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Sen. Frank A. Ciccone III
Talk about too little too late. With the Rhode Island marriage bill expected to pass in the state House later this afternoon, NOM – Rhode Island has just announced that “Sen. Ciccone introduces legislation to put SSM before voters”.
The legislation is actually a resolution (S 0096) that would place an anti-marriage equality constitutional amendment on the ballot. The measure would add the following new section to Article I of the Rhode Island Constitution:
Section 25. Marriage. – Marriage shall be recognized and defined in Rhode Island as a lawful union between one man and one woman, provided the recognition and definition of marriage shall not prohibit the recognition of a lawful civil union between two (2) members of the same gender.
The resolution is sponsored by Sen. Frank A. Ciccone III (D-Providence), who proffered a similar measure in 2011 that died in committee (S 0115).
Sen. Ciccone’s proposed constitutional amendment is dead on arrival and a waste of Assembly time. To get on the ballot, the measure would have to first get approval by majorities in both houses of the Rhode Island General Assembly. That’s not going to happen. Since a majority of legislators in the House signed onto the marriage equality bill as co-sponsors, its passage in the House is all but certain. It is folly for NOM and Sen. Ciccone to suggest that legislators who just passed a marriage equality bill will turn around and vote to put an anti-equality marriage amendment on the ballot.
For folks who are able, there’s still time to get to the State House to show support for passage of the marriage equality bill in the House today. The House is scheduled to convene at 4pm. Supporters are being asked to wear red. If you can’t make it, you can follow the debate on Twitter at the hashtag #RI4M or watch WRPI’s online live stream here starting at 4 pm.
Update: The Rhode Island House passed the marriage bill Thursday night by a huge margin: 51 to 19. Find out how each representative voted here.
8 Comments
It’s called “desperation.”
So NOM got a supposed Democrat to push something that has no chance? I laugh and cry at the same time. Cry only because RI elected this nutball as a Democrat. I hope someone primaries this clown next time.
Re: #2
I wouldn’t be certain it has no chance in RI.
Just recalling in Mass a few years ago there was a similar initiative which got blocked from the ballot by the stern MA SJC, because they knew there was a near certainty it would pass overwhelmingly. RI isn’t that far away.
The problem in MA was the voting demographics, intensity and motivation, I think. There is some resistance to change even in a blue state. The MA anti-SSM voters were far more motivated than the pro-SSM who were go along to get along, but could nonetheless live with the status quo. See where this was going?
It bears watching in RI, and without comfy assumptions.
Rhode Island has completely different laws about putting questions on the ballot than MA has. There is no voter initiative in RI. Ciccone’s bill would have to pass both Houses to get on the ballot, and that won’t happen because House Speaker Gordon Fox would never allow it to be voted on in the House. Simple as that. And Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed even said that she doesn’t support Ciccone’s bill. It is in fact dead in the water. Its real purpose is to give cowardly senators some cover/middle ground to keep from having to take a stand on the marriage equality legislation and to change the public discussion.
Sorry for the near-duplicate comment, got a database error and didn’t realize the first one went through. Edited.
Thanks — that’s good news!
In Mass a proposed constitutional change has to successfully go through the legislature twice (a year apart, I think) before it can get to the ballot, even if a signature gathering campaign were to start the process.
But for general MA legislation, not so.
Beacon Hill did not want to go on record with what I described, after having already supported SSM, and then the MA SJC accommodated. Everyone got back to their knitting.
If the initiative in MA was legislative and not a constitutional amendment (which never got through the legislature), it makes sense that the Court would have blocked it — if it had passed, it still would have been unconstitutional, based on the decision in Goodridge. Why waste the time and the money?
No, the Massachusetts SJC just ordered the legislature to debate on the petition asking to vote. There is no direct initiative in Mass, a petition has to be approved by 25% of the legislature, in two successive sessions. The first session got 26%, the second 24%, killing the proposed vote.