Rhode Island
It’s election season in Rhode Island once again. These are the storylines to watch.
PROVIDENCE – Comeback bids. Family feuds. At least two cops, past and present, on the hunt for legislative seats, including a major in the Cranston police department with a colorful history. And a re-run of the election-year political drama Cioe V. Ruggerio.
With a deadline of 4 p.m. Wednesday to declare candidacy, it appeared that as many as 20 seats in the 38-member Senate might go uncontested, and as many as many as 45 in the 75-member House. As of mid-day, the GOP had only mustered 35 candidates for the 113 legislative seats up for grabs this year.
Next step: the candidates need to gather enough signatures on nominating papers to qualify for the ballot.
Races to watch:
Cioe V. Ruggerio: Lenny Cioe came within 341 votes the first time he challenged Senate President Dominick Ruggerio for his seat, representing Senate District 4 on the Providence-North Providence line, and he actually beat him in some precincts.
A registered nurse, Cioe was the progressive running under the banner of the Rhode Island Political Cooperative against an old school conservative-Democrat in his 70’s.
In 2022, Ruggerio took his challenge more seriously, knocking on doors in his home district in 90-degree heat with a reminder he’d welcome every vote.
Ruggerio acknowledged he won’t be knocking on doors this year as he undergoes treatment for cancer. His health issues left him unable to attend Senate sessions for over a month late in the season.
Shekarchi v. Traversie: House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi is facing Dana Traversie, the same Republican challenger he beat 60%-40% two years ago.
Other rematches to watch for:
Several defeated former lawmakers want their seats back.
They include former Rep. Justin Price, the Richmond Republican who took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Price acknowledged on social media that he marched to the Capitol, but said he didn’t enter the building and blamed those affiliated with “Antifa” and “Black Lives Matter” for the violence.
Price is challenging Rep. Megan Cotter, the Democrat who beat him two years ago in House District 39 overlapping Exeter, Hopkinton, and Richmond.
Former Rep. Jean Philippe Barros is seeking to recapture the House District 59 seat, representing Pawtucket, that he lost to Rep. Jennifer Stewart.
Former Rep. James McLaughlin of Cumberland initially declared his candidacy for both a Senate seat and House and the House District 57 seat, representing Cumberland and Central Falls, that he lost to Rep. Brendan Voas – a cousin of Senate Majority Leader Ryan Pearson – two years ago. He filed but then withdrew his candidacy for Pearson’s Senate District 19 seat.
McLaughlin – who cannot run for both seats and will ultimately have to make a choice – was one of the most conservative Democrats in the House and is best remembered for carrying a painting of Jesus with him to House sessions to signal his views on abortion. He filed to run for both seats as an independent.
Former Rep. Bernard Hawkins, a pro-gun Democrat who voted against three major gun safety bills in 2022, is seeking to regain the Glocester-Smithfield House District 53 seat he lost two years ago to Republican Brian Rea, who is not seeking reelection.
After some teasing, Former Woonsocket Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt put out a statement Wednesday afternoon saying she is not running to recapture her old House seat.
Family Affairs:
Get ready for a re-run of the Family Feud: The Johnston battle between Rep. Edward T. Cardillo Jr. who won by 83 votes last time out, and his nephew, Dennis Cardillo Jr. is back on.
The two Cardillos will face each other a second time in the Democratic primary for House District 42, which covers a large swath of Johnston and a small piece of Cranston. A third, more progressive Democrat, Kelsey Coletta – the daughter of House Majority Floor Manager Rep. Jay Edwards, has also filed to run again.
Among the highlights from the 2022 race: Rep. Edward Cardillo said he hired a private investigator to conduct surveillance on his nephew to prove he was lying about living in the district, which his nephew denied Dennis Cardillo accusing his uncle of “stalking.”
The backstory: Rep. Cardillo and his brother, Dennis Cardillo, were mired for years in a bitter, highly litigious dispute over the former Cardillo Bros. scrapyard.
Open seats:
House District 15: With Republican Rep. Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung running for Cranston mayor against incumbent Ken Hopkins, Democrat Maria Bucci, who ran and lost to Hopkins four years ago, is seeking Fenton-Fung’s House District 15 seat. Republican Christopher Paplauskas, a Cranston councilman who is a close ally of Hopkins, is also running.
