Question of the Week: What does the future hold? A hardy perennial as I wrestle with a cold, a lack of lunch and a lot of news at week’s end. 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 episode once known as Shawnagate has morphed into a new phase, with a new public subject: Jeff Britt, the talented campaign operative with the ability to put fear into political opponents. Attorney General Peter Neronha calls the indictment of Britt on two charges (including a felony) related to House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello’s 2016 campaign a matter involving the integrity of Rhode Island elections. During a news conference, Neronha served notice that RI pols and their campaigns fail to cooperate with the state Board of Elections at their own peril. “Simply ignoring the board’s attempts to gain information without legally justifiable grounds will be a strong indication to this office and to me that the full investigative weight of this office should be utilized,” Neronha said. But his predecessor as U.S. attorney, Robert Clark Corrente, who represents Britt, asserts that Britt is being used as a full guy, that Britt was over-charged, and that this will all be hashed out at a trial. “We believe that the evidence at trial will leave Rhode Islanders scratching their heads about who did and who did not get charged,” Corrente said in a statement likely to fan speculation about Mattiello and his circle. (“These proceedings do not involve the speaker,” Mattiello’s campaign spokeswoman, Patti Doyle, said in a statement. “The Board of Elections resolved this issue for the campaign approximately one year ago.”) So as a federal probe examines details related to Dr. Victor Pedro, the Cranston chiropractor whose practice got a lot of state funding until it became controversial, where do things go from here?
2) The recent emergence of the Rhode Island Political Cooperative, the progressive group that plans to run about 25 mostly legislative candidates next year, was enough to cause some anxiety in the RI Senate. (Ten of the Co-op’s initial 15 candidates are targeting that chamber. The concern could be seen in how Bill Lynch, special advisor to the RI Democratic Party, was dispatched to issue a sharp critique of the Co-op via news release. Time will tell whether the Co-Op is a legitimate force or a paper tiger. For now, though, it’s worth remembering how the group’s three co-chairs, Matt Brown, Jeanine Calkin and Jennifer Rourke, each lost their respective races last, and the Co-op’s candidate in last week’s Ward 10 special election in Providence, Monica Huertas, placed fourth in a four-way race. So what will RI Political Cooperative candidates do differently to get better outcomes in the future? “The Co-op offers a way for candidates to share resources, for us to work together,” Rourke said on Bonus Q&A on The Public’s Radio this week. “When I ran last year [for the Senate], I had no one. I didn’t have anyone to turn to say, ‘hey, am I doing this right?’ It was myself — I had a campaign manager, who was with me part-time, and then I had my husband and my four children. And while I was knocking doors, I didn’t have people canvassing with me, I didn’t have volunteers come out. I had nothing. What the Co-op is offering is a team, it’s us working together, sharing our resources, being able to bounce ideas off one another. It’s what the establishment has.”
3) What’s to explain Governor Gina Raimondo’s dubious distinction as the nation’s least approved governor? While Rhode Island’s economy has made considerable progress since the Great Recession, the governor’s administration has endured a string of well-publicized controversies from ‘Cooler & Warmer’ to UHIP. Yet 4 of the 10 lowest-rated governors in Morning Consult’s survey are women, and some observers point to the persistence of sexism in politics. Regardless, it’s worth remembering that elections are a zero-sum game, and despite questions about her job performance and public persona, Raimondo cruised to re-election last year, beating Republican Allan Fung on a 52.6 to 37.2 margin.
4) While the fate of the Fane tower proposal continues to dominate talk about the I-195 District, don’t be surprised if a Trader Joe’s pops up on a parcel on the east side of the river. The commission responsible for overseeing the district this week gave design approval for the site in question. Here’s a description from spokeswoman Cara Cromwell: “The proposed D+P Real Estate and Truth Box, Inc. development on parcel 6 is located on the east side of the District (bordered by Wickenden, South Water, and South Main, and Pike streets). The mixed-use development will include an approximately 13,000-SF grocery store, nearly 10,000 SF of commercial and retail space, and 62 housing units. Fifty percent of the housing will be workforce housing that is considered affordable to households earning between 80% -120% of the area’s median income. Truth Box and ZDS are the project architects.” For the uninitiated, Trader Joe’s has something of a cult following, with a tasty blend of products, and even its own podcast. (Those of us who reside in the East Bay would love to see a Trader Joe’s as part of Carpionato’s project on the Pawtucket/EP line; getting to the one on Bald Hill Road is a bit of a traffic nightmare) Anyway, while there are more details to be finalized as far as the I-195 District, Redevelopment District Chairman Bob Davis tells me that Trader’s Joe is a possibility.
