Rhode Island primaries open to independent voters, but parties still exert outsized influence over elections

Governor McKee presses the flesh at a Ghana-unity World Cup event

in Providence in June.

RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Yesterday I voted in a Rhode Island primary election for the first time in my 15 years here, because a new state law allows voting without party affiliation.

The Governor's Race and the Problem with Not-So-Open Primaries 

I wanted to signal my displeasure with Governor Dan McKee. I did not think McKee a worthy successor to predecessor Gina Raimondo in 2021, when she joined the Biden cabinet, and I did not support him when he won election in 2022. I thought him a political insider more interested in party politics than bettering life for Rhode Islanders, and I regard my view as exonerated. 

But before this election, my vote was near meaningless. Rhode Island is a solidly blue state. The Republican party does not even put up candidates for most state legislative offices and often puts up non-serious placeholders for executive offices. So many voters simply "pull the lever" for Democrats automatically that most elections are decided in the primaries. Though Rhode Island has had Republican and independent governors in the past, such an upset is highly unlikely when the Democrat candidate is a party insider with easy name recognition, such as McKee.

Heck, yeah, I want my sticker.

RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

I'm an "independent," or what Rhode Island calls "unaffiliated" voter. I always have been. I believe that America's two major parties have locked up the political system by making it almost impossible for a third party to get traction as other than a spoiler. Parties can no longer shift as they once did at pivotal moments in American history. And as they are locked in, both major parties have become unresponsive to American voters, who by and large are moderate. The parties are advantaged instead by playing to extremes. The two-party lock thus exacerbates our political and social polarization. Power in Washington shifts left or right, but congressional paralysis and executive unaccountability remain constant. I won't sign on to that. (There is a longer and more complicated explanation of why I have not affiliated with a third party, for another day. It is a proposition I have considered carefully.)

Refusal to join a major party meant that my vote in each general election was usually "thrown away" on state and federal races, because those matters were already decided. Rhode Island had more-or-less closed primaries when I moved here in 2011; unaffiliated voters were not allowed to vote in party primaries. Technically, Rhode Island had, since 1978, "semi-open" primaries, because unaffiliated voters who turned up at the primary could choose either ballot and go ahead and vote. However, the voter would then be registered as a party member for the ballot the voter chose. The voter could then file paperwork to disaffiliate from the party, but the onus was on the voter to do so. I don't consider that "open," no matter how consistently the prefix "semi" is interjected.

I'm not a political scientist, though I play one in the classroom. I have many political science friends who explain things to me. One reminded me last week that one problem with the closed primary is a counter-majoritarian effect. Suppose that, in Rhode Island, a moderate Democrat—who might incidentally, be something else that resonates with voters, such as libertarian, but would be effectively excluded from politics if so identifying—would command the majority support of the people when all voters participate. Yet that candidate never reaches all voters. Rather, the Democrat party first prefers candidates for the primary ballot who articulate more extreme differentiation from Republicans. Then party loyalists, the most fervent primary voters, prefer the more extreme of the balloted extreme. Our moderate Democrat stands no chance in this process, and the candidate who would have commanded majority support in the state never reaches the general election: yet another, and more subtle, way that our party-driven political system exacerbates polarization.

Half of R.I. registered voters are not party members.

R.I. SoS public domain

Here's a remarkable fact: Despite decades of compulsory party registration if one dared vote in a dispositive primary, roughly half of Rhode Island voters are, still are, unaffiliated. Present state data peg the count at 52%. It's 50% in Barrington, R.I., where I live. Turnout for primaries, never great, was disincentivized by the threat of compulsory party registration. And data show vigorous trading in party membership, disaffiliation and affiliation, for a few thousand who still wanted to participate.

Whether or not there is any merit to the mythology, I cannot say, but Rhode Islanders are said to be famously independently minded owing to the founding of the state by Roger Williams as a haven for church-state separationist, religious dissidents.

In 2024, the Rhode Island legislature at last passed, and Governor McKee signed into law, a bill allowing unaffiliated voters to choose and cast a party ballot in the primary without joining the party. Or otherwise stated, disaffiliation is instant and automatic. As an election supervisor put it to me, if you go in an unaffiliated voter, you come out an unaffiliated voter.

McKee loses, about 1.7:1.
R.I. SoS public domain

It is somewhat ironic that McKee signed the 2024 bill. He lost in yesterday's primary, remarkably for an incumbent and insider in Rhode Island. Voters, including me, favored his opponent, more moderate on many issues and with a corporate-boardroom origin story, by about 1.7 to 1. In advance of the election, the conservative Rhode Island Current suggested that Rhode Island Republicans ought disaffiliate to take advantage of the new primary law to vote against the lefty McKee without, now, having to become Democrats.

While strategic voting is an arguably adverse result of opening primaries to the unaffiliated, the threat is minimal relative to the widely disenfranchising alternative of alienating the unaffiliated. Anyway, in truth, McKee's record was so poor, and voters are so angry, that polls disfavored him yesterday regardless of the 2024 change.

A sign at my polling place notifies independent voters
of the 2024 law allowing voting without affiliation.

RJ Peltz-Steele CC0 1.0

The Rhode Island voting system is improved by widening the "semi-open" primary with "automatic disaffiliation." For the first time since I moved here in 2011, I feel like I got my small say in the Governor's race. But the problem of locked-party choice still overshadows the system, just as it perpetuates dysfunction in American government writ large.

The Lieutenant Governor's Race and the Problem with Plurality Rule

What should Rhode Island's next innovation be? Another ill of party politics can be seen in the lieutenant governor's race and could be cured by rank-choice voting (RCV).

An advantage of the two-party lock is that general elections usually reduce the field to two choices. Majority rule works well when there are only two choices, because one of the candidates invariably wins more than 50% of the votes. But when there are more than two choices, "majority rule," in the United States at least, usually devolves into plurality rule. The election is "one and done," and the candidate with the most votes wins—even with less than 50% of votes.

Further complicating matters, because the party is the gatekeeper to the ballot, the outcome can be manipulated by allowing fewer or more candidates to be listed. For example, if the party favors an ideological position that the party fears a majority of voters, say 60%, will not support, the party can allow, say, three candidates with an opposing ideological position to reach the ballot. Opposition voters then split over those three candidates, 20% each, and the party favorite prevails, not with a majority of votes, but with a plurality of 40%.

Run-off elections avert this problem. But a conventional run-off requires voters to trudge back to the polls, so even poorer than poor turnout severely distorts representation. RCV effects a virtual run-off, using voters' second or third choices to calculate run-off results with one-time voter preference data and generating a candidate who enjoys majority support, at least in some sense. There are many, contested variations of RCV in the operational details, but overall, political scientists, they tell me, prefer it to plurality-rules for its obviously superior democratic methodology. Further explanation may be found at Ballotpedia, along with data from Alaska and Maine, which use RCV.

In the Rhode Island lieutenant governor's race, it's safe to presume that the party favored candidate Sabina Matos. She was the incumbent and another political insider, nominated initially for the job by Governor McKee. Naturally, her voter approval has faltered, same as McKee's. 

Matos wins by plurality.

R.I. SoS public domain

But unlike McKee, Matos was in a crowded field with four other candidates. I voted for the runner-up challenger, Xaykham Khamsyvoravong, who at the time of this writing won 26.4% of votes. The three other candidates collectively won 36.1% of votes. Matos is projected to win with only 37.4% of votes.

My wife aptly observed that Matos's share of the votes, 37.4%, is strikingly close to Governor McKee's losing share of 37.6% of votes. Given the political context, one might suppose that close to a two-thirds majority of voters in the Democrat primary wished, like me, to toss out the incumbency, both governor and lieutenant governor. But because messaging among the lieutenant-governor challengers was similar, and interest in the race is low anyway, no consensus emerged among a majority of voters on which challenger should unseat Matos. Anyone else, a majority of voters said. Yet Matos overwhelmingly likely will be reelected as lieutenant governor.

Again, the need for RCV is amplified by undemocratic party influence over the ballot to begin with. RCV will help, but will not solve the problem of democratically unaccountable party machinery making choices for us, much less the political polarization that results, amplified by the technologies of the information age. 

It is clear, though, that we should and can do better.

Byzantine, needless procedures make it too hard for David to sue Goliath in R.I. small-claims court

RJ Peltz-Steele with Google Gemini CC0 1.0

A Savory Tort Investigation (Continued) 

Following up my eye-opening journey through the byzantine processes of small-claims filing, I wrote this week to my Rhode Island state legislators and to the state attorney general recommending some reforms.

To the legislators, I urged the following reforms to the small-claims court process.

1. Filing should not cost a complainant the inconvenience and expense of notary service.
2. Filing should not preclude a complainant from providing a valid service-of-process address for a respondent’s registered agent.
3. Filing should not charge a complainant with the responsibility of generating for the respondent hardcopies of an answer form, instructions, and interpreter instructions in four languages, requiring a filing portfolio of 19 pages, plus a second copy, for a complaint of only one or two lines.
4. Service of process to in-state defendants should not require of a complainant the inconvenience and expense of enlisting, in person, the services, personally executed, of a sheriff or constable.

"Most importantly," I wrote, "especially for individual non-lawyers who would sue well represented corporations, these conditions represent utterly unnecessary barriers to access to justice."

To the attorney general, I suggested that the office should not shirk its responsibility to exercise concurrent enforcement authority with federal agencies, especially to stop plain violations of state consumer protection law, such as deceptive sales practices. 

The full letter appears below.

---

September 4, 2026

Rep. Jennifer Smith Boylan & Sen. Pamela J. Lauria, 82 Smith St., Providence, RI

Hon. Peter F. Neronha, 150 S. Main St., Providence, R.I.

Dear Representative, Senator, and Attorney General:

I enclose for your information a blog article about a small claims lawsuit I am prosecuting in Rhode Island Small Claims Court. The article suggests some needed reforms to strengthen consumer protection, including issues I wish to highlight for your consideration.

There is much not to like about the experience that led me to file a small claim. And the law being what it is, at both state and federal levels, my prospects to prevail are slim, for myriad reasons hardly related to the merits of the case. I am content to prosecute this matter anyway in the hope of pressuring the defendant and its industry to reform practices that are abusive of consumers. If at any time you would like to have a longer conversation about what state government can do to better protect Rhode Island consumers, count me in.

Meanwhile, the merits of this action really are tangential to my purpose in writing to you; rather, especially for you, Representative, and for you, Senator, I wish to highlight self-evident defects in the pleading process in small-claims court that should not be difficult to correct through legislation or simple administrative reform:

1. Filing should not cost a complainant the inconvenience and expense of notary service.
2. Filing should not preclude a complainant from providing a valid service-of-process address for a respondent’s registered agent.
3. Filing should not charge a complainant with the responsibility of generating for the respondent hardcopies of an answer form, instructions, and interpreter instructions in four languages, requiring a filing portfolio of 19 pages, plus a second copy, for a complaint of only one or two lines.
4. Service of process to in-state defendants should not require of a complainant the inconvenience and expense of enlisting, in person, the services, personally executed, of a sheriff or constable.

All of these conditions waste the time, energy, and money of complainants. Conditions (1), (3), and (4) do not pertain in small-claims court in neighboring Massachusetts; moreover, a complainant in Massachusetts can complete the whole process from home through an e-filing system, and for less money (about $62) than in Rhode Island (more than $150).

Most importantly, especially for individual non-lawyers who would sue well represented corporations, these conditions represent utterly unnecessary barriers to access to justice.

Especially for you, Attorney General, I wish to highlight an issue with the consumer protection services of your office. While I am grateful, truly, for the responsiveness of your office in general, and the capable people who work there, the office succumbs to a common malady in state consumer protection in the states, which is its blanket deference to federal authorities when a respondent is in a regulated industry, or sometimes just out of state.

