- [Jim] This week on "A Lively Experiment," a new leadership team is elected at the state senate in a contest that wasn't close, and Gina for president?

Rhode Island's former governor says the quiet part out loud this week.

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- Hi.

I'm John Hazen White, Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

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- Joining us on the panel, URI political science professor Emily Lynch, Aaron Guckian, executive Director of the Rhode Island Dental Association and former candidate for lieutenant governor, and political strategist Rob Horowitz.

Welcome to this week's "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel.

It's great to have you with us.

It is an odd couple of sorts, a progressive senate president team with a conservative majority leader, but that combination won overwhelming support on Tuesday as Val Lawson ascended to the chamber's top position and Frank Ciccone was chosen as her top lieutenant.

So, Emily, last week, we were talking about Ryan Pearson, who's kind of been on the ins and the outs, was talking about mounting this big challenge.

They might not have all the votes.

In the end, it looks like they had all the votes.

- Right, and I think it speaks to the moderate nature of politics in Rhode Island government and this ability for Lawson to collaborate with the more conservative Ciccone.

- Yeah.

Aaron?

- Yeah, I mean, I think that they got organized and they picked their leader and their majority leader, and, you know, we'll see how things, you know, progress now, and, hopefully, they can get the calendar moving 'cause they're way behind.

- [Jim] Yeah, they are.

Rob?

- I think it speaks more to the power of labor unions to see the president of the NEA Rhode Island and then a longtime Laborers leader in Ciccone as the two top leaders.

I do think it presents some challenges optically, 'cause you're going into tougher budget times and you have the president of a union.

If we remember, Senate President Ruggerio, who I think did a great job, was retired from the Laborers, and that created- - He left when he got elevated.

- Yeah, exactly.

- He succeeded Teresa Paiva Weed.

- So, aside from just the narrow ethical questions that I think are gonna be tricky to navigate, 'cause you're talking about, if somebody's part of a class, that's one thing, but when they're the leader of the class and also the leader of the senate, that's another thing.

So I think, for the Democrats, it gets a little trickier, and it does create just, if Lawson and Ciccone don't navigate this fairly skillfully and know when to recuse and when to elevate other leaders, it does create some opportunities for the Republicans.

- We haven't heard.

They asked Val Lawson about that, because Dominick Ruggerio, as Rob said, stepped aside.

Lawson has given up.

No, she's the president of the NEARI, and she hasn't given any indication that she's gonna step aside from that.

Ethics Advisory Commission at least, advisory opinion?

- Well, I think that it just speaks to what we have as a, like, in the General Assembly, is a part-time legislature.

So we can look at all members of the General Assembly could have some sort of conflict of interest, and if they were elevated at that level, we could look at Pearson.

Would he step down as VP of Citizens Bank if he was president?

So we have to navigate, or they, you know, those who are in leadership positions in the General Assembly have to speak to the Ethics Commission when issues arise.

- Well, have you ever thought about, we've talked about this off and on over the years, full-time legislature?

I don't think that eliminates the conflict altogether, but some people have talked about that.

- Right, I mean, there's been talk about that for a while as to is this something that we're heading?

Could we head toward?

I think there's the issue of how much would that cost for a full-time legislature?

So I think there are a number of different issues that you'd have to kind of- - And could you still have employment outside?

I mean, you can't really bar somebody, and then the conflict still exists, right?

- Right, exactly.

- So, now we look at some of the issues.

You know, Dominick Ruggerio was ardent in terms of the ban on smoking at the casinos.

There's the assault weapons ban that's in play.

You said they're behind.

That's a great point.

They really have not been meeting constantly.

and now what do we have?

Maybe seven weeks left in the session.

- Yeah, and they're gonna have to move quickly, especially with the committees.

You know, the House is well organized.

Speaker Shekarchi has been there a long time, and they gotta get moving because there's really pressing issues in this state.

My condolences to the Ruggerio family.

I was at the funeral, but I think there's an opportunity.

I'm a teacher.

