As it stands, the GOP holds just 14 of 113 seats in the General Assembly, and the last Republican to become governor was Don Carcieri back in 2006. Can the local GOP increase its appeal to Rhode Islanders? Do Republicans have a better approach for getting to the bottom of what went wrong with the bridge? And can they spell out what they would cut to restrain state spending? I’m Ian Donnis and this week I’m going in depth with the Republican leader in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, Mike Chippendale of Foster.
Transcript
Ian Donnis: Welcome back to The Public’s Radio.
Mike Chippendale: Thanks for having me, Ian.
Donnis: The issue that the state has been obsessed with since December is clearly the Washington Bridge. What letter grade would you give to Governor McKee for his handling of the issue?
Chippendale: Oh, I don’t know if we have enough information to grade, his handling at this point. You know, obviously, extreme measures had to be taken when we all learned of this and, you know, what was done had to be done. How we got there is really where we are now. I will feel more comfortable grading, the governor or anyone else for that matter, once we learn exactly what’s going on, because we’re very much in the dark on how we got to where we are with that bridge.
Donnis: And more information about how things degraded from last summer to December is expected in the weeks ahead. If you were running the state, is there anything that you would’ve done differently on this issue up to now than Governor McKee?
Chippendale: Yeah, sure, certainly. I mean, you’ve heard it before and you’re gonna hear it again. The Inspector General is something that we’ve been promoting for a while, years, and in this particular case, had we an independent office of the Inspector General, I don’t believe we’d ever have gotten to the point where the bridge had to be shut down. But now that we are here, we have to follow everything where it goes. I am looking largely at the inspection process and the integrity of it, and hopefully we’ll figure out how to avoid this.
Donnis: The bridge is not the only political headwind currently for Governor McKee. He’s been on the receiving end of some unflattering headlines about the Pawtucket soccer arena. We’ve seen how the 27 million cost of creating that arena is going to translate into 132 million. It has to be paid back over 30 years. I wonder if the soccer arena combined with the bridge, is this going to combine into any kind of unified message or campaign for Republicans as they try to win more legislative seats this year.
Chippendale: There’s no question that they will. Each of them. One’s a failure of leadership. The other one, you know, he, with the governor casting the deciding vote, which pushed us over the slippery slope edge on this one. there will absolutely be campaign issues. There’s no question about it.
Donnis: Beyond that, what is the plan for trying to increase Republican ranks in the legislature and elections this year?
Chippendale: Yeah, I, I think we’re going to continue to work on the issues that people care about most, which right now we’re talking about taxes. We have healthcare as a major issue. We’re working very closely with the business community. But what we’re also doing is reminding Rhode Island voters that they have for a very long time been supporting a one party state, which is 100 percent majority in the general offices and the 87 percent majority in the legislature. And we’re going to tie it to things like the bridge. And we want people to think about that when they’re sitting in traffic. And we want people to think about that when they’re sitting in the emergency room, waiting at a 600 percent increased time just to be seen by a doctor. These are from the people you voted for. These are the people who are running the state. These are the people who have created the problems that you’re dealing with every single day. Maybe, just maybe you can put on your big boy pants and vote for a Republican once and see if it doesn’t kill you.
Donnis: You gave the Republican response to Governor McKee’s budget address last month. And one of your points was that Democrats in your view have not done enough to restrain spending. You say the next proposed budget should be more like 11 and a half billion dollars rather than the roughly $14 billion proposed by McKee. So what specifically would you cut to get the $14 billion budget down to about 11 and a half billion dollars?
Chippendale: So just to be clear, at first, the 11 is the baseline. We still have federal pass through monies that are in there, which will bump it up considerably closer to the 13 a half billion. And we’ve had this conversation here before. There’s no light switch. There’s nothing that we can just say. We’re gonna cut that and fix the problem. Rhode Island is like a cruise ship. It’s like an ocean liner. You can’t stop it on a dime. You can’t turn it on a dime. We did not get in this horrible fiscal condition overnight. We will not get out of this horrible fiscal position overnight. We have to change the way we do things. We have to change the things we focus on where we spend the monies, where we don’t spend the monies. That will be a slow process, but people have to first realize that what we’re doing now does not work.
Donnis: One of your other points was that the state’s energy policy is flawed in your view and that the goals in the Act on Climate are more idealistic than realistic. We see even in how non-coastal communities now, when there’s a heavy rainfall, storm drains can be overwhelmed. I see that in my home community of East Providence. Maybe you see that in your community of Foster. Given your concerns about the state’s energy policy, what is the approach right now for mitigating the effects of climate change?
Chippendale: So, first of all, I do not conflate, and I won’t allow it to be conflated, the two issues. Climate change versus our energy policy are two different things. I don’t want to hear about the, you know, climate denier stuff that folks automatically knee jerk to when they get criticized on their ridiculous proposals. The Act on Climate is not realistic, period. We have people right now in my district, throughout the entire state, who are seeing one, two, three, four, five hundred dollar increases per month in their electricity bills. With the Act on Climate as we passed it, we took out all of the guardrails where PUC and other entities could constrain these ridiculous prices that people just can’t afford.
Donnis: PUC is the Public Utilities Commission.
Chippendale: Yes, the Public Utilities Commission. We took away their power to put the brakes on reckless sourcing of power, which is what we’re doing. We’re telling the energy companies, you have to buy from these sources. And those sources are very expensive right now. There’s no way for them to not buy from them. So when people see their bills go up, they get angry at the PUC. Why don’t you stop it? PUC cannot stop it. We took any power away from them with the Act on Climate to do that. We’re going to try to right some of those wrongs, add a little bit of sanity into this. We’re not, we’re not going to gut the act on climate again. We’re going to be the adults in the room and we’re going to say, sometimes you can’t do things that are impossible. So we’re going to take a more measured approach. The bills, when they come out, I think anyone who looks at them seriously will realize that they aren’t gutting. They aren’t an about face or a 180. They’re just a realistic addition to an unrealistic bill.
