On Politics

Welcome back to my weekly column. A 12-hour legislative committee meeting on the same night when the RI GOP invalidates a vote for chairman? Just another day in the Biggest Little. Your tips and thoughts are welcome at idonnis (at) ripr (dot) org. Let's get to it.

In another sign that Providence Mayor Angel Taveras is serious about running for governor in 2014: sources close to the mayor say he has hired a leading Washington, D.C.-based political consulting firm and top Rhode Island campaign strategist J.B. Poersch, a longtime aide to U.S. Sen. Jack Reed.

Taveras has retained SKDKnickerbocker as his campaign consultants. Poersch and veteran consultant Bill Knapp will lead the team advising Taveras as he plans his campaign.

If hundreds of people offer heartfelt arguments over 12 hours to lawmakers whose minds are mostly made up on the controversial issue of same-sex marriage, does it make any difference?

"I don't know," says Senator Lou Raptakis (D-Coventry), one of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that held a marathon hearing on the subject from 5 pm Thursday to 5 am Friday.

Raptakis says 9 of 10 committee members stuck it out to the end.

Rhode Island's roads and bridges have been crumbling for years. So why did the most powerful pol in the state, House Speaker Gordon Fox, team up Thursday with one of Rhode Island's top-two emerging political stars, state Treasurer Gina Raimondo, to unveil a new plan for funding road and bridge improvements during a well-attended Statehouse news conference?

Gold star if you guessed "2014."

If you really need another good reason to support your local NPR affiliate, we bring you the latest report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism: The State of the News Media 2013.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who watches local television in this or just any market across the nation, but there is more junk food-journalism on local TeeVee news than ever.

So now the most ridiculous and irresponsible decision of former Gov. Donald Carcieri’s tenure has come home to roost. That, of course, would be the decision to gamble $100 million or so of the taxpayers’ money on Curt Schilling’s ill-fated 38 Studios video game company.

The company is now bankrupt. As ProJo State House veteran Katherine Gregg reports, the budget proposal from Governor Lincoln Chafee, the most vocal opponent of this fiasco during the 2010 governor’s race, has proposed making the initial $2.5 million payment to bondholders.

The Boston Globe reported Monday that the Canadian government has established a business accelerator program in Cambridge to help its ``most promising young start-ups tap into the expertise and energy of the growing innovation economy around MIT and, ideally return home with new customers, connections and ideas.’’

As anyone with a pulse is aware, the area around Kendall Square in Cambridge has evolved over the past two decades from a seen-better-days warehouse and manufacturing district into an innovation lodestone.

The General Assembly Web site is adding live video streaming that will allow viewers to watch up to four committee meetings at the same time, as well as House and Senate sessions.

The content will be archived for viewing through the Web site, according to a news release:

Currently, Capitol TV airs a live House session and taped the Senate session to broadcast after. Without web-streaming, the channel could only broadcast one live committee meeting at a time.

In the best of all possible worlds, Providence's iconic Superman Building would be revived as housing that would add downtown residents and reduce the amount of prime office space. Yet Providence Mayor Angel Taveras isn't ruling out the possibility that the structure might have to be leveled.

During an appearance last weekend on WJAR-TV's 10 News Conference, Taveras said:

West Warwick native Paul Tencher is set to become the campaign director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The move comes after Tencher managed Democrat Joe Donnelly's winning Senate campaign in Indiana over Republican Richard Mourdock last year.

Tencher is expected to focus on aiding Democratic Senate candidates in states won last year by Mitt Romney.

By email, he says: