriate in his involvement with the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey and vowed to defend his honor “against scurrilous and false allegations.”
One of the main contentions floated by Democrats during this months-long probe, which has yet to establish any ties between the Trump election team and Russia, concerns allegations that Sessions wasn’t forthcoming during his confirmation hearing, when he indicated he hadn’t met with the Russian ambassador during the campaign.
Another allegation - seized on by Democratic senators, including Al Franken of Minnesota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont - posed the possibility of a third meeting with Russian interests, in the name of that same Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. That supposedly occurred during an event in April last year at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel, where candidate Trump was giving his first major foreign policy speech.
Sessions, who had previously clarified his response to that Russian question at his confirmation hearing, insisted he remembers no contact with the ambassador at that April event. He also pointed out that he recused himself from the current Russia investigation only because he was required to do so due to his involvement in the Trump campaign.
Sessions also deflated Democrats’ expectations when he contradicted Comey’s recollection of his reaction to Comey’s supposed plea to never let him alone with the president, after a one-on-one meeting in which Comey said Trump asked him to drop the probe of his former national security adviser.
Comey said Sessions didn’t respond. Not so, said the attorney general, testifying in part, “I responded to his comment by agreeing that the FBI and Department of Justice needed to be careful to follow department policy regarding appropriate contacts with the White House.” That clear denial calls into question the accuracy or veracity of other comments and speculation Comey made during his appearance before the same panel.
However, Democrats reserved their most vociferous show of indignation when Sessions declined to comment on questions that mentioned the words “president” and “Russians” in the same sentence. While not claiming executive privilege, Sessions rightfully declared that by answering, he might remove the president’s claim to declare that right in the future.
Did Democrats honestly believe Sessions could be led down that path, or did they just offer that line of questioning to create a stonewalling impression?
Sessions made it clear in his testimony that he appeared before his former colleagues for only one reason - to defend and clear his name in the face of unfounded, mean-spirited accusations.
It’s up to special counsel Robert Mueller to decide whether any Russian collusion took place - leaving Democrats with just their political machinations in the meantime.
Online: https://bit.ly/2sytieW
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CONNECTICUT
Connecticut Post, June 16
A year ago Thursday, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy defiantly commanded the Senate floor for 15 hours, saying “I’ve had enough.”
“I’ve had enough of the ongoing slaughter of innocents, and I’ve had enough of inaction in this body.”
What has changed in the year since the Connecticut Democrat’s filibuster? Nothing in Congress, except a new administration.
But across the land, we’ve seen more mass shootings, more senseless death, unending heartbreak for families. And nothing - nothing - is done to stop the violence.
A mass shooting Wednesday morning at a San Francisco UPS facility, with three dead before the shooter killed himself, attracted little attention, overshadowed by the mass shooting at a Republican baseball practice near D.C. where a deranged man opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle and injured five before someone shot him. That’s how commonplace shootings have become.
The early morning shooting on the Alexandria, Virginia, baseball field was the 145th mass shooting this year. Look at the math: 145 mass shootings in 165 days.
What is wrong with us?
While clearly national legislative change is imperative - universal background checks are a basic step - the dialogue has to move beyond Second Amendment rights vs. gun control. Such polarization has gotten the country nowhere, and has just further entrenched both sides.
The argument is more nuanced; we should cultivate ground where the first green shoots of agreement can take hold.
Can we not agree that citizens should be able to go about daily activities - play baseball, go to church, watch a movie, attend school - without being targets of a crazed person with a weapon?
A mentally ill person with a semi-automatic weapon designed for killing is a recipe for disaster. James Hodgkinson, 66, had a gun license in his home state of Illinois. If he hadn’t, though, he could have easily gotten a gun in Virginia, which has no background checks for private sales, no registration.
From his social media posts, Hodgkinson was staunchly anti-Trump. The man who shot and severely wounded then-U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords in a Tucson shopping center, and killed six others in 2011, was staunchly anti-liberal.
The feverish, and still rising, animosity between Trump supporters and haters - fueled from the top - must abate. People can disagree politically without hating each other in their hearts.
What is it, increasingly, that makes people reach for a gun to settle disputes or to quiet whatever demon is inside? Why does our culture promote violence? And what can be done to change that?
These are not questions with simple answers. These questions should be explored in a bipartisan, open-minded, honest manner.
Nothing has changed to make the country safer in the past year. Nothing has changed nationally since 20 first graders and six educators were shot to death at Sandy Hook four and a half years ago.
Another year should not pass with no action. Given the frequency of mass shootings, another day is too long.
Online: https://bit.ly/2rp79wv
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RHODE ISLAND
The Providence Journal, June 15
Rhode Island lawmakers have met dozens of times during the past five and a half months. They’ve held dozens of committee meetings and introduced hundreds of bills.
Yet, aside from routine legislation and expressions of condolences or congratulations, they had passed just four bills as of Monday.
If history is any guide, hundreds more will pass over the next few weeks, as the people’s representatives proceed with their typical end-of-session stampede. And in a flash, by late June or early July, the 2017 legislative session will be over.
This is, of course, a bad way to do the people’s business.
Voters elect lawmakers to represent their interests as decisions are made in the halls of government. Those decisions are best made in an environment where due diligence is possible, with lawmakers thinking and asking questions, and the public participating - attending, speaking at hearings, sounding off in letters to the editor, and/or calling, emailing or writing their legislators.
Rhode Island’s longstanding legislative practices render that kind of participation almost impossible. The end-of-session rush leaves the public little or no advance warning that legislation will be taken up and voted on. This system benefits special interests and their paid lobbyists, while effectively cutting out less-connected constituents.
Holding hundreds of bills until the end of the session also serves legislative leaders. They hold those bills to give themselves bargaining power - ensuring votes on the bills important to them, and gaining support from leadership in the other chamber. You pass my bills, I’ll pass yours.
This year’s flirtation with delay tactics seems to be more extreme than most. According to Providence Journal Staff Writer Katherine Gregg’s June 12 Political Scene column (“With time running out, hard to get handle on Assembly”), 63 bills of substance had passed as of the same time last year, compared with this year’s four. In other words, with more than five months passed in what is typically a six-month legislative session, this year’s total is pathetically low. The public would be much better off if important issues were taken up earlier in the session.
To his credit, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello has pledged to put an end to the late-night sessions that often accompany the end-of-session rush. We hope he’ll keep his word, because the late-night sessions are especially notorious for shenanigans that wouldn’t stand in the light of day.
Some may recall a bill that would have allowed auto body shops to sue insurance companies when the two could not agree on a price for body work. The bill passed at 2:58 a.m., just days after the right-to-sue language was taken from another bill and inserted into what until then had been an innocuous-looking bill. As it turned out, lawmakers went to all the trouble for nothing. The governor at the time, Lincoln Chafee, vetoed it.
But even if the speaker should keep his pledge to send lawmakers home each night before the wee hours, holding so many bills until the end the session is a bad way to conduct the public’s business. Public involvement, far from hampering the operation of government, usually improves it.
Online: https://bit.ly/2roZxK8
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