- This week on a lively experiment.

Eight months after the abrupt closure of the Washington Bridge, the state finally seeks some accountability.

And Kamala Harris accepts her party's nomination with 10 weeks left until election day.

- [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 and Rhode Island PBS.

- [Announcer] Joining us on this week's panel, Weayonnoh Nelson Davies, executive Director of the Economic Progress Institute of Rhode Island, Providence College Political Science Professor Adam Myers and Bill Bartholomew, political contributor and founder of the Bartholomew Town Podcast.

And welcome into this week's lively.

I'm Jim Hummel, and it's great to have you with us.

The presidential race is about to kick into high gear.

We'll have a little bit more on that later in the program.

But first, governor McKee says, his long awaited day of reckoning has begun with a lawsuit suing 13 companies the state believes contributed to the failure of the Washington Bridge.

Bill, I don't know if it's the beginning of the day of reckoning, but this is the path that they're taking.

- Well, it certainly is.

And by the way, I interviewed Attorney General Neronha last week on the day this lawsuit was announced on WPRO.

And you know, he seems to think that it's exactly what you said.

It's kind of the beginning of the day of reckoning.

It's sort of a movement towards accountability.

Of course, the big piece here is that nobody within state government is susceptible to any sort of scrutiny.

This is about private contractors outside of government.

Sure, it could get into a grand jury scenario where if there's anything criminal that happened and anyone ought to be held accountable within the state, that could happen.

But basically you're looking at an outside of state government, not that surgical effort to hold people accountable.

- Weayonnoh.

- Yeah and I think it is important to hold government officials accountable.

'Cause the oversight process, the enforcement of contract is where accountability needs to have some direction.

And I can imagine, with my lawyer hat on, that those 13 companies will start pointing fingers against each other and the department, if this go to trial, I'm also concerned, I want the accountability to happen.

But with 13 companies being sued, we have a bid out that no one's going for.

So there's probably like 13 companies who is not gonna try to go for that bid.

And then other people might be deterred.

So I think we need to think of a holistic solution to the problem accountability.

We need to think about the public safety concern that continues, the expensive rebuilding of the breach that will happen.

And think about how are we gonna be proactive going forward?

'cause it is a reactive solution.

- Well, so with your legal hat, a lot of people have said it makes no sense at all to be throwing my words, throwing DOT people under the bus because ultimately the companies are gonna point back to the state, right?

- I think they are.

You know, it makes sense in the negotiation to say, it's not my fault, it was either company A's fault, it was the department fault for not doing.

So, it's gonna be a long drawn out process.

And we still have a bridge of 4,400 plus million dollars bridge that needs to be built.

And we need to be thinking about how to do that.

But how to make sure going forward, the public safety concern is a proactive measure and not reactive.

- Yeah, piggybacking off of Juana's point about being proactive, not reactive.

I mean, we're talking about decisions that were made going back to 1968, right?

I mean, so we could dig into this history very intensely and look, we should find out what happened and this lawsuit is an appropriate vehicle for doing that.

But at the same time, we shouldn't get too bogged down in the history.

We should think about how to not make the same mistakes that were made.

Again, that should be the priority.

I mean, if the state can recoup some of the money that it's some of the 500 plus million dollars that it has to spend on this new bridge, then that would be a good thing.

But looking to the future should really be of the utmost importance.

- It's stunning that it goes, some of it goes back to '92.

- Yeah.

- And it's all of this.

And he didn't, he checked this pier, but he didn't check that pier.

And as you read it, it's just stunning to me, a failure of oversight.

- It's an unbelievable failure of government.

I've been saying it could go back all the way to Roger Williams since it started.

There's no way you're gonna tell me that randomly a young engineer happened to inspect a cantilever in December and discover, oh my goodness, maybe a heavy truck went over it or something like that.

This is a complete breakdown of the oversight and management of our key infrastructure.

The fact that heads haven't rolled is shocking.

And they should have already rolled.

And by the way, as this Washington bridge goes, so goes the McKee administration in 2026.

So this idea of we're gonna have a brand new Washington Bridge just in time for the Democratic primary from a McKee political operations standpoint, they better make sure that happens.

And the fact that Alviti is still employed as the director of the Department of Transportation is even just on a surface level, absolutely shocking.

- What about that politically?

Because that builds, that bridge is not gonna get built before the 26th election.

- Right?

- It might not get built before the 28 election.

- Right and so we've talked about this before, it's going to be an albatross around his neck come 2026, there's no doubt about that.