Senate District 26: Cranston Police Major Todd Patalano is one of the three candidates vying for the seat held by Sen. Frank Lombardi, who is not seeking reelection. Patalano is running as a Democrat; Jennifer Caputi as a Republican.
Patalano was placed on paid leave for two years and then promoted in the wake of a scandal – during then-Mayor Allan Fung’s tenure – involving the issuing of parking tickets in two wards, allegedly in retaliation for votes against a proposed police labor contract by the councilmen who represent those wards.
House District 21: With Rep. Camille Vella-Wilkinson bowing out, current Democratic Warwick City Councilman James McElroy is running. (His daughter, Kelly McElroy, is the chief judge of the Warwick Municipal Court.)
House District 26: With Republican Rep. Patricia Morgan seeking the GOP nod to run for the U.S. Senate, Democrat Earl Read, a retired Warwick police officer and current public school teacher; Republican Jeffrey Fisher; and Vin Marzullo, running as an Independent, are vying for the seat.
House District 64: With Rep. Brianna Henries not seeking reelection, two other Democrats have filed to run for her seat: current East Providence School Committee Chairwoman Jenni Furtado and Ashley Pereira.
Pereira agreed earlier this year to pay a $1,500 fine by July for breaches of campaign finance rules when she last ran for the seat in 2022, including use of campaign dollars for personal expenses; failures to report other expenses; and file three quarterly reports, according to a consent agreement with the Board of Elections.
Rhode Island
ACLU of RI sues McKee alleging denial of access to regularly used State House rally area | ABC6
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Attorneys for the ACLU of Rhode Island have filed a lawsuit against RI Governor Dan McKee, alleging the governor’s office explicitly told state and capitol police to bar protesters from accessing the State House rotunda and upper floors.
The rally was planned to take place in the rotunda an hour before McKee’s January 2025 State of the State address.
The event was to be attended by local groups including Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project and by activist Harrison Tuttle.
Tuttle was the President of the now dissolved Rhode Island Black Lives Matter PAC at the time.
The suit claims that Tuttle and fellow protesters arrived to be told that McKee’s office instructed police from letting them enter.
Tuttle was told by police that he in particular was not allowed to enter the areas, according to the suit.
The suit also claims that other people were allowed to access those areas of the State House.
The suit states that the rotunda is commonly used by protesters, and that its entrance was blocked off by capitol and state police.
A sign accompanied the officers that said the rotunda was reserved from 4:30-10 p.m., and the governor’s office didn’t reserve the area until 4:39 p.m., according to records cited by the ACLU of RI.
The protesters were directed by police to the “Bell Room” for their event, which is a less visible area in the back of the State House’s first floor, according to the suit.
The ACLU of RI statement reads in part:
In any event, despite being ‘reserved,’ the rotunda was not used for any purpose during that timeframe. The lawsuit argues that the Governor’s reservation of the space and the Capitol and State Police’s actions were undertaken to stifle the protesters’ exercise of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
Executive director of the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project Eric Hirsch, a participant in the suit stated:
I’ve been advocating for an end to homelessness in Rhode Island for a long time. I was shocked to see the Rotunda at the Statehouse roped off when I arrived for the People’s State of the State rally. I had attended dozens of rallies there over the years. To make matters worse, we were also prevented from getting anywhere near the Governor’s address. We were confined to a lower floor of the Statehouse. This is unacceptable. We have a right to express our view of the Governor’s policies toward people experiencing homelessness.
ABC6 has reached out to the office of Governor Dan McKee for comment in this matter but has not yet heard back.
Rhode Island
RI GOP asking for resident input for upcoming Washington Bridge oversight hearing | ABC6
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Rhode Island Republican leaders are asking for public input ahead of an upcoming oversight hearing on the Washington Bridge forensic report.
The report, recently revealed to have been withheld by Governor Dan McKee at attorneys’ advice, will be the subject of the planned November 13 oversight hearing.
McKee stated that he knew that repairs were needed on the bridge for two years before its December 11, 2023 westbound side closure, but was confident that work was underway.
McKee said that once he was aware the bridge deficiencies were irreparable, he approved the closure.
Rhode Island House Minority Leader Michael Chippendale said in a statement, in part:
Now that the Speaker and Senate President have committed to ‘a thorough and rigorous examination’ of the Washington Bridge failure and have empowered the Joint Oversight Committee to take testimony under oath, Rhode Islanders deserve answers without delay on this on-going administrative disaster.
