Editorials from around New England

Editorials from around New England:

___

CONNECTICUT

The Republican-American

Oct. 15

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ned Lamont recently spoke with Hartford Business Journal about his plans for Connecticut’s economy. Mr. Lamont, a Greenwich businessman, sold himself as a pro-business candidate. By most indicators, Mr. Lamont is ill-equipped to make Connecticut a business-friendly state.

Mr. Lamont said getting Connecticut’s finances in order is key to making the Constitution State a better place in which to conduct business. It’s difficult to envision him getting this job done.

Yes, Mr. Lamont told Hartford Business Journal he would like to renegotiate the “concessions” deal Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and all but one of the legislature’s Democrats granted the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition in 2017, but he would be under tremendous pressure to keep his promise at the May Democratic convention to avoid balancing the budget on the backs of state employees.

The Connecticut AFL-CIO has endorsed Mr. Lamont. Accordingly, personnel costs, which account for approximately one-third of the annual state budget, largely would remain off the table for the foreseeable future. Unless they are addressed, Connecticut’s finances will remain inherently unstable.

Connecticut faces a deficit in excess of $4 billion for the 2019-21 biennium. It is hard to see how Mr. Lamont could make the investments - in education, infrastructure, and arts and culture - referenced on his website without further damaging the state’s finances and business climate. Indeed, as Hartford Business Journal noted, “Neither Lamont nor any other candidate has given a precise accounting of how they’ll close the deficit in their first budget.”

Mr. Lamont also told Hartford Business Journal he supports giving Connecticut a $15 minimum hourly wage, as well as mandated paid family leave. (The state has required unpaid leave since 1990.) These proposals are anathema to business.

In 2015, The New York Times - not exactly a bastion of conservatism - reported only businesses in tourism-based economies can withstand $15 mandates, because they typically are patronized by “transient customers who are less price-sensitive, making it easier for them to partially offset higher wages through price increases.” While the paid-leave proposals considered in recent years by the legislature stipulated that workers themselves pay for wage benefits, they would create other financial problems for employers and state government. We addressed this concept in detail in our April 9 editorial.

Throughout his two four-year terms, Gov. Malloy has set a generally anti-business course. It becomes more apparent all the time that Mr. Lamont, who consistently has led Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski in the polls, would effectively serve Gov. Malloy’s third term. That doesn’t bode well for Connecticut’s prospects.

Online: https://bit.ly/2EzdMXY

___

MASSACHUSETTS

The Daily Hampshire Gazette

Oct. 17

We are coming to a reckoning on the cost of higher education and student debt. Over the summer, University of Massachusetts Amherst student hotline workers found themselves answering high-stakes questions at the intersection of college tuition, student loans and financial aid.

“I had parents talking to me . as if I had some sort of authority, or that I had some sort of power,” said Elena Valenzuela-Stookey, a senior who worked a minimum-wage job at the 12-person call center this summer. She wished she could tell them, “Hi, this is Elena. I’m a student who was trained two weeks ago and don’t actually have any power. I’m not even sitting in the office you think I am.”

UMass Amherst has operated the helpline for several summers, and operators fielded questions about every aspect of college life, from parking to dorms to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA). But of the 11,804 calls the center took over 11 weeks this summer, Valenzuela-Stookey and her co-worker Nora Cameron said the majority came from the financial aid and bursar’s offices, and dealt with “everything from explaining what tax forms to file if your federal aid application was randomly selected for verification to breaking down tuition bills for those with sticker shock,” reporter Dusty Christensen wrote (“Feeling helpless at the helpline: UMass student operators faced ’barriers’ assisting others with financial aid”).

The cost of a four-year college education at a public institution has tripled over the past three decades, even when adjusted for inflation, according to The College Board. Meanwhile, U.S. Census data shows that mean family income has increased just under 17 percent in the same timeframe. And public funding at public universities has dropped 14.5 percent in Massachusetts since 2001, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. This is a perfect storm for a crisis.

The complex bureaucracy that has sprung up around funding college educations - along with the necessity for the UMass Amherst helpline itself - is a symptom of a system that is so broken that it will take significant societal shifts to fix. Higher education, even at supposedly budget-friendly public colleges and universities, costs so much that students and their families are forced to take on crippling amounts of debt - debt that has changed the way students navigate their lives into adulthood.