You know, but Eli Sherman made an important point in one of his articles about this, state officials accepting responsibility for this giant catastrophe right now would not serve them well with regard to this lawsuit.

They don't want any public statements indicating that it was the state's fault.

What happened.

They want to pin all the blame on these companies.

And I think the process of discovery that's gonna occur with this lawsuit's gonna be very interesting.

Hopefully we will find out in much greater detail exactly what happened.

- Because the companies are gonna point at the state, right?

- Of course, absolutely.

- Okay.

We had talked about this a couple of weeks ago after the filing deadline, that a lot of general assembly races this year are a record number of uncontested races.

It's frustrating because we've had vigorous primaries in the past.

And then leading up to the general, Weayonnoh, as you look at this, we've talked about maybe why not people are running.

But you know, I think most people would love to see vigorous two parties in the state.

'Cause it's good for government, but that's not happening this year.

- It's not.

And I can imagine for an electoral official who's uncontested, they're probably appreciate the fact that there's no one running against.

- They don't mind the robots.

- They do not.

But it's not healthy for our democracy, right?

We need active democracy for voters to be engaged, for citizens to be engaged.

And so we need to have contested races and it also hold leaders accountable.

If you are not challenged, then you're really not accountable.

But there are some barriers as to why people are not running.

This is record law.

And quite frankly, I'm not too happy seeing that people are not running even in the primaries, barriers like fundraising, now to run, you really have to have a network.

You have to have access to capital to be able to run a good campaign.

So that's a big barrier for a lot of people not running.

And it's a drawn out process that can lead to burnout.

And so a lot of people who have ran a couple of times against established leaders are sort of bring up trying to do that again, concerned whether they're even going to impact change by running.

So those are issues we have to address to make sure that we have a democratic process that voters can go and act where can add a stand on issues.

And we don't have a lot of that going on.

We do have some contested races I would like to talk about, but for the uncontested races, I hope we can put those numbers up.

- Professor.

- Yes, this is a topic I have a lot to say about and I think it's important to distinguish.

- Should we clear the rest of the show for you or what?

- I'll try to be short.

You know, there's the short term issue, which is this particular year, the rate of uncontested seats is unusually high.

But then there's the long term issue, which is that Rhode Island has historically had very, very high rates of uncontested seats among the highest in the nation.

And as Weayonnoh said, it's a problem for our democracy.

Democracy requires that voters have a choice between at least two candidates, Ideally at the general election stage between two parties.

But also at the primary stage.

And look, this year, I think what happened is pretty clear, the network of progressive activist groups that were recruiting all these primary challengers in the past, sort of.

- They ran outta steam.

- They ran outta steam, that's exactly right.

And Republicans don't have their act together to contest races at the general election level.

Longer term, I think the issue is several fold.

First of all, all the academic research shows that uncontested seats are higher in states where the value to holding a seat, the value to being in the state legislature is lower.

And we don't compensate our legislators very well in the state.

We don't give them any staff.

And we ask them to show up in Smith Hill five, six months, a year after the end of the workday.

It's a long slog for little pay and little benefit.

And so one way we could decrease our number of uncontested seats is to give legislators a little more in the way of compensation or staff.

Another way you were kind of alluding to this is public funding, right?

Our neighbor to the West, Connecticut, has public funding for its state legislative races, and they have much lower rates of uncontested seats than we do.

- Building off of that, your former point, it's true that what we saw in 2018, 2020, even the last election with progressives, is fizzled out in a lot of ways.

And the reason is not because there's less interest, but because you have developed characters over these years who have developed egos and followings and they collide with each other.

You know, you see the working families party camp, well maybe they don't get along with the political co-ops, so on and so forth.

You don't have an organized, cohesive, progressive effort.

And progressives never really found a way to tailor their message to Richmond.

What works in Providence on a message doesn't necessarily work in Hope Valley.

And it's an interesting study in how when you build a movement, human beings naturally want power within that movement.

And so there's a division there.

And then, I mean, look, let's be honest about it.

The Republican party in Rhode Island is to call it a joke, is offensive to the great comedians of our time.

It's an embarrassment.

I don't understand what Joe Powers is doing.

I've never interviewed him or had any real interactions with him.

But when I've heard him, I'm amazed that this person could be one of 100 party chairpersons of a major party in this country.

And we do need Republicans.

We don't necessarily need far right Republicans, but we need practical small government Republicans as for paying, let the legislator more, it makes sense.

I'm more of a small government guy.

I'd hate to see an expansion of government.

At the same time, hey, maybe that's what's gonna take to get more quality people up there.

- We've had some high profile people go down.

