My 2024 RI general election ballot
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I previously posted my election research/thoughts last year for a special election. Here's how I'm planning to vote in the 2024 general election.
Relative to American politics as a whole, I live in a boring district in a boring state, so this post will be relatively brief. Here's a quick summary of what's on my ballot, which should hopefully explain why I call it "boring":
An election for president that everyone already has an opinion on
Elections for the US Senate and House, neither of which are expected to be close
Elections for the state-level Senate and House, both of which only have one candidate running unopposed
A school board election with three candidates
A ballot question about holding a constitutional convention
Four ballot questions about approving state spending
I thought about making a post for the primary election, but to be honest that one was about equally boring.
Here is a PDF of the ballot I'll be voting. Here's the Rhode Island Current's Voter Guide.
And here's how I plan to vote:
President:
[Links on candidates' names will generally take you to the Issues page on their website.]
I'm voting for Kamala Harris. Given the electoral environment and all the other content that's already out there, it would be a waste of both my time and yours to fully explain my choice, so I won't elaborate any more here.
Did you know there are seven options I can choose from for president? Including—in Rhode Island, at least—something called the Party Party which supports "Eaglenomics". Maybe democracy is alive and well, after all.
Senator
Incumbent Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat) is running against Patricia Morgan (Republican).
Morgan seems like a relatively sane Republican (e.g.: "I am pro-life because I think that life is precious. But I believe that the goal should be safe, legal, and rare, not criminal. I don’t want young parents forced to either have an unwanted child or be forced to make a terrible choice") .
That said, saying "Would you rather spend on bike paths (as my opponent has done) or potholes?" is not the way to win my vote. And I've never really understood the people who say things like "Our beautiful ocean vistas will be filled with unsightly turbines." Like, come on—oceans are so boring to look at! At least a wind turbine breaks up the monotony of a perfectly flat horizon.
She says Whitehouse's work on climate legislation has "funneled $ millions to his wife". Seems perhaps true in some sense, but she has a Ph.D in oceanography, and works for a company that researches renewable energy. There doesn't seem to be any evidence it's "corruption". It's just "a Senator who cares about climate change ended up married to someone in the renewable energy industry"—not all that surprising.
This isn't likely to be a close election. I'm going to vote for Whitehouse (and not just because of the nominative determinism!). Overall his policies are closer to what I want to see. That said, I still don't have a great feel for whether I should put him in the category of "politician I actually like" or "uninspiring Democrat who's nevertheless my best option".
Congressional Representative
Incumbent Gabe Amo (Democrat) is running against Allen Waters (Republican) and C. D. Reynolds (Independent).
Reynolds, as far as I can tell, doesn't even have a campaign website (see the link on their name). I'm ruling them out as a serious candidate.
Allen Waters has his own unique views on what the issues are. His issues page, from top to bottom, covers:
passing a 28th Amendment to limit political campaign spending (I actually don't disagree)
replacing all taxes with a national sales tax (Seems like a bad idea)
supporting the 2nd amendment (He really doesn't elaborate so, aside from vibes, I don't have strong feelings either way)
stop providing government-backed student loans (I agree with him that it probably "distorts the market"; I'm not sure what the best solution is.)
Clean up the VA (in my experience it seems kind of universally agreed-upon that the VA could use cleaning up)
I'm disappointed that Gabe Amo can't even be bothered to have an "Issues" page. The link above just leads to this:
This is also not expected to be a close race. I'm voting for Gabe Amo because (1) we only just sent him to Congress a year ago so I don't mind giving him more time to make his mark and (2) I think he's more aligned with my generally-left-wing-ish views. That being said, I do think it's disappointing he hasn't bothered to put together a better Issues page.
Senator and Representative (in RI state legislature)
Meghan Kallman and Rebecca Kislak (both Democrats) are running unopposed for seats in the state-level legislature for my address.
A recent mailer I got from Rebecca brags that she (a) helped pass the bill where Rhode Island legalized ADUs and (b) is proposing a bill to start switching RI to ranked-choice voting.
Likewise, "Housing Crisis" is the first issue listed on Meghan's site. Her issues pages are generally pretty light on details (she links to the state legislature website to "see the bills she's working on", but it's a poorly designed website that's hard to really learn anything from). However, I've heard good things about her, including that she was awarded as 2024's "Senate Champion" for advancing housing affordability by Neighbors Welcome Rhode Island (a local YIMBY organization).
I feel good about voting for both of them.
School board
In 2022, Providence voted to have 5 of their 10 school board members chosen via election (Previously all were appointed by the mayor).
The Providence school system is famously bad. That theoretically means this an important role! But what it probably actually means is that the systemic issues are big enough that any one school board member isn't going to do much to turn the city's schools around, and likely it won't matter that much who I vote for. But of course I'll still try to choose the best option!
Corey Jones is, apparently, the only candidate in this 3-way race who bothered making a website.
I couldn't find a website for Herman Brewster or Michael Jefferson. However, there's some information from Brewster on the city's School Board Election Information page. Jefferson didn't even provide any information for this page.
Around my neighborhood, I've seen a few signs for Jones, one for Brewster and none for Jefferson. I'm going to vote for Corey Jones. I'm not super impressed by the proposals on his website (Not that they're bad, either. IDK, I'd like to see it be more data-driven, I guess). But the fact he actually bothered making a website leads me to think he's planning to take the job seriously—and the yard signs suggest he's got some support from the rest of the community.