As an attorney, you know as well as I do that neither jurisdiction nor venue depends on the defendant’s place of business; and that federal law in regulated industries does not wholly preempt state law.

Quite to the contrary, state AGs are vital players to hold industry to account while agencies such as FTC and DOJ only count letters. I daresay, moreover, because you do not live on a desert island, that you recognize the need for state consumer protection to step up in an era in which the federal government is pulling back from, un-staffing, and de-funding, justifiably or not, consumer support, and instead cozying up to big business.

Thus for salient example, when a Rhode Islander at home contracts with one of the few service providers in the oligopolistic airline industry, thus establishing both venue and internet jurisdiction, that contract should be regarded as worthy of the same enforcement of state consumer protection law as any in-person sales transaction on any Rhode Island main street. Such a respondent, even in a regulated industry, has no safe harbor in federal regulatory compliance from charges of deception. I understand that some preemption analyses are more complicated, such as for pharma. But concurrent authority does not excuse the AG from enforcement of state law.

Also as you well know, individuals, whether or not lawyers, usually are unable to enforce their own consumer rights, whether because of boilerplate waivers and alternative-dispute-resolution clauses, statutory rights that fail to authorize private enforcement, or simply transaction costs, including know-how. If the regulatory authorities fail to fill the gap, then industry quickly apprehends and exercises its autonomy to abuse consumers with impunity.

I thank you for your attention and welcome your further interest in these or related matters of consumer protection in Rhode Island.

Sincerely,
/s/
Rick Peltz-Steele

Airlines abuse customers, who have nowhere to turn and face byzantine barriers in small claims courts

A Savory Tort Investigation

I sued Air France yesterday.

Consumer Protection and Airline Impunity

The instant matter is simple. I bought a roundtrip ticket from Boston to Paris specifically as offered by Air France because seat selection upon check-in came with the ticket. (I have a dodgy knee and an over-the-hill bladder, so seat selection on long hauls matters to me. You asked.)

Air France consistently promised seat selection.

Air France turned the flight over to Delta for operation, and Delta refused to honor seat selection upon check-in. Delta rather demanded $89 per seat assignment. Delta would not even give me a random seat upon check-in; I was told I would have to wait for a seat assignment at the gate, after everyone with higher priority was given an assignment.

I contacted Air France multiple times and was told that Delta's terms superseded Air France's, to call Delta. I contacted Delta multiple times, and I was told that my problem was with Air France.

I'm not the only person to experience precisely this problem. Redditors and online reviewers have reported the same frustration and the same shirking of responsibility by the airlines over seat selection and other purchase terms. 

That matters here, because I don't file lawsuits just for me. I believe I have a professional responsibility to use my skills as a litigator now and then if it will make the world better for many people.

I made complaints to governmental authorities, the attorney general's office in my home state of Rhode Island, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Of course, those complaints went into the circular file.

The R.I. AG's office, while having been helpful in other matters, has in the past sent me to the feds on airline issues, notwithstanding their concurrent jurisdiction over ticket sales. And the U.S. DoT, which used to issue at least a polite email of acknowledgment, said nothing, probably distracted by the premiere of Great American Road Trip.

Delta sees things differently, blames Air France.

Delta, it must be said, sent me an email offering something, I think it was a $55 credit, on a future flight. I did not accept.

I also sent a comprehensive demand letter to Air France in June. They replied in July with yet another email, this one at least sufficiently detailed to suggest, for the first time, that they did understand the problem. They were unwilling to pay anything, of course. And more importantly, they did not say the problem was redressed, and they again blamed Delta.

This isn't about money for me, if that's still not clear. What I want is for the airlines to stop using operator agreements as an excuse to reneg on plain promises to consumers. Had Air France simply taken responsibility for the wrong and promised it's no longer happening, I would have dropped the matter.

But Air France couldn't help itself. Repeatedly, responses blamed Delta. They did not address the salient observation of the demand letter: that I have no contract with Delta, even if it were willing to accept responsibility rather than send blame back around.

So as I promised in the demand letter—one must keep one's promises—I sued for breach of contract and deceptive business practices. Like some other states, Rhode Island has a reasonably friendly statute for such consumer claims, and it entitles me to the greater of $500 statutory damages or compensatory damages, plus costs, with the possibility of a damage multiplier, up to three times, in the court's discretion. 

I am not going here to address the problem of arbitration terms among airline terms of service, slyly diverting consumers from the courts and stripping them unwittingly of their Seventh Amendment rights. I must mention that such boilerplate terms usually put any court claim of the kind I discuss here out of reach for the consumer. Worse, arbitration systems are rigged for corporate respondents, evidenced at minimum by the simple fact that they prevail in arbitration far more than reason or chance says they should. The proceedings moreover remain secret, undermining civil justice for everyone else. I have good reason to believe that I am not bound in this matter by compelled arbitration terms, but any reader or prospective plaintiff should be warned.

My goal here remains simply reform of industry practice for consumer protection. I've written before about the abuse American consumers suffer at the hands of airlines, especially in comparison with our European counterparts, and our present era of deregulation in the United States is stripping away what little enforcement there was. 

Yesterday, for example, I was shopping for an airfare online and saw a United fare with no carry-on, that is, bringing a carry-on is not allowed, not an option. That almost compels a person to check a bag, yet the fare did not include a checked bag; you could buy that later: what regulatory authorities call "drip pricing," or what President Biden called "junk fees," and which makes it exceedingly difficult to compare fares. 

These deceptive sales strategies utterly undermine absolutist economic libertarianism, demonstrating, in my view, why responsible libertarianism must support reasonable regulation to ensure a level marketplace. The Biden Federal Trade Commission regulated against junk fees. Trump has not rescinded the regulations, to my knowledge. But non-enforcement is functionally the same. A meaningful regulation would afford a private right of action with damages that would command airlines' attention.

It seems, in the great American tradition of rugged individualism, that enforcement is left to the consumer, who is scarcely given two sticks to rub together to get anything done. And at this point, it seems that a financial hit, even a small one, along with the hassle of answering in court, is required to compel Air France to own up to the simple responsibility of delivering what it sells.

