Happy September! The approach of fall brings plenty of fresh developments on the politics beat. So thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. As usual, your tips and comments are welcome, and you can follow me through the week on the twitters. Here we go.
1. Going on the stump recently with House Majority Leader John DeSimone yielded a close view of the micro-neighborhoods that make up his stronghold in the North End of Providence. Branch Avenue was choked with traffic late on a weekday afternoon, and the multi-family homes of lower Langdon Street reflected a bit of the changing makeup of a mostly black and Latino city. Yet before long a more suburban ambience was evident as Langdon climbed a hill, passing the quiet side street where DeSimone resides, toward North Providence. Italian-Americans still make up more than a fifth of the voters in House District 5. So it didn’t seem coincidental when DeSimone made this exhortation while visiting with an 89-year-old disabled voter: “She [Jamaican-born rival Democrat Marcia Ranglin-Vassell] thinks the old Italians aren’t going to come out and vote for me!” DeSimone points to his 24 years of experience and his clout as majority leader in arguing why voters should re-elect him; Ranglin-Vassell counters by saying the top problems in the district — a lack of jobs, underperforming schools, and outbreaks of gun violence — remain in place. “It’s time to turn the page,” she told me. “He [DeSimone] is the majority leader, and I don’t — I haven’t seen him leading.” Ranglin-Vassell may find greater support in the more heterogeneous Wanskuck neighborhood where she lives. But the lack of greater demographic change in the 59 percent white district, along with DeSimone’s familiarity from more than two decades in office, make him the favorite in this race.
2. Rhode Island’s upcoming September 13th primary might strike casual political observers as a ho-hum affair, but there’s more on the line than meets the eye. One of the biggest questions involves the Cranston GOP primary between Steven Frias and Shawna Lawton. On paper, most political observers consider Frias a superior candidate, in large part because of his strong messaging and communication skills (not to mention Lawton’s refusal to debate him.) Yet the Republican primary in House District 15 will likely attract just a few hundred votes, and that makes for a somewhat unpredictable outcome. The real interesting thing in this race is how it resembles a proxy fight for control of the state GOP, with GOP Chairman Brandon Bell enthusiastically backing Frias, and state Rep. Patricia Morgan (R-West Warwick) — who aspires to be House minority leader and to perhaps run for governor — rallying behind Lawton.
3. The emergence of a new 527 group, RI For Gun Safety, will offer a test case on the extent to which anti-gun lobby activists can influence legislative elections in Rhode Island. Funded with an initial $87,500 from former Hasbro CEO Alan Hassenfeld, the group is using direct mail pieces to oppose House Majority Leader John DeSimone and state Rep. Jan Malik (D-Warren), and to support state Rep. Teresa Tanzi (D-South Kingstown) and former Rep. Linda Finn of Middletown. Jerry Belair, a spokesman for RI Gun Safety, compares campaign contributions to performance-enhancing drugs; if one side is using them, rivals have to use the same approach to level the playing field. But Glenn Valentine, vice president of the Rhode Island Firearm Owners’ League, contends that anti-gun activists have considerably outspent local pro-gun groups over the years.
4. Gun-related, Part 1: It’s no surprise that RI For Gun Safety is aiding Rep. Tanzi as she faces a tough re-election fight in a three-way primary with South Kingstown Councilor Rachel Clough and Ewa Dzwierzynski, a pharmacist making extensive use of online videos (here and here and here) as part of her campaign. Stephen Tetzner, who unsuccessfully ran against Tanzi as a Republican in 2014, is backing Dzwierzynski, judging in part from his Facebook page. Tanzi’s best hopes of keeping her seat may rest on the arithmetic of the three-way race, with her two rivals potentially dividing the opposition vote.
5. Gun-related, Part II: Col. Steven O’Donnell of the RI State Police calls himself “a big proponent” of reducing the availability of large-capacity gun magazines. “There is no automatic weapon that was designed for hunting,” O’Donnell said during an appearance on this week’s RI Public Radio Bonus Q&A. “I’m friends with a lot of hunters, Second Amendment advocates, so I make it clear that is not a sentiment against the Second Amendment. But when you hunt, you don’t hunt with a 45-round clip …. There’s no reason to have magazine capacities, 15-, 16, 20-, or 45.” …. Asked why he came to the Statehouse at the end of the legislative session to lobby against a concealed carry measure (which died in the Senate), O’Donnell said, “I think having people running around with guns, and giving police no autonomy and deciding that they should or shouldn’t is flawed logic. If you’re the police chief in a local city or town, or even my position, having some say is important …. If you have to give someone a gun [regardless of their capacity or background], it doesn’t make a lot of sense from a law enforcement perspective.” O’Donnell said police more likely to learn about a questionable gun purchase from “the street” than from gun shops, because, he said, of a lack of mandatory reporting to law enforcement of gun sales.
6. Revival Brewing hopes to create a brewery/brew-pub on either parcel 2 or 5 in the I-195 Redevelopment District, between South Main Street and South Water Street, Chairman and CEO Owen Johnson tells TGIF. While background is still being gathered, Revival is in talks with the I-195 Commission and hopes to receive approval later this year, Johnson said. Revival has gained a following with brew-master Sean Larkin‘s distinctive offerings, currently brewed at Brutopia in Cranston and Connecticut’s Cottrell Brewing Company. Johnson said Revival has enjoyed growth this year, on the way to producing close to 3,000 barrels of beer for sale in RI, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Japan.
