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STORY OF THE WEEK: The marquee race in Rhode Island’s primary election on Tuesday is state Rep. Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung’s challenge to Cranston Mayor Ken Hopkins. The GOP race took an unusual turn with the emergence in the last week of a lawsuit alleging that Hopkins gained unauthorized use of a vintage MG sports car without paying for it. Hopkins’ campaign says the lawsuit is without merit, and the timing — with the case emerging shortly before the primary election — is as conspicuous as the case is bizarre. Fenton-Fung has been hammering the lawsuit, the Cranston GOP used a news release to reaffirm its support for Hopkins, and he’s running a TV ad on Fox questioning his rival’s GOP bona fides. On the plus side, the two Republicans have participated in a series of debates, so voters have had the opportunity to hear them discuss a broad range of issues and tangle with one another. One topic during these bouts is the soured relationship between Hopkins and the Fungs, who supported him when the former teacher first ran for mayor in 2020. With Cranston expected to favor Kamala Harris in November, the ultimate beneficiary could be Robert Ferri, the Republican-turned-Democratic candidate.
PRIMARY NIGHT: Fenton-Fung will be at Asia Grille at Garden City, while Hopkins will be at St. Mary’s Feast Society on Phenix Avenue.
HOUSING: Considering how housing starts in Rhode Island began plummeting decades ago, it would take a long time to make major progress on the housing crisis even under the best of circumstances. But it’s even more difficult when strife continues between statewide officials like House Speaker Joe Shekarchi and local planners in some communities. Both sides have compelling arguments. Charlestown Planner Jane Weidman cites concern about how state mandates could aggravate sensitive environmental areas in the town. On the other hand, as I reported this week, Shekarchi points to the need for action: “Doing nothing got us in this mess. Doing nothing is not going to get us out.” For other stories in our series on how zoning complicates the housing crisis, click here.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY: Eighteen primaries — far fewer than in recent election cycles — are set to be decided Tuesday, in a year marked by a lack of competition for legislative races. Here are some of the key races to watch among the eight Senate and 10 House primaries.
Senate District 4 – Lenny Cioe makes his third attempt to oust Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, who remains the favorite despite missing parts of last session due to various health issues.
Senate District 20 – Three candidates, Denis Joseph Collins, Marian Juskuv and Brian J. Thompson, are vying for the seat being vacated by longtime Sen. Roger Picard (D-Woonsocket).
Senate District 25 – The vacancy created by the death this year of Sen. Frank Lombardo (D-Johnston) has sparked a three-way battle between Richard J. Delfino III, Andrew R. Dimitri, and Pamela Leary. Leary has the endorsement of the RI Building and Construction Trades Council.
Senate District 28 – Five Democrats are competing for the seat being vacated by longtime Sen. Josh Miller, and most of them have a chance of winning. Darrèll A. Brown of the Conservation Law Foundation’s RI office has the endorsement of U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse; Melissa Carden has a lot of signs in the district and can count on support from gun-safety backers due to her work with the Rhode Island Coalition Against Gun Violence; Cranston City Council VP Lammis Vargas touts a series of labor endorsements, including the RI Laborers District Council and Teamsters, Local 251; Bernice Morris, as the senior director of Crossroads RI, emphasizes housing; and John F. Croke Jr., a veteran and systems analyst at Providence College, is also in the hunt.
House District 9 – No legislative race has faced more charges and counter-charges this year than the tilt between Rep. Enrique Sanchez, one of the most left members of the legislature, his predecessor, Anastacia (formerly Anastasia) Williams, and Santos Javier Santos, who is being aided by Providence GOP activist Dave Talan.
House District 11 – Rep. Grace Diaz (D-Providence), who first won election in 2004, fueled by a story about coming to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic with $40, two dresses and no understanding of English, faces a challenge from Tania M. Quezada.
House District 14 – Rematch between Rep. Charlene Lima (D-Cranston), one of the longest-serving members of the House and progressive challenger Giona Picheco. While Lima has been a durable vote-getter, an X factor to watch is the extent to which conservative independents choose to vote in Cranston’s GOP mayoral primary.
House District 16 – Rep. Brandon Potter (D-Cranston), who was bounced from the RI Political Cooperative for supporting Joe Shekarchi during a 2020 caucus, faces a challenge from Joseph R. Graziano, seemingly because of Senate leadership’s pique about Potter’s commentary on an e-gambling bill.
House District 37 – Rep. Samuel Azzinaro (D-Westerly), faces a progressive challenge from Jonathan Daly-LaBelle. While Daly-LaBelle hopes to capitalize on the more liberal pool of primary voters, Azzinaro — despite some views that contrast with Democrats’ orthodoxy — is well-liked, respected for his work on veterans’ issues and considered by fans as Mr. Westerly.
House District 42 – All in the Family, RI-style. In a rematch, Rep. Edward T. Cardillo Jr. faces a tough fight with his nephew, Dennis D. Cardillo Jr., and Kelsey Coletta, the daughter of House Floor Manager Jay Edwards (D-Tiverton). Coletta is being backed by labor and has a solid shot of winning, but a tougher battle with a GOP candidate looms in November.
