Moderate Party of Rhode Island

Moderate Party of Rhode Island
International affiliation	Centrism Fiscal responsibility
Official colors	Blue
Political position	Fiscal: Center Social: Center
Politics of United States Political parties Elections

The Moderate Party of Rhode Island is the third-largest contemporary political party in the State of Rhode Island, after the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Moderate Party of Rhode Island gained official party status and ballot access via a federal lawsuit cite ^[1] and the gathering of 34,000 signatures on August 18th, 2009.^[2]

The Moderate Party of Rhode Island states that its mission is “to recruit, support, and elect candidates that will govern by building consensus around smart, pragmatic, common-sense policies which will address the structural deficits currently plaguing Rhode Island’s economic, educational, ethical and environmental systems".

The Moderate Party fielded candidates for various state offices in the 2010 elections. The Party Founder and candidate for Governor, Mr. Kenneth Block, has stated that the party’s primary focus will be the General Assembly; however, the possibility of a candidate for governor and other state offices is likely.^{[3] [4]}

The Four E's

The platform of the Moderate Party is considered centrist and focuses on what the party has coined “The 4 E's” consisting of the economy, ethics, education, and the environment.

Economy

The Moderate Party of Rhode Island calls for:

• Stop spending money that is not well spent.
• Induce businesses to locate to Rhode Island by bringing RI's business taxes in line with Massachusetts' business taxes.
• Bring the total compensation packages (including wages, benefits, pension amounts and pension eligibility) for state employees in line with what private sector workers earn.
• Produce a balanced budget by reducing spending and waste and by not relying on one time gimmicks like selling tobacco settlement funds or revenue anticipation bonds.^[5]

Education

The Moderate Party of Rhode Island calls for:

• Convert day care expenditures for low income households into pre-school aid.
• Provide incentives to the best teachers to teach in the toughest schools.
• Evaluate all teachers and administrators annually and provide incentive pay for the top performers, while providing mentoring, training and a financial disincentive to the worst performers.
• Provide life skills courses to non-college tracked children.
• Allow non-certified professionals who are content experts to teach in our schools.
• Apply lessons learned from our charter schools to our educational system, and allow the development of more of these very successful schools which are leading the way in educational innovation.
• Ban the practice of bumping in the school systems.
• Publish a model teacher's contract that is created at the state level and make state aid to local school districts contingent on how closely the locally negotiated teacher's contract adheres to the model's guidelines.^[6]

Ethics

The Moderate Party of Rhode Island calls for:

• Toughening ethics laws and employment agreements to make our elected, appointed, and employed state officials far more accountable for their actions.^[7]

Environment

The Moderate Party of Rhode Island calls for what they have termed an aggressive program of protection and enhancement in conjunction with encouraging appropriate economic growth opportunities.

Social issues

The Moderate Party, as a whole, takes no official stand on “social issues,” although each individual candidate will have their own stance and, if elected, will be directed to vote their conscience. The focus of the party and the work they pledge to do will be “the 4 Es” ^[8]

References

1. ^ http://www.moderate-ri.org/lawsuit.htm
2. ^ http://newsblog.projo.com/2009/08/its-official-mo.html
3. ^ http://www.projo.com/ri/warwick/content/Moderate_Papers_08-05-09_53F9ITI_v23.3985290.html
4. ^ http://www.projo.com/news/content/GOVERNORS_RACE_10-14-09_UHG11C9_v28.3b3cee9.html
5. ^ http://www.moderate-ri.org/economy.htm
6. ^ http://www.moderate-ri.org/education.htm
7. ^ http://www.moderate-ri.org/ethics.htm
8. ^ http://www.moderate-ri.org/

Externanl links

• Party website