In one 2016 poll from Consumer Reports National Research Center of Americans living with student loan debt, 44 percent cut back on day-to-day living expenses; 37 percent delayed saving for retirement or other financial goals; 28 percent delayed buying a house; and 12 percent delayed marriage. Most damning: 45 percent said that college was not worth the cost.

The cost of college needs to be slashed. Solutions are multifaceted and include re-examining our tax structure, increasing minimum wage, cutting administrative bloat at universities, and protecting students and families from predatory lenders by making a student loan “bill of rights” state law. That’s just a start.

As Cameron told the Gazette, the call center’s supervisor advised student workers: “The university is a business, treat the student like a customer we need to keep.”

A college education should not be a business transaction that leaves students with such a burden to bear.

Online: https://bit.ly/2QXMs75

___

RHODE ISLAND

The Providence Journal

Oct. 17

On Oct. 3, the press release arrived via email. “Joe Trillo to Make Major Campaign Announcement at Press Conference,” read the headline. The release quoted the mercurial independent candidate for governor. “My announcement will change the landscape of this year’s governor’s race,” he vowed.

As is the often case in politics, the blustery promise far outstripped the delivery.

The grand declaration, it turned out, was that Patricia Morgan, easily beaten by Cranston Mayor Allan Fung in the Republican gubernatorial primary, was endorsing Mr. Trillo, a former fellow Republican state representative whose most notable achievement in the campaign so far may have been running his yacht aground.

Her 13,000 votes - even if they slavishly followed her to Mr. Trillo’s side - could hardly alter the landscape of the governor’s race.

What the announcement did achieve, though, was to underscore how pathetically weak the state’s Republican Party is. That is not a good thing for Rhode Island.

Ms. Morgan, after all, is a former chair of the party. Her refusal to endorse the GOP standard-bearer spotlighted the petty disputes that are shredding what is left of Abraham Lincoln’s once dominant party in Rhode Island.

Her announcement set off an unseemly barrage of Twitter insults and mutual recriminations. Mr. Trillo is widely regarded as nothing more than a spoiler in the race, somebody who will draw Republican votes away from Mr. Fung and make it easier for the Democrat, Gov. Gina Raimondo, to coast to victory.

By any measure, this is a party in crisis.

It is easy to blame it all on President Donald Trump, a particularly divisive figure in overwhelmingly Democratic Rhode Island. But, after the 2016 presidential election, Providence College political science professor Adam Myers pointed out that Mr. Trump fared better than any Republican presidential candidate in the state since 1988. (Four years before that, Ronald Reagan actually carried Rhode Island.)

Mr. Myers estimated that Mr. Trump won an impressive 20 of Rhode Island’s 75 House districts, despite their being gerrymandered to help Democrats. But the state’s bumbling Republican Party managed to lose House seats that year.

The weakness of the Republicans has essentially created two competing groups within the Democratic Party - moderate Democrats vs. the hard left. But that is not a substitute for a genuine two-party system.

What are the Republicans to do?

They could start by ending the petty sniping and come together behind a platform. They could find an optimistic chair more interested in explaining the virtues of their ideas than in spewing venom at those who criticize the party. They could rebuild slowly at the local level. They could recruit members of minority groups - notably including the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population - who believe, as some at the national level, that the Democratic Party is not representing their interests.

Our system of self-government functions poorly without robust elections and an opportunity for the electorate to hold incumbents accountable.

Fortunately, as former Republican state Rep. Nicholas Gorham noted this week, the long decline of the party may suggest the direction it will take in the future. “By process of elimination, I’m going to go with … Upward!” he wrote.

Online: https://bit.ly/2CSMoTa

___

VERMONT

The Rutland Herald

Oct. 18

At a time when LGBTQ equality has come under attack by those in the highest levels of government, it is encouraging to see that communities around the nation, and especially here in Vermont, continue to champion equality rights.

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation reported that a record-setting 78 cities nationwide earned perfect scores in the seventh annual Municipal Equality Index, meeting the most demanding and pioneering criteria since the report’s debut in 2012.

The MEI is the only nationwide rating system of LGBTQ inclusion in municipal law, policy and services. The index rated 506 cities, including all state capitals and the largest cities in every state.

