Tony Jones is running for the seat of lieutenant governor in Rhode Island this November, and if elected, will work to eliminate the seat and save the state $1 million per year.
“If elected, I would ‘serve’ alone, hire no staff, take no budget, and refuse to accept a salary,” he said in an interview last week with the North Kingstown Patch website.
If Jones is able to get on the ballot, he would be the first statewide candidate on the ballot in a midterm election in the history of the Rhode Island LP, according to Ballot Access News.
Tony was recently appointed to serve as the vice-chair, and was a former treasurer for the party. He has also served on the Cove Management Commission of the town of East Greenwich.
“We have people that are very serious about building a viable third, or maybe in RI’s case, a viable second party in Rhode Island,” Jones said.
There will be a signature party for Tony and other potential LPRI candidates this Thursday at Manchester 65 in West Warrick, R.I.
Great idea!
I’m running a similar LP campaign for Wisconsin Secretary of State, which has become a marginalized do-nothing office with just a handful of employees (one of which is of course a spokesman). WI is one of the few states where a partisan SoS doesn’t run elections, and I want to keep it that way. Our candidates for State Treasurer (who isn’t the state’s CFO in WI, despite the title) and Lt. Governor (who has literally no responsibilities, like in RI) are likewise running on abolishing their offices. In some states, the Lt. Gov. serves as President of the State Senate, and actually has power in that role. But in a few states- RI and WI among them- the Lt. Governor doesn’t do this and doesn’t oversee any departments. They do literally nothing but sit around hope the Governor dies or gets arrested.
re: line of succession, five states already don’t have a Lt. Governor. (three have no Secretary of State). In those states, either the President of the State Senate (a State Senator elected by the whole body) is next in line, or the senior executive official (either Secretary of State or Attorney General). We really don’t need to elect a “spare” Governor just for the relatively rare occurrence where the elected Gov. doesn’t finish his/her term.
Perhaps the Secretary of State like in Arizona.
So, what’s his plan for succession if there’s no Lt. Governor?