I'm a music teacher.

I taught in the classroom, and my Providence friends that are teachers, I know that's the AFT, but there's a real problem with security and safety in the classroom and I hope they put that as a forefront.

Another thing is food insecurity.

That's gonna be a big issue, especially with our most vulnerable, and being the executive director of the Rhode Island Dental Association, we have over 500 children right now in Providence who need, you know, care that requires anesthesia, and the biggest issue is, if you can't chew, you can't eat, and, you know, I'm gonna put that at the forefront of the State House this session.

- Yeah, what else are you looking at as we go down the stretch?

The budget's the big gorilla.

We're not quite sure what's gonna happen federally, but in terms of some of the issues, what are you looking at?

- I think the budget is the main thing.

You could look at whether we're gonna get to a, on the top earners, they're gonna take a serious look at raising the income tax, which has its pluses and minuses, given the budget issues, given the absence of some federal money, and, clearly, the move is to cut some of it.

Some of it will get rolled back and it's getting rolled back in court, but some of it won't.

We're gonna be in a much different fiscal climate than we've been in when we were sort of flush with COVID money, and I think when rubber meets the road, those budget questions are gonna be difficult and tricky, 'cause as Aaron said, there's a lot of needs as well.

I know we're gonna get to some of the needs in the next segment, but there's a lot of needs in terms of food security.

There's a lot of needs in terms of Medicaid, et cetera, and we're gonna have our first very tough budget year in a while.

- Yeah.

The salad days are over.

What are you looking at going down the stretch, Emily?

- I think we are kind of looking at what the leadership is saying, and with the new president, Lawson is saying that healthcare is on her agenda, and with Shekarchi, housing has been an issue as well.

So, be paying attention to that, but all related to the budget.

- Yeah, and Joe Shekarchi and Governor McKee, Speaker Shekarchi and Governor McKee have said they're hesitant to look at raising taxes, but, again, depending on how the federal government goes, you can only cut so much and you can only raise so much.

I mean, we're really kind of in a hard place after being flush for so many years with the COVID money, and what do they do?

They use some of the one-time money for ongoing expenditures, which is why we have a structural deficit now.

- Exactly the case, and given what's going on on the federal level too, even on top of the COVID money, we could be, over the next couple years, being into some unique budget challenges, but I think that only raises some good points.

Housing's still a concern here.

We had some uptick in inventory, but there's still a desperate need for affordable housing.

Here, the state's invested a fair amount of money.

Municipalities are still roadblocks in many ways, so that's gonna be, Shekarchi's got some new ones.

The assault weapons ban will be interesting.

We already do have a magazine capacity limit, so it's still, obviously, I would be for it.

It's less important here than in some other states.

So I think you'll see some of those, but I think the rubber's gonna meet the road on the budget.

- All right, speaking of healthcare, there was a press conference this week.

Anchor Medical, as you know, we talked about this last week.

25,000 people are gonna be without a doctor come the end of June.

Governor McKee held a press conference at the State House, talking about some of the short-term and long-term things that the state can do.

Aaron, you were at that press conference, and, again, you're the executive director of the Rhode Island Dental Association.

So it's not only primary care.

It's some dentists.

What did you take out of what the governor had to say on Wednesday?

- Well, yeah, I was glad he had the press conference.

They did an admirable job.

I think we gotta get more aggressive.

We gotta look at medical equipment and fees and taxes.

We can lower those, and we could, at least for right now, like the license fee, I think, every three years in Florida, it's about $300, and in our state, every two, it's about $1,200.

It's those optics and those things that need to be compressed, and then we passed a rate review that goes 2023, '24, and '25, and then on or before October 2026, the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner has to report back.

Well, you could use that as a model.

You could expedite it and tell Cory King, who's the commissioner there, to do '23 and '24 and come back and say, "All right, this is the number, the approximate number."

They passed that, by referendum, 83% is the medical loss ratio in Massachusetts, and that's gonna be implemented.

