In an election season with few contested Rhode Island races, there is one General Assembly campaign getting lots of attention. RIPR political analyst Scott MacKay on why all eyes are on a House campaign in the western corner of Cranston.
Democrat Nick Mattiello became an accidental speaker in a familiar Rhode Island manner: he got the job two years ago when then-Speaker Gordon Fox flamed out in a corruption scandal. Fox is now serving time in federal prison for looting his campaign fund and taking a bribe from owners of a Providence tavern called the Shark.
Fox was the epitome of an East Side Providence liberal. He was both Rhode Island’s first openly gay and African-American House speaker. One of his major accomplishments was braving a tough joust with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and ushering in the state’s same-sex marriage law.
One of the lawmakers who supported Fox’s gay marriage legislation was his top lieutenant, then-Majority Leader Mattiello. He gave an impassioned speech supporting the measure, which wasn’t all that popular with the white, older, Italian-American voters in his suburban Cranston district. A practicing Catholic, his thanks for backing same-sex marriage was to be stripped of his position as a lector at his parish, Immaculate Conception.
Mattiello cuts a familiar figure in his Cranston district. As is the case with about 40 percent of his constituents, he is Italian-American. Married with two grown children, he was raised here, attended local public schools and La Salle Academy, coached Little League and was a church leader until his gay marriage vote.
The district is anchored by the neighborhoods of Garden Hills, Oak Hill and Hillside Farms. In 2012, President Barack Obama barely beat out Republican Mitt Romney here, even though he took Rhode Island by nearly 30 percentage points.
As speaker, Mattiello is proud of ruling from what he calls the “middle of the road.’’ A pro-business approach has led him to support an array of tax cuts, including a drop in corporate and estate taxes and trimming income taxes on pensions and social security benefits. He is now proposing to cut the nettlesome car tax.
Mattiello supported Gov. Gina Raimondo’s tuck toll program, but only after making her original more favorable to trucking companies. He was behind the reduction in state beach parking fees and agreed to eliminate the so-called master lever straight party vote in state elections. After a scandal involving his hand-picked House Finance Chairman, Ray Gallison of Bristol, he moved to put to voters a Constitutional Amendment reinstating state Ethics Commission oversight of lawmakers.
Mattiello has taken hits from the left and the right. Democratic liberals don’t like his opposition to legal abortion and support for gun rights. Yet, he gets high marks from some on the left, including veteran lawmaker Edith Ajello, D-Providence, for his willingness to listen and learn. He says he is proud of not approaching issues from an ideological stance.
Republicans give him verbal spankings for the truck tolls, such Statehouse chicanery as Gallison’s downfall and the demise of Rep. John Carnevale of Providence, who was booted from office because he didn’t live in his district.
The party’s candidate is Steve Frias, a Brown-educated lawyer and longtime party activist. A onetime Providence resident, Frias ran two losing campaigns for state Senate from the capital city.
Republican State Chairman Brandon Bell says Republicans are working diligently to elect Frias, advancing him as an outsider untainted by Statehouse shenanigans; a Mister Smith goes to Smith Hill narrative.
The campaign has gotten chippy of late, as both sides churn up negative attacks. Frias has hammered Mattiello on his vote for the 38 Studios subsidy, the truck tolls and scandals on his watch. Mattiello’s camp has derided Frias’s claim to be a fresh face, citing the Republican’s history of party activism and loyalty and his job as a state lawyer during the administration of Gov. Don Carcieri.
The GOP is wagering that voters want change this year. Republican Chairman Bell points to the primary defeat of Democratic Majority Leader John DeSimone of Providence last month, as well as the March presidential primary victories of anti-establishment candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
Those who make their livings working in and studying state politics say the election looks close. One question voters will have to answer is whether they want to dethrone a speaker who steers patronage and grants to the district. That was an argument Gordon Fox used in his last election victory in 2012. Voters soon had buyers remorse.
The other element is whether voters think Mattiello has gone uptown on them, forgetting local concerns while working the Statehouse levers of power . That perception was crucial in DeSimone’s downfall. This race will be a referendum on whether Mattiello is aware of Tip O’Neill’s “all politics is local” dictum. If not, Frias will be basking in the election night smiles of a Republican Party that likely won’t have much else to cheer about in Rhode Island.
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday morning on Rhode Island Public Radio at 6:50 and 8:50 and at 5:44 p.m. You can also follow his political reporting and analysis at the On Politics blog at RIPR.org
