- [Presenter] Coming up on this week's ""A Lively Experiment"".

Rhode Island's Attorney General says the Washington Bridge litigation will go through his office after all.

And Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walls makes a quick stop in Newport on Thursday for a fundraiser.

- [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by, - 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.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program in Rhode Island PBS.

- [Presenter] Joining us on the panel, former Rhode Island attorney general, Arlene Violet, Harrison Tuttle, executive Director of the Black Lives Matter Rhode Island Political Action Committee.

And Steve Frias, former national committee man for the Rhode Island Republican Party.

Hello and welcome to Lively, I'm Jim Hummel and we appreciate you spending part of your weekend with us.

The much anticipated litigation surrounding the failure of the Washington Bridge in the news again this week, not only because we'll soon know who the state intends to go after legally, but also because Peter Norona said in multiple interviews that he needs to sign off before a lawsuit is filed.

You know, wouldn't it be great if we had somebody on this panel who knew the ins and outs of the attorney general's office?

What, we haven't heard this until this week.

Did that surprise you or not?

- No.

Attorney General Norona is correct.

Under Rhode Island law, the Attorney General is really the lawyer for all the state agencies theoretically, unless there's a conflict of interest as determined by him or her.

It's clear that McKee never brought this matter to his attention.

But he theoretically can vito this, but he has the responsibility to represent the taxpayers of the state.

So I think Narona clearly is correct about this.

McKee insulted him, no doubt by not asking him.

I hope he keeps that firm on particularly Max Wistar who's a fabulous lawyer and I think he will.

But he's just maintaining the prerogatives and responsibilities of the Office of Attorney General by saying, this is my call whether you can hire outside counsel or not.

The fact that he took time was very important 'cause you have to study an issue to see whether your office has the expertise necessary, engineering wise or whatever, which would be called, you know, into question here to be able to examine witnesses, et cetera.

So he took the time he needed to make an intelligent decision.

Good for him.

- Yeah, one of the biggest problems is the Washington Bridge in terms of quality of life of everyday Rhode Islanders.

And so when talking about this issue, talking about our elected officials, it's really important that everybody becomes on the same page.

And it doesn't appear like that is the reality right now.

And so this really isn't the time to take potential political jabs.

I really think that Rhode Islanders are looking for this bridge to be fixed and details to be announced as well as the person who is responsible or entities that are responsible for what happened to the bridge.

- Yeah, I think Peter Norona is a very capable attorney general and I think it's good that he's involved in this and it's unfortunate McKee didn't have him involved earlier.

I have very little confidence in governor McKee and how he's handled this whole bridge situation.

What will be interesting on litigation to me is I would assume that some of the people are gonna be sued, they're gonna have a simple defense.

DOT's been overlooking, overseeing us and overseeing what we've been doing and they've signed off on everything.

And I think that's gonna be a significant problem in litigation that we're going to encounter is like when they point the finger back at Pete Alverde, DOT under Raimondo and McKee and say, this was happening under your watch, we did what we were doing.

And you signed off on all our reports and things we were doing at the time.

- What about that Arlene?

- Oh, very important point that Steve just raised.

You know, they've already taken the statement, they're not gonna sue anybody who is in the wrong that belonged to the department, right.

And that's a problem only because you might wanna criminally prosecute them.

You also wanna make sure that there's not a settlement that's quote unquote political so that you could get more money from these defendants.

But because they got the contracts to start with, because they're political insiders, you know, you have to oversee the project.

So I'm a fan of the fact that Norona has stood up for the prerogatives of the office, but also on behalf of the taxpayers and everybody should be looked at, including the people who work for the Department of Transportation that allowed this to happen.

- Before, I want to talk more about that, but just in terms of Norona's involvement now, it almost like it kind of came out, not by accident, but I'm wondering when the governor appointed Max Wisteu, Jonathan Savage, great lawyers, they were successful in 38 Studios, why there wasn't some talk about the Attorney General's involvement?

Or do you think there was behind the scenes, why now?

- Whether it was or there wasn't, he should study the issue.

I mean, I would've taken the time, I would've heard it, I already know how good Wisteu and company are, so I- - [Jim] Having been on the other side of the fence a couple of times?

