IAN DONNIS: Welcome to Political Roundtable: Election 2022. Fewer than three weeks remain until voters will choose a new congressman in Rhode Island’s Second District. The battle between Republican Allan Fung and Democrat Seth Magaziner has attracted national attention. That’s because both parties are pressing for control of the U.S. House. And Fung, the longtime former mayor of Cranston, could be the first Republican to win the CD2 seat in 30 years. But Magaziner, currently Rhode Island’s general treasurer, says he’s the better choice to succeed departing U.S. Representative Jim Langevin. Magaziner and Fung went head to head during two forums this week, and the competition between the two men will only grow more intense in the run-up to November 8th.
I’m Ian Donnis. This week, I’m going one on one with Seth Magaziner, and Allan Fung will be my guest next week. I’ll also talk with President/CEO Michael DiBiase of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council about the group’s new report about the state education crisis. And GOP secretary of state candidate Pat Cortellessa will make his case for why he’s the best candidate for that office.
First up: the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Rhode Island’s Second District.
IAN DONNIS: Seth Magaziner, welcome back to The Public’s Radio.
SETH MAGAZINER: Thanks for having me. It’s great to be back.
IAN DONNIS: Polls show this to be a very close race between you and Allan Fung. I know you said at the outset that this is what you expected. But Rhode Island is a state that overwhelmingly elects Democrats to office. Why is this such a close race?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, it’s a close race, I think, because the stakes are so high. And what we’re focused on is making sure that people know that on every issue that matters, I’m on the side of working people and Allan Fung and the Republicans are not. I am for protecting the Affordable Care Act. They’re for repealing it. I’m for lowering the cost of prescription drugs. They are in the pocket of the prescription drug companies. I’m for cracking down on price gouging by the oil companies. The oil companies are funding attack ads being run against me for Allan Fung. And so on every issue that matters, we’re on the side of working people trying to lower costs, raise wages, protect workers’ rights, and they are in the pocket of the special interests. And we expected this to be a competitive race from the beginning. We knew that this was going to be a midterm year and midterm years are always more challenging for the party in power. But that being said, we are confident that Rhode Islanders will recognize that I’m the candidate in this race that is most focused on fighting for working people. And my opponent is in the pocket of the special interests.
IAN DONNIS: Speaking of issues that are important to voters, was it a mistake for you and other Democrats to not be placing a greater emphasis on the economy in your campaign commercials?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, when I launched this campaign for Congress, the very first thing I did was put a platform on our website that focuses primarily on lowering the cost of living for working people by cracking down on price gouging by the oil companies, by lowering prescription drug costs, raising wages, bringing more manufacturing jobs…
IAN DONNIS: But you know, there are a lot more voters who are going to see campaign commercials than who are going to go to your website and look at your policy details.
SETH MAGAZINER: Yeah, so what I would say to that is that as we make our closing argument in the next few weeks, we are going to be talking about a range of issues, including helping people keep up with the cost of living, standing up for working people, in addition to other issues that we know matter to people as well, like protecting a woman’s right to choose and protecting our democracy.
IAN DONNIS: Were Democrats too slow at the federal level to respond to inflation?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, I give Democrats credit for responding when Republicans have just been the party of no. Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act to cap the cost of prescription drugs, make historic investments in expanding domestic energy production. Every single Republican voted against that. And my opponent, Allan Fung, said he would have been against it too. Democrats also passed the CHIPS Act, which is a huge investment in bringing manufacturing jobs back home, which will help lower prices for consumers. Again, almost unanimous Republican opposition to that bill. So, listen, on the cost of living, on helping working people keep up with their bills, Democrats have been taking action. The Republicans have been complaining a lot but not offering any real solutions. And you know, I’m proud to be part of a party that is focused on delivering results and not just political rhetoric.