5) Is the answer to hate speech always more speech? Is some speech more privileged than other speech, and if so, who decides? These are some of the questions to be discussed by a panel of reporters, editors and legal experts during a public forum next Thursday October 24 (6:30-8 pm) at the Providence Public Library. I’ll the moderator with an all-star panel includes ProJo Executive Editor Alan Rosenberg; Lee Gaines, education reporter for Illinois Public Media; Justin Hansford, executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center; and Lata Nott, executive director of the First Amendment Center of the Freedom Forum Institute. It’s free and open to the public, but registration is required.
6) An about-face from Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia, via my colleague Nadine Sebai: “Correia announced on Tuesday that he’ll be taking a leave of absence and suspending his re-election campaign. Correia has insisted that despite being arrested twice in less than a year, he would not step down from his position. Correia says he will retain his title, and annual salary, as mayor but pass off his day-to-day duties to City Council President Cliff Ponte. Correia, who’s denied all wire fraud, bribery, and extortion charges against him, says his legal situation has become a hindrance to the city. ‘At the end of the day Fall River must win, not just any one person,’ Correia said. ‘That is why at this time, the city must have an opportunity to continue to thrive and build upon the solid foundation and framework without distraction.’ Fall River voters will head to the polls next month. Correia’s name is still on the ballot. He plans to retain his title until the next mayor takes office in January.”
7) Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey (D-Warwick) beat primary challenger Jennifer Rourke by about 30 points in 2018, so how does Rourke plan to overcome McCaffrey’s incumbent advantages during her run next year? “I’m just going to do what I did last year,” when she knocked on 3,000 doors, Rourke said on Bonus Q&A.”Just keep talking to the people. Just keep knocking on doors and hopefully I’ll get more people to come out and volunteer with me …”
8) U.S. District Court Jack McConnell is poised to move up to be Rhode Island’s chief federal judge, succeeding William Smith. Here’s a primer on the selection process for that post and related stuff.
9) A favorite viewpoint among some conservatives is that Rhode Island is losing some of its most productive citizens. Mike Stenhouse from the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity recently sent out an email with the subject line “Exodus.” “The opportunity for prosperity is a primary factor in the migration of families from state to state,” Stenhouse wrote, citing various indexes to support his argument. “In this regard, our Ocean State is more than just losing the race. Far too many Rhode Islanders are fleeing our state, leaving a swath of empty chairs at our family dinner tables. We are seeing a full on exodus out of our beloved home state.” But man-about-town Tom Sgouros brushes aside such arguments, and he wrote a lengthy piece with his reasoning back in 2008, based on a crunch of five years of data.
10) What if we put Scott MacKay, the Globe’s Dan McGowan and our own John Bender in a room and made them talk about the Providence school takeover?
11) Erick Betancourt, who portrays Mickey Corrente, the composite character in Trinity Rep’s adaptation of “The Prince of Providence,” has his own fascinating back story, involving going from the ACI to the stage. Give a listen here.
12) Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea is convening her latest cybersecurity summit, with more than 100 elections and IT, next Friday, October 25, at the Pell Center at Salve Regina in Newport. Her office says the topics will include: “Current best practices on the state and local level to secure election systems ahead of 2020; Combating misinformation and disinformation campaigns; Common causes of data breaches and ways to prevent them,” and “Actions being taken on the federal level to protect elections”
13) The ProJo’s Patrick Anderson reports on an overtime dispute involving the newspaper’s management, and he shares this tidbit: “Former Journal publisher Janet Hasson asked [Gov.] Raimondo to end Sunday overtime for newspaper employees during an editorial board interview.” That kind of coverage would have been unlikely during the Belo era at the Journal, when management was reluctant to support self-scrutiny. But former ProJo staffer Mike Stanton has a different view worth considering.
14) Kudos & Congrats to Charlie Andrews, son of local fundraiser Julie Andrews, who is now a deputy press secretary for U.S. Sen. Patty Murray of Washington. Charlie graduated from Brown in 2018 and worked on Rich Cordray’s campaign for governor in Ohio before heading to D.C. in May.
15) Rescue dogs are cool dogs, so if this article by Wes Siler doesn’t move you, check your pulse. But weiners are hot, so check out this fun look at a Rhode Island institution – “The Humans of New York System” by Rhode Island Monthly’s Jamie Coelho.
