In December 2023, the phone calls and emails to House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi came fast and furious, with advocates and lobbyists eager to make their pitches early ahead of the upcoming legislative session.

This year: silence.

Hasbro Inc. has yet to ask for any kind of tax break or policy change that could keep the century-old Ocean State fixture from moving its local headquarters to Massachusetts. No word from the developers of the “Superman” building, despite news reports of its request for additional funding from the city of Providence for the $220 million project. Not even a peep from the grassroots advocacy groups whose perennial demands for payday lending reform or an assault weapons ban remain unmet.

“I think even the advocates are getting it this year,” Shekarchi said in an interview on Dec. 16. “They still want their priorities, yes, but they know we don’t have the money. It just doesn’t exist.”

A structural deficit estimated at $330 million in the latest forecasts and revenue reports from state budget-crunchers looms large as the start of the 2025 legislative session approaches, weighing heavily on Shekarchi, who as House Speaker controls the purse strings for the state’s fiscal 2026 budget.

“The budget is the number one priority, not even close,” Shekarchi, a Warwick Democrat, said. 

The tough financial times staring down Rhode Island lawmakers are no surprise. A combination of state spending that has outpaced revenue combined with the expiration of the federal pandemic aid that cushioned state coffers in recent years is well-documented.

Perhaps the biggest shock when the gavel bangs on Jan. 7, marking the start of the 2025 legislative session, comes from Senate President Dominick Ruggerio.

Ruggerio reinvented? 

Fresh off a challenge from Sen. Ryan Pearson, his former right-hand man turned political foe, Ruggerio said he is “ready to rock and roll” in January. He’s still seeing a half-dozen doctors for various illnesses, including cancer and shingles, which kept him away from the State House for large chunks of the 2024 session.

“My doctors are pleased with my progress, and if they’re pleased with my progress, I am pleased with my progress,” he said in a Dec. 17 interview.

Gun safety advocates will be pleased that the North Providence Democrat may be more open to a state-level ban on assault-style weapons than in his past four decades as a state lawmaker. Ruggerio has historically deferred to federal policy on assault weapons.

This year?

“Am I supportive of it? I can’t say I am, and I can’t say I am not,” he said. “I want to see what the temperature is in the chamber. I’ll take a look at it.”

Ruggerio was quick to dismiss the notion that he was becoming more progressive, but acknowledged he was generally more open.

Perhaps it’s because Gov. Dan McKee has already indicated an assault weapons ban is one of his priorities this year. Or maybe it’s the influence of Ruggerio’s new no. 2: Sen. Val Lawson.

Lawson, an East Providence Democrat, was elected by Senate Democrats as majority leader in a November caucus, replacing Pearson. She’s more progressive than Ruggerio or Pearson on some issues, including assault weapons; Lawson co-sponsored the Senate version of an assault weapons ban in 2024, though the bill never advanced out of committee.

Ruggerio’s potential acquiescence on stricter gun measures doesn’t translate into support for a tax on the state’s top earners. He denounced a millionaire’s tax as “foolish,” stressing the importance of attracting new residents to the Ocean State, including from Massachusetts, which began a 4% surtax on income over $1 million in 2023.

“A lot of them are leaving Massachusetts to come here because they’re getting whacked over there,” Ruggerio said. “I want them to come here, and I think we have an opportunity to do that.”

Shekarchi maintained he was “not ruling anything out,” including a Rhode Island version of a millionaire’s tax. But, he did not anticipate more tax relief on the immediate horizon.

“I think we’d be lucky if we can preserve what we already have,” Shekarchi said.

Playing games with Hasbro

Shekarchi led the charge to keep Citizens Bank rooted in Rhode Island last year, propelling a tax rewrite for the local financial institution through both chambers in the final days of the 2024 session. His approach with Hasbro has been far less aggressive, despite the Pawtucket-based toy and gaming company’s ongoing talks with Massachusetts officials to relocate across state lines.

“My role is a supporting role,” Shekachi said. “The governor is driving the bus.”

The key difference between Hasbro and Citizens? Citizens asked for the tax change, submitting legislation and spending $25,000 on an extra lobbyist in the final month of the 2024 session. Hasbro hasn’t hired a state lobbyist or made any ask of the state, policy or funding-wise, as of mid-December, Shekarchi said.

Both he and Ruggerio seemed unsure the state could persuade the global gaming empire to stay.

“Hasbro is a company that’s in transformation,” Shekarchi said. “It’s not the old GI Joe, Monopoly company that it used to be. Hasbro has told us the two biggest things they’re looking for is recruitment and retention of gaming talent, and a lot of these gamers are coming from Singapore, Hong Kong and the West Coast, so they want to be able to have easy access to the West Coast. We don’t have easy access through Green [airport]. These younger people want a lot of other amenities that apparently seem to be more available for them in Boston than in Providence.”

Ruggerio’s take: “I don’t think there’s anything cast in concrete right now. I think it’s just throwing ideas out there. But you never know. Tomorrow the whole situation might turn around. It worries me, yes.”

Ruggerio also frets over the fate of CVS Health, including its Woonsocket headquarters, amid recent, nationwide layoffs and shakeups in company leadership. CVS executives maintained an interest in staying in Rhode Island. Ruggerio’s not totally convinced.

“I can read between the lines,” he said.

Healing a broken health care system

Ruggerio is laser-focused on the prospect of a new, state medical school, which a Senate legislative study panel created last year has begun exploring.

“I think we’re looking to do something, something concrete with the medical school this session,” Ruggerio said. “Basically, we’re trying to find out if it’s feasible for us to go forward. There are other schools in the vicinity, so we’re looking to see if that’s the right move for us to make, but we need to feel that it’s very important, especially because we lack primary care providers.”

