On June 17, 18 & 19, 1906, Philadelphia played host to a celebration of the first 50 years of the Republican Party. Being that the first convention of the Republican Party was held in Pittsburgh, PA on February 22, 1856, the Golden Jubilee Celebration of the Republican Party in Philadelphia spotlighted the Grand Old Party’s first half-century and “the reminiscences of men who were present at the birth of the party in 1856.” Included in the three-day event was a general meeting at which historical addresses were made, along with “the annual convention of the National League of Republican Clubs; the Annual Convention of the Pennsylvania State League; a public meeting at the Academy of Music; a great street parade of Republican clubs and various excursions and entertainments for the visiting delegates.”
A full record of the proceedings and “stenographic report of the addresses” was compiled by author Addison Burk, with a 226-page volume published in 1906, accurately piecing together the many fragmentary contributions to the history of the Republican party which were detailed during the event. Burk’s complete Golden Jubilee Celebration of the Republican Party in turn presented a comprehensive picture of the GOP’s golden anniversary, which first officially nominated J. C. Fremont in 1856 but found its first presidential success story soon after with the election of Abraham Lincoln as commander-in-chief four short years later.
It is said the Republican Party was founded in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin by anti-slavery expansion activists and modernizers, while the first official party convention was said to take place on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan. Perhaps stoking the coals of debate, many of those Philadelphia attendees in 1906 actually recalled the earliest formation of the party as occurring in a small grocery store in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in the years leading up to the 1856 convention in the city of Pittsburgh. At the gala three-day Golden Jubilee 50 years later, the shop’s owner, David Calhoun Herbst, was invited to address the Republican revelers, where he was introduced as “a man who was present at the birth of the Republican Party in Lafayette Hall, Pittsburgh.”
Herbst gave what was later reported in local papers as an impassioned historical perspective of the Republican Party, leading off his speech by saying “On an occasion like this on the anniversary of the Grand Old Republican Party, it seems appropriate and pertinent to present a kind of family tree to show the inception and reasons for its birth.” Herbst then went into a historical synopsis of the first hundred years of American politics, beginning with the unanimous election of George Washington in the 1700s and leading up to the death in office of Whig candidate President William Henry Harrison in the mid 1800’s, which Herbst said “left the helm of state in the hands of untrusty John Tyler.”
“Americans feeling keenly the loss of their loyal president, deemed it essential to gather their hosts and give battle again against the Free Trade Slave-holding Democracy” Herbst added, which he then explained had laid out the grounds for a new American movement.
“On a cold winter’s night a coterie of deep thinking men of all shades of politics, met at Herbst’s grocery store at the corner of Third and Cherry Alley, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, to formulate, if possible, a basis for a new political party upon which all political factions opposed to the free-trade pro-slavery Democracy, might unite for its overthrow.” According to Herbst, that winter was exceptionally cold, but he described “the cold blasts and heavy snow outside that little grocery did not chill the ardor of those inside. Besides, our debates got warm, especially when we sought a name for our new creation.”
In a 1921 article in the Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, it was said that all shades of political opinion were represented at those early rallies at the Herbst Grocery Store, with active participation from Whigs, Democrats, Abolitionists, Free Soilers, and Washingtonians. “Among them were a number who were active in politics” the magazine reported, adding “their object was to formulate a basis for a new political party upon which all the factions opposed to the pro-slavery Democracy.”
“Our selection of a name was a thorn in the flesh and threatened several times to break up our gathering,” Herbst told those in attendance at the Golden Jubilee. “One night, it was necessary to lock all in, and that night Captain Charles Naylor stood up on the counter of the grocery, with a wave of the hand said ‘peace be still’.” Naylor was a lawyer elected to the 26th Congress as a Whig, but he declined candidacy for renomination in 1840. Naylor had raised a company of volunteers known as the Philadelphia Rangers and served as captain in the Mexican-American War, settling back into law in Pittsburgh soon after.
Herbst continued, “Struck by his attitude and remark we were amazed and hushed. He smilingly remarked: ‘that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ and after a few words, he said, Spartan-like: ‘We have a great Republic as our nation, why not call our new party, Republican?” After Captain Naylor’s grand announcement, Herbst recalled the first moment of silence in the room as the name began to register in the minds of those in attendance. “And so it was, the word Republican went forth among all the people,” Herbst said at the Golden Jubilee, saying the first convention in Pittsburgh to follow in 1856 would be most logical, “Lafayette Hall was selected as an appropriate pace for the public christening of the new political child.”