Each community was scored on how it advanced LGBTQ-inclusive laws and policies. In Vermont, Burlington scored 80 out of 100 points. It was followed by Winooski (60), South Burlington and Rutland (59), Essex (58), Montpelier (50), Brattleboro (46) and Barre and Castleton (44).

The MEI evolved this year, instituting benchmarks examining equal access to gender-neutral restrooms in public spaces, protecting LGBTQ youth from bullying in city services and dangerous so-called “conversion therapy.” Additionally, this year the MEI deducted points for laws that include provisions licensing discrimination against the LGBTQ community.

Even with more stringent requirements, cities and municipalities are meeting and exceeding standards with innovative measures to protect LGBTQ people, the report’s authors noted.

“In the current political reality, welcoming cities like these are more important than ever,” they wrote.

“In this political moment, as we face unprecedented challenges to fairness, justice, and democracy at the federal level, we look to local leadership in advancing equality for the LGBTQ community,” said Rebecca Isaacs, executive director of the Equality Federation Institute.

Since the MEI’s debut in 2012, the number of cities earning perfect scores has increased more than seven-fold, and today at least 25 million people live in cities that have more comprehensive, transgender-inclusive nondiscrimination laws than their state.

The report notes that progress on transgender equality has been particularly noteworthy in cities across the U.S. this year, continuing a positive trend that the MEI has tracked - and encouraged - since 2012. Transgender-inclusive health care benefits are offered to employees of 147 municipalities this year - up from 111 in 2017, 66 in 2015 and just five in 2012.

Other key findings from the 2018 Municipal Equality Index include:

- 103 cities from states without comprehensive nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people scored above the overall nationwide average of 58 points. These cities averaged 83-point scores; 34 scored a perfect 100.

- Cities continue to excel even in the absence of inclusive state laws: 46 “All Star” cities in states lacking comprehensive nondiscrimination laws scored above 85 points, up from 41 last year, 37 in 2016 and just two in 2012.

- The national city score average increased from 57 to 58 points. Seventy-eight cities scored 100 points; 25 percent scored over 83 points; 50 percent scored over 58 points; 25 percent scored less than 36; and 15 cities scored zero points.

- Cities are protecting LGBTQ youth. Seventeen MEI-rated cities enacted local protections against the harmful and discredited practice of so-called “conversion therapy.”

“Beyond the important issues of fairness and equality lies an additional reason for cities to take matters of equality seriously: it is good business,” the report notes. “Cities are in constant competition for residents, businesses and employees, and inclusiveness is an important factor that attracts all three.”

A growing body of research has shown that states that have a vibrant gay and lesbian community have higher levels of income, life satisfaction, housing values and emotional attachment to their community.

That has always been true in Vermont, which has been a leader in equality rights for the LGBTQ community for decades now.

Of course, Vermont communities can be doing better, but the results of this index show that our state continues to be a bold leader for the LGBTQ community, and still is inching forward in its laws, policies and community building.

We need to be providing those nondiscrimination protections. Inclusivity only works if we are inclusive. That is where equality begins. …

Online: https://bit.ly/2NNjrsF

___

MAINE

Portland Press Herald

Oct. 19

With the Red Sox still alive in the Major League Baseball playoffs, there’s one piece of baseball news that may have slipped past most local fans. The Cleveland Indians will retire the most offensive logo in professional sports by the time the team opens training camp in February.

“Chief Wahoo,” the grinning, bright red Indian caricature will no longer be featured on the team’s uniforms or promotional materials, a step that is long overdue but still one in the right direction. In an separate move, the team has also donated $10,000 toward erecting a statue to one of its earliest stars, Louis Sockalexis, the Penobscot Indian from Maine who played for the team at the beginning of the 20th century.

Sockalexis’ tenure with the club is typically offered as the reason the Cleveland took “Indians” for its team’s nickname. The name is supposed to be a tribute to the player, but clearly the Chief Wahoo image is no tribute.

It was just a brand that played on racist stereotypes, designed to sell memorabilia to people who either don’t know better or don’t care who they hurt. Not wanting to be mistaken for the second group, the club has wisely chosen to trade the offensive cartoon for a block letter “C’’ on the crown of the players’ caps.

