"Question 1. The “national-popular-vote plan” for presidential elections ought to be a no-brainer for anyone who believes in “one person – one vote.” Watching the General Assembly debate on this, I absolutely could not understand the opposition. If anyone wants to make RI “relevant” in presidential campaigns, this proposed interstate compact is the obvious way to do it.

Questions 2, 6 and 7 are less obvious. When I first started running for office in the 1980s I personally registered 1,000 Rhode Islanders at their homes. Later I discovered that 2/3 of them didn’t bother to vote. (Since someone came to their door to register them, perhaps they were expecting someone to bring the voting machine to them also.) Today, as a candidate, I meet people every day who proudly proclaim that they don’t vote. It may not be beneficial to urge such irresponsible people to register. Having people on the rolls who will never vote adds to the expense of political campaigns and it adds to the waste stream when these people discard political mailings without even opening them.

Questions 4 and 5 on civics class also leave me undecided. As an elected delegate to the RI Constitutional Convention of 1986 and then an elected state representative from 1987 – 1994, I quickly found that civics class bore little resemblance to the workings of the RI General Assembly. Forget about listening to public testimony in committees and then deliberating the merits of a bill in the committee and perhaps on the floor of the House or Senate. What really determines the success or failure of a piece of legislation is the support or opposition of the leaders (House Speaker, Senate President and Majority Leaders). And they are influenced by professional lobbyists who give money to their campaigns. If civics class taught what really goes on, we might have a revolt in RI.

Question 9 is something I strongly support. I have testified at the statehouse on more than one occasion for bills to remove the “straight-party lever” from the ballot. Most legislators are not interested, because the “party lever” benefits most of the incumbents and it defeats independents and “third-party” candidates. There is a particularly blatant example of the downside in one of my towns. A gentleman running as a Democrat elected to the town council in 2006 wouldn’t have had a chance if voters had had to individually pick his name. Question 11 on “ranked-choice” (or “instant-runoff”) voting is another reform for which I have enthusiastically testified. (My own first election success was in the race for delegate to the 1986 RI Constitutional Convention. There were six candidates, and I won with a strong plurality – but not a majority.) It makes sense to demonstrate “IRV” in a small election as they’ve done in California -- in Berkley perhaps. But here again, the present system benefits incumbents. So it’s tough to get them to support such reform."