The words of my great-great-great-grandfather David Calhoun Herbst can be found on page 148 of the Golden Jubilee of the Republican Party of 1906 by Addison Burk, contributed by the New York Public Library and preserved electronically at the Internet Archive, a non-profit group which offers permanent access for researchers, historians, scholars, people with disabilities, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format.
Read more at http://openlibrary.org/b/OL13516124M/Golden_jubilee_of_the_Republican_Party
Rantings, views and opinions by Jim Hutchinson, Jr. - Managing Director, Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA)
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
United We Fish - Washington DC 02/24/2010
If not now, when?
Born in the late 60’s, I’m part of a broad-based American generation often referred to as Generation X. We are the 30- and 40-somethings who entered the world after the Baby Boom era during a 20-year span between 1961 and 1981, sometimes referred to as the “baby bust” generation.
Raised during a veritable spiritual awakening in the 60’s and 70’s, I grew up in the years of, and the decade following, the Vietnam War, my mind’s eye forever etched with the images of those Baby Boomers before who burned their bras and draft cards, rallied against the war, and marched on the National Mall in a call for peace, civil rights, and the end of world oppression and apartheid.
From the time that I was a teenager through my idealistic 20’s, I’d often wondered aloud about the 60’s and 70’s youth rebellion, and whether I would’ve chosen to have become a part of the movement. A disciple of classic rock and the words and lyrics that energized a cultural era, I’d often lay in bed at night with the headphones on and the turntable skipping across a well-worn Dylan or Doors album, pondering the very thought of organized protest and my own place in the democratic process.
Now a married man of 42, with two kids at home, bills to pay and the vinyl records stowed away in boxes (those headphones replaced by earbuds) I still occasionally wonder if any national or global conflict would ever so consume me with anger and frustration, enough that my stomach burned with passion and my heart brimming resolve. Could my own government’s repressive actions or gross inaction ever lead me to throw open the doors of dissent, to scream from the pulpit and take to the streets in formal protest? In my lifetime, could I ever find a common cause with like-minded individuals across the generational divide, to unite as one and rally on the steps of the Capitol in a grand celebration of the First Amendment’s promise to allow any and all Americans “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Today, my fellow saltwater angler, I offer you a personal invitation to democracy and dissent. Our federal government has ignored our plight, while closed-door preservationists have shut us out of the conservation equation, and in turn the entire democratic process. Our time to act has come, and our reason to come together is clear - united we fish.
Many of our national sportfishing associations, conservation groups, multi-national tackle corporations and industry trade alliances have buttoned-up in the face of the preservationist movement, convening privately in their corporate boardrooms while battening down the hatches during our economic disaster, preferring instead to try to ride out the storm of anti-fishing pressure from non-governmental environmental organizations. Left behind to carry the flag and rally the troops are the individual anglers, shop owners, boat dealers, dockmasters, captains and ‘mom & pop’ businesses who’ve been scratching and clawing at every last scrap of access to a once public resource.
We are the stakeholders in the coastal communities, we are the fishermen who understand most about the future sustainability of our fisheries, and we are the people who make up the human resource portion of our marine fisheries.
For my generation, this may be our only opportunity ever “peaceably to assemble,” to stand together before Congress in an organized, respectful protest for our right to free and open access. For our coastal fishing communities nationwide, it is most certainly feels like the last chance we have to preserve more 300 years of heritage and tradition.
On February 24th, 2010, the saltwater fishermen of America will stand united on the steps of the Capitol in a call on legislators to recognize our right to fish. At risk is public access for more than 12 million saltwater anglers, and the lifeblood of our coastal communities that rely on a healthy, sustained fishery. For the first time in American history, the nation’s saltwater fishermen – both commercial and recreational alike – will stand together as one upon the grand international stage of freedom, Area Number One between Constitution and Independence Avenues in Washington DC.
From Generation X, to the Baby Boomers and our parents and grandparents from the Greatest Generation, I hope you will all join me for this historic event in defense of our right to fish. Once-in-a-lifetime doesn’t come around again.
Born in the late 60’s, I’m part of a broad-based American generation often referred to as Generation X. We are the 30- and 40-somethings who entered the world after the Baby Boom era during a 20-year span between 1961 and 1981, sometimes referred to as the “baby bust” generation.