If only it were that easy. 

Small Claims Court and Barriers to Consumer Protection

I am a lawyer (D.C. license) and a litigator, and I have filed many lawsuits. But what I just experienced trying to file a small claim was harrowing and would be prohibitive to a person not equipped as I am. What's worse is that touted digital tools that are supposed to make access to the courts easier are not helping at all.

Here is a series of problems I encountered in filing my small claim. Never mind, by the way, that my claim should be a class action, which is prohibitively difficult even for me to put together, if even possible under the law, which in the United States has grown hostile to consumer class actions, even while Europe, again, moves in the opposite direction.

My small claim was rejected by Massachusetts courts. And then they changed their minds.

I tried first to file a small claim in Massachusetts. It was rejected.

My personal-jurisdiction claim over Air France in Rhode Island is sufficient, but thin, based on my online ticket purchase. There's always a risk of getting a judge who is hostile to plaintiffs and not familiar with the law of internet jurisdiction. Small claims are sometimes not appealable, so if you get a bad ruling, you might be stuck, no matter the law.

Personal jurisdiction over Air France (technically, "Societe Air France") is easier by conventional measures in Massachusetts, because Air France operates out of Boston Logan airport and has assets and employees there. If I prevail in Rhode Island, Air France can make me register my judgment in Massachusetts to collect. Even though I can demand costs, registration of foreign-state judgments is a hassle, beyond the ken of non-lawyer plaintiffs, and requires an outlay of hundreds of dollars just for filing, even before executing enforcement.

Small-claims filing instructions at Mass.gov purport
to afford venue where a plaintiff works.

Happily, the Massachusetts courts website told me that small claims courts in the commonwealth will exercise venue based on a plaintiff's place of work—or home, or business. I work in Massachusetts. Even better, the courts accept e-filings.

I dutifully prepared all of my paperwork and stepped through the online e-filing procedure. It's not a bad user interface, for the most part. 

Alas, the next business morning, my claim was rejected. I had listed my home address in Rhode Island. The form asked for the address where I wished to receive correspondence, not the address I would use to assert venue. There was no field for another address. 

I called the small-claims office of the clerk in New Bedford, Massachusetts, District Court. Let me be clear here that, first, they promptly answered the phone, which is a lot more than I can say for Air France or Delta; and second, they were very, very kind. My whinging here is no denigration of the people involved, who I believe are trying do their honest best in a byzantine bureaucracy.

They told me, though, that the website is wrong, that Massachusetts courts will recognize venue only for a resident plaintiff, or a plaintiff who owns a business in the commonwealth. At least, they said, I would not be charged the filing fee ($62), and I should get in touch if my card is charged erroneously. 

By email—they have an email address, also more than I can say for Air France or Delta—I sent the office the web page I had relied on—not to hassle them, but seriously, to make sure it's corrected, so that other people, especially non-lawyers, don't waste the time and energy that I did. I also reported the error to the state IT office via the page feedback form.

I then went about several hours' work to file my claim in Rhode Island instead. I run a serious risk that Air France simply will ignore the summons; it has no assets, no liability exposure, in Rhode Island. I can obtain a default judgment. But then, again, I will have to go to the extraordinary effort and expense of registering my judgment in Massachusetts and pursuing an enforcement action there.

After I returned home from the courthouse in Providence, Rhode Island, I received an email from the clerk's office in New Bedford: "Please e-file your complaint and we will accept it."

Sigh.

I'm not going to file right now, I responded, because I don't want to pay for two lawsuits. But if Air France ducks out on the Rhode Island summons, it will be cheaper for me to sue again in Massachusetts, rather than register the foreign-state judgment in non-small-claims district court.

Small claims clerks do not understand corporate service of process. Or they do, and I don't?

A second problem I encountered relates to service of process. Neither Massachusetts nor Rhode Island small claims court would accept a service-of-process address for the defendant. Both insisted that service go to the defendant business address. That policy puts plaintiffs, especially non-lawyers, at risk of dismissal for defective service.

Every business, when it registers with a state government for licensing, in almost any state—I've seen some exceptions, and that's a whole other story in undermining consumer protection, but thankfully, Massachusetts keeps pretty good records—provides a mailing address, where it wants to receive business correspondence, and a service address, specifically for legal service of process. Big businesses, such as Air France, contract with companies, "registered agents," specially in the business of receiving legal notices.

Air France lists a New York corporate address and a Boston registered
agent in its filing with the Massachusetts Secretary of Commerce. 

In the case of Air France, its filing with the Massachusetts Secretary of Commerce lists, not unusually, an address in New York City for the corporate office, and an address in Boston for service to the registered agent, Corporation Service Company. Typically, a business relies on its registered agent only for the initial pleading, and in responsive pleading lists an address for corporate counsel to receive correspondence subsequently.

The Massachusetts e-filing system, which is not bad overall, as I said, has only one field for a defendant's address. Instructions say to provide the address where the defendant receives its correspondence. That's the defendant's corporate address. There is no field for a registered agent at a different address. 

But failing to serve a corporation by way of its registered agent means plaintiff's complaint can be dismissed for defective service. And it seems that someone knows this, because the instructions to users of the e-filing system admonish would-be plaintiffs to look up the defendant's address(es) in the database of the Massachusetts Secretary of Commerce. There's even a link to do so.

If a filing is accepted in the Massachusetts e-filing system, service follows by certified mail. There's a fee assessed for that mailing, simultaneously with the filing fee. There is no opportunity for a plaintiff to add a service address later.

So I emailed the clerk to ask about this problem. Because my filing ultimately was rejected, it never became an issue. But I asked also when we spoke on the phone. 

The clerk to whom I spoke did not seem to be familiar with corporate service of process or registered agents. She said that the small claims office always serves the business address, and that that service would effect legal process. I have my doubts, but at least I shelved that assurance for what I can tell a judge when I'm fighting against defendant's motion to dismiss.