- Well actually I'm on the same side of the fence in the Bishop case, representing the people of St. Joseph's Hospital that had their pensions taken away from them.

But you look at it, look at their competence, whatever.

You're also looking at criminally what issues are going on and how that may interface or not with the civil suit, et cetera.

He's a careful lawyer.

He wanted to study the issue first.

And just because McKee jumped the gun and didn't bring it to his attention, that doesn't mean he has to be precipitous.

So I just think he's cautious, attorney General Norona and that's what he should have done, it is.

- Probably no surprise though that they didn't have anybody bid.

We haven't had this panel on Arlene, you haven't been on for a while, since the bridge was closed.

That you have people who are potentially the objects of lawsuits now are gonna bid on some project and am I gonna be served?

And I mean, it's awkward.

- Yeah, I mean usually you don't want to do business with people who you know are gonna sue you.

- [Jim] Right.

It seems common sense, right?

- Yeah.

Right.

And so I think that that's why I have very little confidence in how McKee's handled this whole thing.

You don't shoot first and ask questions later.

We are gonna bring our lawsuit.

We're gonna bring, you know, against whoever we think is responsible.

You just don't do a blanket, we're gonna be going after everybody.

And so everyone who says, oh, I don't want to bid on this contract.

Who knows?

I may be the fall guy for this whole thing.

So I think McKee's not handled this well at all.

And the fact that like the RFP you just mentioned, getting no bids, that's an example of people that want even do this project 'cause they know it's a disaster and they don't wanna be involved in that stuff.

- Yeah, I mean just think about the magnitude of how many people traveled on that bridge and the fact that we had no bidders.

I mean that is a problem.

- You also wonder too, Arlene, if they know that, and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago, if nobody's bidding, then you can bid the moon.

And if you're the only person, does the state have to accept that if there's no other game in town?

- Okay.

Not necessarily.

There's parameters when you put out a request for proposal, which by the way, the Attorney General should certainly oversee because that seems to be the case as you know, there's already like $125 million bid beyond the money that was put out initially for the first phase of all of this.

So I think you really have to study this because I think that department, particularly since even I was Attorney General in the mid eighties, has always been political, decisions are made that have made politically as opposed to what's in the best interest of taxpayers.

And I praise Norona for stepping up to the plate and overseeing this project 'cause I have confidence in him and his integrity.

- Last point, I think that the average person looks at it and says, nobody's been suspended that we know of, nobody's lost a paycheck, nobody's lost their job.

Where's the accountability?

- Not only that, but think about how long it's been, right?

The attorney general reference- - December 11th.

- How long it's been, December 11th, and to the average Rhode Islander who is not looking at the news and is looking for just brief updates to see no update, essentially.

I mean we've gotten cost of the project, we've gotten updates to everybody inside the politics game.

But to the average Rhode Islander, they really haven't gotten any assurance that this bridge is going to be fixed in a quick manner of time.

- But we don't even know the cost.

- [Tuttle] Exactly.

- Or timeline, right?

- [Frias] Exactly right.

Yes.

- Okay, when you go to the ballot box in November, you're gonna be asked, should Rhode Island hold a constitutional convention?

It's a question voters have had to face every 10 years.

They haven't said yes since the mid eighties, Mr. Frias, you testified in front of the panel, there's a legislative panel talking about this, now you're in favor, but when now the oppositions lined up and they've been pretty successful in defeating this, how do you see this playing out over the next couple of months?

- Well, it's gonna be a question is are people satisfied with the status quo?

And what the special interest groups in this state who are the opposition to this always do is they scare people.

They use scare tactics 'cause they're afraid of the change.

They like how it is up at the State House right now, 'cause they get what they generally want.

And so it's a question is, are enough people getting informed and educated about the opportunity that the constitutional convention presents?

It's an opportunity to change how Rhode Island is run and reform it potentially.

And, you know, we could talk about different issues, in inspector general, we could talk about, you know, requiring voter approval for these pause soccer type deals.

So the voters are on the hook for paying for it, but they never voted for it in the first place.

Term limits, line item, you know, all these sorts of issues.