Offensive team names and mascots have been difficult to remove, even among Maine high schools where there are no multimillion dollar licensing deals to worry about. Fans feel a connection with their teams and don’t want to change. Some fans think they are unfairly branded as racists when they show allegiance to their tradition because of an excess of political correctness.

But it’s important to remember that these images are part of a long history that matters more than the intentions of today’s fans. Native Americans have been subject to centuries of racist violence and legalized theft.

Even today, more than 100 years after Sockalexis’ death, his Penobscot Nation is still struggling to maintain sovereignty in the small corner of the state that belongs to them. It’s understandable if they don’t feel honored when white Americans depict them in cartoons or crudely copy their worship traditions.

There is a much deeper reckoning that needs to occur regarding the history of American Indians in the United States. But as small, symbolic gestures, Cleveland’s retirement of its logo and contribution to the Sockalexis statue are steps in the right direction.

Let’s not mistake them for the end of the journey.

Online: https://bit.ly/2S3rFAd

___

NEW HAMPSHIRE

Portsmouth Herald

Oct. 18Election Day is less than three weeks away and while there are many critical races on the ballots in New Hampshire and Maine, fears remain that in this off-year election cycle with no presidential race voter turnout will be light.

A lot has been said in print, in social media and elsewhere in the political blogosphere that there is discontent across the political spectrum. That, however, does not ensure voter turnout — especially informed voter turnout.

In this day and age there is no excuse for not examining the issues.

All of Seacoast Media Group’s weekly and daily newspapers are in the process of publishing the results of candidates questionnaires. Our newspapers are following the candidates in some way on a daily basis. And we are continuing editorial board meetings in the top races in hopes of better informing voters and eventually offering endorsements.

That said, we urge readers to look here and elsewhere for the information needed to make those informed decisions. By now your town or city will have listed sample ballots on their websites. There are also any number of organizations offering voter guides and voter information. Among them are the League of Women Voters, Citizens Count NH, Vote Smart, Rock the Vote, and Your Vote 2018 in Maine.

There are also many advocacy organizations which, while concentrating on targeted issues, can offer useful information.

Then there are the candidates’ websites. While these are clearly designed to promote a particular candidate’s issues, these can serve as a point of reference and understanding of what each candidate considers the key issues in their race.

It also needs to be pointed out that the races in this year’s off-year election are as important, if not more so, than during a presidential election year.

In Maine, Gov. Paul LePage is term limited. As a result, voters will be putting a fresh face in the Blaine House.

It will also be the first time ranked-choice voting will be used in Maine’s General Election for the offices of U.S. Senate and U.S. Congress, in which there are more than two candidates. Those races include: U.S. Senate race Incumbent U.S. Sen. Angus King (I), Maine Sen. Eric Brakey (R), and Zak Ringelstein (D); U.S. Congressional District 1 race: Incumbent U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D), Mark Holbrook (R), and Maine Rep. Martin Grohman (I); and Congressional District 2 race: Incumbent Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R), Maine Rep. Jared Golden (D), Tiffany Bond (I) and William Hoar (I).

New Hampshire also has a critical race at the top of the ballot. For a decade, Congressional District 1 has been passed back and forth between Democrats and Republicans, with it currently being held by Democratic Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter, who is not seeking re-election.

This means a new face will represent New Hampshire CD1 in Congress. On the ballot will be Eddie Edwards (R), Chris Pappas (D) and Dan Belforti (L).

New Hampshire’s governor’s race is also important. Chris Sununu is the first Republican to serve as governor in more than a decade. He is being challenged by Molly Kelly, who is looking to return the seat to the Democrats, making Sununu a one-term governor. In the process, she hopes to help her party take back the House and Senate.

There are also important citizen referendums in Maine, including a proposal to impose a 3.8 percent income tax on individuals or married couples filing jointly with a gross adjusted income above $128,400 to fund home health workers and services. New Hampshire voters will weigh in on two proposed constitutional amendments; one to restore taxpayer standing as sufficient to bring suit against the government and a second to enhance privacy protections.

All in all, there are more than enough reasons to be informed and to vote on Nov. 6. As past elections have proven, every single vote counts.

Online: https://bit.ly/2yREAfN

___