In Rhode Island, there is no e-filing. There is a form for small claims, and it, like in Massachusetts, has only one field for the defendant's address. I entered both addresses there. When filing a civil complaint, a lawyer usually lists a "Serve on:" or "Registered agent:" address below the defendant's corporate address.

But when I went to file, the Rhode Island clerk would have none of it. She, too, seemed baffled by the idea that there would be more than one address for the defendant. She would not accept the filing that way and demanded that I cross out and initial the service address. So I did, muttering, "That's not the law," under my breath. And I filed ($75.75).

I still went by UPS to make a copy of all of the pleading papers ($6.10). I stopped home to scan a copy for myself. And when I went to the post office to send the papers via certified mail, return receipt, I sent sets to both addresses ($11.89 each).

Service of process in Rhode Island is a racket.

In ye olden times, and still when a plaintiff fears a defendant might evade accountability, service of process was effected in person, by a sheriff, constable, or professional process server knocking on the defendant's door. Private investigators sometimes picked up contract service work between meatier jobs. Personal service is so clumsy that it's sometimes the stuff of comedy in movies, such as Pineapple Express (2008).

Now we live in an enlightened age. Well, most of us. Not Rhode Island, the smallest state. Back there in a moment.

In this era of enlightenment, we understand that service of process can be effected more efficiently by paper and ink, through our perfectly well functioning postal system. This, in fact, besides state compulsion, is why companies contract with registered agents: so that we can all agree that that is the address where you send the pleading.

I hear you asking: "OK Boomer, why not use the internet?" Well, first, it's Gen-X to you. We do exist. And please don't be condescending. This is still a developing country. There's nothing wrong with triplicate forms. Press hard.

I have filed small claims in Rhode Island before, and I effected service with the usual certified mail and return receipt, even if I had to overpay the clerk's office to send it for me.

On the backs of complainants,
R.I. sheriffs get a piece of the action.
photo RJ Peltz-Steele CC0 1.0

No more, apparently. Rhode Island now requires that a small claims pro se plaintiff march from the courthouse in Providence, R.I., to the state Sheriffs Headquarters in Cranston, R.I., eight miles away, closes at 4 p.m.!, and there find a sheriff or constable to effect service ($70).

Oh, and stop by a bank or post office, because Sheriffs Headquarters does not take credit cards, debit cards, checks, or cash. You'll need a money order made out to "R.I. STATE SHERIFFS" ($2.65).

Oh, and stop by a copy shop, because you'll need two copies of all the paperwork you brought to the clerk's office, where you were instructed to bring only one, plus two copies of the summons the clerk just gave you ($6).

Alas, there's another wrinkle. R.I. Sheriffs will not serve an out-of-state defendant. How to do that? A flyer at the clerk's office in Providence instructs the pro se plaintiff to "contact that State for service." 

Anyone have the telephone number for Massachusetts? 

I was incredulous. Yet the clerk in Providence was unfazed. I asked whether I could effect service on an R.I. defendant, hypothetically, by sending certified mail, return receipt, myself. No, she said. State law requires that the Sheriffs Office or a constable effect service. I'm not so sure about that, but I'm not a Rhode Island lawyer.

How do I effect service in Massachusetts, then?, I asked. She said she could not tell me, for fear of giving me bad advice about something beyond her purview. Fair enough. But where could I find out?

I figured if certified mail, return receipt, was good enough for the New Bedford District Court, it was good enough for me. And I couldn't see a judge turning me away when I have a return receipt in hand. Still, here we are with another problem that could end the non-lawyer's case before it gets going, and flush the sunken $75 R.I. filing fee down the drain.

When the clerk returned with my summons, after having consulted with a colleague, she said, "You can send this certified mail." That must have been hard to admit. 

Yet it does prompt the question, why is certified mail fine for an out-of-state defendant, but no good for a Rhode Island defendant?

Maybe the sheriffs' slush fund is running short.

Rhode Island requires plaintiffs to prepare paperwork to a point of absurdity.

I did my homework before I went to the courthouse in Providence. I still screwed up. 

I spilled a bucket of printer ink—one of the most expensive liquids on earth, and a whole other story in regulators' failure to protect consumers against unfair and deceptive corporate practices—to prepare my filings for the Rhode Island court. I followed instructions to the letter. I even printed and had notarized an extra copy of the complaint. Not required, but I fancy myself a boy scout!

Let's pause there to note that Rhode Island requires a small claims complaint to be notarized. I used my AAA membership to avail of the service there. Still, I had to stop by that office on my way to the courthouse. That's actually the service I use most frequently at AAA—nothing to do with my car or travel. Someone stopping in at a UPS store for a one-off notarization would have to pay $10 or $15 per stamp.

Notarization of such a filing as routine and small-time as a small claims pleading is not normal in the states; Massachusetts does not require it. And it's profoundly anachronistic, having little purpose: yet another barrier to ordinary people's access to the courts.

But I haven't yet told you the best part.

To file a small claim in Rhode Island, the plaintiff must present, in hardcopy, the court form for the defendant's answer to the complaint, as well as court instructions for how to complete the answer form.

R.I. court instructions in Cambodian stand ready
to aid the New York corporate lawyer who needs them.

Wait, there's more!

The plaintiff also must present four pages of instructions on how the defendant can seek interpreter services, the pages respectively in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Cambodian.

Cambodian.

The clerk looked at me skeptically and asked, "Do you have the papers for the answer?"

Clearly she anticipated having to send me packing, another schmuck who failed to follow directions. I could not tell from her anticipation whether she relished the seemingly inevitable rebuff, or was just wary of how another frustrated, infuriated claimant might react. 

"Yes," I said, proudly, presenting the papers. A boy scout craves the approval of authority figures.

But I couldn't help myself. 

"I even have instructions in Cambodian for my corporate defendant's team of New York lawyers," I said.

Unfazed.

Alas, I did make a mistake. I had printed the answer form without the instructions. The horror!

