On Tuesday, Aug. 22, The Public’s Radio presented a forum for Democratic candidates running to represent Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District, ahead of the special election primary on Sept. 5.
Qualification for inclusion in the event was based on meeting legal requirements for the ballot, a demonstration of active campaigning, and measured constituent support. The 10 candidates who qualified were split into two five-person groups over two hours.
The forum, which was co-presented by The Providence Journal, Rhode Island PBS, and Rhode Island College, began with a bang. Frontrunners Aaron Regunberg and Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos have been sparring in recent weeks, and that continued when they met head-to-head on the stage, accusing one another of lacking integrity on the campaign trail.
Most recently, Matos accused Regunberg, a former State House representative, of lying about coordinating with his family’s super PAC. Patrick Anderson of the Providence Journal, who moderated the evening along with The Public’s Radio Political Reporter Ian Donnis, kicked off the night by asking the two about the claims. Matos jumped on the offensive once again.
“You lied about it. You thought you had deleted every record of it from the internet. And we were able to find it,” Matos said.
Regunberg responded by claiming that other campaigns were also using red-boxing, a legal loophole that allows candidates to coordinate larger personal donations through super PACs.
After about five minutes of back and forth between Matos and Regunberg, candidate and State Senator Ana Quezada agreed with Matos, though two of the other candidates had had enough: State House Rep. Stephen Casey and Providence City Councilor John Goncalves.
“No one cares about the damn signatures or the red boxes,” Goncalves said. “Let’s focus on the things that Rhode Islanders care about.”
Given that it was a Democratic forum amid mostly progressive candidates, many shared similar values. However, there were a few key issues on which candidates differed, or had a nuance in opinion.
Defunding the police
Moderator Patrick Anderson asked the candidates in the first part of the forum – Regunberg, Goncalves, Matos, Casey and Quezada – whether they support a reduction in funding for local police forces. All candidates said they would not defund the police, and Matos and Goncalves said they support allocating or adding funding for professionals besides police to help respond to emergency calls.
Casey said he believed issues with police have now been addressed through body-worn cameras. Quezada said she supports reforming the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, known as LEOBOR, to better hold police officers accountable for their actions. Regunberg also supported gutting LEOBOR and said the state needs to invest in communities.
“We should be honest with the place that the movement for Black lives was coming from a place of deep pain and trauma,” he said. “I think part of that has been seeing the disinvestment in our communities in so many other ways, you know, losing arts classes and music classes in our public schools, having public pools closed down.”
How to address climate change
Moderators Anderson and Donnis asked both groups of candidates about climate change. To the first group, Anderson asked what candidates would do to push towards decarbonization.
Goncalves, Quezada, Matos and Regunberg said they support the Green New Deal, though Matos said part of it had already been addressed in the Inflation Reduction Act. She added that she supports tax rebates and incentives for corporations.
Casey said he supported updating the grid, which is likely to be stressed with more electric power. He also expressed some concern with the failure rate of wind turbines, adding, “I don’t believe that we need to give up completely on fossil fuels.”
Though the second group was not asked as broadly about climate change, some candidates brought it up on their own. Don Carlson, a Jamestown attorney and green energy venture capitalist, said in answer to a question about the defense budget that climate change is the biggest threat to national security.
“We’re going to see masses of people that are dislocated populations, displaced people roaming the world as refugees, food crises all over the world. That’s what we can see in the next 15 or 20 years as a result of climate change,” Carlson said. “So we should take 10% of the defense budget and move it into a war on fossil fuels and moving away from fossil fuels and moving into renewable energy. That creates jobs, it creates opportunity.”
During a lightning-round question, the second group was asked to say whether they support increasing nuclear energy in an effort to decarbonize, reducing it, or keeping it the same.
Carlson was the only candidate who said we should be adding more, pointing to new, smaller-scale and safer nuclear reactors. Stephanie Beauté, an IT professional, said she does not think we should pursue more nuclear power. Gabe Amo, who most recently worked as President Biden’s liaison to mayors, said he believes we should stay where we are, and State House Rep. Sandra Cano agreed. And former Naval Intelligence Officer Walter Berbrick said clean energy includes nuclear power, but did not say whether we should build more of it.
Defense spending
Candidates in round two were asked to clarify their positions on defense spending. Specifically, they were asked whether they would sacrifice jobs at General Dynamics Electric Boat, the Navy’s largest submarine builder and one of Rhode Island’s largest employers, to reach a decreased defense budget. All said no, though Beauté added that, if cutting jobs at Electric Boat led to greater jobs elsewhere in Rhode Island, she would be okay with it.
Only two candidates, Carlson and Berbrick, said they would be in favor of reducing the defense budget, and both said they would reduce it by 10%. Berbrick was the only veteran on stage that night.