We are way behind, 30% almost in some things.

So, no matter what, they gotta expedite and they gotta move.

And lastly, the opioid dollars.

I've been on a commission for about a year and a half.

The procurement, there's an RFP.

Get the dollars out.

Maybe we could do a big recovery center, things of that nature.

We have to go big, we have to look at things, and we have to leverage the things that we can use, and, you know, I'd love to be on a task force early in the morning when our doctors can be there, not during the day.

- [Jim] Before rounds?

(Aaron laughs) That's pretty early.

That's a pretty early day.

- Hey, we'll meet at the gym.

- I think we're about 300 primary care doctors short right now and that's gonna get worse.

I think it was good McKee called attention to the issue, and obviously Attorney General Neronha and McKee are political rivals, but I think his point was fairly well taken.

It's a little day late and the dollar's short.

We're talking about things for two or three years from now.

I think one is you have to raise the reimbursement rate, so you gotta raise 'em faster for primary care doctors, and then the other piece of the puzzle I think is you need to really expand incentive programs to get new doctors to come and practice in Rhode Island.

Loan forgiveness is starting to do some of that, but bigger numbers, et cetera, 'cause we need a whole new generation of primary care doctors, and the plain facts are you can make nearly double as a specialist, so you have to have incentivize people.

- Yeah, and the governor keeps saying in interviews, "Well, show me the data.

I haven't really seen the data that it's more in Massachusetts or Connecticut."

I mean, we've been talking about this for years, and he's the governor.

Find the data, but it's almost as if everybody knows somebody now who, you know, "I'm touched by this illness or illnesses."

"Oh, you're looking for a primary care doctor, and I just lost one."

It seems to be a growing problem.

- Right, and I mean, there was an article in the Providence Journal that showed an interview about Shekarchi saying he was looking for a primary care doctor a few months back, and that I think we should be looking at what Shekarchi is focusing on with healthcare, and he has discussed that this is something that we need to address, but we also have constraints within the budget, but I also think it needs to be some sort of, it's a comprehensive issue where not only is there a concern about primary care providers, but also the support staff surrounding those primary care providers, and that's needed as well.

The cost of going to medical school is very high.

Interest rates on loans are 6 to 9%.

So, is there housing for these primary care doctors to come to and live here in Rhode Island?

There was, I just heard about, like- - [Jim] Do they wanna put their kids in our schools eventually?

- Right.

- All the ripple effects.

- Exactly, exactly.

So, how is the state, like, in this whole comprehensive view, incentivizing doctors to come and live here long-term?

And is a two-year forgiveness program enough?

Last year, there was a scholarship program that was eight.

I think it was an eight-year program.

Like, you had to live in the state within eight years to earn that scholarship.

- And we're being penny wise, pound foolish, and insurance companies are too, having dealt a (indistinct) to work on the opioid issue.

Same thing on opioids is they're looking at the next quarter.

So even though treatment is super expensive, they could prevent more with better prescribing.

They're still looking at the next quarter here too.

Primary care is important 'cause it also controls medical costs, 'cause if people go regularly to a doctor, they're not in emergency rooms.

They're catching illnesses before they get to the point where, you know, where people have to be hospitalized and have surgeries.

So, investment in primary care isn't just the narrow question of "I can't find a doctor to do my annual check-up."

It's the safeguard of the whole healthcare system, and with less primary care, you're gonna spend a ton more money over the long term in healthcare costs.

- Yeah, and the governor touted this year in his budget, "I put $400,000 aside for student debt forgiveness."

Medical schools cost, I mean, how much does that cover?

And I always thought, you know, we put in $250 million in housing, which was appropriate, but talk about one-time cost, that if they had said, "We're gonna take $5 or $10 million and put that toward recruiting and maintaining doctors with their medical debt," I think that would've been a better use.

Where are we on dentists?

- Well, I mean, we have a cliff.

The same thing.

I mean, especially the specialists.

You know, we have about 20 oral surgeons, 25, whatever it is in the state.