IAN DONNIS: There’s a problem with funding Social Security going into the future. Fewer people are paying into that. So that means there’s fewer sources of revenue for it. How would you address that?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, the solution is easy, which is raising the cap on income that’s subject to the payroll tax that goes into Social Security. But there’s a real distinction here on this issue. Social Security is a lifeline for seniors that are struggling to keep up with the cost of living. When I talk to seniors across Rhode Island. Social Security is their only chance at paying their bills, putting food on the table, affording their prescriptions. And the Republican leadership in Washington isn’t even hiding what they’re trying to do. They have said that if they take control of Congress, cutting Social Security benefits is one of their top priorities. The top Republican on the Budget Committee, a guy named Jason Smith, who came here and campaigned for Allan Fung in Rhode Island, said that if the Republicans take over, he is willing to shut down the government as leverage in order to cut Social Security and Medicare. That’s crazy. They just don’t seem to learn that cutting Social Security, Medicare is not only the wrong thing to do politically, it’s the wrong thing to do policy wise when there is an easy fix out there, which is raising the income cap that’s subject to the payroll tax.
IAN DONNIS: Polling shows that January 6th, the attack on the Capitol, is not a big issue for a lot of voters. Why do you think that is?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, I think it’s on all of us who are running for office this cycle to keep talking about it regardless of what the polls say, because our democracy truly is at stake. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the most shameful thing that happened on January 6th, was not that a violent mob tried to stop the counting of votes, and was not even that Donald Trump incited the mob to do that. The most shameful thing that happened that day was that over 100 Republican members of Congress marched back into that chamber, violated their oath to the Constitution and tried to overturn an election, overturn the will of the people. And we cannot allow election deniers to be put in charge of Congress heading into the next presidential election cycle. And I’m not talking about all Republicans here. There are about 60 Republicans that day who did the right thing, who upheld their oath and voted to certify the election. But Alan Fung, my opponent, has put his support behind Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise, a leadership team of people who voted to overturn the election, and we cannot have election deniers running Congress heading into the 2024 cycle.
IAN DONNIS: You want to prohibit stock trades by members of Congress. Ted Nesi at WPRI documented how Congressman Jim Langevin has engaged in a lot of stock trades on his way out of Congress. How come neither you nor your Republican opponent, Allan Fung, want to criticize Congressman Langevin about this?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, I know Jim Landrigan well. He’s an honorable man who has served Rhode Island throughout his whole career and doesn’t have a dishonest bone in his body. And I’m proud to have his support in this race to replace him in Congress. That being said, I do strongly support banning members of Congress from trading stocks, because members of Congress are privy to too much inside information that could provide the opportunity for some members of Congress to do the wrong thing and engage in insider trading. And it’s not just at the state level too. I mean, at the local level, when my opponent was the mayor of Cranston, he gave a multimillion dollar, no bid contract to a waste management company that he owned stock in. So whether it’s at the local level or the federal level, we need to pass reforms to move past this type of corruption.
IAN DONNIS: We’re talking here with Seth Magaziner. And the thinking is that voters in some red states voted for Donald Trump because they saw their economic fortunes slipping and Trump’s message of blame and conspiracy was appealing to them. How do Democrats win over those kinds of voters?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, I think we have to be honest about the fact that for years both parties didn’t do enough to help working people keep up. A lot of working people in our country saw their manufacturing jobs and other jobs shipped overseas, saw tax cuts being given to millionaires and billionaires, but no relief to working people. And that’s why I’m running on a platform of raising wages, lowering costs, protecting Social Security, Medicare, protecting the Affordable Care Act. And it’s why I think you saw on the debates that we had this week, there was a real contrast between me and Allan, in that he has opposed every increase to the minimum wage in Rhode Island and has supported what’s called right to work laws, which are essentially union busting laws that give workers less leverage to negotiate fair wages and benefits. So in this race, there is a clear contrast.
IAN DONNIS: You talked earlier about trying to stop or reduce price gouging by oil companies. For example, here in Rhode Island, payday lenders can charge annual percentage interest rates of up to 260%. You’ve spoken against that, but yet the practice continues. If you and other Democrats can’t reel that in, in Rhode Island, how would members of Congress reel in the power of powerful corporations?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, we have to crack down on the payday lenders that are overcharging people who can’t afford it with exorbitant interest rates. And there has been successful action in Congress to start to do that. Jack Reed, our United States Senator from Rhode Island, successfully passed a measure to prevent payday lenders from operating on or near military bases, because they recognize that it was a threat to national security for members of the armed forces to be stuck in cycles of debt. If that’s the case, and they were able to get that passed, it ought to be possible to be able to get real reforms passed at the federal level to prevent people from being charged what in some cases is triple dollar–triple percentage interest rates on these payday loans.
