Don’t look now, but it’s barely more than 30 days until the state primary election that will help shape the next class of state lawmakers. Meanwhile, debate about 38 Studios has again reached a fever pitch. So thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. As usual, your tips and comments are welcome, and you can follow me through the week on the twitters. Here we go.
1. “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” William Faulkner’s words aptly sum up the lack of resolution felt by many Rhode Islanders about 38 Studios, the costly squander of taxpayers’ dollars. The decision by Attorney General Peter Kilmartin and State Police Col. Steven O’Donnell to withhold, for now, materials from the criminal investigation into the company has sparked widespread criticism. Republican Steven Frias, who hopes to challenge Democratic House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello for his Cranston rep seat this November, said he has two questions about the information from the probe: “Who in the powers that be at the time knew about this, and what did they know?” Frias said on this week’s RI Public Radio Political Roundtable. “What we hear all the time is, like, it’s basically just a deal between Gordon Fox and Mike Corso, don’t ask any more questions. And I don’t believe that’s just the case. I have a hard time believing this $75 million loan thing could go through the General Assembly with basically only Gordon Fox knowing, and maybe Steve Costantino, it seems, what’s going on. I think more people knew.” Although the criminal investigation ended without charges, Frias believes the probe may have produced some evidence of corruption at the heart of the 38 Studios deal. For his part, Kilmartin maintains it would be irresponsible to release any material from the investigation before the statute of limitations ends for possible charges in the open, albeit inactive, case. With the state’s civil lawsuit over 38 Studios set to go to trial in October, some observers question whether citizens will ever get the full story. The ACLU’s Steve Brown told me for a story set to air Monday on RIPR that it’s “strange and very disturbing” to think private lawyers and a civil suit could unearth fresh details after what investigators called a tediously thorough four-year criminal probe.
2. In advance of 2018, Governor Gina Raimondo is sitting on a lot of campaign money.
3. Will Katherine Gregg ever return to covering the Statehouse for The Providence Journal? That remains an open question after ProJo executive editor Dave Butler offered this somewhat opaque declaration in an email obtained by RIPR: “We’ve not said she won’t return to the Statehouse.” The news that Gregg was being reassigned from Smith Hill struck a chord in Rhode Island and beyond, with a sharp reaction on social media and elsewhere. “ProJo shoots itself in the foot,” tweeted former Boston Phoenix editor Peter Kadzis, a one-time Journal reporter. “Former top editor once told me the paper would `always be the ProJo’ so long as @kathyprojo `was under the dome,’ ” noted the Boston Globe’s DC bureau chief, Chris Rowland, a former Statehouse scribe for the Journal. Responding to a commenter on my initial article, Chris Chivers of The New York Times, also a former ProJo reporter, wrote, “I worked with Kathy in the 1990s and found her to be thoroughly professional, in absolute command of her subject and a teacher and example to those of us who were learning our way. As a former Marine I admired her toughness. Still do. Nothing says reporters have to be nice, especially on difficult beats where they are routinely lied to, disrespected and misled.” The precise reason for Gregg’s reassignment remains unclear, although GateHouse Media — in keeping with its reputation — has aggressively cut costs since acquiring the ProJo in 2014. (Gregg’s reassignment came shortly after the paper laid off editorial writer M.J. Andersen, a 35-year employee.) Through various cuts over the years by Belo and then GateHouse, the Journal has remained Rhode Island’s premier source for Statehouse news. Editor Butler vows the paper will continue to cover state government “as aggressively as we have in the past — if not more so.” Yet the initial step to move Gregg away from the Statehouse is causing some Rhode Islanders to question that commitment.
4. Steven Frias‘ challenge to Speaker Mattiello is a classic David and Goliath batttle. The Cranston Democrat had almost $366,000 in his campaign account at the end of Q2 — almost 15 times as much as Frias — and Mattiello can draw on the political resources that come with being speaker. Yet Frias isn’t without his own ammunition while trying to make the race a referendum on the Smith Hill status quo. “Basically, I decided to run because I got fed up with what’s going on at the Statehouse,” Frias said on this week’s RI Public Radio Bonus Q&A. “Between the scandals of [Ray] Gallison and [John] Carnevale and the new tolls legislation, I think Rhode Island’s going on the wrong track.” While Mattiello maintains he’s supported moves to improve the business and ethics climate in the state, Frias calls the speaker reactive. So if he staged an upset, how would Frias get the overwhelming Democratic majority in the House to support GOP-themed measures like rescinding truck tolls, imposing term limits, and sharply cutting taxes? “My point is, if I defeat the speaker, it sends a huge ripple message throughout the Statehouse …. If $300,000 of campaign donations and $100,000 of legislative grants can’t make you, an incumbent, bullet-proof, then it means that those issues I’m running on, they got some resonance. And if it happened to him [Mattiello], it can happen to you, so vote the way that I’m talking about or someone will show up to challenge you and you may be defeated.”