You can't get access to dentists, and you can die from a tooth infection, and let's not forget the hygienists and the dental assistants.

The CCRI Hygiene School, the only accredited school, does a great job.

They have 22 hygienists, and all the hygienists are going, to her point, you know, to different states, and we have a crisis, and we're addicted to long-term planning.

We gotta do something now and stop talking about 2040 or 2050 and do another, you know, long-term plan.

We need a short-term plan.

- [Jim] You're not a big fan of the study commission, Aaron?

- I'm tired of the study commissions.

I worked at the Rhode Island Foundation.

I was very proud.

They have great data.

Leave it to them.

We can do it simultaneously.

We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

- Yeah, either way.

All right.

I don't know if you saw this in the news this week.

Everybody's like, where's Gina Raimondo been ever since she left as commerce secretary?

Well, she showed up on a podcast with David Axelrod, former top strategist for President Obama, and he asked her point blank, and we have always asked these questions.

You know, Jack Reed, are you gonna go for Defense Department?

Gina, you know, Secretary Raimondo, are you considering running for president?

And she went, "Yes."

Like, she said the quiet part out loud.

This is the larger discussion about where the Democrats are.

We'll get into Trump in a little bit, but were you surprised she was as forthcoming as she was?

- I wasn't.

One thing is, if you're gonna be as much of an underdog, although she's formidable, she's got great qualities, I thought she was a very good governor here, you're better off being straightforward if you have any interest in it, because the candidates that tend to be the quietest, they're the ones that are, you know, sort of gaming, what's the best moment for my formidable candidacy to start?

You know, she's very smart.

She knows where she is in this thing, and I wouldn't count her out, if she decides to run.

- You've spent a good part of your adult life advising.

You've worked with a lot of Democratic candidates.

I think Raimondo was pretty blunt in saying that the party has a lot of work to do.

Instead of just saying "Trump's a tyrant," we need to say, or they need to say, "What are we doing?"

What do you think about that?

- I think we're in, and certainly the Democratic brand's taken a hit, but I think this is the inevitable what happens when you lose an election.

Everything's framed around Donald Trump.

New Democratic leaders will emerge.

So I don't know that a short-term rebranding effort actually matters that much politically, and leaders will emerge as the next presidential comes in.

Congressional leaders are always unpopular.

So I think there's something to it.

I think you have to learn from the last election, but I think a lot of it's kind of overblown simply because the president of whatever party always defines what's going on in the country, not the opposition party.

It's in the wilderness.

- Professor?

- Well, I think she made a claim that, you know, we need to focus on the economy, and I think that was a huge part of the past election.

So, messaging in that way, it makes sense that that's the way she's headed, and I mean, she's got a lot of experience with economic issues.

So I think that, yeah, it makes sense that she would wanna run for president.

- Yeah, well, Secretary Raimondo actually went to high school with my wife in La Salle.

- There you go.

Well, you knew it would come full circle with a "only in Rhode Island" moment.

- I told her I'd see her at Sand Hill Cove.

One thing she can do is she can fundraise and she has an incredible resume.

- [Jim] We know that.

- No matter what you think about her.

She's articulate, she's smart, and she's aggressive and she's all in.

I think when I'm seeing Senator Sanders and AOC going around the country, we tried that.

Inflation went way up.

It didn't work.

You can't throw bombs of money on an economy, and I think this is what this election was all about, was change.

So, Governor Raimondo or Secretary Raimondo has stated that, "Hey, we need to go down to the middle."

Most people are down the middle, and they better pivot quickly or you're gonna have a lot of trouble in the future, in my opinion.

- Well, and I think that's how Joe Biden won in 2020.

He brought back some of the disaffected Republicans and the moderates and said, "I'm gonna be a little bit more sane in the White House."

- I think that's right, and I think, you know, capturing the middles is clearly the key, but we can also read too much into things.