Raised during a veritable spiritual awakening in the 60’s and 70’s, I grew up in the years of, and the decade following, the Vietnam War, my mind’s eye forever etched with the images of those Baby Boomers before who burned their bras and draft cards, rallied against the war, and marched on the National Mall in a call for peace, civil rights, and the end of world oppression and apartheid.
From the time that I was a teenager through my idealistic 20’s, I’d often wondered aloud about the 60’s and 70’s youth rebellion, and whether I would’ve chosen to have become a part of the movement. A disciple of classic rock and the words and lyrics that energized a cultural era, I’d often lay in bed at night with the headphones on and the turntable skipping across a well-worn Dylan or Doors album, pondering the very thought of organized protest and my own place in the democratic process.
Now a married man of 42, with two kids at home, bills to pay and the vinyl records stowed away in boxes (those headphones replaced by earbuds) I still occasionally wonder if any national or global conflict would ever so consume me with anger and frustration, enough that my stomach burned with passion and my heart brimming resolve. Could my own government’s repressive actions or gross inaction ever lead me to throw open the doors of dissent, to scream from the pulpit and take to the streets in formal protest? In my lifetime, could I ever find a common cause with like-minded individuals across the generational divide, to unite as one and rally on the steps of the Capitol in a grand celebration of the First Amendment’s promise to allow any and all Americans “peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Today, my fellow saltwater angler, I offer you a personal invitation to democracy and dissent. Our federal government has ignored our plight, while closed-door preservationists have shut us out of the conservation equation, and in turn the entire democratic process. Our time to act has come, and our reason to come together is clear - united we fish.
Many of our national sportfishing associations, conservation groups, multi-national tackle corporations and industry trade alliances have buttoned-up in the face of the preservationist movement, convening privately in their corporate boardrooms while battening down the hatches during our economic disaster, preferring instead to try to ride out the storm of anti-fishing pressure from non-governmental environmental organizations. Left behind to carry the flag and rally the troops are the individual anglers, shop owners, boat dealers, dockmasters, captains and ‘mom & pop’ businesses who’ve been scratching and clawing at every last scrap of access to a once public resource.
We are the stakeholders in the coastal communities, we are the fishermen who understand most about the future sustainability of our fisheries, and we are the people who make up the human resource portion of our marine fisheries.
For my generation, this may be our only opportunity ever “peaceably to assemble,” to stand together before Congress in an organized, respectful protest for our right to free and open access. For our coastal fishing communities nationwide, it is most certainly feels like the last chance we have to preserve more 300 years of heritage and tradition.
On February 24th, 2010, the saltwater fishermen of America will stand united on the steps of the Capitol in a call on legislators to recognize our right to fish. At risk is public access for more than 12 million saltwater anglers, and the lifeblood of our coastal communities that rely on a healthy, sustained fishery. For the first time in American history, the nation’s saltwater fishermen – both commercial and recreational alike – will stand together as one upon the grand international stage of freedom, Area Number One between Constitution and Independence Avenues in Washington DC.
From Generation X, to the Baby Boomers and our parents and grandparents from the Greatest Generation, I hope you will all join me for this historic event in defense of our right to fish. Once-in-a-lifetime doesn’t come around again.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Dongan Patent - Protecting The Rights of Future Fishermen
In the debate over saltwater licensing, pros and cons, you hear a lot of conversation about a state’s share of sportfish restoration funds through Wallop-Breaux. The Sport Fish Restoration Act is also referred to as the Dingell-Johnson Act, and was passed by Congress in 1950 as a program for the management, conservation and restoration of fishery resources. It established a new tax on fishing equipment including rods, reels, lures, flies and artificial baits, contributing a separate tax paid by the consumer with funds to go towards fish research, the reintroduction of declining sport fish species, restoration of aquatic habitats, aquatic education and construction of boat ramps and fishing piers. The Wallop-Breaux amendments were added in 1984 and extended the excise tax to previously untaxed items of sporting equipment.
Some of the funds in the angler-supported Sport Fish Restoration account are returned to states on a shared basis, with each state’s allocation based 60% on the actual number of licensed anglers and 40% based on the state’s land and water area. The Wallop-Breaux, Dingell-Johnson, Sport Fish Restoration argument challenges the individual angler to embrace the concept of paying an additional fishing tax so that a portion of the excise taxes already paid might be returned exclusively for sportfish. It should be noted that additional monies from this particular fund are also contributed to other programs on a federal level, including the Recreational Boating and Fishing Program (RBFF). In 2010, RBFF has an operating budget of more than $12.6 million, of which approximately $3.9 million will be spent to mobilize states to increase fishing license sales by “implementing an integrated marketing program targeted towards lapsed, occasional and new anglers.”
