Follow us on social media:
Rhode Island
With Ruggerio still in the hospital, RI state senators are talking about succession.
Senate President Dominick Ruggerio says he doesn’t want to raise taxes
Ruggerio says he feels better and expects to be at State House all year
PROVIDENCE – With news that Senate President Dominick Ruggerio remains at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital and will be unable to preside over the state Senate for at least one more week, his colleagues are beginning to tiptoe around the rules that govern succession.
The 76-year-old Ruggerio – a political warhorse who has served in the Rhode Island legislature for more than four decades – has given no indication that he plans to step down barely two months after his reelection to the Senate’s top post.
But several of his colleagues openly discussed, and questioned, how the process of choosing his successor would play out during a Monday meeting of the Senate committee that is working on the proposed rules for the 2025-26 session that began on Jan. 7.
The visibly fragile Ruggerio, who in November survived a bid by Democratic colleagues to unseat him, was reelected president on opening day of this year’s legislative session with support from 26 of 38 senators, including all four Republicans.
Eleven Democratic senators, including all nine who voted against Ruggerio in a November caucus, voted “present” that day instead of yea or nay on another term as president for Ruggerio.
How is Ruggerio doing?
Hospitalized since Feb. 19 with what a note to his Senate colleagues called a “touch of pneumonia,” Ruggerio has for the last week been in a rehab unit in the hospital and is expected to remain there through March 12, according to his chief of staff, John Fleming.
He is no longer battling pneumonia, but “everybody’s seen him,” Fleming said.
“He’s fragile, so they are trying to build him up, and he’s in this program and they got him up walking every day. He’s eating like a bear,” Fleming said.
Fleming said the goal of keeping Ruggerio at Fatima is to “put some weight back on him.”
“He’s doing wonderful,” Fleming continued. “I spent two hours with him Saturday talking business. He was very, very alert. He was the best I’ve seen him in a long time. He’s put on some weight, and they figured that they want to keep him there to build him up to stop what he’s been going through.”
With his absence on Tuesday, Ruggerio will have missed four of the eight once-a-week Senate sessions so far this year. Senate President Pro Tempore Hanna Gallo is expected to preside again in his place.
What about succession rules?
Monday’s rules committee conversation ranged from Sen. Jonathan Acosta’s renewed objections to the Senate dress rules to a proposed new rule, which was roundly applauded, to have the Senate post written testimony online as the House has done for several years.
The kudos came from the senators who sit on the rules committee and others, including Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island, who said the House move in this direction has been a tremendous boon to promoting transparency and the public’s right to know.
No votes were taken during Monday’s meeting of Senate Rules, Government Ethics and Oversight, which recessed until Thursday to consider some other tweaks suggested that day.
Acosta broached the Senate president succession question, reading the current rule out loud and noting that it could be interpreted in more than one way.
“To prevent any conflict a year from now, a month [or] God forbid, a week or so from today, I think it’d be better that we address this and agree upon this as a body … so that we have a collective understanding of how to interpret,” Acosta said.
Acosta pointed to lines pertaining to a vacancy in the office of the Senate president.
The current rule says: “Should the office of president become vacant during the session, the president pro tempore shall preside over an election …”
Acosta said he thinks the rules mean that an election for Senate president would be held at the next “regular meeting of this body,” but it could be interpreted as the president pro tempore presiding for an unlimited period of time.
It is not yet clear if the committee will consider any potential amendments to this rule.
WARWICK, R.I. (WPRI) — Two people are dead and another person seriously hurt after a crash involving two vehicles on the highway in Warwick Saturday.
Rhode Island State Police said the crash happened around 1:34 p.m. on the ramp from Route 113 West to I-95 South.
According to police, a Hyundai SUV that was driving in the middle lane of the highway started to drift to the right, crossed the first lane, and then crossed onto the on-ramp lane. The car struck the guardrail twice before driving through the grass median.
