The glide path to the December holidays is fast approaching, and a new election year is following close behind (with some big developments this week). Thanks for stopping by for the return of my weekly column after some time off. Your tips and comments are welcome. You can follow me through the week on the twitters.
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STORY OF THE WEEK I: House GOP Leader Blake Filippi is not running for governor next year. Filippi announced his decision in a tweet, leaving it uncertain who will be the Republican candidate next year. Allan Fung, who lost twice to Gina Raimondo, told me he will not make any decision until next year. David Darlington has indicated interest in running. While the six-way scrum among Democrats offers some hope for the GOP, the party is also reaping the shortcomings of its thin bench.
STORY OF THE WEEK II: Helena Foulkes’ gubernatorial campaign shifted into a new gear this week, with the candidate making appearances on Political Roundtable at The Public’s Radio and Newsmakers at WPRI-TV. The Narragansett resident has assembled a campaign team that leans on former Raimondo associates (Jon Romano and Jonathan Blair as advisors, Audrey Lucas on communications, Putnam Partners for commercials), although Foulkes declined to tell me whether Raimondo and she talked about her run. Foulkes’ campaign has started ramping up its criticism of Gov. Dan McKee, suggesting that stronger steps are needed to respond to the ongoing pandemic. As we move into the new year, Foulkes will step up her case against McKee, arguing that as a self-described “problem-solver” with high-level corporate experience, she has better chops for trying to improve the economy and focusing on other key state needs. She will not lack for campaign funds, enabling Foulkes to craft her image and message via campaign commercials. Rival Democrats will fire back with their own critiques of the first-time candidate, focusing in part on some of the topics mentioned in the next item.
ON THE ISSUES: After working for a quarter-century at CVS Health, Foulkes is a polished speaker and she came to Political Roundtable prepared to address the issues that offer grist in the primary with McKee and fellow Democrats Matt Brown, Nellie Gorbea, Seth Magaziner, and Luis Daniel Munoz. After a federal jury in Cleveland recently faulted CVS and two other big retailers in connection with the opioid crisis, Foulkes scorned Purdue Pharma and said she moved quickly to address the issue. While she declined to say if she thinks Woonsocket-based CVS did anything wrong, Foulkes lamented that the crisis wasn’t recognized sooner: “But I go back to Purdue and my anger towards them. This was an effort that they undertook where they duped us all. And I do wish we had found it sooner because we could have saved lives.” After donating $500 to Mitch McConnell back in 2014, Foulkes described him this week as “really a terrible person,” and framed her past contributions to Republicans as a CVS exec as part of an effort to “work across the aisle.” Foulkes, who received about $29 million in compensation after leaving CVS for Canadian retailer Hudson Bay Company, said her bout with cancer and time as a working mom enable her to relate to regular Rhode Islanders.
STATEHOUSE NUGGET: TGIF has learned that Emmanuel Falck, who left his longtime role as RI director of Service Employees International Union earlier this year, starts a new gig Monday as a policy staffer for House Speaker Joe Shekarchi. Back in July, Falck said it felt like the right time to make a change, and he spent some time visiting with his family in France. As this column noted, SEIU played a key role in the November 2020 defeat of then-Speaker Nicholas Mattiello in his Cranston legislative district. In other words, Shekarchi is gaining not just a good policy wonk, but someone with a savvy understanding of campaigns.
GOVLAND: Council 94, the largest state employee union, this week approved a new contract agreement with the state, a development that could accrue to the benefit of Gov. Dan McKee (after an earlier agreement with the Providence Teachers Union). While McKee defended the deal, the House GOP caucus said a bonus for state employees who choose to get vaccinated will cost more than $11 million (via statement): “Clearly, this bonus provision is not geared to incentivize our unvaccinated population. Rather, it is an electoral gimmick cast on the backs of taxpayers. Rhode Island can and must do better.” …. Nellie Gorbea picked up an endorsement from EMILY’s List, the group that supports women candidates who back abortion rights …. Seth Magaziner’s campaign said his opponent have failed to join his call to keep dark money out of politics.
THE BAY STATE: Republicans have maintained a strong hold on the governor’s office in blue Massachusetts in recent decades. But questions about Gov. Charlie Baker’s political future emerged after the Democratic Governors Association highlighted a poll back in October. Although Baker has long polled with one of the best approval ratings in the nation, he surprised political observers by announcing this week he would not seek a record third consecutive term as governor. The decision against running by Baker and his lieutenant governor, Karyn Polito, sets off a scramble next year in Massachusetts politics. Baker was generally well liked by Democrats across the Bay State, including in southeastern Massachusetts. My colleague Ben Berke got reaction from some of them. Elsewhere, as Mary Anne Marsh notes, liberal Massachusetts remains the only New England state that has not elected a woman governor.
THE BIG SPEND: Statehouse whispers suggest plans for a legislative announcement next week about spending some of the federal dollars coming into Rhode Island.