And there's issues on the left that they would like to have a constitution convention consider.

And what a constitution convention does, it's a form to present proposals to the public.

Nothing gets approved unless the voters approve it.

So if you believe in the voters in the long run, then you should be in favor of constitutional convention.

- Maybe that's the problem, they don't believe in the voters.

70% of the people in the state poll say they want an inspector general.

And I've said this before, one person standing in the way right now.

And that's Joseph Arch.

- That's exactly what it's, that's why you have a constitutional convention every 10 years to give people the chance to say, the general assembly's not listening to us.

They like it the way it is 'cause they're in charge.

So let's do something different.

- Look, we have bodies of government that affect change, that have policy, when we allow special interest groups, as we've seen in other parts of this country, to come in and spend money to deceive the public, it's dangerous.

And for the groups that are opposed to this, right?

The ACLU, other, the unions, they want to be able to make change.

But the the problem is, that we potentially could have a situation in which special interest groups come in and drastically change the way Rhode Island is.

And if we want to change the status quo, the best way is to tell voters to vote for their elected official in which they would like to see represent them.

- So is that a no to the constitutional convention?

- [Tuttle] That is a no.

- And what do you say to that?

- Look, there are special interest groups running the state right now.

When Governor McKee was running for governor, hundreds of thousands of dollars was spent by organized labor to get him reelected.

And in the past, in this state, 20 years ago, there was Harris Casino wanted to change our constitution for gambling interests.

Guess what?

The voters voted it down, although Harris spent millions of dollars.

So the voters in this state are not so easily duped because they see something on TV and say, oh, vote for that, they actually decide things and make informed decisions many times.

And so I'm skeptical of this concept, like, just because an outside group or special interest group's gonna spend money, the voters are gonna automatically approve it.

That hasn't been the case always.

- [Jim] Well, go ahead.

- Well, when you have money in special interest groups in politics and you allow people to spend on campaigns, you're creating a sense of manipulation.

And because the campaign relies on how much money an individual has to push a campaign.

And so it is not a determining factor as to the quality and the merits of the campaign.

We see all the time, we see outside elected officials, outside money influence elections, just recently in the congressional races in New York and in other parts of the country.

It's a dangerous precedent.

- Anyone watching this, please vote for a constitutional convention.

We're now captive of already special interest groups in Rhode Island through campaign contributions.

Nothing adverse happened in the eighties when we had a constitutional convention.

We got ethics finally, you know, for legislators, et cetera as a result of that constitutional convention, the 75 people who will become the so-called delegates to the constitutional- - [Jim] They run?

- They run, they're from Rhode Island, you get a chance to vote for them.

So the big money really doesn't count.

And the bugaboo is, oh, they're gonna come in and put a provision in to ban abortion.

Ain't going to happen.

The general assembly in this predominantly Catholic state, overwhelming majority of legislators are Catholic, they didn't ban abortion.

It's not gonna happen with a constitutional convention- - That was the big issue 40 years ago back then.

- And it didn't happen then.

It hasn't happened since.

Unlike other legislators, legislatures throughout this country, the constitutional convention is necessary.

There's reform needed to be made in the general assembly, particularly how they do business there and the secretiveness way that they do business.

That's gotta stop.

We need an inspector general.

There's lots of issues.

And I think it's a false premise that big money's going to come in, didn't happen before, won't happen now.

Trust the people that you're gonna vote for to be the delegates.

- What issues are you, so abortion's the one we all talk about.

What issues are you are concerned that might be hijacked?

- Well, so I'm particularly fearful of far right amendments that are being made to the constitution all across the country- - [Jim] Such as?

- Well such as abortion.

But there are a numerous number of laws that could be changed.

Not ones that I am privy to exactly, but anytime that you allow, again, this is whether you are on the left or your right or you're in the middle, the influence comes as to who has the most money, and money provides interest and money provides the access to people at the doors in which, let's say there is a constitutional amendment in which the public may be in favor of one thing and it's underfunded compared to the other campaign.

And so that's my fear is that we have elected officials that are able to make those decisions by creating a constitutional amendment.

We're really creating an unprecedented time for far right extremists to affect.

