The Rhode Island House of Representatives is on a collision course for a leadership fight.
Rep. Liana Cassar (D-Barrington) signaled that when she told The Public’s Radio last week that she’s among a group of reps considering a run for speaker.
The idea of a freshman lawmaker shooting for the top post in the House might strike some as a stretch. Yet Cassar’s willingness to talk openly about pursuing the speakership also underscores dissatisfaction with the leadership style of House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello (D-Cranston).
It’s unclear for now if Mattiello will return to the House, as he faces a competitive race for reelection as a rep with GOP rival Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung. (Mattiello touts his speakership as a success.) Not surprisingly, the House Republican caucus is keeping its options open.
“Nothing is outside the realm of possibility,” House Minority Leader Blake Filippi tells me. One top Mattiello critic, Rep. Teresa Tanzi (D-South Kingstown), said at least a dozen representatives are considering running for speaker. Tanzi said she thinks Cassar is the best choice, because Cassar has less baggage than lawmakers with more time in office.
If Mattiello loses his rep race, House Majority Leader Joseph Shekarchi (D-Warwick) may remain the favorite to move up. Reps. Gregg Amore (D-East Providence) and Robert Craven (D-North Kingstown) could also be in play in that scenario. The question, then, is whether the roughly 20 dissidents who didn’t back Mattiello for speaker in 2019 could form a winning coalition with Republicans and others to propel Cassar or a different insurgent.
Alternatively, if Mattiello wins reelection in House District 15, would enough of his supporters break away to support someone else for speaker? If so, the idea of someone other than an establishment Democrat leading the House would mark a sharp break with the institutional culture of the chamber. Yet Mattiello’s governing style and the six-year length of his tenure, combined with a buzz of progressive energy, has sparked this moment.
“This has major implications for our entire state,” Tanzi said, since the speaker sets the tone for the level of accountability and transparency in the House, with broad influence over redistricting, the budget, the passage of legislation, and State House hiring and spending.
Across the rotunda, a generational shift is slowing starting to seep into the Rhode Island Senate. While Dominick Ruggerio has a seemingly strong hold on the presidency, he’s among a cohort of senators whose time in the chamber is gradually winding down.
At the same time, the presence of progressive women in the chamber is climbing. That’s the context for Gayle Goldin’s prospective challenge to Ruggerio, as first reported in the ProJo last week.
Goldin tells me she wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t see a path to victory. She said she’s motivated by a vision of running the chamber differently (with more legislative activity during the pandemic, for example) and emphasizing different policies.
At the same time, Goldin declined to specify how many senators support her, and she’s not ruling out a statewide run in 2022 for an office such as secretary of state. “We have to see what happens in the Senate in terms of potential leadership change,” she said.
As we move ever closer to 2022, Brett Smiley’s plans to take a second shot at running for mayor of Providence have hardly been a secret. An Ethics Commission agenda item for Tuesday phrases things more tentatively: “Brett P. Smiley, the Director of the Rhode Island Department of Administration, who is interested in exploring the possibility of running for Mayor of the City of Providence, requests an advisory opinion regarding whether the Code of Ethics prohibits him from soliciting and receiving campaign contributions from persons who are not state employees or vendors.” A number of other candidates are expected to join Smiley in the race.
Rhode Island has now done more than 1 million tests for COVID, and the results continue be concerning. Over the last seven days, the positive rate was 2.27 percent. From an update by Lynn Arditi: “New cases this week climbed to 149 per 100,000 population, the highest since May and well above the 100 new case limit set by the governor when the state moved to Phase 3 of the reopening. However, fewer than half as many COVID-19 patients are currently hospitalized as they were in the spring. As of Friday, the state reported 140 hospitalized, compared with a peak of 377 people at the end of April.”
Short takes from Rep. Cassar’s appearance on Political Roundtable this week:
1) On the absence of legislative sessions as the pandemic continues: “We really have missed out on an opportunity to figure out how to work remotely, how to channel the availability of people to really move the conversation forward. One example: we’ve missed an opportunity as an HEW community to talk about what we can be doing statewide around the pandemic.”
2) Cassar said the legislature needs a new process to allow for more time to consider the final budget.
3) Here’s how the Barrington Democrat defines “fair taxation”: “Taxation that is not a significant burden on any one population. Fair taxes, meaning that the tax breaks that accrue to the wealthy currently, are not tax breaks that are experienced by those who are earning less, whose incomes are barely stretching to meet their needs.”
The serious injuries suffered by Jhamal Gonsalves, who remains in a coma, are making for an ongoing flashpoint between demonstrators and police. My colleague Alex Nunes spent some time with members of the Bike Life community to get their perspective. One rider, who goes by the handle Key, offers this comment: “We’re not doing this to be bad people. We’re doing this because this is what we love. It’s a sport. It’s a hobby. Like, it’s my lifestyle. It’s all I do. If I didn’t have my bike, I don't know where I’d be. That’s what I’m saying. We trying to get people to put guns down and pick bikes up. We got people that ride with us from all types, sides of the city. They got beef with each other. They will kill each other if they weren’t on these bikes. But when we’re on the bikes, they’re not about that. We ride as a group.”
The New York Times reports that a network of 1,300 local web sites, including some in Rhode Island, publish coverage ordered up by Republican groups and corporate PR firms. Excerpt: While these sites “generally do not post information that is outright false, the operation is rooted in deception, eschewing hallmarks of news reporting like fairness and transparency. Only a few dozen of the sites disclose funding from advocacy groups. Traditional news organizations do not accept payment for articles; the Federal Trade Commission requires that advertising that looks like articles be clearly labeled as ads.”
You can count on one hand the number of Rhode Island Republicans, present or former, who have publicly rebuked President Trump. Be that as it may, Michael Steele, a senior fellow at the Watson Institute and a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, this week endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for president.
Ed Yong, who has done great reporting on the pandemic for the Atlantic, is set to deliver a virtual lecture at URI at 5 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 29. From the university: “‘The COVID-19 pandemic has been a generation-defining challenge that has humbled and humiliated the U.S., leaving past vulnerabilities exposed and future possibilities unclear,’ said Yong. ‘In my lecture, I’ll talk about the unique challenges of reporting on this omni-crisis and my approach to pandemic journalism.’ For Yong, the work has been exhausting as he constantly immerses himself in coronavirus news without let up for months. ‘There are too many stories to cover, too many deaths, too much suffering, too little time,’ he said in a June staff profile in The Atlantic. ‘I’ve just published my fifth 5,000-ish-word feature in 10 weeks, and the pace still feels utterly inadequate to the demands of the moment. The stakes are so high. Every day matters.’”
Ian Donnis is the political reporter for The Public’s Radio, Rhode Island’s NPR member station. Listen at 89.3 FM or visit thepublicsradio.org. You can sign up for weekly email delivery of Ian’s column each Friday by following this link: www.lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/PriKkmN/TGIFsignup.
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