While many business leaders will no doubt embrace the idea of “new anglers” being driven to the consumer market, for the hardcore anglers who’ve already been driven out of the water due to overly restrictive regulations, it’s hard to fathom WHY more of this angler tax isn’t being returned to the anglers themselves in the form of data collection programs. Further misappropriation of funding and offloading of fish management salaries from account to another has in turn driven anglers to the history books in search of answers.
Take for example the Dongan Patent of 1686 in the Town of Brookhaven, NY. The Dongan Patent granted a handful of our pre-colonial founding fathers exclusive rights to all waterways, ponds, streams, brooks, wetlands, rivers and other estuaries, and actually helped establish a Trustee form of government that predated the establishment of the State of New York, and even the United States of America itself.
One of the original nine grantees of the town of East Hampton, NY on Long Island, Yeoman John Hand arrived in America from England around 1635. It is said that Hand and his wife Alice Gransden sailed to America aboard the "The Peter Bonaventurer," though it’s possible he may have arrived here with his father aboard the English Warship HMS Falcon. An early settler of East Hampton, Hand was a whaler by trade and a member of the whaling squadron from the third ward of Southampton. According to historian Clifford A. Hand of New York City, the patriarch of the Hand family died around 1660, leaving behind an estate which was said to include a great bible, two small bibles, a psalm book, one fowling piece, a carbine, a single pistol and a pair of swords.
John and Alice had several sons, including Stephen who was born in 1635 in East Hampton. Stephen was named in the Indian deed for East Hampton in 1660, and on November 3, 1668, he granted the town of East Hampton leave to put a highway through his woodland. He was a local Constable in 1674 and 1680. In 1683, he was chosen as one of a committee to join Southampton in selecting a representative for the First Colonial Assembly under Governor Thomas Dongan.
On December 9, 1686, Governor Thomas Dongan granted control over the lands and waters of East Hampton, to a locally elected board of trustees which included Thomas James, Capt. Josiah Hobart, Capt. Thomas Talmadge, Lieut. John Wheeler, Ensign Samuel Mulford, John Mulford, Thomas Chatfield, Sr., Jeremiah Conklin, Robert Dayton, Thomas Baker, Thomas Osborn, and Stephen Hand. In what became known as the Dongan patent, Hand and the other trustees were given rights to the local natural resources, “And that they and their successors, by the name of the Trustees of the Freeholders and commonality of the Town of East Hampton be and shall be forever in future times, persons able and capable in law, to have, perceive, and receive and possess not only all and singular the premises, but other messuages, lands, tenements, privileges, jurisdictions, franchises, hereditaments of whatsoever kind or species, they shall be to them and their successor.”
Stephen had a brother named Thomas who was born in Southampton in 1646 and lived in Wainscott on Long Island until about 1693, which s when he moved with other Hand family members to settle in Cape May County in New Jersey. It is said that Thomas left Long Island after a disagreement with the town of Easthampton over property rights regarding his 40 acres of land. Following a 1678 lawsuit - settled with the town sometime in 1697 - Thomas sold the rest of his land to brother James and sailed off to Cape May, NJ with his wife and children, a couple of brothers, and a handful of other East Enders looking for a new settlement.
Thomas Hand would become commissioned as a Justice of the Peace (Judge) of Cape May County in 1705, and later drowned in the Tuckahoe River in 1714. His son George, also born in Long Island (in 1675) had a daughter, Sarah, who was born in 1718 in their newly settled home in New Jersey. Sarah Hand later married Nicholas Stillwell, their daughter Hannah ultimately marrying Cape May revolutionary soldier and ship’s carpenter Remington Corson in 1759. The Corson’s daughter Amelia would marry shipbuilder James Godfrey Reeves, and their daughter Mary would go on to marry Henry Hildreth, keeper of the Hereford Inlet lighthouse from 1897 until 1902.
Hildreth was the recipient of the Congressional Silver Life Saving Medal when the schooner D.H. Ingraham went ashore at half past 10 p.m. on the night of December 4, 1886 during a heavy snowstorm amid heaving seas. With Capt. Christopher Ludlam at the helm, the seven-man crew (which included Hildreth and another Hand descendent from Long Island, Samuel S. Hand) pushed their surf boat out past the breakers, saving the crew from their foundering wreckage. More importantly, Hildreth’s daughter Edna Mae would go on to marry my great grandfather Henry Becotte, which led to my lifelong connection to the sea through my grandfather, Capt. James Becotte of Ocean City, NJ.