In my defense, the user instructions did not specify which version of the answer form to prepare, with or without instructions. I assumed, mistakenly, that it was not my job to tell New York attorneys how to file a responsive pleading, against me, for their transnational corporate client. 

To the clerk's credit, and I do appreciate this, because my parking meter ($1.60) was ticking, she provided me, gratis, a hardcopy of the correct form with instructions to include with my growing portfolio—now 19 pages for a two-sentence complaint.

I understand the need for both the instructions and the interpreter forms when the defendant is an individual. Access to justice is a two-way street, and, say, a landlord who is a frequent flier in the courts should not be able to exploit a tenant's ignorance of legal process and rights. 

But on the face of my complaint, I am suing a transnational corporation with a U.S. office on Broadway in Manhattan. Am I really Goliath in this scenario?

Is there no rule of reason? Or do we just assume that the little people ought not be bothering big corporations anyway?

It is virtually inconceivable that a non-lawyer could navigate the small claims process, at least not without rendering the case vulnerable to dismissal for a procedural fault.

I'm not sure anyone outside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce thinks we do not have an access to justice problem in the United States. And in the marketplace, consumer frustration has hit a record pitch.

Let's review. My claim is straightforward. I contracted for a service and did not get that service. I am suing for the value of the service that I did not get. That's a loss equivalent to $178, or $500, as the legislature decided is a fair statutory minimum.

Besides my hours and hours of time, my barrels of printer ink, and my fuel, parking, and heartache, I have thus far spent $105.63 on my $178 loss. And that's just to get in the courthouse door. If Air France does not answer my complaint, I'm looking at hundreds more dollars for enforcement, even with a default judgment in hand.

And I am only one consumer, of, no doubt, thousands, who bothered to follow up on a broken promise. I'm just one consumer savvy enough to know how to sue, at least in theory. 

No wonder, then, corporate America simply counts on the fact that it can rip off consumers for hundreds of dollars at a time with impunity. Even if one consumer fights back and prevails, the profits are enough to roll around and spill champagne in.

And our legal system facilitates this abuse. Small claims court was devised to redress this very problem, yet the hurdles to clear the entrance gate are so high, the court might as well shut its doors. Let's not forget that I was twice given incorrect guidance by clerks, notwithstanding good intentions, so far in my journey. I'm already supposed to know what I'm doing, and all this is before even getting to the merits of the case.

There are a lot of ways we could reform consumer protection and access to justice. For starters, I should not be bringing this claim. State AGs or federal agencies, at minimum, should be making sure that consumers get what they pay for, or at least that corporations cannot willfully continue deceptive practices after they're made aware of them.

Even writ small, there are countless ways that the ills of local courts, as I've outlined here and no doubt many more, could be fixed to make access to justice just a little bit easier. Our public officials only have to want the courts we pay for to work for people as well as they work for corporations. 

'Saving faith' comprises believing, praying, following

My wife and I were privileged this morning to worship with our friends at North Scituate (R.I.) Baptist Church (YouTube), which is led by Pastor Kim Nelson and his wife Nancy.  

I spoke on Mark 11:23, on the subject, "A Higher Faith." I talked about what the verse does not mean—it's neither literal nor a paean to selfishness—and more importantly about what it does mean, a statement about faith in God. The verse instructs that faith comprises believing, praying, and following God's lead.

 

I am grateful to journalist Elizabeth Bruenig, whose Atlantic essay, The Evidence That God Exists (Mar. 26, 2026), inspired my thinking on Mark 11:23, and whom I quoted in the message. And I am grateful, as always, to my friend Eric D'Agostino, who helped me work through the teaching.

I post below the visual elements that accompanied the message: (1) a snippet of C.W.M. van de Velde's 1858 map of the Holy Land, (2) the contemporary Mount of Olives, in a photograph I took in 2011, and (3) Mount Everest, Nepal, in a photograph I took in March, 2026. (My photos CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

 

Pete Seeger meets Shakespeare in Qoheleth

Ecclesiastes 3 has more to do with modern society than first meets the eye.

As You Like It (1936 film), act II, scene 7,
after "Seven Ages of Man" monolog

Shakespeare, Pete Seeger, and Martin Luther King, Jr., all drew on the timeless poetry that opens the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, the word of the teacher, Qoheleth.

My wife, Misty, and I had the privilege today to visit our friends at North Scituate (R.I.) Baptist Church (NSBC), which is led by our friends Pastor Kim Nelson and his wife Nancy. 

I spoke on Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, "Written and Directed by God." I am grateful to Misty for pointing me to Shakespeare's As You Like It, act II, scene 7. Many years on, she is ever ready to put her university English degree to good work.

The service at NSBC is livestreamed weekly and archived on the church YouTube channel.

From national TV to local school, suspension of dissenters evidences worrisome speech suppression

Google Gemini CC0

Free speech is in danger in the United States, and two recent matters, one national and one local to me, are representative and worrisome.

The national story is the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel from his late-night talk show on the ABC television network.

Where Kimmel apparently crossed a red line with ABC parent Disney was his equation of the accused assassin of Charlie Kirk with the America-first MAGA movement. The comment stoked right-wing ire, and Kimmel was accused of inciting or supporting political violence—an inferential leap he did not make. In the light of day, I find Kimmel's comment in poor taste. But he did not advocate for political violence. 

I support the prerogative of Disney, as a private creative company—subject to procedurally proper and viewpoint-immaterial business regulation, such as antitrust law, which has been under-enforced in the administrations of both parties—to make decisions about what content it wishes to broadcast. But as in the case of cancelled late-night host Stephen Colbert, the decision here is not about reasoned disagreement, rather is about capitulation to government threats to use state power unlawfully and unconstitutionally.

Circumstances strongly suggested that Colbert's Late Show was canceled because of government threats to use the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) broadcast licensing authority to block the merger of CBS parent Paramount with media company Skydance. But it was difficult to find direct rather than circumstantial evidence of the connection between the government and Paramount.

