Rhode Island Politics
The U.S. District Court for our area has refused to stop the state from enforcing its vaccine mandate as the affected healthcare workers’ lawsuit proceeds. In practical terms, this means that the burden of the disagreement will fall on those workers forced out of their jobs during that time, rather than on the government. A…
John and Justin discuss brewing turmoil among and between factions in the Ocean State.
Mike Stenhouse and Richard August discuss the turf battles surrounding money the federal government gave to Rhode Island for recovery from the pandemic.
John and Justin pick out some of the lessons of Rhode Island’s political turmoil.
One topic conspicuously not addressed in Matt Brown’s slick new video announcing his candidacy for Rhode Island governor is what qualifies him specifically to run an organization as large and complex as the state government. Surely a willingness to drop the F-bomb isn’t sufficient in itself. That omission raises the question asked in the subject of this…
Matt Brown and his progressive friends are trying something new and bold with their 50-person slate, who pay money into the co-op to be a part of it. Ryan Grim of The Intercept seems to think they “look to take over Rhode Island,” but we’ll see. Something like this comes with a lot of conflict. Patrick…
During our weekly political segment, yesterday, John DePetro raised questions about the fact that the Rhode Island Republican Party does not yet have a candidate to announce for the upcoming gubernatorial race. Chairwoman Sue Cienki has said an announcement is expected soon, but John raises a good point. There are no obvious candidates, which means…
It would be difficult to argue against welcoming an Amazon distribution center in Johnston. That’s a lot of money that will flow into Rhode Island and one of its municipalities. There’s even an important and encouraging observation to be made about the fact that it will be in Johnston, with its conservative-Democrat mayor, Joe Polisena. …
John and Justin talk about people and groups that are in and out of political races and trends.
It’s telling that state Representative Gregg Amore (D, East Providence) announced his campaign for Secretary of State at East Providence High School. Per his official General Assembly biography, Amore graduated from that school, returned for a career as a history teacher there, and remains its athletic director. He’s pretty much the classic Rhode Island candidate,…