Donnis: Let’s switch gears and talk a little bit about some national politics. It looks like the November presidential election could be between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. If that’s what it comes down to, would we be going out on a limb to suspect that you’ll be voting for Donald Trump?
Chippendale: No, I don’t think you’d be going on a limb at all. I mean, just look at where we are right now. I was having this conversation with someone the other day. You know, just five years ago, we had our accounts, our investment accounts were doing fantastic. We were in no wars. You know, prices on everything were down. Yes, we had a guy with a big mouth and who people, it’s easy to hate him and people can’t stand him and all that. Right now, we’re in wars. We’re witnessing a second genocide of Jews. We have seen unfettered illegal immigration into our nation. We have people being beaten to death, stabbed to death, raped, abused in the United States by people who are not here legally, and we have a president looking us in the face and telling us that our border is secure. There is no way in the world. A person with any ounce of sanity could continue to support a Biden presidency.
Donnis: Yeah, there’s a lot there to unpack, but let’s take a little bit of it. Donald Trump urged Republicans not to support a bipartisan compromise on immigration. So is it hypocritical for Republicans to complain about the situation at the Mexican border and at the same time vote against a bipartisan compromise meant to address the issue.
Chippendale: Donald Trump is talking to Republicans in the Senate and in the Congress. So, when you say Republicans, just because someone’s a Republican, he’s not speaking to, I don’t give a crap what Donald Trump tells the Senate and congressional Republicans to do. I don’t listen to Donald Trump. I’m doing what I have to do as a Republican here in the state of Rhode Island.
Donnis: Well, what about that point that there was a bipartisan effort to come to terms with the budget? I think a lot of people would say that it’s been a bipartisan failure of government to deal with immigration in a real way for, for decades. And here was a bipartisan proposal and the former president urged Republicans not to support it. Is that kind of not, does that not add up?
Chippendale: It doesn’t add up, but neither does it add up that there’s a proposal that’s been in the Senate that’s just been sitting there doing nothing. You know, I mean, this, the same gamesmanship goes back and forth. DC is the, is two sides of the same coin. They’re both playing games on both sides of the aisle.
Donnis: The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children. That’s caused a lot of uncertainty about the use of IVF for couples trying to conceive children through that method. Do you think that court got that decision right?
Chippendale: I’m not an attorney, I certainly didn’t study the case in Alabama, and Alabama is the furthest thing from my mind.
Donnis: Republicans have been facing blowback in national elections since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Does that show that Republicans have been pushing too hard and too extreme a way on the abortion issue?
Chippendale: Abortion is a settled issue here in Rhode Island. I’m the House Minority Leader in the state of Rhode Island. There’s nothing left to talk about, about abortion in this state.
Donnis: Just to come back to Donald Trump. I think we could agree that Joe Biden is a relatively standard politician. He’s got his accomplishments and his shortcomings. Donald Trump is more of an outlier. He’s the only president to oppose the peaceful transition of power. He faces 91 felony charges. Try to unpack for us if you would why so many Republicans support Trump. In view of these blemishes on his record.
Chippendale: Well, I’ll push back just a little on that. Just look at the 16 and the 20 presidential map. Look at the state of Rhode Island and how it voted in towns like Johnston, North Providence. These are Democratic bastions all voted for Donald Trump. [North Providence preferred Joe Biden over Donald Trump, 56% to 42.3% in 2020, and Hillary Clinton over Trump, 54.4% to 38.9%, in 2016]. He doesn’t appeal to just Republicans. I think his appeal is to people who are sick and tired of politicians, mealy mouthed politicians who get on there and just swap power back and forth and play nice with each other. This was a guy who people sent down there in 2016 to knock furniture around and change the way things are done. And I think that’s the attraction to Donald Trump. I don’t think it necessarily belongs to a particular party. Go to Johnston. There hasn’t been a Republican elected in Johnston since like I think 1984 when I used to live there. But that town overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump twice and I guarantee you they will again. That is not a Republican or a Democrat thing. That is a people are sick and tired of politicians putting their hands in their back pockets while lying to their face.
Donnis: Let’s come back to Rhode Island for one final question. Republicans haven’t won the governor’s office since 2006. What’s the plan to try and retake the governor’s office in 2026?
Chippendale: Identify an outstanding candidate that can beat whoever the Democrats put forward. It’s really that simple. I don’t know who that candidate is, but hopefully there will be one.
Donnis: All right, the Republican leader in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, Mike Chippendale of Foster. Thank you very much for joining us.
Chippendale: Thanks for having me Ian.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
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State employee pensions were once the third rail of Rhode Island politics. That changed in 2011, when Gina Raimondo, general treasurer at the time, spearheaded a pension overhaul. Raimondo shifted the equation by emphasizing how the pension had less than half of the money needed to meet its obligations. 13 years later, retirees remain angry about the overhaul and its effect during a time of high inflation. But it’s unclear if the General Assembly will do anything to address their complaints. You can read more about that in my Friday TGIF column posting around 4 this afternoon on what used to be known as Twitter @IanDon and at thepublicsradio.org.
That’s our show for this week. Our producer is James Baumgartner.
I’m Ian Donnis and I’ll see you on the radio.