Residents can contribute questions to the hearing process via email at rigopcaucus@gmail.com.
Rhode Island
Smithfield’s response to anti-Semitic hazing incident is ‘egregious,’ Jewish Alliance says
Do recent GOP text leaks mean extremism is on the rise?
USA TODAY’s Will Carless gives his analysis of recent leaked text messages from Republican Party members that have antisemitic and racist language.
The mother of a Jewish football player told the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island that five Smithfield football players, all seniors, trapped her son in a bathroom and sprayed him with Lysol while yelling anti-Jewish slurs, according to a representative of the alliance.
The Alliance staff member, Stephanie Hague, says the woman told her the entrapment involved a chair pushed against a door, but it wasn’t clear from the woman’s comments if her son was trapped in a bathroom, or in a particular area of a bathroom.
Hague said she could not further clarify the specific circumstances of the Lysol-spraying but as she understood it, the player was exposed to the spray during the entrapment and other hazing.
Did the Smithfield football players use anti-Semitic slurs?
“The reason I am not sharing the slurs is because they are, one, not suitable for print, but also because there is some dispute of exactly the phrasing,” said the Alliance’s president, Adam Greenman.
“But we do know that they were anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic slurs and the incident was witnessed by 20 other football players,” Greenman added.
Hague said that Greenman’s comment is “correct.” She emphasized that she is not a lawyer or police investigator, but as part of her job at the Alliance, she responds to matters of antisemitism.
Greenman said the organization has talked to the student’s mother and to others who witnessed what took place.
“We feel fairly confident that we understand the details of what happened,” he said.
Alliance putting public focus on district’s response to the incident
Hague and Greenman made those comments on Monday, Oct. 27 as the student’s mother and the Jewish Alliance made plans to bring attention to the situation at an anticipated meeting of Smithfield’s school committee.
Both the Alliance and the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center have condemned the school district’s handling of the incident, asserting that five seniors were initially kicked off the team but were then reinstated to the team on Wednesday, Oct. 22.
The players’ return to the team was in time to participate in Friday night’s game against Exeter-West Greenwich/Prout, which the team won 16-6.
On Thursday, Oct. 23, the school district’s Superintendent Dawn Bartz, gave a one-sentence statement in an email seeking comment on the situation: “The disciplinary process has concluded, and we will not be discussing details involving students.”
“The fact that the school district has reversed course on consequences for the students is just egregious,” Greenman said.
“We all know that if a consequence is taken away for something like this, it encourages that behavior moving forward,” he said. “We’re very concerned that the students involved were reinstated. We’re very concerned that it seems like the school district is not taking this seriously.”
Meeting canceled hours after Jewish Alliance encourages public attendance
Later on Monday, it became clear that Smithfield Town Council had canceled its Tuesday, Oct. 28, joint session with the School Committee.
An executive assistant to the town manager in Smithfield confirmed that the meeting had been canceled, noting that there are plans to reschedule the meeting, but no date has been set at this time.
The town clerk later said that based on the volume of queries from members the public and news media, the town determined it needed to move the joint meeting from the Town Council’s chambers to a larger venue, according to Donna Corrao, who is an executive assistant for Town Manager Robert W. Seltzer.
The cancellation came hours after the Alliance sent a press release encouraging the public to attend the meeting to “express your outrage and desire to act” after a “horrific antisemitic hazing incident at Smithfield High School.”
The Alliance had encouraged people to:
- Attend in support and solidarity
- Share brief testimony if you have a strong connection to Smithfield or a compelling personal experience to contribute
- Hold signs and wear pins, which would have been available at the meeting.
-
New York6 days agoVideo: How Mamdani Has Evolved in the Mayoral Race
-
World1 week agoIsrael continues deadly Gaza truce breaches as US seeks to strengthen deal
-
News1 week agoVideo: Federal Agents Detain Man During New York City Raid
-
News1 week agoBooks about race and gender to be returned to school libraries on some military bases
-
Technology1 week agoAI girlfriend apps leak millions of private chats
-
Politics1 week agoTrump admin on pace to shatter deportation record by end of first year: ‘Just the beginning’
-
News1 week agoTrump news at a glance: president can send national guard to Portland, for now
-
Business1 week agoUnionized baristas want Olympics to drop Starbucks as its ‘official coffee partner’