I remember Marcia Ranglin-Vassell picked off Johnny Jobs DeSimone years ago, and then Barbara Ann Fenton Fung taken out Matt Yellow.

But those are so few and far between.

So I think if you are somebody looking to take on these entrenched people who have been there for a long, it seems like a pretty tough slog.

- It is.

And so one of the races I'm looking at very closely is the Senate district for race, which is actually my district.

So we have the Senate President Ruggerio, who have been a public servant for 40 years, being challenged for the third time by Lenny Cioe who came very close in 2020, I think close enough, like 341 votes is what he lost the Democratic primary.

That is a race that have been picking up Cioe have asked senator, president to follow President Biden, follow his lead and step down the Senate president have pushed back, fierce fully.

I even got mailed this week.

- [Jim] Yeah, what's it like in the district?

What's the buzzing?

- Yeah, so this week we got flyers in our mailbox that rarely call Cioe from the Senate President campaign calling Cioe a socialist, calling him someone who is have friends in the leftist movement trying to defund the police.

So it is really getting intense.

- [Jim] Sounds like the Republican playbook, doesn't it?

- It does, it did.

So it was weird coming from our Senate president, but that's a race I think people need to watch.

I think the House District nine race is also another one that we have a three party Democratic primary contention.

And there's a lot going on with that race.

Former Representative Williams is really, pushing back and have five complaints saying no, there's no ballots.

Five complaint about stolen yachts.

Sanchez, who is now in her seat, have been there since 2022, have filed complaints, ethical complaints about disclosure of financial records.

And so that's a really contentious race as well.

- What about the Senate president?

That's been brewing because he finally admitted something that we probably all knew he'd had health problems.

- Right.

- And Cioe's really going in on that, but at the same fact he's represented that district a long time.

I know it's been rejiggered a little bit.

He's a lot of power and can bring home the bacon.

So that's a tough thing to overturn.

- That's right.

And this is the third time those two have gone up against each other and the previous two times the Senate president has won.

So despite all the health issues and so forth, I would assume he has an advantage in that district.

But, you know, listen, it's one of the few interesting races we have in Rhode Island this year.

So I guess it is, if for no other reason than that, we should all be paying attention to it.

- Any other races you're looking at?

- Mm, making Cotter Justin Price Battle.

- Oh, Price is trying to come back, yeah.

- In Richmond.

You've got MAGA versus a pragmatic progressive, which really would define the Chariho region as a whole where I grew up.

I think those are the two spaces you have.

- And the Jewel Miller seat as well in the Senator District 28, you have a lot of people running for that and just had a forum moderated by Ed Fitzpatrick.

And they talk about issues and we wanna go through issues.

- Isn't that refreshing?

Wow, they actually talk about issues.

- Exactly, the other thing we've talked about this every week and I've asked every panel about the constitutional convention.

You will be asked on the ballot whether you want one every 10 years.

Rhode Islanders get a chance to vote on that.

They haven't approved going forward with one since the middle '80s.

This week, the legislative commission, Adam looking at it said, well, it could cost from two and a half million to four and a half million.

I don't know whether they think that's a deterrent or whether they're just putting that out there in a $14 billion budget.

I'm not sure that's pocket change.

But where, what do you think about on the constitutional convention itself?

- So I think that amount of money, as you just alluded to, it's a drop in the bucket.

And I'm not saying it's nothing, but that shouldn't be.

- The determining factor.

Determining factor, right.

And personally, I'm in favor of it.

And the reason for that is because I think it's important for us to have a forum as a state where we discuss what we want our democracy to look like.

And I understand all the arguments about outside interests coming in and influencing it and so on and so forth.

But the bottom line is, if we as a state, as a political community can't get together and discuss, whether our political institutions are working for us, which, I would suggest that they're not, and the benefits and drawbacks of changing them, then we're not, in my view, we're not qualified for self-government.

And listen, we could have this forum and decide it at the end of it that we don't want to change anything.

And that's fine.

But I think we should just discuss it at least.

- It's interesting because I've heard and understood the positions that are opposed to this concept of a convention.

And I've heard the positions that are in favor of it.

And it's one of those moments where I'm empathetic to both causes.

One thing that I think could come out of a constitutional convention that would be a really important piece for us would be an inspector general, that's elected not.

- And that's the only way we get one.

- That's the only way we get one.

So for nothing else, the creation of a new elected office that's an inspector general that may be worth it alone to me to go into that direction.

- Yeah, I'm with Bill.

I think I see both sides of this argument.

Ideally in a democracy, right?