- But you're never gonna get an inspector general, unless the people, voter initiative is something, and that's kind of been controversial in other places, but- - Well you mentioned that it's the speaker of the house, right?

- [Jim] Yeah.

- And so this is where we have to put pressure on the speaker of the house.

If you are interested in- - [Jim] People have pressure on him, he just, why would he want somebody to come and get the camel's nose under the tent on a $14 billion budget?

- Exactly.

Look, people in power don't change by saying, please, they change under pressure.

And the pressure at, like when I brought change against Speaker Maddel, that was one thing, but if you wanna make systemic change in this state, you need a constitutional convention, because right now the powers in the State House are so entrenched it's not gonna change.

You're always like, oh, there's this wing thing, this right wing thing.

In the end, nothing happens unless it's approved by the voters.

Okay?

And again, this is a state that I don't think is gonna vote for any sort of pro-life thing.

It hasn't in the past.

It won't in the future.

I don't see it happening.

This is a pro-choice state.

So this is just like a boogeyman that they use to scare people because they're afraid of change.

- Final question, what do you expect that legislative report, they're supposed to come up with some report by September 3rd.

Is it gonna be vanilla?

What is it gonna be?

- It's probably gonna be vanilla.

And then they'll throw in a a comment like, oh, it's gonna cost some certain kind of money, you know, to try to get people not to vote for a constitutional convention.

So it's, I don't expect much from the report.

- Okay, we'll get back to local in just a second, but I would be remiss if we didn't talk about the presidential politics.

Governor Tim Walls, who is now Kamala Harris's Vice presidential pick was in Newport yesterday, we're taping on a Friday morning.

It was a pretty good take.

He was here for, I don't know, two, three hours and left the state with $600,000.

Not a surprise that everybody turned out at Salve.

This, it's amazing what's happened since we've had you last on.

- [Tuttle] Yes.

- In the last four weeks, what's happened, and the whole script seems to have been flipped.

- This redefinition of what patriotism is.

We saw the former President Donald Trump get shot, in which everyone seemed to think that the momentum was riding him to the presidency, all but a short thing.

And now we see a switch in the Democratic party that is energizing a base in which hasn't been energized since really Obama.

Right?

Even in 2020 when you had President Joe Biden, there was kind of this, well, he's better than Trump, now you have a situation- - [Jim] He's the bridge to the next generation.

- Exactly, and now you have two elected officials, very different but very similar, and their mission and their messaging, that is the speaking to this yearning of change and everyday politics that is really reaching voters at the doors, opposed to this very corporate like campaign that has been, you know, really plaguing the Democratic party and hurting voters.

- [Jim] Arlene?

- A woman who's black is president in my lifetime, may it happen?

- [Jim] Yeah, so Steve, let me just say, and for those who didn't follow, you've been a national committee man for years, you decided to resign your post because you couldn't support Donald Trump.

And to me that that was courageous.

I don't know if you felt at the end of it.

- [Arlene] Here, here.

- No, at the end of the day, maybe it was an easy choice rather than a hard choice.

But now as a conservative and a Republican, you're looking at the Democratic ticket and you have some questions.

- Yeah, I mean their policies are terrible, period.

When they talk about change, Harris said, oh, it's a party of change.

There's a change message.

You're basically continuing with the vice president of the current administration, an administration in which you had 20% inflation over the last four years, we had a border policy, which was a failure.

And so I look at this as like, what's happened to the Democratic party is I would call, it's a relief.

They finally dumped Biden 'cause they knew they couldn't win without him.

So everyone's just saying, hallelujah, praise the Lord, because now we can actually win.

Because, before Biden dropped out, it was headed towards a likely electoral landslide defeat with consequences at the house and Senate level.

So I think what we're seeing about this energy on the democratic side is a sense of we can win, we can win.

We're not gonna get, we don't have to defend Biden anymore.

And I think that's what's occurred and what's benefiting them is that I think people did not wanna rematch.

And the Democrats listened to it, pushed Biden out- - [Jim] The double haters.

- The double haters said, I hate both of them.

The Democratic leadership pushed Biden out and those voters that were in the middle are rewarding them.

