Since I had arrived in the Ocean State some 36 years ago, I have been confounded and frustrated by the bloated character and inefficient manner in which our government has operated.

According to many national barometers, in a community of only a million people, we are arguably the most over-legislated, over-stratified, under performing government in the nation.

We are condemned to mediocrity by the very unbalanced structure of our government, which is more akin to a constitutional monarchy with the speaker of the House as the prime minister and the governor in the role of a largely relegated and emasculated monarch. The convening of a constitutional convention is imperative to change this imbalanced structure!

Whether the governor was named Garrahy, DiPrete, Sundlun, Almond, Carcieri, or Chafee, each promised a more streamlined government and efficient use of the taxpayer’s “offerings” while at the end of their respective tenures falling far short of the mark. It may be too soon to determine whether or not Gina Raimondo will have a lasting positive effect, yet her administration’s efforts thus far are worth examining.

Past governors have had little effect in containing the ever-growing state budget, which has almost doubled in the last 15 years from $4.8 billion in 2000 to $8.7 billion currently. Nor have any of them achieved significant change in the quality of the goods and services that our tax dollars are supposed to purchase. The most shameful example that is most evident in our state is the deplorable condition of our infrastructure.

The lack of bang for our buck begs the question: Were the governors’ lack of successes related to their individual failures as executives, or were their failures due to the self-defeating structure of government itself?

Similarly, Rhode Island has had and continues to perpetuate the “strange aristocracy.” This aristocracy is comprised of the connected and the elected who feed at the public trough, to the helping of themselves and others while proffering promises never realized.

The General Assembly often exhibits a circus of self-congratulatory legislators. Many elected to this chamber become enamored with their title and recognition. Seemingly they forget the gravity and sanctity of their oath. Thus, they are converted from representatives and state senators into gratified lemmings who follow “leaders” and lobbyists and cast votes on matters they have not adequately reviewed, to the utter detriment of Rhode Islanders. The most recent stunning example of this lackadaisical attitude was the 38 Studios debacle, which we are paying back in $12 million annual installments for years to come.

Hence, if the true problem lies in the imbalance of power between the branches of government and the ungainly and unwieldy structure of our state and the vaguely informed part-time legislature, then what templates can we adopt to make our future as a state more sanguine?

So where are we in relation to other states in the union? Forbes Magazine has rated Rhode Island 46th best out of the 50 states in regard to business and economy. The American Society of Civil Engineers has rated the Ocean State as having the worst bridges in the country and the fourth-worst overall infrastructure. The Tax Foundation has rated Little Rhody as having the second-worst commercial property taxation and the seventh-worst per-capita burden of taxation. According to Bloomberg Business Week, we are one of three of the most over-regulated states in the country. These dubious distinctions have stigmatized our state for years and their ratings have wavered little from year to year.

If one were living in a utopia where roads and infrastructure were near perfect and schools were state of the art and services were of top efficiency, then one could theoretically justify the extraordinary levying of taxes. Obviously, this is not the case in our crumbling state. We are overpaying for an under performing government.

One could argue that some of our past governors attempted to stretch the limited power of the executive branch to varying degrees of success. Our Eagle Scout Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy asserted that after the Blizzard of ‘78, he would reorganize departments to be more responsive, although little changed afterward. Garrahy, in accordance with economist Ira Magaziner (father of the current General Treasurer Seth Magaziner), sought to circumvent the restrictions of the executive branch by trying to implement a comprehensive economic plan dubbed the “Greenhouse Compact,” which was defeated by referendum. Felonious Gov. Edward DiPrete was relatively inert in regard to reforming the way our government performed, as was the idiosyncratic Lincoln Chafee and the law enforcement-minded Lincoln Almond. On the other hand, Bruce Sundlun’s time in office was pervasively filled with the “RISDIC” banking crisis, building a new terminal at T. F. Green airport, and a bridge to Newport, with no real reduction in the scope of government.

On the contrary, Donald Carcieri reduced the number of state employees much to the chagrin of unionists in the General Assembly. He imposed furloughs to address budget woes that also raised the ire of union leaders. Additionally, in an action adverse to the legislature he insisted on the verification of workers to weed out illegal immigrants. This executive order was condemned by many in the legislature as reaching beyond the constitutional power of the governor’s chair. Sadly, these actions were reversed by the milquetoast Chafee.

Governors can accomplish little with the current constitutional distribution of power, which is supposed to be coequal. Thus, it is incumbent upon any new governor to slip into bed with the speaker and the Senate president in order to move his or her agenda. When one considers that the speaker is elected by his Democrat counterparts within the chamber and a few thousand voters in his home district, the current system is similar to the prime minister of the United Kingdom rather that an American democracy. Simply, it does not work well for the head legislator to be in reality the executive of the state. This is not what the founders had in mind.

Furthermore, there are four United States cities with approximately one million in population just like the Ocean State. They are San Diego, Calif., Jacksonville, Fla., San Antonio, Texas, and San Jose, Calif. The all have a mayor, a city manager, a 15- to 22-member council, a single school district, one police department, one fire department, and a centralized administrative department. That is the government! With our 39 municipalities, 36 school departments, numerous police, fire and public works departments, our costly and cumbersome over-stratified state adds to our tax burden and yet yields substandard results.

Equally ridiculous is how the state budget process transpires.

Our relatively new Gov. Gina Raimondo had addressed the ludicrous fashion in which Rhode Island state budgets were forged in some appropriate disparaging remarks she made at a conference in Washington, D.C. She properly stated that merely a few key people drove the final version of budgets, and the titled lemmings followed obligingly.

However, after Speaker Mattiello voiced his discontent with her apt assertions, she feared the loss of his cooperation with her agenda. She prudently chose to backpedal. Therein lay the inherent problem with our current system of government. An executive should not have to kowtow to the speaker. Also, an executive should be able to have a line-item veto in regard to the budget. And an executive should have greater latitude with executive orders.

Similarly, our 113 part-time legislators are too numerous to the tasks at hand and too ill informed to make good decisions. The Senate is mostly a ceremonial rubber stamp for the house, thus it is unnecessary. We would do better with a much smaller, full time, unicameral legislature much akin to U.S. cities of similar size population to the Ocean State. At least the participants should be better informed while having the time to be more contemplative. Hopefully, they would not simply follow the leader without knowing what they were voting for.

So far, Raimondo has formed various commissions to forge several agendas she wishes to push forward. Problematically, their efforts may be a moot point. Without a drastic redistribution of power, and a significant reduction in the size and stratification of our government, we are condemned to be the bloated and inefficient state that we are right now. A constitutional convention in which we radically change how we operate is the predicate to our horizon lightening from the dark imbalanced type of governing we have now. Otherwise, our national dismal ratings, astronomical taxation, and special interest appeasement will continue forever.