No longer. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr plainly threatened to use FCC power to attack Nexstar, the company that owns a great many ABC affiliates that carry Disney content. Nexstar and Disney are said to be courting, and Nexstar has a history of dissatisfaction with FCC regulation that would stymie the growth of its media empire. So the FCC threat to Nexstar was taken to heart in the boardroom, The Wall Street Journal reported, and became a threat to business partner Disney, in turn. 

Curious how the anti-regulatory right is suddenly interested in a strong administrative state.

The problem here is that censorship of political content, that is, political viewpoint discrimination, is not a legitimate basis for the FCC, nor most any governmental authority, to flex its muscle in interference with the private market. The closest Carr came to a legitimate rationale for FCC retaliation was the assertion that programming such as Kimmel's perpetuates false information. 

Yet even if that were a proper basis for government intervention—arguable, depending on the nature of the information alleged false—there is no evidence that false assertions of fact by Kimmel or anyone else motivated Carr's threat. Whatever one thinks of Kimmel's appraisal of the Kirk murder, or of MAGA, he uttered only opinion.

Incidentally, President Trump's lawsuit against The New York Times Co. this week evidences the same disregard for the difference between fact and opinion. The voluminous complaint is rife with allegations that establish a difference of opinion, but precious few claims of false assertions of fact. So over the top is the complaint that it evidences the abject failure of the legal profession to regulate itself as a profession. (UPDATE, Sept. 19: Did I underestimate the profession? See Trump v. N.Y. Times Co. (M.D. Fla. Sept. 19, 2025). HT @ Dan Greenberg.)

To be clear, if Disney wants to suspend Kimmel because executives don't like his politics, fine. I might worry about whether antitrust law is enforced with sufficient vigor, or simply whether our media infrastructure is sufficiently healthy, that Americans have access to a wide range of viewpoints through audiovisual media. But my worries would not warrant interference with a business owner's political prerogative.

My objection here is to the threatened abuse of power by the FCC. A broadcast regulatory authority picking who may and who may not have access to media channels based on the broadcaster's support for the ruling regime is naked and shameful authoritarianism.

And then there is the local.

In my community of Barrington, Rhode Island, a teacher, Benjamin Fillo, has been suspended from Barrington Public Schools for his TikTok comments about Charlie Kirk.

Once again, I find the speaker's comments in poor taste. According to The New York Post and to WLNE—an ABC affiliate which, incidentally, recently became the second local news broadcaster under the control of the right-wing-disinformation-associated Sinclair group, somehow without provoking FCC regulatory objection—Fillo called Kirk a "piece of garbage" and accused him of hatred for the LGBTQ community and hostility to women's rights and democracy.

Like Kimmel, Fillo did not advocate for political violence. I would like him to have condemned it. But that preference is mine.

Also, as a parent in this community, I am sympathetic to parents' concerns that the public school be a place of neither ideological indoctrination nor ideological marginalization.

What worries me here is that Fillo's speech occurred on TikTok, outside the school, outside his capacity as a teacher, at least insofar as has been reported. His video seems to have effected no "material and substantial disruption" of the schoolhouse, to use the probably applicable constitutional language, other than disruption by people who self-servingly would claim disruption.

The school district has hired an independent investigator. Sounds a bit Orwellian, but better than a summary firing. What's concerning is that, again, as far as I have seen reported, the investigation is based only on extramural speech, and worse, Fillo was placed on administrative leave for his extramural speech. So already he's been singled out and penalized upon no apparent evidence that he poses any threat to students.

When my daughter was a minor in Barrington schools, she had teachers with whom I disagreed, and with whom she disagreed, politically, and who had different religious beliefs from mine, and from hers, just like I have law students who have different opinions and beliefs from mine. The appropriate pedagogy, which my daughter's teachers employed, and which I endeavor to employ, albeit in the different context of graduate school, is to equip students to disagree. It's not an easy line to draw, but that's the job of a teacher.

What does not work, what I would not want from my child's teachers, and what I try not to do in the classroom, is to pretend to be some kind of politically neutered Ken doll incapable of forming a personal viewpoint. That's what no teacher should model for students. Yet that seems to be what Barrington schools, and too many parents, want to see.

That Fillo has opinions outside the school, whether or not I agree with them, whether or not students and parents agree with them, suggests to me only that he is a good teacher, because he is a whole and thinking human being. If he had no discernible political views, I would wonder whether he were competent to teach social studies.

The takeaway from both these matters seems to be that our society is suffering a worrisome intolerance for disagreement.

It's becoming cool and normal for government to use its power to enforce group-think—a place I thought the right promised to move us away from. And it's becoming cool and normal for employers, even public employers, to capitulate to demands that group-think be enforced, or at least that dissent be suppressed. 

The marketplace of ideas is a flawed metaphor. But it's not all wrong. What I know for sure is that ours should not be a country in which the marketplace of ideas sells only one kind of bread, and everyone must get in line for it.

R.I. classifies e-bikes, limits bike path access, but pedestrians remain at risk without enforcement

Kudos to Rhode Island legislators who in 2024 limited state bicycle trails and paths to a single class of e-bikes.

The 2024 law, H7713, chief-sponsored by my own Rep. Jennifer Boylan (D-Barrington, E. Providence), defines three classes of electric bikes:

• Class 1: Bicycle equipped with an electric motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty miles per hour (20 mph).
• Class 2: Bicycle equipped with a throttle-actuated electric motor that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty miles per hour (20 mph).
• Class 3: Bicycle equipped with an electric motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty-eight miles per hour (28 mph).

Only class 1 e-bikes are permitted on the East Bay Bike Path, a paved, 14-mile rails-to-trails route that runs near my home, and which I use regularly (2019, 2021). Fully motorized vehicles are not allowed on paths and never have been.

Though the legislation passed in 2024, signs went up just this summer (pictured, above and below, RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Meanwhile, the problem of persons flouting the law has only grown worse.

My experience has been like that of Ethan Hartley, writing for East Bay RI in August:

It couldn’t have been 10 minutes after this author posted up with a camera trying to grab some photos of people enjoying the bike path near Watchemoket Cove—a particularly scenic stretch of the East Bay Bike Path, located in Riverside off Veterans Memorial Parkway—that I heard the far-off sound of sputtering engines coming from far down the path in the direction of Kettle Point.