In other words, the inflation, the cost of living went up 24% during Biden's term, and while we were in the middle of the pack, I don't want to get into a big dispute with Aaron, but a lot of it was was supply chain and COVID.

Some of it was spending.

So, if inflation went up 12%, we'd have President Harris, who actually also ran kind of in the middle, and I agree.

You wanna run center, center left, and I think Raimondo is in that lane, and I wouldn't count her out.

It's tough to become president.

There's Governor Josh Shapiro.

There's Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

There's just some people who are probably ahead of her in line, but it primaries are very interesting things, and as Emily said, she does have credentials on the economy.

I think she did a good job as Secretary of Commerce.

She's got credentials on China on an actual real strategy, unlike what we're watching right now in terms of dealing with China.

So I think she's a credible, serious candidate.

It's just hard to win these things.

- And also how does she package her message and reach out to the broad electorate?

In her discussion with Axelrod, she talked about not being process-oriented and more outcomes-oriented.

Okay, well, how?

Explain.

Give more concrete examples of what that means for everyone, and also this was at University of Chicago.

How is she going to present her message to, you know, everybody?

You know, going to a local town hall, you know, how is that going to, you know, how is she going to do that?

- Yeah.

- I mean, I think her origin story, you can read too much into it.

Donald Trump is now the tribune of the working place, even though he inherited $400 million from his dad and grew up very rich, but her origin story, growing up working class, self-made, I think that that's all, at the margins, very helpful.

- Aaron, the first 100 days, What do you like?

What do you not like?

- Well, you know, I think that some of the things, like targeting different countries in regards to tariffs and how we've been ripped off, I would encourage.

Unfortunately, it's been just way too fast, and I think, you know, the chainsaw got people really nervous and spooked, and I think we need more of a scalpel approach and a measured approach.

We need to calm things down, and you know, I'm most worried about Medicare and Medicaid are most vulnerable.

I have calls all the time from different parents that have special needs and I/DD.

That's the way they use it, the acronym and initialism, and it's scary, and when I get calls and they can't get their, you know, teeth worked on, or they have issues and infections, you know, I get scared, and so I think there's some fear there, and I know I'm hoping that Congress comes in and they get back and they get a budget and they square this away, 'cause right now, people are really starting to get nervous.

- Yeah, the three- - Fear is not a good thing.

- Three branches of government, we're seeing the legislative cede to the, I don't think we've ever seen a 100 days like this in any president.

- Right, and speaking about, you know, the branches of government and looking at public opinion, in which Rob covered in an article in GoLocalProv, voters are concerned about the president disregarding the judiciary, and that there's, you know, the other poll numbers show that people feel like this presidency is chaotic.

So people don't like uncertainty and this unpredictable nature of politics.

So I think that's something to be paying attention to.

- Some wag, somebody said probably the person in terms of the amount that happens is Roosevelt's first 100 days.

On the other hand, Roosevelt was working to get us out of a depression, and not to be too cheeky, Donald Trump seems to be doing his very best to sort of move us into one.

He is the most unpopular president after 100 days in the history of modern polling.

The poll's a 41% average of seven credible national polls.

I think there's a couple issues.

One is the tariffs, as Aaron mentioned.

No strategy to them.

A lot of just willful falsehoods, trying to say the other countries are gonna pay the tariffs when we know that it's an import tax, and if you're gonna go after China, you gotta get all your allies online and not tariff the world.

And the other point I would make, and this encourages me, is people think he's gone beyond the bounds of the presidency.

54 or 55% of the public right now thinks he will not handle the office responsibly.

He has plenty of time for a course correction, but he needs a course correction.

- What I don't get is immigration.

So he ran primarily on the economy and immigration, and there's been issues with, you know, prices are gonna go up with the tariffs.

I think most economists would agree.

On immigration, the flow across the border, it's almost a trickle now.

Why wouldn't you take that as a victory and then move on?

To me, it's the sledgehammer and the nail, saying, "We're gonna go in," and then we get people mistakenly deported.

Now, some of these people need to go.