HOMELESSNESS AND THE CO-OP: State Sen. Cynthia Mendes (D-East Providence), Democratic gubernatorial candidate Matt Brown and others aligned with the Rhode Island Political Cooperative this week launched a protest by camping outside the Statehouse – a measure, they say, meant to force a response to the hundreds of people who lack homes in Rhode Island. To be sure, sleeping outside in freezing weather is a form of putting your convictions on the line. It squares with the Co-op’s jujitsu strategy – attempting to leverage the political power symbolized by the impassive exterior of the marble Statehouse. And the protest began just days before the Huffington Post published an in-depth look (headline: “A progressive civil war threatens the left’s political power in Rhode Island”) at the feuding elements on the left side of the local political spectrum. In particular, the story notes how two former Co-op candidates, Sens. Tiara Mack (D-Providence) and Kendra Anderson (D-Warwick) have become disenchanted with the organization, due to what they consider top-down management.
Asked about the Co-op’s approach for eliminating homelessness, A.J. Braverman responded on behalf of Brown and Mendes’ campaign: “There are a number of ways this can be accomplished. For example, one way would be an expanded hotel program which would cost just 1.1% of the ARPA funds ($14.7 million) to shelter people through March 31st. Programs like this have worked in states across the country and, on a smaller scale, in Rhode Island. Ultimately, Cynthia, Matt, and others will continue to sleep outside until she is sure the current homelessness crisis is resolved, everyone has safe & dignified housing for the winter, and that no one will freeze to death. Whether that happens is up to Governor McKee, Speaker Shekarchi, and Senate President Ruggerio.”
REDISTRICTING: The maps are out, and they’re gaining scrutiny for possible incumbent advantage over challengers. The latest meeting of the redistricting commission is on for 6 pm Monday in Smithfield. Final recommendations from the new commission on new maps are due January 15.
HARM REDUCTION: Rhode Island lawmakers pulled a surprise move earlier this year by making the Ocean State the first state to legalize supervised drug-injection centers. The state Department of Health is now accepting public comment on regulations that will govern one or more centers. A public meeting is planned for Dec, 14. Once the regulations are complete, a proposal will require municipal approval to move ahead. Elsewhere, New York City recently initiated its own version of ‘harm reduction centers.’
INSURRECTION: The first Rhode Islander to be charged in the January 6 assault on the Capitol is 35-year-old Timothy S. Desjardins of Providence. News of the case against him bookends a year in which state Rep. Justin Price (R-Richmond) traveled to DC and backed the discredited conspiracy theory that Antifa caused the storming of the Capitol.
KIDS IN AMERICA: Via Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government: “More than half of young Americans feel democracy in the country is under threat, and over a third think they may see a second U.S. civil war within their lifetimes, according to the 42nd Harvard Youth Poll, released by Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics (IOP) on Wednesday. The poll also found approval of President Biden has plummeted, and a majority of respondents are unhappy with how the president and Congress are doing their jobs. In addition, many of the respondents feel strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and are worried about the threat of climate change. Half of all respondents also said they struggled with feelings of hopelessness and depression.”
ABORTION: As TGIF recounted a few months ago, then-House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and then-LG Dan McKee made remarks in 2018 discounting the potential threat to Roe v. Wade. This week, however, brought the clearest signs yet of the heightened uncertainty facing the longstanding abortion rights precedent. As NPR’s ace SCOTUS reporter Nina Totenberg reports, “When and if Roe is reversed, 26 states would be certain or likely to make abortion illegal within their borders, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive health legislation. And there will be other repercussions, too – some of them legal, some almost certainly political.”
ENVIRONMENT: My colleague Sofie Rudin reports on an oil spill near the site of a planned soccer facility in Pawtucket.
THE LONG WAR: A terribly sad story, via NPR’s Quil Lawrence: “Retired Special Forces Maj. Ian Fishback graduated near the top of his West Point class, deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan, earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan, and was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in 2005 for blowing the whistle on torture by the U.S. military. He died broke, virtually homeless and medicated with heavy antipsychotic drugs in an adult foster care center near Kalamazoo, Mich., on Nov. 19 at age 42, as his friends and family scrambled to find him mental health care.”
MEDIA: Coming up Wednesday, December 8, the annual meeting of the southern New England chapter of the Public Relations Society of America will feature a “meet the media” event with Nancy Lavin from Providence Business News, Pamela Watts from RI PBS Weekly, and Sam Read from WJAR, NBC10. Details here.
KICKER: Way back in 2005, the estimable Brian C. Jones told the tale of what we called “Jurassic Park on Ocean Drive’’ – “The mission of the Ocean Drive farm isn’t too far from the plot of the 1993 thriller Jurassic Park, in which scientists used genetic material miraculously preserved from a bygone era to replicate extinct creatures. But while “Jurassic Park” reproduced Tyrannosaurus Rexes and other dinosaurs, the creatures of Newport’s SVF Foundation are smaller, less threatening and even downright cuddly: Tennessee Fainting Goats, Dutch Belted Cows, and Santa Cruz Sheep.” Now, though, as WhatsUpNewp reports, the SVF Foundation say it has completed its mission and has granted a conservation easement to its land.
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis@ripr.org