That was notable, and odd, considering fully motorized vehicles are not allowed on the bike path.

Yet here they rode. Two young men, perched atop what appeared to be miniature dirt bikes. They were respectful enough, riding on the correct (right) side of the road, in a single-file line, and they weren’t going too fast or revving their little illicit engines obnoxiously.

Problems on the East Bay Bike Path, from lack of snow removal to trash dumping to dangerous road crossings, have long been problematic for lack of enforcement. The bike path comes under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), rather than local police. DEM asserted, credibly to my mind, that it lacks the resources it would need to police the state's bike paths. 

I feel like jurisdiction is a problem we should be able to figure out without much fuss. Yet the problem has remained intractable in my 14 years here, apparently despite even a child's death.

At the annual conference of the New England Political Science Association in the spring, I ran into Roger Williams University Political Science Professor June Speakman, who also is a state representative (D) from districts on the East Bay Bike Path, the towns of Bristol and Warren. Rep. Speakman told me that some local residents were agitating for legislation that would compel foot and bike traffic on bike trails both to stay on the right.

I was horrified at the prospect, I told her. At present, foot traffic stays left, and bikes right. The idea is that the bikes can see facing pedestrians easier than when overtaking, and pedestrians can see oncoming cyclists who might not be paying attention—and jump out of the way.

I've made that jump a few times over the years. Usually it's a youth staring at a cell phone. Once it was a senior who might not have been able to see well in the waning light of dusk.

Now when I am on foot I worry about oncoming bikes, e-bikes and motorbikes, often traveling well in excess of 20 mph. When a racing cyclist passes fast, I don't mind so much, because racers are usually extremely attentive. But why anyone thinks kids or seniors at dusk will be more responsible on an e-bike than they are already on a bicycle, I can't fathom.

So I say kudos to the legislators who enacted the 2024 bill, and who made no changes in 2025. Before we talk about changing anything more, let's address the enforcement problem.

The United Kingdom and Australia have been racked with anxiety recently over the criminal case of an intoxicated British backpacker who crashed a scooter into and killed a father of two in the crowded city center of Perth, Western Australia.

Collisions are inevitable. And I know which side loses when it's pedestrian vs. any motorized vehicle, electric or otherwise, at 20 mph or more.

Middle Passage project unveils R.I. sculpture: looking ahead in strength, not back in despair, artist says

Memorial Sculpture

The Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project (BMP) today unveiled and dedicated the Bristol Memorial Sculpture by Rhode Island School of Design artist and Professor Spencer Evans.

My wife and I were there. (All photos RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project comprises a network of ports of entry in the slave trade along the eastern and southern U.S. coasts from Maine to Galveston, Texas. The Bristol, R.I., chapter was organized in 2020, later incorporated as a nonprofit in 2023, by Elizabeth Sturges Llerena and Holly Wolf, descendants of the DeWolf family who spoke today. 

The DeWolf family trafficked more enslaved persons than any other in the United States. Llerena and Wolf's generation have committed to work on reconciliation and reparations since the family's history came under scrutiny in the 1990s. Their generation's journey—literally, including travel on the trade triangle form Bristol to Ghana to Cuba—was chronicled in the 2008 PBS documentary, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. DeWolf descendant Katrina Browne, who also was present at the unveiling today, produced and directed the film.

The sculpture sits under wraps before the dedication.

The Bristol Memorial Sculpture sits in Independence Park in Bristol, at the southern end of the East Bay Bike Path and northern end of Bristol Harbor. The sculpture means to fulfill the BMP mission, "acknowledging Bristol's history, and most importantly ... honoring the memory of all those harmed by the trans-Atlantic human trade," according to today's program. 

The project means to recognize both the enslavement of African persons, especially the Akan of Ghana, who are known to have landed at Bristol, and the enslavement and oppression of native Americans, specifically the Pokanoket, a Wampanoag people who lived where Bristol is today.

Prof. Evans speaks, his young daughter with her uncle at right.

The sculpture was selected from among finalists' models. Evans's winning design comprises three figures, an indigenous woman, an African man, and a child, cast in bronze. Evans worked on the sculpture at his Pawtucket, R.I., studio, and it was cast at Buccacio Sculpture Studios in Canton, Mass.

A narrative by Evans in the dedication program explained, in part:

Prof. Evans gestures upon the unveiling.

Both adult figures have their bodies turned toward Bristol Harbor, the first being a woman. The position of her body serves as a metaphor for the Pokanoket women who stood at the Cliffs of Sorrow waiting for their stolen families to return. The second figure, a man, symbolizes every African ancestor and descendant who possessed the viscerally sensational reminder that we are not in our homeland. However, both their gazes are fixed toward the child as the second adult points inland in the direction that the child is moving. The dynamically twisted posture of the adult figures also symbolizes the task of circumstantial endurance while possessing a radical love and hope for future generations, despite their reality of living in bondage, displacement, and oppression. The child figure also has a dynamic pose which is seemingly almost weightless in the movement, symbolizing the future generations who are carrying their ancestors with them as they are able to make constant attempts at living their dreams.

Prof. Freamon emcees.

A native of Houston, Tex., now resident in Providence, Evans was on hand and delivered a poetic address to mark the unveiling. He admonished the crowd that they would not see figures expressing fear or bound by chains, because "the spirit of despair" is not what should be passed on to future generations. Rather, he said, the sculpture means to communicate strength, love, hope, and affirmation of the future.

Explorers Monument

Curiously, or maybe fittingly, the new Memorial Sculpture sits across the main circle of Independence Park from Explorers Monument, a tribute to the Portuguese age of discovery.

Directors and advisers of the BMP board were in attendance today, and board president Bernard Freamon emceed. Roger Williams University Law Professor Freamon is a valued friend and colleague of my wife and me.

More than 150 people witness the dedication and unveiling in Independence Park.