Rhode Island Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos is expected to face competition from fellow Democrats when she seeks re-election next year. That is due to how a signature-gathering controversy dragged down her First Congressional District campaign in 2023. She finished fourth in the 12-way Democratic primary, with just 8% of the vote. But Matos is already staking out the ground to defend her job as lieutenant governor and perhaps one day climb higher in local politics. She’s speaking out about immigrant rights and small businesses, and drawing attention to the problem posed by so-called food deserts. The lieutenant governor in Rhode Island has just a few official functions, and some Rhode Islanders question the value of the office. So is Matos now making more of a difference as the state’s second ranking elected official? And can people like her do more to tackle Rhode Island’s biggest challenges? This week on Political Roundtable, I’m going in depth with Rhode Island Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos.
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript has been edited for clarity
Ian Donnis: Welcome back to The Public’s Radio.
Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos: Thank you, Ian. Glad to be here with you.
Donnis: There’s a lot of uncertainty about Rhode Island’s budget right now due to what’s happening in Washington. Possible changes to Medicaid, which makes up about a third of Rhode Island’s budget. If Republicans in Washington make significant cuts to Medicaid, how can the state replace that money?
Lt. Gov. Matos: It’s going to be very difficult. So I’m still hoping that our federal delegation, which is wonderful we’re so fortunate to have this strong delegation together with the rest of the Democrats, are able to fight back to make sure that those cuts don’t become a reality. We’re looking at the way it’s going to be affecting the state of Rhode Island. Just looking at this SNAP services it’s going to be affecting 21,000 Rhode Islanders,
Donnis: And that’s a food nutrition program.
Lt. Gov. Matos: Yes. And out of those 21,000, about 50% of them have family members that have a disability as part of those families. And it’s going to be affecting 56% of them are actually seniors. It makes me think and trying to analyze what is it that is happening in Washington? What is it that the President is trying to accomplish when he’s going to be affecting so many individuals and some of the people that needs the services the most. And when I think about the seniors, right, it’s some of the demographic that he claim were in support of him, both his presidencies. So I don’t understand what he’s trying to do and how he’s planning to hurt so many seniors with this proposed budget.
Donnis: Well, speaking of the Trump administration, you held an event back in March to inform immigrants about their rights. You’ve called due process an important check against authoritarianism. I wonder how do you respond to the view from President Trump and his supporters that President Biden was too lax on enforcing immigration laws?
Lt. Gov. Matos: I held that information session, because it’s important for all of us to know what are our rights. This is something that is going to be affecting not only the undocumented population, but we hear the stories of people coming back into the country that get stopped and then questioned as they’re coming in. So it’s important for all of us to know our rights. What they’re doing is getting too close to something that I have a lot of concern with, and it’s having an authoritarian type of government. As I mentioned before, I was born and grew up in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is a country that used to have a dictatorship. I was fortunate didn’t live through that, but many of the Dominicans that came to the United States years ago came, became because they were trying to run away from that dictatorship.
Donnis: What about the point though, that under the Biden administration, large numbers of undocumented people were just flowing over the border in California and that it’s important to have secure borders.
Lt. Gov. Matos: I don’t think, I don’t think that that’s correct. If you look at the data and you look at the number of deportations that were happening under the Biden administrations, the difference has not been as much as, as what we see right now. What we see right now that they’re doing is they’re using fear in our communities. They’re trying to use tactics that are creating concern and fear within the immigrant community in in our state, in our nation. And also, I’m of the opinion that one day, one day we’re going to get to the bottom of what happened with all the supposed migrant happening during the Biden administration. I’m of the opinion that this seems to me to be too organized.
Donnis: Let me stop you there because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. You campaigned last year for President Biden in Las Vegas in Philadelphia. You were an enthusiastic cheerleader for the president on social media. I wonder if Democratic voters should be upset in your view, due to how the president’s inner circle really covered up his declining capacity that became very evident in a disastrous debate performance.
Lt. Gov. Matos: You know, I disagree with that. I have always been a supporter of President Biden to the end. I don’t know if you remember I was some of the few individuals here in the state of Rhode Island that were still saying that we needed to continue to have President Biden at the top of the ticket. I honestly believe that there was not enough time for us to switch candidates and to be able to be successful. It was already too late, so I would have been okay having President Biden being at the top of the ticket.
Donnis: You don’t think he would’ve lost by an even wider margin than Kamala Harris?
Lt. Gov. Matos: I don’t think so, because what I think what we did with Vice President Harris, we gave her a really challenging task with this short period of time trying to bring everybody together.
Donnis: Okay, we’re going to move on. You’ve drawn attention to the issue of food deserts, how some communities don’t have markets or fresh produce, and how supermarkets often use restrictive covenants to keep real estate locked up that otherwise might become a supermarket. I would imagine that supermarkets are actively lobbying against efforts to change the approach. Do you have any confidence that the legislation you’re supporting to address this issue will pass the General assembly this year?