IAN DONNIS: How do you respond to the argument that if Republicans regain control of the U.S. House, it would be in the interest of Rhode Island to have a Republican congressman and that he would be able to deliver more under that scenario than a democratic congressman for the state.
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, if Republicans take control of Congress, their agenda is to cut Social Security and Medicare, which would not be in the interest of Rhode Islanders, repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would mean that 70,000 Rhode Islanders would lose their health insurance, pass a national abortion ban, which is not in the interest of Rhode Islanders, and take us back on a path of chaos and division. So we have to do our part in Rhode Island to make sure that the extreme Republicans do not take control of Congress because on every issue that matters to people, Rhode Islanders would be worse off if that were to happen.
IAN DONNIS: Allan Fung’s campaign criticizes you for marching in a demonstration where someone near you was holding a defund the police sign in the aftermath of the backlash against police violence. Was that a mistake for you to be in that demonstration?
SETH MAGAZINER: No, that’s a ridiculous attack. So listen, because they happen to have a picture of me standing near someone who was holding a sign that I disagree with in no way reflects my views at all. I have never been for defunding the police, and, in fact, as treasurer, it is literally my job to fund the police. We delivered over $100 million of resources to Rhode Island law enforcement agencies from our office last year alone. But if we really want to make our community safer, we also have to have a conversation about cracking down on gun violence. Another issue where there is a clear contrast. I support common sense gun safety laws, like getting guns out of schools, banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Allan has stood with the gun industry against every single one of those bills, most importantly, the red flag law that we passed in Rhode Island three years ago. Under the Red Flag Law, members of law enforcement are able to temporarily confiscate weapons from people who they view to be a danger to themselves or to others. This was a bill that passed with broad support. It was one of the top priorities of law enforcement agencies in Rhode Island. I was proud to support it. Allan stood against it. And luckily, the General Assembly didn’t listen to him because people would have died.
IAN DONNIS: President Biden’s approval rating is underwater by 12 points in the second congressional district, according to one poll. Would you like to see President Biden come to Rhode Island to campaign for you?
SETH MAGAZINER: Well, I’m focused on talking to Rhode Islanders across the district. If someone from out of state, any leader wants to come, you never say no to the President of the United States. But my primary focus these next 19 days is having real conversations with Rhode Islanders about what’s at stake in the election.
IAN DONNIS: Seth Magaziner, Democratic candidate in Rhode Island’s second congressional district, thank you for sitting down with us.
SETH MAGAZINER: Thank you for having me.
IAN DONNIS: Rhode Island has been spinning its wheels for years when it comes to improving under-performing public schools around the state. The Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, an independent policy group, recently issued a report that found the state’s education issues worsened considerably during the pandemic. Joining me now is RIPEC’s president and CEO, Michael DiBiase.
IAN DONNIS: Why do another report on education? There have been a lot of reports over the years.
MICHAEL DIBIASE: So Ian, we at RIPEC have been involved in K through 12 education — I’m only in my third year, we’ve already done a few reports on it. But we feel really strongly about the fact that this is the number one issue. Schools are in crisis. They’re failing our kids. And this report is actually the one I’m most proud of during my time at RIPEC.
IAN DONNIS: RIPEC’s report makes a series of recommendations. Would you outline what you consider some of the key recommendations?
MICHAEL DIBIASE: Sure. The first recommendation is that we all elevate the priority and urgency around this issue; all stakeholders, not just elected leaders and education leaders. We also think that the funding formula should be reformed to direct more money to our poorer districts that still have among the lowest per-pupil expenditures. We think there needs to be more focus on limited-English-proficient students. And more resources there — beefing up professional development, and more innovation and choice.
IAN DONNIS: If these recommendations are important steps, what has stopped the state from moving forward with them up to now?
MICHAEL DIBIASE: So we try to make our recommendations actionable and things that are politically feasible and financially doable. So I think, obviously, there’s a lot of inertia and resistance within a system as complicated and big as a K through 12 system. But I actually think it’s a lack of priority and urgency. If you think about it, you know, where does this rank? I know people talk about how important it is. But if you follow our elected officials, the legislature and even regular people, where do they put this? Where would they rank K through 12 education? We think it should be the number one issue.
IAN DONNIS: I remember there was talk even in the late 90s about the need for Rhode Island to improve its public schools and how this was a key issue for economic development. We’ve seen how there have been stops and starts since then. And certainly the pandemic was an obstruction for a period of time from the normal course of things. Are you more confident that the state is serious now about doing what is necessary to improve public schools?