The Hyundai then struck the driver’s side of a Mercedes SUV that was on the ramp, causing the Mercedes to roll over and come to a rest. The impact sent the Hyundai over the guardrail and down an embankment.
The driver of the Hyundai, a 73-year-old man, and his passenger, a 69-year-old woman, were both pronounced dead at the hospital.
A woman who was in the Mercedes was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital in critical condition.
State police said all lanes of traffic were reopened by 4:30 p.m.
The investigation remains ongoing.
Download the WPRI 12 and Pinpoint Weather 12 apps to get breaking news and weather alerts.
Watch 12 News Now on WPRI.com or with the free WPRI 12+ TV app.
A federal judge on Friday tossed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit aiming to force Rhode Island to hand over its voter information as part of the Trump administration’s push to acquire voter data from several states.
Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy wrote that federal law does not allow the DOJ “to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” siding with Rhode Island election officials. She added that the DOJ did not provide evidence to suggest that Rhode Island violated election law.
McElroy, a Trump appointee, wrote that she sided with the similar decision in Oregon. That decision ruled that the DOJ was not entitled to unredacted voter registration lists.
“Absent from the demand are any factual allegations suggesting that Rhode Island may be violating the list maintenance requirements,” she said in her ruling.
Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore (D) praised McElroy’s decision. He said in a statement that the Trump administration “seems to have no problem taking actions that are clear Constitutional overreaches, regularly meddling in responsibilities that are the rights of the states.”
“Today’s decision affirms our position: the United States Department of Justice has no legal right to – or need for – the personally-identifiable information in our voter file,” he said. “Voter list maintenance is a responsibility entrusted to the states, and I remain confident in the steps we take here in Rhode Island to keep our list as accurate as possible.”
The Hill reached out to the DOJ for comment.
The DOJ called for the voter lists as it investigated Rhode Island’s compliance with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allowed Americans to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license.
The DOJ sued at least 30 states, as well as Washington, D.C., in December demanding their respective voter data. This data includes birth dates, names and partial Social Security numbers.
At least 12 states have given or said they will give the DOJ their voter registration lists, according to a tracker operated by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The department stated after it lost a similar suit against Massachusetts earlier this month that it had “sweeping powers” to access the voter data and that, if states fail to comply, courts have a “limited, albeit vital, role” in directing election officers on behalf of the administration to produce the records. The DOJ cited the Civil Rights Act as being intended to unearth alleged election law violations.
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Rhode Island
Single Dad Says Grandparents’ Rights Trial Has Cost Him More Than $500K, but He'll Do ‘Whatever It Takes’ to Keep Daughter Safe
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2)/Scott-Naso-022526-1-079e2e33c43a473590695ebdb06147b3.jpg?ssl=1 "Single Dad Says Grandparents’ Rights Trial Has Cost Him More Than 0K, but He'll Do ‘Whatever It Takes’ to Keep Daughter Safe")
As the two-year anniversary of his wife’s death approaches, widowed single father Scott Naso is sounding an alarm to fellow parents across the country — and especially in Rhode Island, where he lives with his now 4-year-old daughter, Laila.
-
Science5 minutes agoA renewed threat to JPL as the Trump administration tries again to cut NASA
-
Sports11 minutes agoAfter 55 years as a broadcaster in L.A., Randy Rosenbloom is leaving town
-
World22 minutes agoBulgaria votes in eighth election in five years
-
News53 minutes agoReal estate investors are buying up long-term care facilities. Residents can suffer
-
Detroit, MI3 hours agoFormer Piston shows Detroit what they’re missing as he dominates next to LeBron
-
San Francisco, CA3 hours agoEastbound I-80 closure in San Francisco snarls traffic, slows business
-
Videos3 hours agoCan Keir Starmer survive the latest Mandelson revelations? | BBC News
-
Dallas, TX3 hours agoPetar Musa’s Brace Not Enough as FC Dallas Draws LA Galaxy 2-2