That's it for the candidates. There are also five ballot questions, summarized below:
Question 1: Should we have a (Rhode Island state-level) constitutional convention?
Apparently a question about a constitutional convention gets automatically put on the ballot every ten years. It hasn't passed since 1984, although a recent poll suggests this time it could be relatively close (but the poll had 32% of respondents undecided).
A group put together a website advocating against the convention, arguing that holding a convention would give outside money / national right-wing interests an outsize ability to influence Rhode Island laws. The website leads with "Don’t let wealthy special interests buy RI’s Constitution."
It's not totally obvious to me that "no" is the right choice. I think of myself as a "progressive", and making progress means that we should change our laws as the times change. Right? Do progressives really not have any complaints about RI's constitution?
But in the end, I am going to vote No. I'm open to a constitutional convention, but I'd like to see it happen because people have specific plans for updating our constitution, not because it got automatically added to our ballot without anyone having specific reasons for wanting it there.
Bond measures, questions 2-5 (introduction):
Ballotpedia says the last time Rhode Island voters rejected a bond measure (i.e., the last time they voted not to spend money on a proposal) was in 2006:
Between 2008 and 2022, voters in Rhode Island decided on 32 bond measures totaling $2.1 billion in principal value. Voters approved 100% of the bond measures, with support ranging from 55.23% (Question 2 of 2010) to 83.89% (Question 3 of 2016). Voters had not rejected a bond measure since 2006, when 50.56% of electors rejected a $4.0 million bond for improvements in Fort Adams State Park.
(Why do we have so many bond questions? Again from Ballotpedia: "In Rhode Island, the state General Assembly must ask voters to issue general obligation bonds over $50,000, except in the case of war, insurrection, or invasion." That partly answers my question, though I still don't feel like I fully understand—why is this money coming from new bonds and not just part of the state budget?)
Basically: vote 'yes' on Questions 2-5 if you think they are sensible investments in Rhode Island's future, and vote 'no' if you think they are inefficient ways to spend our money. I’m going to summarize the questions then explain my votes at the end.
Question 2: $160.5 million in bonds for higher education facilities?
Specifically, $87.5 million for a Biomedical Sciences building at University of Rhode Island and $73 million for a Cybersecurity building at Rhode Island College.
There's a website for Yes on 2; I couldn't find a website arguing against.
Question 3: $120 million for housing?
I think housing is one of our most pressing issues (see some of the book reviews I wrote here, for example—search for "zoning").
I worry a little bit because this question has the least specific description of how the money will be spent out of the four ballot questions. $80 million will be spent "to increase and preserve the availability of low and moderate income affordable housing. Of this amount, up to ten million dollars ($10,000,000) may be used to support a new program for public housing development."
I don't really understand exactly how this money is being spent, compared to "building a building at a university" or "renovating a port". Is it going to subsidies (paid to who?)? Government-built public housing?
I think the smartest path to solving our housing crisis is significantly relaxing our zoning regulations (and also, in my dreams, instituting a Land Value Tax). But, I think there's a space in our solution for public housing as well.
Question 4: $53 million for "green economy"?
$15 million towards renovating a port (involved in "offshore wind projects", according to the voter information packet I got in the mail). $5 million to forest management, $5 million to local recreation projects (parks, athletic fields), and a few other categories.
Question 5: $10 million for "arts and the economy"?
$2 million for a museum; $2 million to build a performance center in Newport; $2 million to upgrade a theater in Providence; $4 million to be allocated to smaller projects.
Question 5 is, I believe, the only ballot question I've seen yard signs for (the yard signs are asking me to vote Yes). I think all that really means is "people who are really into art strongly support this one". In other words, seeing those yard signs is not necessarily evidence that it's a surer bet (compared to Questions 2-4) that voting Yes is the smarter choice.
My overall feelings on ballot questions 2-5:
In a way, the sums of money are not that large. Rhode Island has over 1 million people, so a (for example) $120 million expense is roughly asking everyone to pay $120 once (or $12 a year for 10 years). Given that most of us are spending many thousands of dollars a year on housing, I don't mind spending $120 to do my part to try to increase our housing stock/reduce our housing prices.
I plan to support these questions; my thought process is something like this:
Generally my politics are left-wing-ish.
However, I do think there's some amount of sound logic to the things economists say about the efficiency of a free market vs government spending.
That being said, I think Rhode Island objectively is doing pretty well compared to a lot of America. So based on those previous results, it makes sense to me to continue to support investing in our future, and none of these projects seem like egregious wastes of money.
I'm going to vote Yes on questions 2-5 (while also being realistic that these may not be theoretically optimal ways to spend our money, but to me they at least seem good enough).
Final thoughts
Do I think I did a great job researching the candidates (and questions)? No, not at all. But at least I did some research and took the time to think them through before going to vote.
In my opinion, it's harder than it should be to learn about the candidates we're voting for (and, as we've seen, those candidates don't always do the best job making it easy for us). If I had infinite free time, I would spend more of it trying to figure out how to best keep track of how my politicians are doing. But until then, I have this. Hopefully this roundup will at least be slightly helpful to a few of my local readers.
Very helpful and I appreciate you doing your due diligence as a citizen!