MICHAEL DIBIASE: I haven’t seen the signs of it yet. But I am optimistic that with this report — and we’re going to take this on the road and try to get stakeholders to move this up their priority ladder — we think that this is doable. One of the things that the report does is for the first time — we don’t think it’s ever been done before — it tracks what we’ve done in education reform since the 1980s. And it shows that we’ve actually done some good things, lasting things that have improved the system. There’s other things that we haven’t stayed with. And there’s other things that we just haven’t had support for that would have been more helpful.
IAN DONNIS: What is your sense of the impact of the lack of progress on public schools over the last 25 or so years? How has that affected the populace and economy of Rhode Island?
MICHAEL DIBIASE: Well, I think that, first of all, it affects the students and their livelihoods and the economy of Rhode Island. So this is a tremendously important issue. A quarter of all of our state tax money and over half of all local tax money goes to the K through 12 schools. We actually are generous in terms of how we spend on the system. So I think the consequence has been that we’ve had a weakness in our skill levels in our economy. But there’s a lot more urgency now because we have a growing non-white population, growing disadvantaged subgroups. So our school system just looks a lot different than it did in terms of demographics and 20 years ago.
IAN DONNIS: Michael DiBiase, your organization, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, is focused in part on Rhode Island’s economy. So I have a couple of questions for you on the economy, less so on schools. We remember under former Gov. Don Carcieri there was a tax cut in the state income tax on the richest Rhode Islanders. The idea was that that was supposed to improve Rhode Island’s business climate. Has that had any significant impact in your view?
MICHAEL DIBIASE: I think it made the state more competitive. I think there has been some debate and I would say some misinformation about that. It wasn’t really a tax cut. The state collected just as much money. It was really a change in the rates and the deductions. So I would disagree with the fact that it was a tax cut for the rich.
IAN DONNIS: Fair enough. And it often seems as if we can debate whether Rhode Island’s economy is a glass half-full or half-empty. Gov. Dan McKee as he campaigns for reelection frequently mentions how unemployment now is at the lowest level in recorded history in the state. On the other hand, I looked up some data from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis, they report that the highest peak employment of non-farm jobs in Rhode Island, most recently was before Gov. McKee took office. So I think, you know, people can point to various indicators to argue things are going well or not so well. What is your assessment of Rhode Island’s economy and the key steps for moving forward?
MICHAEL DIBIASE: Yeah, I think we’re doing reasonably well. But we have the most resident Rhode Islanders working ever in history. But our number of Rhode Island-based jobs has not come back from the loss of the pandemic. I think we’re still about 10% under. A lot of states have fully recovered. So in terms of the jobs in Rhode Island, if that’s one measure, we haven’t done as well. We have, you know, something going on where people are coming from Massachusetts and elsewhere to live in Rhode Island and have jobs in Massachusetts. So anecdotally, I’ve just heard from folks that say, you know, we could only buy a house in Rhode Island, and we’re going to commute to the Boston area. So we’ve always had more Rhode Islanders working elsewhere than people outside working here. But it seems to be a growing trend.
IAN DONNIS: And to move the state forward, what would your chief recommendation — one or two or three things to make?
MICHAEL DIBIASE: So I think this K through 12 system is very important. We dramatically under-invest in higher ed, which is an important thing to the economy. Our tax competitiveness is still not good. We’re in the bottom several states. So I think making our state more tax competitive; we’re going to be focusing a bit on property taxes. We think that may be the biggest tax burden for the business community. That’s where we’re gonna go after.
IAN DONNIS: Michael DiBiase, President and CEO of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, thank you for joining us.
MICHAEL DIBIASE: Thank you very much.
IAN DONNIS: Nellie Gorbea’s time as Rhode Island’s secretary of state is coming to an end after two terms. The Democrat hoping to succeed her is state Representative Gregg Amore of East Providence. I’m joined now by the Republican candidate, Pat Cortellessa of Cranston.
IAN DONNIS: What makes you the best candidate for Secretary of State?