For the past 20 years, my father Jim Hutchinson, Sr. has been my best friend and favorite fishing partner, but it’s the black and white photograph of my grandfather Becotte and I on the dock of the bay in Ocean City following a bluefishing trip from the 1970’s which keeps me focused on the job I do every day at the Recreational Fishing Alliance. Would he approve? Would he want me to fight? How hard?
The science of fisheries management is a relatively new discipline, in place now only for about 30 years. But the attachment to our resources and these American maritime traditions have been fought and toiled over for more than 300 years but coastal residents. To think in terms of duty to the family I’ve known, it’s hard not to recognize the umbilical connection to the generations that have come before me, those I've never met. From the eastern end of Long Island to the southern tip of New Jersey, these hunting and fishing traditions are rooted in a deep blood line, from the Hands to the Hildreths, all the way down through the Hutchinsons. Giving away my rights as a conservationist and sportsman, arbitrating away access to our public resources, and allowing these freedoms granted at the founding of this nation would not only violate a mission I'm bound to protect at the RFA, it would have me turn my back on nearly nine generations that have come before me.
Today, six Long Island towns, including Southampton, Shelter Island and East Hampton have joined in a lawsuit against the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, charging that it has no authority to require saltwater fishing licenses without their consent. It’s reported that other towns may join the suit, standing behind the justification of a 313-year-old colonial-era Dongan Patent which confers responsibility for town land and waterways on locally elected trustees who know best about their coastal needs. The Dongan Patent isn’t just about the rights of sportsmen who live today in the Hamptons and other East End towns on Long Island however.
This historical document recognizes the colonial era spirit and the freedoms enjoyed by tens of thousands of fishing families in America today who refuse to either sell off or buy back our rights any longer. This is not just about a saltwater license – it’s about our coastal heritage, taxation without representation, and a bureaucracy run afoul of its promise to serve the best interests of the people.
Yes, my grandfather would’ve wanted me to fight, as would those who came before, and those who will eventually follow.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
RFA PRAISES RHODE ISLAND GOVERNOR FOR VETO
SALTWATER LICENSE IS NOT A FEDERAL REQUIREMENT
The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) today praised Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri for using his veto power to quash a proposed law to ban saltwater fishing in Rhode Island waters without a license. The new user fee on saltwater fishing was approved in a nine-hour session of the part-time General Assembly on October 30, and required that saltwater anglers purchase a state license to legally fish in coastal waters as of January 1, 2010.
“To be able to fish the saltwaters of Rhode Island is a birthright,” said Governor Carcieri. In a letter to the Rhode Island Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor Carcieri outlined his reasons for disapproving of the legislation and respectfully urged the support of the veto. “This is the Ocean State. It is a place where people have been free, up to now, to cast a line into Narragansett Bay without government intrusion,” he said.
“We’re with the governor on this,” said Jim Donofrio, RFA Executive Director. “I know there are some fishermen who think that all this money was going to go to great use, but when you look at what’s happening with dedicated funding in other states it’s very hard to justify another bloated user fee, especially when funds are going solely to state administrative costs.” Donofrio points to recent issues with both Connecticut and New York fishing licenses as perfect examples of a well-intentioned nightmare. “Connecticut fast-tracked a $10 saltwater license this past June, which suddenly skyrocketed to $30 by the fall in the face of a state budget deficit,” Donofrio said. “If Connecticut follows ahead with plans to charge out-of-staters $60 to fish in saltwater, where do you think traveling anglers will go in 2010 to fish on vacation?”
In New York, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer recently called on the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to completely overhaul its saltwater license plan and incorporate a free registration to satisfy the data-collection needs of the federal fisheries service, or NMFS. "The new system is too complex and too restrictive for fishing families," Schumer said of the new saltwater license in New York, adding that he’s made an appeal to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the DEC to establish a system that is that is free and permanent.
The Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA), the nation’s primary fisheries law, requires NMFS to implement of a registry of saltwater anglers. A free federal registry is scheduled to go online in 2010 with exemptions given to states with their own registry in place by 2011. “This is being done so we can get more accurate data and science to manage our fisheries,” Donofrio said, explaining that a mandated “phone book” of anglers could be accomplished without asking anglers to pay administrative costs. “We have simple registry legislation written and ready to roll in other states, but some activists and legislators in Rhode Island chose to ignore the registry requirements and focus solely on the funding portion.”