5. ***TGIF BARBECUE EXCLUSIVE*** Businessman and bon vivant Steve Durkee plans to open a barbecue restaurant in the vacant former Shark Bar location at 275 Thayer Street this fall. Durkee said the establishment — which does not yet have a name — will be run by Jake Rojas of Tallulah’s Taqueria and Jay Carr of The Eddy. Durkee said the project is his third attempt at a barbecue spot, to meet the pent-up demand for barbecue in the under-served Ocean State market. He said it began when ate some great barbecue on a trip to Buffalo, New York. “I said, ‘God, we have to get some of this in Rhode Island,” Durkee recalls. (Note: Durkee said operations of the Tallulah’s in Providence and Newport will not be affected by the new venture. He’s also seeking a loan of about $70,000 from the City of Providence to launch the barbecue venture.)
6. If Peter Kilmartin wanted to run for another office after being term-limited against another run for AG, the latest 38 Studios dispute may not be helpful.
7. Back in September 2006, Lincoln Chafee was still a very popular figure in Rhode Island, with an enviable 51 percent approval rating. But Rhode Islanders’ dislike for George W. Bush and the national GOP propelled Sheldon Whitehouse‘s eventual six-point victory over Chafee. It was a redemptive moment for Whitehouse, who was badly bruised by his close loss to Myrth York in the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary, and he’s gone to build a profile as a champion for progressives and a bete noire for conservatives. With Whitehouse’s annual family clambake set for Sunday, August 14, the weekend is expected to attract a reunion of more than 40 people associated with his 2006 campaign. Those expected include Mindy Myers, who ran the campaign, before becoming chief of staff for Elizabeth Warren and then executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure campaign; former Whitehouse staffer Tony Simon, who is now launching his own consulting shop; Mike Dorsey, now with Uber, who ran RI Democrats’ coordinated campaign in 2006; Gabe Amo, who serves on the staff of Governor Raimondo; and former Whitehouse communications director Seth Larson, now with the US Department of Energy.
8. Ken Block made a searchable spreadsheet of this year’s House legislative grants. His analysis shows that Cranston (the home of Speaker Mattiello) got $2.37 per capita, while Providence got $1.47; Pawtucket, $0.63; East Providence, $0.75; Central Falls, $0.90, Woonsocket, $0.37, and West Warwick, $0.87.
9. Speaking of mid-August: Democratic VP candidate Tim Kaine will headline a late afternoon/early evening fundraiser for the Hillary Victory Fund on Saturday, August 13, at the Newport home of Alma and Barrett Bready. The hosts include Governor Raimondo; Senators Whitehouse and Jack Reed; US Representatives David Cicilline and Jim Langevin; Joseph R. Paolino Jr.; Clay Pell; Susan Weiner; and Richard Weiner. Contribution levels start at $1,000 and climb to $50,000, good for a host reception and dinner with Kaine.
10. Steven Frias was standing near state Republican Chairman Brandon Bell when Bell used the Republican National Convention to indict Democrats’ management of state government. If Democrats have done such a bad job, Frias was asked this week, why have Republicans not been able to win more than a very small number of General Assembly seats? His response: “Rhode Island is generally a liberal state. The Republican message is a more conservative message, and it’s a matter of changing people’s minds, and it takes work. And I think a lot of Rhode Islanders grew up with a mindset, you’ve got to vote Democrat, Democrats are right. So if things are going bad, it’s never the Democrats’ fault, it must be someone else’s fault …. And so it’s hard to pierce through that mentality and that message, but it has to be done and we keep trying.”
11. Courtney Hawkins is getting the nod as chief policy officer at Providence City Hall. She will continue to oversee Providence Talks, an effort she had led since 2015 to close the “word gap,” while leading the city’s sustainability program, Healthy Communities Office, workforce development programs, partnerships, education policy and serving as senior advisor to the mayor.
12. State Rep. Robert Craven (D-North Kingstown) and state Sen. Stephen Archambault (D-Smithfield) late this week joined the chorus of other elected officials calling for the release of materials from the 38 Studios investigation. This seemingly amplifies both lawmakers’ interest in running for AG in 2018 (Archambault was part of the three-way Democratic scrum in the race won by Peter Kilmartin in 2010.) While it may not swing legislative races this year, Republicans have a claim to being out front in calling for the release of the investigative materials.