PAT CORTELLESSA: I think with my experience. So the Secretary of State’s office, you know, it has, maintains four or five different departments. One is corporations, that handles a lot of the business entities in Rhode Island, or the fees and things like that. Also, the election laws are very important in Rhode Island. There’s civic education with children and in the schools to teach them democracy. And the last one would be historical archives. And I love that department, because I’m a novelist historian. And that would really intrigue me, bringing back topics of Rhode Island heroes in the history of Rhode Island. And we do seminars and things like that have, you know, places where the kids could come in and learn history. I’ll give an example. The Battle of Gettysburg. We have a great history there. One of our artillery units from the Civil War fought there, was a major factor in defeating the Confederates, and so on and so forth. So those are the major issues.
IAN DONNIS: How would you describe the main differences in how you would pursue the job of being Secretary of State from your Democratic opponent, Greg Amore.
PAT CORTELLESSA: It seems that he’s taken an approach, basically the status quo. He’s really heavy, has an emphasis on mail ballots. He seems to be pushing there big time. I’m a traditionalist. And I feel that’s a major difference in our approach to running the Secretary of State’s office. Because I would like to see more same day voting, and also to cut the 20 days to six days because of buyer’s remorse.
IAN DONNIS: Twenty days to six days for early voting?
PAT CORTELLESSA: Yes.
IAN DONNIS: How come?
PAT CORTELLESSA: Well, I’ve been hearing from constituents that, you know, they end up in the primary for the democratic governorship. Some people were concerned, they were going to switch their votes, and it was too late. They had already voted 20 days early, and the Democratic candidate was doing quite well at the end. And it was too late to change.
IAN DONNIS: Why not give voters that choice? I mean, should it be government that is restricting the time in which people can vote or should citizens, should the choice really be up to the voters?
PAT CORTELLESSA: Well, it was government that changed the dates. Remember, traditionally, it was same day voting the day of the election. As again, historically, you know, you would want more people to vote on the day of elections. And I’ll tell you why. You get to meet a lot of the candidates at the polling locations, chat with them, shake their hands, talk. You might have some questions, you can talk to them directly. I found that to be interesting. Over my last two candidacies, meeting people at the actual polling location, several, several of them on the day of the election, and this year would be November 8. So that would be, that’s my answer to that question. Also, I want to cut the business, the fees there for the corporations. I think currently, they’re like $400 bucks a year. You get nothing for that. If you’re a small business person. I want to slash the budget there. I think it’s a $17 million plus budget. And I like to see that slashed. I like to cut out some mid management. I want to save taxpayers some dough and also provide top notch service at the Secretary of State’s office.
IAN DONNIS: Do you support the current division of responsibilities between the Secretary of State’s office and the Board of Elections when it comes to the election process? Or would you seek any changes to that?
PAT CORTELLESSA: Well, there was an issue. It was regarding those new touchscreen voting machines, portable machines. There was an issue, who was responsible for putting in the wrong 2018 ballot and a 2022 voting machine. So there has to be some oversight there. Who’s the responsible party? From what I understand it was probably the Secretary of State’s office who was supposed to hand the ballot over to the Board of Elections. And somebody didn’t oversee it, overlook it, just to double check to make sure it was the right one. But there were some issues there that should be cleaned up.
IAN DONNIS: And how would you go about doing that?
PAT CORTELLESSA: Well, you would probably have to, you know, submit legislation to the General Assembly. There is also the power of executive order. I mean, I know there’s some things I would like to change to get on the voting rolls. I think that’s an issue. I think, for a person to get on the voting roll, I think you need more than a credit card. You know, they circumvented the photo ID law in Rhode Island by getting a mail ballot without a photo ID. So I think we, you know, we should look at that a little more in detail.
IAN DONNIS: We should note that the current officials and the Secretary Secretary of State’s office say there is a process for ensuring that mail ballots are secure by checking the signature of voters against existing signatures. But that’s all the time we have. So we need to leave it there. Republican candidate for Secretary of State Pat Cortellessa, thank you for joining us.
PAT CORTELLESSA: Thank you.
IAN DONNIS: Thanks for listening to our show this week. If you have a question or comment, drop us an email at news@ripr.org, or connect with me on Twitter @IanDon. This has been a production of The Public’s Radio. Our producer is Aaron Read, with additional production and editing this week by Alex Nunes. Our editor and executive producer is Sally Eisele and our CEO and General Manager is Torey Malatia. I’m Ian Donnis and I’ll see you on the radio.