Increasing state reimbursement rates for primary care providers also tops Ruggerio and Lawson’s 2025 priority list, having already authorized higher rates for certain Medicaid providers in behavioral and mental health care as part of the fiscal 2025 budget.

Shekarchi, too, acknowledged the need for more competitive physician pay as a potential solution to the primary care shortage. But he’s lukewarm about anything that comes with a big price tag, which both reimbursement rate hikes and a state medical school carry.

“Everything requires money, so we are going to do our best,” said Shekarchi.

He suggested easing licensing laws to make it easier for doctors from other countries to practice in Rhode Island, along with loan forgiveness for recent medical school graduates who commit to practice in Rhode Island.

As for a state medical school, Shekarchi wants one focused on osteopathic medicine to avoid competing with Brown University’s Warren Alpert School of Medicine.

On both sides of the rotunda, lawmakers agree on the need to bolster state services for Medicaid-eligible children with mental and behavioral health diagnoses. The longstanding crisis came to a head last year, with a series of state and federal investigative reports, and later, a federal class action lawsuit, laying bare the problems of abuse, neglect and lack of local services available for the state’s most vulnerable children and their families.

Concrete policy solutions to the complex, and costly, problem remain hazy, though a pair of judges in Rhode Island Family Court have floated a proposal to buy the now-shuttered St. Mary’s Home for Children in North Providence, Shekarchi said. Ruggerio, whose district includes St. Mary’s, said he had not heard of the idea.

Lexi Kriss, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Judiciary, was not able to share more details about the proposal as of mid-December.

The road ahead for the Washington Bridge

Shekarchi waved away questions about legislative oversight hearings over the December cyberattack on RIBridges, the state’s public benefits and health insurance marketplace platform, which have potentially compromised thousands of Rhode Islanders’ personal information. The situation was too early and rapidly evolving to call for oversight hearings yet, Shekarchi said.

But within the first month of the year, he wants to call back the transportation officials and contractors involved in the Washington Bridge debacle. A joint oversight hearing was held by both chambers in February 2023, a few months after the westbound highway was abruptly closed due to structural deficiencies.

Subsequent chapters of the infrastructure saga include elongating timelines and rising costs in the demolition and eventual rebuild. State officials don’t expect to even choose which of the two finalists bidding to rebuild the replacement bridge will get the job until June. Shekarchi wants answers now, specifically on cost and timeline.

Senate leaders expressed support for oversight hearings on both the bridge and the cyberattack.

“These are both issues that impact people personally,” Senate Majority Leader Val Lawson said. “In both cases, it warrants asking questions.”

One potential glimmer of good news on the bridge front, at least in terms of paying for it: a Dec. 6 ruling by a federal appeals court suggests the state may be able to restart its truck toll program. Adding gantries to state highways to charge fees to heavy trucks was critical to then-Gov. Gina Raimondo’s 2016 RhodeWorks transportation plan, generating nearly $100 million in revenue before it was shut down in September 2022. 

That was when a federal judge ruled the program was unconstitutional in response to a lawsuit filed by trucking groups. Whether the appellate panel’s December decision will stick, and how to turn the affirmation into a new truck toll program has yet to be decided. But both Ruggerio and Shekarchi want to move full-speed ahead, eager to replenish state coffers with new toll money.

And automobile drivers need not fear the state will impose a similar toll on them, at least if Ruggerio has any say over it.

“Over my dead body,” he said.

CRMC & PPSD

Other key questions remain open ended.

Among them: reforming the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC). Advocates, including Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, want to abolish the politically appointed council, reshaping the agency as an administrative one akin to the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM).

Shekarchi, who served on the CRMC before he became a lawmaker, wants instead to require council members to have expertise in land use, environmental science, zoning, and other relevant topics. 

According to Shekarchi, McKee has his own idea: Eliminate the council, and fold the agency into DEM. Olivia DaRocha, a spokesperson for McKee, said in an email on Dec. 18 that the administration has not finalized its proposal. 

State lawmakers have mostly stayed out of the escalating fight, and subsequent $15 million settlement, between the city of Providence and the Rhode Island Department of Education over aid to the Providence Public School District. But Providence Mayor Brett Smiley will need legislative permission if he intends to follow through on his proposal to raise city taxes above the state’s 4% cap next year to afford the agreed-upon payment plan.

Shekarchi and Ruggerio both expressed tentative support.

“As I’ve reminded the mayor, we’re receptive to it, but you have to come here and testify,” Shekarchi said. “And you need to come with a City Council resolution of support.”

The state-controlled city school district was the one topic that made House Majority Leader Christopher Blazejewski break his silence while accompanying Shekarchi for the interview. 

“I don’t think anyone with a straight face can say that the state takeover has met its promise,” Blazejewski, who lives in Providence and whose children attend Providence public schools, said. “There were some improvements in attendance, which are important, and it’s a good thing, but I think the promise was a significant change, and I don’t think that’s been delivered.”

Looking ahead to 2026…

Despite his ample campaign cash — $3.1 million after the Nov. 5 election — Shekarchi isn’t saying much about a potential run for governor in 2026. He chalked up intrigue over the gubernatorial race, which could include McKee and 2022 gubernatorial challenger Helena Buonanno Foulkes, as a story concocted “in the minds of the media.”

Referring back to advice he received from former Attorney General Arlene Violet, Shekarchi said he’s focused on “doing the job” he already has.

“I think we’ve done a pretty good job,” Shekarchi said. “I’m happy and proud of what we’ve done the last four years. I look forward to another two years.”