I WILL NOT vote for an incumbant this fall. Period! We need fresh people every few years. They should make the GA similar to jury duty - everyone gets a turn by lottery. That way the chances of big enough groups of "special interests" being in the GA at the same time would be slim to none. Do you think the current GA will have the GUTS to put themselves on term limits or do a lottery GA? Nope. Then they wouldn't be able to get money from lobbyists and wine and dine themselves. We need a petition started ASAP.

Rhode Island General assembly Reform Act of 2012

A. Term Limits. 4 years only, one of the possible options below.

B. Two 2-year Senate terms

C. Two Two-year House terms

D. One 2-year Senate term and One 2-Year House term

2. No Tenure / No Pension. A salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office or Benefits.

3. Pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%

4. The General Assembly must equally abide by all laws they impose on the people.

5. All contracts with past and present the Assembly are void effective 1/1/13 I.E. Benefits etc.

6. Serving in the Assembly is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.

Businesses on the other side of the bridge from Fall River to Tiverton & Little Compton from those who won't cross. Bristol's traffic will be worse than what it is now especially on weekends from those going to & from Newport. Plus with retired public employees having their pensions frozen & decreasin net income from yearly healthcare increases they won't have any disposable income to put into the local economy. Of course I strongly urge all retired & active public employees & their family members to spend their money elsewhere. On routes 6, 195 & 44 from Seekonk to New Bedford there are plenty of places in Ma to purchase anythiung your heart desires. Start shopping road trips with friends & co-workers You don't need to spend it in RI the mosr corrupt crony infested state in the country.

I left out "will benefit". Sometimes the fingers have a mind of their own

Politicians in Rhode Island are idiots (I'm not speaking about Mr Felag).

Rhode Island is a small State so by making things more expensive here there is no reason for out of Staters to spend their money here but there is reason for RIers to spend their money out of State.

This endless game of higher and higher taxation and fees is all due to the large size of Government here. If they were to cut taxes and fees the Government would have to shrink and that will never happen.

Now that taxes are so high relative to private sector revenue the State is looking for more fee driven revenue such as the bridge tolls or by selling power at double and triple the competitive rates. If they can't get into our wallets one way they scheme for other ways.

Time to leave. When there is nothing but Government employees and illegal aliens here who will pay the taxes?

Agree, that both rep malik and senator felag have been sitting to long, and need to go, hope that the taxpayers can vote a new person with better ideas. I find it odd, that the eastbay rep's could not get support to drop the toll idea, When will the senator from Warwick come over the bridge and pay his toll? Our state legislators are killing us regular people. VOTE THEM ALL OUT IN NOVEMBER.

Downtown you say your not speaking about Walt. I like Walt as a person but this is the problem in ri. Everyone says "except for my Rep." That is why the ga is the way it is. A petition needs to be started to start term limits. Change.org maybe?

RI Politics - I just didn't want it to look like I meant him in particular since he wrote the letter.

I agree that there is far too much 'except my rep'.

A lot of the bad politics though comes from the leadership which is passed down from one bad politician to the next. Take e-verify for instance Paiva Weed blocks that from even being voted on every year. It was Fox and Weed who rammed through the $75 million dollar increase in what was going to be a $50 million dollar bond guarantee program so that 38 Studios could get their $75 million.

Our local pols are just completely ineffective as we saw with this tolls vote and in general since the East Bay is left paying taxes with nothing to show for it.

This State needs to have a voter initiative law (thats been blocked also) where a referendum can be brought to life through a minimum number of signatures and bad laws really bad laws can be changed by the citizens here. This would be the single best thing that could be done for the voters here.

The State also needs an Inspector General with broad powers to investigate State goings on when something stinks.

Having read Mr. Felag's letter to the editor and knowing his past track record as a State Senator, I agree that changes need to be made up to and including our illustrious Governor. That being said, Mr. Felag is one of the good guys who has "good ideas" and is not someone who should be cast aside because he was unable to convince a majority of legislators that the Sakonnet Toll is an unfair tax burden particularly for East Bay residents. As we have seen with President Obama, change just for the sake of change is not necessarily a good thing. I live in Bristol and I am neither family or personal friend of Mr. Felag, but I hope he is not unfairly lumped together with the many incompetent legislators and other elected officials serving in Rhode Island!

I have nothing against Mr. Felag or Mr. Malik but, I think it's a shame that no one is running against them (so far). I think it's time for new blood. At the very least, a tight race for the seats they currently hold might re-invigorate them.