Lt. Gov. Matos: The legislation has been received well. I’ve been having conversations with the members of the General Assembly. I’ve been having conversation with the leadership in the Senate. I have, going to be getting together with the Speaker. And as we talk to the members of the General Assembly and explain the bills, I’m getting very good feedback from them. I can tell you there’s one in particular, which is the restricted covenant. What happens is right now a supermarket, a big chain, especially those that ha owns 40% of the market here in the state of Rhode Island have the power that they can go into a community and buy buildings around them and put a restricted covenant prohibiting another grocery store from going there. Or moving out of their location and when they move, they put this restricted covenant that another grocery store cannot go there. That’s hurting our community. That’s why you see buildings empty for years and you don’t understand what’s going on most of the times, that’s the problem.
Donnis: You’ve been Lieutenant Governor since 2021. If this is an important issue, how come you didn’t take this up sooner and before your controversial bid for Congress in 2023?
Lt. Gov. Matos: Well, I took the issue as soon as I learned about it, honestly. And as you can see, and I have been speaking with others in the state of Rhode Island. Not many people were aware of this issue. I have been working since my role as Lieutenant Governor started, I have been working actually with the independent supermarkets trying to bring new investors to the state of Rhode Island. The National Supermarket Associations has a group of investors that want to come to the state of Rhode Island, and what we found is the challenge when we go into a community that we’re trying to open new grocery stores, and they were finding this challenge that the buildings that they could use had that restricted covenant. So as soon as I learned about this issue I’ve been working on it.
Donnis: We’re talking here with Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos, and you are a Providence resident and former president of the Providence City Council. I’m sure you have an opinion about how Brett Smiley, the mayor of Providence, is seeking to balance the budget by raising the city’s tax levy. Do you support or oppose that as a Providence resident?
Lt. Gov. Matos: Well, I approved the action that was taken by the general assembly by the house this week. They passed the legislation to give the city of Providence, the mayor, and the members of the city council, the flexibility to present a balanced budget. This legislation doesn’t automatically say that the taxes are going to be increased or doesn’t say for how much, but it gives the city the flexibility to be able to explore the different options.
Donnis: You’re no stranger to how Providence has struggled for many years to generate enough revenue. Part of the problem is how tax exempt institutions occupy a lot of real estate. What can the city do to get out of this cycle of having to rub pennies to gather, to try and balance the budget?
Lt. Gov. Matos: I think part of what I’ve been doing is I have been, especially when I speak with other communities, I have realized that not everyone in the state of Rhode Island understands that the city of Providence, more than 40% of the land doesn’t pay taxes because, as you mentioned, it’s either hospitals, university government buildings. Not everybody understands that. Not everybody understands that Providence is not able to raise taxes from their communities, like other communities are able to do it.
Donnis: Sure, so what do you do about that?
Lt. Gov. Matos: Well, a lot of education with other communities to understand that. Because at the end of the day, the city of Providence is providing those services that is bringing payroll taxes to the state of Rhode Island, creating jobs, opportunity. And we need to educate the rest of the state of Rhode Island so they understand the contributions that the city makes for the state.
Donnis: Are you 100% committed to running for reelection next year?
Lt. Gov. Matos: A hundred percent committed to running for reelection.
Donnis: How about Governor Dan McKee? He says he’s planning to run for reelection, but there’s some question about whether he will. What do you expect?
Lt. Gov. Matos: He’s running for reelection. The information I have, the conversation I’ve had with him is that he’s running for reelection.
Donnis: And this week, attorney General Peter Noona outlined a series of initiatives meant to address the state’s healthcare crisis. He’s the state’s most vocal official about this. Why is it him rather than the governor or perhaps the governor combined with you?
Lt. Gov. Matos: Well, the governor presented his plan for healthcare. I know there has been disagreement on, on what the governor presented with the Attorney General. I think that the governor is working really hard, trying his best to address the challenges. The Attorney General is free to present his his view and share his opinion like anybody else.
Donnis: You’re working with the state health department on an Alzheimer’s disease plan. What difference has that made?
Lt. Gov. Matos: So it’s an implementation of our plan. We already have our five year plan on Alzheimer’s. So now we’re implementing the plan of implementation. This is part of the work that my office does, working closely with the Alzheimer Association and others parties are interested in this topic. And honestly, when we announced the plan, I got a lot of feedback from people in the community saying, thank you so much for talking about this. There’s so many individuals are being affected by Alzheimer’s. They could have a relative or know someone that is being going through those challenges. So I’m very happy about the plan that we are putting together to implement it.
Donnis: That’s all the time we have, so I need to leave it there. Lieutenant Governor Sabina Mattos, thank you very much for joining us.
Lt. Gov. Matos: Thank you, Ian.
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Everyone talks about Rhode Island’s healthcare crisis, but no one does anything about it. Or so it seemed at least until this week. You can read more about that in my Friday TGIF column, posting by 4 this afternoon on X, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook and at the publicsradio.org/TGIF. That’s it for our show. Political Roundtable is a production of The Public’s Radio. Our producer is James Baumgartner. Our editor is Alex Nunes. I’m Ian Donnis, and I’ll see you on the radio.