“I would be for reducing the defense budget by 10% so that we can invest in things like housing, things like education, things like child care – the things that are really going to define whether or not we remain an economic superpower, and the things that are going to define whether or not we outpace and out-compete China,” Berbrick said.
Cano, who answered the question after Berbrick, said she feels the United States can have it all.
“There is no reason why we need to have a reduction on our military, and also taking care of the American people. I think we could do both,” Cano said.
On immigration
Group one got a chance to discuss their stances on immigration. Most had a personal connection to immigration and specific policy ideas.
Goncalves said he supports the American Dream and Promise Act, the American Families United Act, and the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act. He said he supports these programs because he is a first generation American. His mother immigrated to the United States from Cape Verde.
Casey said the U.S. should not refuse asylum to anyone who needs it, but added that the country should have policies to keep people out “who can undermine the safety of the United States.”
Regunberg said that at the border, the U.S. needs to be first and foremost concerned with protecting human lives.
Quezada and Matos both have personal experience with immigration. Matos immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic when she was 20 years old, and saw firsthand how long the process took. She wants it to be streamlined.
“My mother has to wait 10 years in the immigration process in order to come here. My grandmother is now 99 years old. So I understand the challenges – how broken immigration system is,” Matos said.
Quezada was also born in the Dominican Republic. Though she came to the U.S. legally, her husband arrived undocumented. She had a simple policy addition that she said would make it easier for immigrants to legally work in the United States.
“I really believe that United States need to increase working permits for people to come to this country, be able to work and go back to their country,” Quezada said. “Undocumented people coming here looking for a better opportunity. People are coming here because they’re fleeing from climate change. People are coming here because they want a better future for their family. And what they need is an opportunity.”
Although the other candidates were not asked specifically about immigration policy, many have a personal connection to immigration. Six of the 10 candidates at last night’s forum were either immigrants themselves, or first-generation Americans – meaning one or both of their parents immigrated here before they were born.
Although many candidates shared answers at last night’s forum, John Goncalves suggested what differentiates them is their lived experiences, immigration being one of them.
On Biden’s job performance
Since the onset of the pandemic, inflation has been an issue. Moderators asked each candidate whether they approved of President Biden’s response to inflation. Three candidates said Biden did a good job, including Matos, Carlson, and Amo – a former Biden employee. Five candidates said Biden moved too slowly, including Goncalves, Casey, Berbrick, Beauté and Quezada, who also blamed corporations.
Regunberg blamed corporations too, but did not answer the question about Biden’s performance. Cano said we need to “do better about price gouging,” but did not answer the question.
In the second group, Carlson said he disagreed with Biden’s choice to send cluster bombs to Ukraine. Cluster bombs are outlawed in 120 countries because of their potential for civilian casualties. Other than that, he said he thought Biden is doing a “fantastic” job.
Cano said she felt Biden had not addressed the fires on Maui quickly enough. Berbrick said he disagreed with Biden’s decision to open up nearly 500 acres of wilderness to drilling in Alaska’s North Slope region. Beauté said the president has not responded adequately to immigration, and Gabe Amo said his former boss missed an opportunity with the Inflation Reduction Act: “we didn’t really have any substantial investments in housing. That could have been transformative.”
First country they would visit while in office
In a lightning round, all candidates were asked which country they would visit while in office.
Stephen Casey: “I think I’d like to go to Ireland.”
John Goncalves: “I would like to go to Portugal.”
Sabina Matos: “Israel.”
Goncalves: “Oh, I should have said that too!”
Ana Quezada initially said Israel, but offered another response since Matos had already selected Israel. “I would love to go to Switzerland, because I think they have one of the best gun controls. And I would like to learn more about it, especially with all the gun problems that we have in this country,” she said.
Aaron Regunberg: “If I were elected, I’d like to go to Ukraine to see the actual reality on the ground.”
Don Carlson: “I promised my mom that we will go to the Azores, because we discovered a few months ago, actually in the first month of the campaign, that we’re Portuguese.”
Sandra Cano: “I would love to go to Ukraine, to be honest with you, just to see how things are going there.”
Walter Berbrick: “I’d want to go to Russia, to sit down with Putin and the rest of the folks and try to end this war.”
Stephanie Beauté: “Israel.”
Gabe Amo: “A country in West Africa, maybe Ghana. I’ve been twice, it’s where my father was born. But in fact, I think as we look at our strategic positioning, the continent of Africa is incredibly important.”
How and when to vote?
Early voting has already opened for the special election primary, which concludes Sept. 5. Here’s how to vote early. The general election, which will include the victor from the two-person Republican primary, will occur on Nov. 7.
Click here to watch full video of the Democratic candidates forum. The Public’s Radio is partnering with The Providence Journal and Rhode Island PBS to present a GOP candidates forum which will air at a later date.
Metro reporter Olivia Ebertz can be reached at olivia@thepublicsradio.org. Follow her on Twitter @OliviaEbertz.
