Time to get some House cleaning done.

As summer begins, we all start to do our cleaning. We clean the basement, clean the garage and even clean the yards from all of the clutter and dead remains from the previous season. We do this each year to make room for things that are new, fresh and will benefit our lives. The one most important cleaning job that we now have to do as Rhode Island residents is house cleaning of another kind.

With the end of session for the General Assembly, it is a perfect time to look back at the last session and it is very obvious on who has become clutter and dead remains of broken promises, personal agendas and do nothing law makers. Like the useless items in our basements, garages and yards, there are some sitting in the seats of the General Assembly that have proven that they are no benefit to their constituents and in fact are ignoring the wishes and demands of those that elected them, and like old garbage that needs to be disposed of, some of them are starting to stink.

Let us take two prime examples of the old used up clutter that needs to go for two different reasons, both of them hurting their constituents and in the way of fresh new ideas that benefit Rhode Islanders.

Let’s start with Edith Ajello. Edith takes the role of “I don’t care what my constituents want because it’s all about what I want and my own personal agenda.” I will give you two prime examples.
Today the house voted on a bill known as the Adam Walsh Act (H5557). It is an act relating to criminal offenses-sexual offender registration and community notification. It’s pretty much a slam dunk and a no brainer if you ask me especially if you have children in the neighborhood. Well guess what… Edith voted against the bill. Yes you read that right she does not think that parents or anyone should know that a person who has been convicted of molesting children or raping women lives in your neighborhood. That’s example number one of doing harm to her constituents rather than standing up for them.

The second example is the gun control bills. I and many other people and organizations have worked tirelessly over the last six months to bring out the facts and educate the residents of Rhode Island and our law makers on how most of the bills introduced by the Governor would do little to nothing to prevent crime but instead hurt the law abiding firearms owners in the state. After long hours of hearings, discussions and fact finding, our law makers agreed that only 3 of the bills, with amendments that we demanded, would actually benefit fighting gun violence while protecting the rights of legal firearms owners. Those three bills passed with the blessings of the legal firearms owners of Rhode Island. The majority of both the Democratic and Republican representatives agreed that only these three would make a difference and protect the innocent. That was not enough however for Edith Ajello. Edith told the Providence Journal that it was not enough and she demanded more. Regardless of what the majority of her fellow Democratic law makers agreed upon, regardless of what the hundreds and hundreds of Rhode Islanders demanded, Edith has her own agenda and that is to take the second amendment and delete it from the Rhode Island and the United States Constitution.

Now let’s move to my own District 43 here in Johnston Rhode Island. Deborah Fellela who was elected in 2006, is one of the “do nothing” lawmakers. I shouldn’t say do quite nothing, as she did come out to blast the Johnston police department in 2008 for arresting her son for driving under the influence and speeding over 100 miles per hour and for arresting her husband for driving with a suspended license on numerous occasions, saying that the Johnston Police department were harassing them. If stopping and arresting a drunken driver at over 100 miles per hour and arresting someone that is driving with a suspended license is harassment, then I say harass all you want if it keeps my family safe on the road from them and preventing them from killing an innocent family.  I do find it odd however that Deb Fellela has not criticized the law for arresting her husband yet again, this time for stealing credit cards out of someone’s mailbox and charging up a storm with them. How can you help keep the State House in order if you can’t keep your OWN house in order? But I digress! I checked vote after vote after vote and the only thing Deb Fellela seems to be able to do is vote the way Speaker Fox votes. I literally gave up after more than a hundred past votes because it literally became boring and more than apparent that I would not find an opposite vote any time soon. She has to do no research, never has to listen to a grumbling resident in District 43, and never has to get in an argument by just waiting to see how the House leadership will vote. This is a “Do Nothing” law maker in the purest sense of the word.

Why does it continue to happen year after year? There is no blame to place anywhere else than on us the voters. It’s too easy to pull the master lever or let our co-workers and family or the community elders tell us which name to pick. I have even had conversations where someone has told me, “I have no idea what they are about I just picked the name because I recognize it”. Then after the election is over we get to go back to work, back to school or back to the coffee club and complain about Rhode Island.

I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican. What matters to me is what you have proven you can do for the state and its people. These two have proven they can and will do nothing for either. It amazes me this mindset of lawmakers like these two have. Ignore the voters and do what you want because you are safe for another two years. This would change also if we had 4 year terms and were limited to two terms.

If I was lucky enough to have the faith of the residents in my district to put me in the State House to stand up for them I can tell you it wouldn’t matter what my fellow Democrats thought, what the Republicans thought, what the Speaker or the media thought, the people I was there to represent would come first and foremost even if I was spit on, threatened or discriminated against. THIS is how a law maker needs to be and make no mistake, there are some in office right now that do have this ideal but there are not many. We need more like this and November of 2014 is your chance to help put more in the State House.