There are the criminals, but I think it's some unforced errors.

- Yeah.

I think we're governed by extremes.

We had 11 million crossing the border.

Now we're going this course correction.

It's like a whiplash.

It's like a whiplash in Washington, and it doesn't work in government, and you know, but then the Democrats, they defend I think it's an M13 gang member who had multiple domestic issues and he's got tattoos.

I mean, that's not the person to go and fly into to try to defend.

Try to find that person that's working hard and has had an unfortunate, you know, episode where they took him out of this country.

The bottom line is people don't want extremes.

Let's settle this thing down and let's work together, and I hope we can have leadership that does that more often across the country.

- Just briefly, before we get to outrages, for the midterms, like next year, I mean, it may be too early to tell.

Are both chambers in play?

The Senate's a little bit harder lift, but what do you think?

- I think it could be if it continues this way, and we see the poll numbers that were just recently reported, that this is a concern for Republicans.

- They're talking about Roy Williams.

Oh, Roy Williams.

Listen to me.

Basketball.

(Aaron and Rob chuckles) You're laughing.

Roy Cooper, the other Roy in North Carolina, potentially running.

Janet Mills up in Maine and Sherrod Brown possibly coming back, which could have a big effect on the Senate, right?

- The Senate's still gonna be tricky, just 'cause of the House, and, again, we got a long time.

Assuming this stays, the number that really tells you of all numbers what's gonna happen in the House is the approval rating of the president.

If his numbers don't come up much, the Democrats are gonna be in a very good position in the House.

The Senate's just, especially with a lot of retirements, the Senate's still gonna be tricky.

- Okay, let's go to outrages and/or kudos.

We have a couple minutes left.

Emily, let's begin with you this week.

- So, my kudos go out to the local media, who send out weekly and daily newsletters to people who subscribe, and this is coming from my students that, at the beginning of the semester, I shared with them several of these newsletters, and at the end of the semester, they said that this was really helpful for them to gain information about what's happening locally.

- Dan McGowan at the Globe does one.

The Rhode Island Current puts one out every morning.

The Journal, of course, has its daily briefing.

Very helpful when you're in a busy semester.

- Yep.

- Right.

Aaron, what do you have?

Outrage or kudo?

- My outrage is that we just need to have an intensity in regards to this healthcare issue and this crisis, and we need to do immediate things, that we're getting, you know, it's like a thousand paper cuts with fees.

Medical equipment could be reduced in regards to taxes.

There's the tangible tax.

There's all of these things that are preventing business, specifically doctors and healthcare, and to say to go to a website or call the office, everyone's saying "we're not taking new patients."

- Yeah, the the thing that surprised me was that Governor McKee didn't say, "Okay, we're gonna set up a state site where we can point you."

Like, the doctors that are still with Anchor, where are they going?

You know, to pair patients with whatever.

You get the last minute.

- Yeah, and we were speaking about immigration, and Trump is more disapproved than approved on it because of the cruelty, and my outrage is the particular cruelty of sending people with no due process, no hearing, some of them clearly a mistake, to a notorious El Salvadorian prison.

It's one thing to deport someone to their home country.

With no prospect of getting out, where they're locked up for 23 hours, we're sending even the gentleman who was not supposed to go to El Salvador, we're sending them without due process to an El Salvadorian jail, and it's like another day at the office.

That's why he's unpopular on immigration, but it's outrageously un-American, and then they revel in the cruelty of it.

Isn't it great how cruel it is and how nasty it is?

That's not the kind of country we really are.

We're a nation of immigrants.

- Well, that may be reflected in some of the poll numbers, why they're changing, because- - It is.

- Okay, that is all the time.

It's a quick 30 minutes.

We appreciate you spending some time with us.

Aaron, good to see you again, Rob, and professor, the semester's over.

I see the smile on her face, getting ready for summer.

Folks, we appreciate your tuning in every week.

It is happening fast and furious both in Washington and at the State House, so we hope you come back here next week as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

Have a great weekend.

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