7. The tightest mayoral race of the year appears to be the North Providence Democratic tilt between incumbent Charles Lombardi and challenger Kristen Catanzaro. Hundreds of North Providence residents packed the town’s high school auditorium for a rollicking debate on Tuesday. Lombardi maintains he’s stabilized North Providence fiscally and put NP on a better footing, while Catanzaro charges that the community is heading downhill and needs to change course. Of course, in a community with colorful politics, the rivals even disagree on the extent of the rat problem in town. Lombardi said his opponent’s focus on the issue has blown the issue up in the media, causing embarrassment for NP residents due to teasing from their friends and relations elsewhere in the state. Catanzaro said NP is so infested with rats that she even encountered one while door-knocking recently.
8. The latest staffing changes in Governor Gina Raimondo‘s office: David Ortiz comes over later this month from Treasurer Seth Magaziner’s office to become press secretary, the governor’s day-to-day spokesman, and deputy communications director. Marie Aberger, who was previously in that role, will become senior communications adviser, with an expanded portfolio that includes messaging, strategic planning, and special projects. The governor’s deputy comms director, Ashley Gingerella O’Shea, will take on Raimondo’s communication director Mike Raia‘s previous role as communications director as the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. Rico Vota comes to the Statehouse from Pawtucket City Hall, for a role as community affairs and outreach manager. Norm Birenbaum has moved from Raimondo’s outreach office to a new role at the Department of Business Regulation, overseeing implementation of the state’s new medical marijuana regulations. Last but not least, Sophie O’Connell will be director of executive communications at EOHHS, handling media and scheduling for Secretary Elizabeth Roberts, and communications on projects like the response to RI’s opiate crisis.
9. Nine Providence Journal employees, including seven on the news side, have put in for the latest buyout at GateHouse Media’s ProJo: sports columnist Jim Donaldson; arts writer Channing Gray; copy editor Bob McNamee and arts editor Tony LaRoche. (The names of other employees signing up are not available for now.) Those signing up can pull back their buyout request through September 8. In related news, Friday was the last day at work on Fountain Street for Tom McDonough, the newspaper’s VP for human resources and labor; he’s taking an HR post at Roger Williams University. McDonough one of the last of the Belo-era managers on Fountain Street. (Note: I’ve updated this to correct my earlier reporting: 1) McDonough was not the last Belo-era manager at the ProJo; 2) LaRoche was not a copy editor.)
10. While the State Police investigation of state Rep. John Carnevale is still pending, according to Col. O’Donnell, community activist Lisa Scorpio and cab company owner Ramon Perez are the top candidates in the race to succeed Carnevale in House District 13. Perez has a GOP campaign manager (David Talan) and the backing of House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, while Scorpio is pressing her community contacts in making her case. Check out my story on the race here.
11. If you’re a fan of RI Public Radio, NPR, and “This American Life,” you’re not going to want to miss Ira Glass‘s September 24 appearance at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence.
12. With the state gearing up to hire a new $175,000 a year cyber-security/homeland security adviser, State Police Col. Steven O’Donnell offers this view on guarding against the threat of terrorism. “I don’t think, candidly, anybody’s prepared, ever, for what happens, because the country we live in has rules that allow things to happen. You do your best as to prevent, and how you prevent is through a fusion center, through competent law enforcement people who talk to each other and it goes beyond Rhode Island ….. The things that don’t get really publicized is the prevention. [A few years ago], we arrested a radicalized person in Warwick before he could act, and his partners were shot and killed up in Boston, about to act out on ‘go get the blue guy’ — they’re talking about the police. So it’s important that we pay attention to that, but can you stop everything? It’s impossible to do that in the system of government that we have.”
13. “Just a short while ago it was sleazy, blighted, and crime-ridden; today it is all but crime free.” That’s from a 1999 article by William J. Stern, entitled, “The Unexpected Lessons of Times Square’s Comeback.” Certainly, there are dramatic differences between Times Square and Kennedy Plaza; for starters, Providence lacks the economic vitality of New York City. Still, the idea of taming Times Square would have seemed far-fetched back in the 1970s. The fact that it’s now so drastically different (even too sterile, some say) show how a safer Kennedy Plaza should be within the city’s grasp.
14. For a Fortune 500 company, Providence-based Textron doesn’t get a whole lot of attention from the Rhode Island media. So RI Future’s Bob Plain deserves credit for avidly following the story of the debate over what critics call cluster bombs and what the company calls sensor-fuzed weapons. (His doggedness also shows the importance of alternative media sources in a time of diminished newsrooms and defunct alt-weeklies.) Here’s Bob’s dispatch on one of the closing chapters in that debate.
15. Robert Kando ran out of time at the state Board of Elections.
16. The traditional Labor Day remembrance of the Saylesville textile strike will take place Monday, September 5, 10 a.m., at Moshassuck Cemetery 978 Lonsdale Avenue, Central Falls. Bullet holes from a fatal clash in 1934 can still be seen in tombstones at the cemetery.
16. Ted Nesi looks at how the politics of reproductive rights impact General Assembly races.
18. Noted: you can make about $20,000 or $30,000 a month, at least for a little while in this election-year, by generating presidential-related content on Facebook.
19. Napoleon Lajoie, one of the all-time baseball greats and a Woonsocket native, will be honored when that city names a new Little League field for for him at WWII Veterans Park. The event was slated for Monday, but has been delayed due to the weather. “Woonsocket is incredibly proud of its native son, Napoleon Lajoie, and the rich baseball history of our community,” Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt said in a statement. “Dedicating the new field is an opportunity to honor a giant in the sport of baseball and impress that significance onto generations of youth and athletes for years to come. Residents and visitors alike will have to look no further than this field to see that Woonsocket has its own unique culture and history.” Lajoie was a career .338 hitter. The dedication will feature a presentation by Lajoie scholar Greg Rubano, who will dress as the player in a period uniform.