Having a forum where citizens can be a part of is a great thing.

But like equality is an ideal in this country.

It doesn't mean we actually practice it.

So in an ideal world, it will work that way.

I think what people are concerned about with something like equality is now we're looking at races where it's going uncontested because ordinary citizens, unrepresented communities cannot participate.

And so if we have this other process, will this be a process where it's gonna be overwhelming people with special interests, people with contacts who are gonna be a part leaving our underrepresented community.

So I think that is really the big concerns about that.

And then what could come out of a convention if we don't have a full representation of the people in the state of Rhode Island.

- I think those are excellent points.

But all the things we're talking about, the lack of political competition in the state and so on and so forth, those are issues that redesigning our political institutions could at least help with, if not solve completely, right?

We could have rank choice voting, right, which could in theory increase the number of people who run for elected office.

We could have a citizen initiative process, right?

Which is a form of direct democracy, which in other states increases citizen engagement in politics, right?

Basic political institutions that in some cases facilitate democracy, right?

We could bring them into our political process.

And I'm not saying it would solve all of our problems.

And listen, it's true.

It's also possible that some of these reforms could make our problems worse.

That's why we need to discuss them.

- But the backstop is you get to vote on it.

- That's right.

- All over.

It's not like this constitutional convention is gonna decide and we have no side.

To me, that's the fail safe.

And the concern was about abortion in the mid '80s that had no chance of going through and wouldn't, I don't think, in 2025, so.

- Absolutely, I understand why people are scared, but I think we, and the other thing is we could be a model to the entire nation, right?

We were the last state to have a state constitutional convention in 1986, right?

This is the longest drought in state constitutional conventions in I think American history.

Could be wrong about that, but that's my sense.

And the fact that we're not willing to seriously rethink the way we do democracy in this country.

I think that's a real problem.

And we, in Rhode Island could help in a sense lead the nation out of that.

- Okay, the Democrats this week got their chance to hold their convention in Chicago, capped off.

They had the cavalcade of stars came out, the Obamas were there, Bill Clinton was there.

Joe Biden of course, kind of gave his swan song on Monday night.

And then it was capped off.

We're taping on a Friday morning.

Thursday night Kamala Harris came out.

I think the best thing to me was Tim Walz 17 minutes, Kamala Harris, 37 minutes, and then you subtract maybe five minutes of clapping at the beginning.

As you watched her accept the nomination, what were you thinking?

- I have to say, as a woman, as a Black woman, as a Black woman lawyer raising two Black daughters, the historic significance of that movement was that lost on me.

You know, regardless of political.

I think just looking at that in the United States in 2024, that was special and they, like with Biden dropping off and endorsing Harris, the energy have been electrifying and you could see that at the convention.

So there's definitely, people are engaged again, which is great for the democracy.

So I love the fact that voters are re-engaged in this presidential election.

So it was great to watch, now it's time to get to work.

There's 75 days between now and the elections.

And I think the Democratic party have to think a little bit more about, beyond the anecdote of we are not going back to a Trump election.

They have to address certain issues.

What type of America do we want to live in?

Do we want an America fighting for tax fairness, for healthcare, for people, reducing child poverty?

Is that the type of America?

Is this a party to deliver it?

That is a great idea.

Those are great ideals for EPI.

And so I'm looking to see what they're gonna talk about that.

But then also they have to address the economic growth of this station.

People are suffering and so they have to talk to middle class families about are their job creations on their agenda?

Are there supports for families?

And so they really need to now think about how to address those issues beyond attacking Donald Trump.

- Yeah, inflation and immigration.

Look, we live in a big blue bubble up here.

There's a lot of red states that they're like, well that all sounds nice, but what's that doing for my grocery bill, right?

- Right.

I mean, to me it's very simple.

This election is very simple.

It's, you're either voting for Trump or against Trump.

Any choice that is not voting for Donald Trump is in one bucket and voting for Donald Trump is another bucket.

And it's a major election.

In that sense, it can't be overstated just how dangerous Donald Trump is and would be.

Now the Democrats have significant problems as well.

They're also on the world spectrum.

They're still a pretty conservative party and so on and so forth.

But anybody who's a leftist or an independent or a libertarian or an anarchist or a constitutional conservative or anybody other than a MAGA person should be looking at this election and saying, this is about one thing and it's defeating Donald Trump.

And the Democrats have done a good job of teeing up enthusiasm for that.

- Yeah, I largely agree with what my colleagues here have said.

And I thought the convention was a big success for the Democrats.

And clearly the party is very enthusiastic right now.

