It is understandable that in this election year, Rhode Island's activist communities are focused on the outcome of the national election and are focusing their attention and political energies on swing states like Maine, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. Rhode Island is the safest state in the union for Democratic presidential candidates, and in 2004, we are without competitive races for the U.S. House or Senate.
But this year, as every two years, all of Rhode Island's State Senate and House seats are up. And this year there is a competitive race for the East Side's Senate District 3 seat, where Democratic Sen. Rhoda Perry is running for reelection. The campuses of Brown and RISD are central to District 3 - students make up perhaps a third of District 3's population, and Perry deserves their votes.
Perry has served in the State Senate for 14 years, and she is easily the Senate's most progressive member. Here's a quick sampling of her various awards and accolades: ACLU Civil Libertarian of the Year (twice), Planned Parenthood Community Service Award, 2003 Providence Preservation Society Public Policy Award, R.I. Public Health Association Award, AIDS Leadership Award and National Association of Social Workers' Legislator of the Year. She's endorsed by the Progressive Leadership Fund, Rhode Island NOW, Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, United Nurses and Allied Professionals, Clean Water Action and the Sierra Club. Perry has worked hard and been vocal about these important issues for 14 years and has earned this organizational support.
Perry's legislative record is more impressive than her list awards. There's that "crazy lefty" stuff she'll try pushing but which won't move too far because the political climate is so gross: the notion that low-income housing residents shouldn't be evicted if someone brings drugs onto their property without their knowledge, or the idea that police shouldn't be able to search a car just because it holds a passenger whose seatbelt isn't fastened.
But she has also worked towards many concrete successes: mandating trigger locks on guns; banning racial profiling; banning discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment and housing; repealing the anti-sodomy law; requiring that health plans offering prescription drugs also offer birth control, lifting state barriers to buying prescription drugs in Canada and prohibiting insurance companies from releasing information about their enrollees' medical records; mandatory counseling for animal abusers and mandatory sterilization of pets adopted from shelters; and much more.
For every act President George W. Bush has undertaken to offend your progressive sensibilities, there's a Rhode Island equivalent: Bush signed the PATRIOT Act, and Gov. Carcieri '65 pushed a local version of his own; Bush under-funded No Child Left Behind, and Carcieri under-funded urban schools across our state; Bush cut taxes for the rich, and Carcieri signed budgets that forced higher property taxes on Rhode Island's poor.
We need elected officials at the state level who will fight back. This is particularly true if Bush remains in office, so as to launch continued assaults on the poor, our schools, the environment, affirmative action and the LGBTQ community. If Bush is allowed an appointment or two to the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade could be overturned and abortion-rights issues sent back to the states. In Perry, we'd have a proven vocal advocate for choice and women's rights.
Now, more than at any other point in last 15 or 20 years, it is imperative that we have progressive legislators of Perry's caliber in the Rhode Island Senate.
For more information about Perry, visit her Web site, RhodaPerry.com.
David Segal is Providence's Ward 1 City Councilman.