- I saw one prominent Republican say, I almost hope that Harris wins to put the stake in Trump, get rid of him so we could reset and come back in four years with a different Republican party.

What do you think about that?

- I think we would be better off as Republicans moving on from Trump.

- Look, we are in a crucial time in our country.

We have a former president who is a multi-time felon who is associating himself with individuals who want to basically destroy our democracy.

And so whether we have a candidate in Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or Governor Waltz, we need to make sure that our democracy is preserved and that individuals in our state and across the country are protected when it comes to abortion rights, when it comes to being able to not be criminalized when it comes to being homeless.

All of these things that we're talking about at a local level are being magnified at a national level and potentially being banned federally.

And so we have to protect our democracy by any means necessary.

- I'll take a smart woman prosecutor over a felon any day of the week, in the final analysis, the president has to have character.

So many things materialized that are unpredictable and you have to make decisions based on what is good for a democracy.

I cannot understand why people would put in an inveterate liar that Mr. Trump is, someone who is fictitious on virtually every comment that he makes.

He certainly is showing problems with repetitiveness himself and losing his train of thought.

So all those people worried about Biden ought to be worried about Mr. Trump.

And frankly, I am a proud Republican, but not the Republican party on the national level that it is now.

And it should be cleansed and he needs to have the stake in his heart and get him out of there.

- You know, four years seems like a long time.

I remember when Trump was first elected, I asked my kids, you know, on a liberal university campus, I said, you know, what's the vibe?

And they said, it was like the day after we lost the national championship in basketball.

Everybody was all moping around.

And I told them, they were probably 18, 20 at the time.

I said, you know, four years goes by pretty quickly.

And so, you know, I wonder that, if you got rid of Trump and then you have the midterms coming up, right?

So if you're gonna mobilize for that to try to take back, you know, depending on how the house of senate go, maybe you gotta play the long game if you're Republican.

- For me, like I said, I mean there are a lot of Republicans who would say right now that Trump's gonna win and that the stakes are too high and that Harris isn't so bad, and I understand that.

My point is on the Republican side of the equation is, Trump has shown consistently over the last few elections, he, we performed poorly, we underperform.

And so in the long run, I think we need to move beyond Trump.

- But think about the four years, right?

What happened during those four years, you saw an increase hate crimes that- - [Jim] 16 to 20.

- 16 to 20 increased hate crimes.

We saw one of the most deadliest pandemics in which the former president mishandled.

And we also saw one of the biggest tax cuts to our most wealthy in the entire country, leading us to the point of inflation in which we are here in this moment today.

It's incredibly irresponsible for the American public if they vote Donald Trump in.

- I will say though, and this is not just the reporters, it's a right wing talking point.

But I do think Harris, once the convention clears, is gonna have to sit down, start having press conferences.

And I think she's still trying to figure out, Arlene, where her positions are.

Where does she separate herself from Biden?

Where does she take credit?

They had a press conference yesterday for the prescription drugs.

But there are other issues that I think if Trump concentrated on 'em could be a real brick around her neck.

- Well, obviously she has to start doing press conferences, but it's somewhat unfair.

She's thrust into the middle of a campaign.

She has to find who the vice president person is, et cetera.

Now then the honeymoon period's over, she has to start answering on what her policies are going to be.

But I think, you know, Vance to criticize her for not having press conferences when Trump skipped all the primaries, he doesn't give press conferences either.

He just goes on attack mode and how wonderful he is and the big crowds he attracts, et cetera.

So to me, this is a choice in this election between picking someone who's a narcissist and like all narcissists put themselves first above what the good of the country is, and we saw it when he was president the four years he was president, versus someone who has a distinguished career as a prosecutor.

And I think the choice is very clear.

- Okay, let's do outrageous and or kudos.

Harrison, let's begin with you this week.

- I wanna make sure that we are really looking at the fact that we have a situation in the state where we have multiple people that are still facing housing insecurity.

Right?

We about it during the winter months, but we still experience it here in the summer.

All you have to do is go to some of our lower income communities to see how the housing crisis has impacted us.

There's an upcoming housing bond and so I'm not sure if it's a kudo or an outrage, but I encourage folks to look at the upcoming housing bond that will be on the ballot in November.