Very joyful right now.

That was a big buzzword.

But I think that the honeymoon phase for Harris and Walz is not gonna last much longer.

You know, we know how these things go.

The tide will turn, there will be some new story or set of new stories that are going to change the political dynamic.

There's going to be a September, October surprise, we don't know what it is yet, but it's gonna happen.

And so the race, I mean I will predict one thing.

The race in October is not gonna look like what it looks like now.

So what, we have just about 30 seconds left, so the debate is gonna happen and then we're gonna kind of be off to the races.

What would you like to see Kamala Harris do over the next two months?

What does she need to do to kind of bring the independence and those kind of on the fence?

- She has to unify the country.

I think her message has to be like everyone wins if there is a Harris administration, because how dangerous it can be.

She has to talk about people about how we're gonna afford groceries and gas.

And she has to do that in a way that resonate with people.

And I think her campaign have to make sure people show up and vote.

Like voters have to get to the polls.

So registering, talking directly to voters is important.

- Okay folks, it is a quick show.

That is all the time we have.

Bill, good to see you.

Weayonnoh, welcome and Adam, welcome back.

Finally this week we are pleased to introduce you to this year's Rhode Island PBS scholarship winner, Timothy Yean from Cranston East, who will be heading to Rhode Island College next week.

The annual scholarship provides up to $60,000 toward college over four years for students interested in going into broadcasting communications or journalism.

As I found out from Tim a couple of weeks ago, his passion is sports reporting.

Here's my conversation with him.

And welcome back, I'm with Tim Yean here, and Tim, first of all, congratulations.

- Thank you so much, Jim.

It's an pleasure to be here.

- You beat out a lot of, it's a good competition.

It's a stiff competition.

Of all the scholarships I've interviewed over the years, you're the first one who loves and is interested in sports.

Tell me why.

- So back in eighth grade, middle school, I just transferred to Hugh B. Bain.

You know, I was basically new there, knew nobody, my algebra teacher assigned a homework assignment describing the algebra problem and I described it like a tortoise and a hare story.

And so the teacher really loved that.

So that's what got me into sports broadcasting.

But a little while before that, Super Bowl 52 was really my first entry into loving sports.

Unfortunately it was a tough loss for the Patriots, but I think that's what kicked off everything in terms of my career.

- Great and so you're gonna be going to Rhode Island College in the fall and there are a lot of great things, the Anchor Newspapers there, Anchor TV, but overall you're gonna look to major in what?

You gonna communications major or what are you thinking?

- Yeah, I'm gonna major in communications.

Like you mentioned, I wanna work for The Anchor, the Anchor TV, everything.

I think just being able to expand my opportunities there, being able to make an impact to the Rick, community is a huge source of just being a part of everything there, Rick.

- Being a reporter, as you know and being a sports reporter gives you a front seat that a lot of people don't have to so many events.

What was that like at Cranston East?

Being right there in the middle of the action?

- It definitely gives a lot of exclusivity, not being around too many people, just being around everyone I worked with my friends that worked with me and it's really just a chance to take it in analyze, you know, without having too many, interruptions around you.

But you know, it certainly a unique experience and I think being able to also connect with the athletes too, not only on the court but off the court in school.

I think that's what separates a lot of high school sports from anything else.

- Tell me about this scholarship, what that means to you.

It's a pretty big financial commitment.

- It means a lot to me, Jim, being able to not worry financially about college.

My parents are here right now, they should be very much relieved.

They've worked so hard throughout my life, through my sister's life, she's also here.

And to be able to tell my parents that they don't have to pay a dime for college, I think it's really special and I'm really able to just enjoy college.

- Last thing, technology has changed so much and it's continuing to change.

Where does that fit in in terms of your reporting?

We have, the social media has become such a big deal.

How did that work when you were at Cranston?

Juggling the traditional reporting and the social media side.

- So utilizing social media has definitely become a really big factor in how we reach our audience.

Mainly high schoolers.

Through Instagram we're able to post final scores and everything results, news, everything.

We even were able to host a podcast on Spotify and other podcast, other apps, Thunderbolt Sports talk.

If you want to take a listen to it, and think just technology as a whole, the way it's advanced, you're able to reach so many more people in such a shorter amount of time.

Whereas with traditional outlets of news such as just watching on cable or through the newspaper.

I think with social media you can get all of that at a much quicker pace.

- We look forward to great things from you.

Thanks for joining us and good luck this fall.

- Thank you so much, Jim.

- Folks, we appreciate you joining us.

Come back here next week as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

(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.

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