Rhode Island Law And Government

The capital of Rhode Island is Providence. The state's current governor is Donald L. Carcieri (R) and its United States Senators are Jack Reed (D) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D). Rhode Island's two United States Congressmen are Patrick J. Kennedy (D-1) and Jim Langevin (D-2).

The Rhode Island General Treasurer is an elected official. He or she is the chairperson of the State Investment Commission and the Retirement Board.

The state legislature is the Rhode Island General Assembly, consisting of the 75-member state House of Representatives and the 38-member Senate. Both houses of the bicameral body are currently dominated by the Democratic Party.

Federally, Rhode Island is one of the most reliably Democratic states during presidential elections, regularly giving the Democratic nominees one of their best showings. In 1980, Rhode Island was one of only 6 states to vote against Ronald Reagan. In the 1984 Reagan landslide, Rhode Island provided Walter Mondale with his 3rd best performance. Rhode Island was the Democrats' best state in 1988 and 2000 and 2nd best in 1996 and 2004. The state was devoted to Republicans until 1908, but has only strayed from the Democrats 7 times in the 24 elections that followed. In 2004, Rhode Island gave John Kerry a greater than 20 percentage point margin of victory (the third highest of any state) with 59.4% of its vote. All but two of Rhode Island's 39 cities and towns voted for the Democratic candidate. The only exceptions were East and West Greenwich.[citation needed] Rhode Island has abolished capital punishment, making it one of the 12 states that have done so. Rhode Island abolished the death penalty very early, just after Michigan (first state to abolish it), and carried out its last execution in 1840s.

As might be expected of its politics, Rhode Island has one heaviest tax burdens in the country, particularly in its property taxes, ranking seventh in local and state taxes and sixth in real estate taxes in the country, the end result of a decade's trend of increasing taxes relative to other states.[17]