- Yeah, and part of the problem is there's been money available, just the execution, you got the palace shelters that's been held up by regulation.

So money doesn't always solve the problem, but- - Correct, it's allocation and it's making sure- - [Jim] And execution.

- And execution and making sure that the people that are most impacted are on the forefront of what they're benefiting from.

- Steven, what do you have?

- Basically kind of a little bit of a belated kudos, but to ambassador Nikki Haley.

Nikki Haley earlier this year said the party that dropped their 80-year-old something nominee was gonna win the election.

And when she said that it wasn't particularly popular with either party's leadership.

But it looks like right now, when you look at the polling, she was a pretty good prognosticator of where things are headed.

- [Jim] Yeah, Arlene?

- Kudos to Frias here for having the courage of his convictions.

He had a price to pay when he didn't endorse Mr. Trump.

So good for him.

I've gotta really say to the Department of Health shape up, you know, every person who has someone loved that's going into a nursing home looks at their ratings of nursing homes before they pick one.

The Department of Health has not updated the site and the ratings of nursing homes, even from people that they found violated health, welfare, and safety, they didn't update when there were two sexual assaults in the Warren nursing home, they have refused, even though they could just copy it from Medicare, the hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been fined against various other nursing homes for crying out loud, the one and only thing you should do to protect the elderly, one thing, Dr. Lockett, get on the dime, update that nursing home reference and get the ratings correct by putting in your own stuff, as well as what the federal government has said our nursing home had violate right.

So get with it for crying out loud.

Do something right in that department.

- Could have a T-shirt, shape up.

It's gonna like, knock it off, right?

(panel chuckling) Listen, we have just a couple of minutes left.

We have two lawyers on the panel.

The shoreline access bill was passed with great fanfare last year.

Now it's in court because some of the property owners say it's a taking of the deed.

Sara Taft Carter, the judge, seems to incline, we haven't gotten the final decision yet, to kind of go with that.

What is your legal reading of this?

- I mean, I haven't read the decision, I don't know all the details, but here's the bottom line.

There's a constitutional right to have shoreline access, but guess who interprets what the parameters of a constitutional right is?

It's the judges, it's the court, it's court precedent.

It's not the legislature sitting over there going, well I think it should be 10 feet here or it should be over there.

- [Jim] Which is what they did.

- Which is what they did.

So I think, like, I think that this is not gonna work out so well for the general assembly because in the end it's the courts interpreting the constitutional right.

And of course if they wanna fix it, all they have to do is have a constitutional convention.

- [Jim] Oh, we add that in list.

What's your reading of this?

- I have represented groups like Friends of the Waterfront to gain access to the public.

- Right, right, right.

- Fishermen to do the same thing.

However, I think she's correct.

It is a taking of the property- - [Jim] Because that's in the deed when you buy it, right?

- And the high tide is really what is there and it is an unconstitutional taking.

If it goes to the Supreme Court, she's gonna be upheld.

- [Jim] 30 seconds?

- Yeah, like the most important thing is that Rhode Islanders should have access to the beach and the shoreline, right?

And so we're talking to litigation, I'm not, there's nothing that I can add that would further add it.

But you know- - [Jim] Counselor Tuttle, you'd have colossal- - I think that Rhode Islanders deserve to have access and that, you know, we're gonna create a solution.

- But it would have to be in the constitution then, right?

- [Tuttle] Yes.

- But would that change, would that override the deeds, ultimately if you had for the people- - Well then there would be an issue of grandfathering that would be also litigated as it's only prospect future or can it go back.

- Not a great time to be a real estate agent if you're trying to sell some of that property out in Charleston.

Right?

Okay, folks, that is all the time we have.

We appreciate you joining us.

Steve, good to see you and Harrison, Arlene, nice to have you back.

- My pleasure.

- Arlene never lets us know exactly how she feels on this show.

(panel laughing) She's a little bit of a, she's not a shrinking violet though.

Folks, if you can't join us Friday at seven or Sunday at noon, we archive all of our shows at ripbs.org/lively.

There's a lot going on, the conventions next week, we're gonna have a lot to recap.

We hope you join us back here next week as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

Have a great weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by.

- 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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