“The federal government wants a more accurate and efficient means for acquiring recreational catch and effort data,” explained Carcieri. “This is hardly a compelling reason or exigent circumstance warranting the imposition of any fee and licensing requirement on a Rhode Island citizen who occasionally takes his or her children fishing,” the governor added.
Elisa Jackman at Snug Harbor Marina of Wakefield, RI said she’s appreciative of Governor Carcieir’s decision. “Snug Harbor Marina fully supports the Governor’s decision to veto the saltwater fishing license, and hopes our elected legislators will also favor his decision and protect our angler’s Constitutional right.”
“Governor Carcieri recognized this license attempt for what it was, pure spin and an attempt to get more money into the general fund,” Donofrio said. “We thank the governor for using his veto power to protect all the saltwater anglers who fish Rhode Island waters, not just those willing to pay top dollar to do so.”
The Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) today praised Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri for using his veto power to quash a proposed law to ban saltwater fishing in Rhode Island waters without a license. The new user fee on saltwater fishing was approved in a nine-hour session of the part-time General Assembly on October 30, and required that saltwater anglers purchase a state license to legally fish in coastal waters as of January 1, 2010.
“To be able to fish the saltwaters of Rhode Island is a birthright,” said Governor Carcieri. In a letter to the Rhode Island Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor Carcieri outlined his reasons for disapproving of the legislation and respectfully urged the support of the veto. “This is the Ocean State. It is a place where people have been free, up to now, to cast a line into Narragansett Bay without government intrusion,” he said.
“We’re with the governor on this,” said Jim Donofrio, RFA Executive Director. “I know there are some fishermen who think that all this money was going to go to great use, but when you look at what’s happening with dedicated funding in other states it’s very hard to justify another bloated user fee, especially when funds are going solely to state administrative costs.” Donofrio points to recent issues with both Connecticut and New York fishing licenses as perfect examples of a well-intentioned nightmare. “Connecticut fast-tracked a $10 saltwater license this past June, which suddenly skyrocketed to $30 by the fall in the face of a state budget deficit,” Donofrio said. “If Connecticut follows ahead with plans to charge out-of-staters $60 to fish in saltwater, where do you think traveling anglers will go in 2010 to fish on vacation?”
In New York, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer recently called on the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to completely overhaul its saltwater license plan and incorporate a free registration to satisfy the data-collection needs of the federal fisheries service, or NMFS. "The new system is too complex and too restrictive for fishing families," Schumer said of the new saltwater license in New York, adding that he’s made an appeal to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the DEC to establish a system that is that is free and permanent.
The Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA), the nation’s primary fisheries law, requires NMFS to implement of a registry of saltwater anglers. A free federal registry is scheduled to go online in 2010 with exemptions given to states with their own registry in place by 2011. “This is being done so we can get more accurate data and science to manage our fisheries,” Donofrio said, explaining that a mandated “phone book” of anglers could be accomplished without asking anglers to pay administrative costs. “We have simple registry legislation written and ready to roll in other states, but some activists and legislators in Rhode Island chose to ignore the registry requirements and focus solely on the funding portion.”
“The federal government wants a more accurate and efficient means for acquiring recreational catch and effort data,” explained Carcieri. “This is hardly a compelling reason or exigent circumstance warranting the imposition of any fee and licensing requirement on a Rhode Island citizen who occasionally takes his or her children fishing,” the governor added.
Elisa Jackman at Snug Harbor Marina of Wakefield, RI said she’s appreciative of Governor Carcieir’s decision. “Snug Harbor Marina fully supports the Governor’s decision to veto the saltwater fishing license, and hopes our elected legislators will also favor his decision and protect our angler’s Constitutional right.”
“Governor Carcieri recognized this license attempt for what it was, pure spin and an attempt to get more money into the general fund,” Donofrio said. “We thank the governor for using his veto power to protect all the saltwater anglers who fish Rhode Island waters, not just those willing to pay top dollar to do so.”
The Recreational Fishing Alliance is a national, grassroots political action organization representing recreational fishermen and the recreational fishing industry on marine fisheries issues. The RFA Mission is to safeguard the rights of saltwater anglers, protect marine, boat and tackle industry jobs, and ensure the long-term sustainability of our Nation’s saltwater fisheries.
For more information, call 888-JOIN-RFA or visit www.joinrfa.org.
For more information, call 888-JOIN-RFA or visit www.joinrfa.org.
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