House District 51 – The musical chairs primary. Rep. Robert Phillips (D-Woonsocket) announced for mayor and then reversed course when it appeared that staying in the House was a better choice. Garrett S. Mancieri, a councilor in Woonsocket, had announced for the House seat by then and declined to back out.
House District 58 – Pawtucket Mayor Don Grebien is pushing hard for Elizabeth Moreira, who is challenging Rep. Cherie Cruz (D-Pawtucket), a well-liked progressive.
House District 64 – Jenni Azanero Furtado and Ashley L. Pereira compete for the seat being vacated by Rep. Brianna Henries (D-East Providence). In a 2022 primary, Henries beat Pereira by 132 votes.
GOOD GOVERNMENT: Here are some highlights from my Political Roundtable interview with John Marion, who has led Common Cause of RI since 2008.
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION: Marion sees merit to arguments on both sides: “I think it is a way to get around the legislature when we don’t have voter initiative like about half the states, but there are real threats to our civil rights and civil liberties if they’re put on the ballot and subjected to a majority vote.” Common Cause is not taking a stance since his board is divided on the issue.
COMPETITION: To attract more candidates for legislative races — about half of which are going uncontested — Marion favors an independent redistricting commission and publicly financed elections.
GRAFT: Are more misdeeds occurring in parts of Rhode Island that get less media scrutiny than in the past? “There’s actually empirical evidence. There are political scientists who’ve looked at where the media deserts occur in the United States and seen an increase in corruption. I think that it’s hard for us to say that it’s happening in Rhode Island because we don’t have the media exposing it, so we don’t know what we’re not seeing. But I see stories all the time that I think, boy, if there had been a ProJo bureau in that community, that would be not just a one-day quick story. That would be a week-long story, or that would be a beat reporter covering that for months and getting to the bottom of that. And that’s a real problem for democracy.”
WASHINGTON BRIDGE: State Sen. Sam Zurier (D-Providence) is expressing concern that the full story of what went wrong with the bridge — and how — might remain untold even with the state’s lawsuit against a host of companies that worked on it over the years. While Gov. Dan McKee said legal discovery will expose “any management issues that need to be addressed” on behalf of the state, Zurier is not so certain. “Civil discovery documents start out as ‘public’ in the sense that they can be disclosed by the parties, but only if they choose to do so,” Zurier wrote in a message to his email list this week. “Even worse, it is common in complex civil litigation for the parties to ask the Court to enter a protective order that prevents disclosure until after the conclusion of the lawsuit (and possibly even after that). This is exactly what happened with the 38 Studios case, where the public did not learn the role and responsibility of State officials until the civil case settled, years after the fiasco took place.”
Following up on a previous letter, Zurier is urging Attorney General Peter Neronha “to apply his policy of open government to his role as co-counsel for the State in the Washington Bridge litigation. The letter asks him to set up a website that contains all of the pleadings, motions and non-privileged discovery materials from the Washington Bridge lawsuit, and to object to any attempts to cloak those materials in a protective order.”
GEORGE NEE: The outgoing president of the RI AFL-CIO has been the local face of organized labor for a long time. While Patrick Crowley revealed last year that he would eventually move up, Nee made his retirement, effective Oct. 11, official this week. Here’s an excerpt from his parting message: “Our organization has been, is now, and will be in the future, a force for economic and social justice for all the workers in our state. We are the strongest countervailing force that stands up to the power of the business community with the goal of having a level playing field. We are truly the people’s lobby. The legislation and issues for which we advocate improve the lives of all workers in our state. We believe that there can be no democracy unless there is a vibrant free trade union movement. The way we have lived up to that ideal in Rhode Island is our commitment to participate in our democracy. We encourage union members to run for political office at every level. We have a process to endorse candidates based on labor issues. We mobilize voter registration efforts. We engage our members in assisting in our endorsed candidates’ campaigns, and we hold elected leaders accountable.”
VOTING INTEGRITY: The Rhode Island GOP is taking a page from its national party by stating its own election integrity program, reports Nancy Lavin. RI GOP Chairman Joe Powers shared this observation in the story: “There have been numerous times where I have gotten phone calls from people who have questioned a vote, or what happened with their mail ballots. I’d rather have people in place to specifically handle this.” This unfolds as Donald Trump continues to emphasize a false narrative about voting as part of his campaign. In the run-up to the 2022 election, Power’s predecessor, Sue Cienki, now the RI GOP National Committeewoman, encouraged voters with doubts about the election process to get more involved. “Participate,” she told me as part of a story I did on election deniers in RI. “You can be a poll watcher, you can be a poll worker, I know [the state Board of Elections] is looking for people to help, and I think once they do, they will have more confidence in election integrity, election security, once they’re involved in the process. So anybody that has concern, jump up and help.”
LIVE/WORK: A quarter-century has passed since the beginning of the end of Fort Thunder, a fertile incubator that put Providence’s creative underground on the international map. Here’s a look at how old mill buildings played a key role in developing the arts scene here in the ‘90s.
KICKER: EcoRI, which boasts a six-person staff and is an important source of environmental news in Rhode Island, is celebrating its 15th birthday next Thursday. Huzzah!