13. C. Andrew Morse on why the line-item veto may not be all that: “The line-item veto will likely be one of the government reform issues for the 2017 Rhode Island legislative session. It is viewed favorably by numerous RI good-government groups, by the Providence Journal editorial board, and by the governor herself. However, if the line-item veto is to become a functional part of RI lawmaking, proponents must establish a process that will work within the peculiarities of Rhode Island’s oligarchic legislative culture. According to the state Constitution, budgets must pass by a 2/3 majority. Vetoes by the governor, on the other hand, can be overridden with only a 3/5 majority. The problem this creates for the line-item veto is that if every legislator who votes ‘aye’ during a final budget vote simply repeats his or her ‘aye’ during a budget-veto override, any and all line-item vetoes will be overridden. This is not an issue of numbers as much as of legislative culture. In the 2016 session, three Democrats in the House were stripped of their committee assignments for voting against the speaker’s position in favor of tolls. Given that House leadership considers the state budget to be an area where it reigns supreme, the public should be skeptical that current and future Speakers will behave any less dictatorially during budget veto override votes. So while the line-item veto might theoretically provide a reasonable balance between branches of government, it cannot be effective in the specific case of Rhode Island unless changes are made in the culture at the state legislature so that rank-and-file legislators can cast their votes without fear of punishment. That will require a larger effort than adding line-item veto language to the state constitution.”
14. Reporter Phil Eil finally got a court date this week, in front of US District Court Judge Jack McConnell, in his long-running quest for records from an out-of-state drug trial in 2011. Don’t miss Phil’s recap on FB. Excerpt: “While the judge was certainly concerned about the privacy interests of innocent third-party patients/customers of Dr. Volkman whose medical information could be released here, through no active agreement on their part, he was also, equally, if not more, concerned with the fact that (a) the Sixth Amendment guarantees that trials are public, (b) the government prosecutors took no measures while this trial was taking place in 2011 to seal or redact sensitive information (the judge today said he found this baffling, mind-boggling, etc. and asked the government’s lawyer whether she would admit they had made a mistake in doing this) and (c) he brought up — as I have, in a blog post for Dan Kennedy site (https://dankennedy.net/…/a-journalist-fights-the-power-for…/) — the logical inconsistency of the fact the the government is now withholding medical documents of the same kind they have previously published with little or no redaction.”
15. John Marion of Common Cause of RI on a simple step that he believes would improve the legislative process — and why it’s unlikely to happen: “Many people focus on the late hour the General Assembly finished its business this year, but pulling an all-nighter wasn’t the only thing that made it such a challenge for the public to follow. Under our system every bill is alive until the legislature adjourns for the year. This contrasts to 20 states where hard deadlines require at least one chamber to report a bill out at some intermediate point during the legislative session. These so-called ‘crossover’ dates mean that the public has a much smaller haystack to sift through looking for the needle of a bill that might be moving in the final hours of the legislative session. It also means that the leadership has far fewer pieces of legislation they can use as chips as the bargain with members over their votes for the state budget.”
16. Fitch has upgraded Pawtucket’s outstanding general obligation bonds to A+. In a statement, Mayor Donald Grebien said, “I am greatly encouraged that Fitch recognized, once again, the real progress we continue to make to improve the City’s fiscal health. I am proud that today Pawtucket has achieved its first A bond rating from Fitch since 2010. It takes a team, and by working collaboratively with the Pawtucket School Department and City Council to tighten our operating budgets and control our future obligations, we are creating real results for the taxpayers and moving Pawtucket forward. Through proven leadership, we continue to improve the finances of both the City and School Department while delivering high quality services efficiently and effectively.”
17. NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang reports on the first US Olympian to compete while wearing a hijab, or head scarf. Excerpt: “The daughter of a retired special education teacher and a retired narcotics detective, [Ibtihaj] Muhammad says she’d prefer to focus only on fencing. But the bigotry she has faced has pushed her to speak out about discrimination against the Muslim community. In April, she tweeted about a man who she says followed her down a street in Manhattan, telling her that she looked “suspicious” and asking if she was “going to blow something up.” “America is all that I know. I feel American down to my bones. For anyone to challenge that idea, that I’m not American or that I don’t belong, it’s frustrating,” Muhammad says. “I want people to see a Muslim woman in hijab and represent the United States this summer. I don’t want people to think that that’s out of the norm.”
18. RIPR is adding two new weekend shows for your listening pleasure: Freakonomics Radio (2 pm Saturday) and Latino USA (4 pm Sunday). Check ’em out. Btw, here’s our full broadcast schedule. And don’t forget — you can stream RI Public Radio with a free app on a smart phone.
19. One of my favorite Kathy Gregg stories include her reaction, back when I worked at the Providence Phoenix, and wrote a long takeout on a campaign-finance reform plan backed by Common Cause of RI. Gregg proceeded to call Phil West, then the head of Common Cause, and asked how I got the story. No matter that this kind of campaign finance minutiae was of interest to, perhaps, a few hundred people in Rhode Island. Kathy wanted the story, and she wanted it first.
