Back and forth between McKee and Shekarchi over the state budget this week may be a preview of more clashes to come. This week on Political Roundtable, I’m going in-depth with Rhode Island House Speaker Joe Shekarchi.
Transcript
This transcript has been edited for clarity
Ian Donnis: Speaker Shekarchi, people who like you, ranging from Democratic Attorney General Peter Neronha to House Republican Leader Mike Chippendale, call you a different kind of speaker. They mean that as a compliment. Despite that, Rhode Island faces familiar problems, including underperforming schools, a difficult business climate and a lack of engines of new job growth. How come the state hasn’t made more progress on those issues during your time as speaker?
R.I. House Speaker Joe Shekarchi: Well, I disagree. I think we have made progress. Certainly, there is a lot more to do. I don’t dispute that at all, but I’m proud of the record that we have done in the house. I’m happy with the stuff we did do for Citizens, for IGT, for Bally’s, and FM Global. We had legislation this year to help them. So I think our business climate is improving. We could certainly do a lot more. I meet with the business community regularly. I encourage them to get more involved in the legislative process. I recently met with the new head of the partnership, which is a business coalition, and I encourage them to get involved in the legislative process to be more visible, to come to the State House, to testify on bills. I think that’s how you’re going to see. They need to engage more and I’m proud of that as well.
Donnis: Rhode Island now ranks 41st in the Tax Foundation’s ranking of business climates. That’s down about four slots from about six years ago. So it is, according to that group at least, still a tough business climate. But let me ask you this: if you were to become governor, is it unrealistic to think that you could make more progress on those issues that I mentioned?
Shekarchi: I don’t like to speculate about the future, but I think we can make progress now. We don’t have to wait. I don’t think the people of Rhode Island really care who’s governor. They care about the issue. They’re not worried about an election a year and a half from now, so we can make progress. We have been making progress. I appreciate the fact that we, the General Assembly, got rid of tangible taxes for 75% of the businesses in Rhode Island, and I also appreciate the fact that we worked very hard to make a better business climate, eliminate the car tax, which also includes fleet and business. A lot of businesses own fleet trucks and fleet cars, and that tax was eliminated. We accelerated and eliminated it early in the general assembly.
Donnis: What is your timetable for deciding on whether you will run for governor next year?
Shekarchi: I don’t even know that I have a timetable and I appreciate that. I know a lot of people have been asking about it. I just came out of a six-month, very intense, grueling general assembly session. I’m going to take a little bit of time off and recharge my batteries and whatever decision I make will be one that takes into a lot of factors and a lot of consideration. But I don’t see any urgency to do something about a campaign that is potentially a year and a half away.
Donnis: One more question on that. The speakership is often called the most powerful elected office in Rhode Island. Why would you even consider giving that up to run for governor?
Shekarchi: Thank you for that. I appreciate the job I have. I enjoy the job very much, but every speaker, the good speakers, the bad speakers, and the average speakers, everybody has a shelf time and a lifetime of speakership. And I think I’m on the back half of my speakership, so I don’t know when that term will end. If and when my colleagues decide they want to re-elect me and the voters in my district will want to re-elect me, but we’ll decide that. And I want to be the best possible speaker for as long as I can be. I think I’m relatively good at the job and my colleague. I enjoy broad-based support among my colleagues who are both moderates, conservatives, and progressives, as well as some Republicans. And you see that in reflection on a lot of the votes that we have. So I’m going to continue to do the job every day. I’m going to try to meet the moment, which is the, we have serious problems in the state that require attention right now. And I’m not going to worry about the political speculation in the future.
Donnis: Joe Shekarchi, there was some back and forth between you and Governor McKee this week over new taxes and fees in the budget that was recently approved by the General Assembly. How do you respond to the argument from one of your colleagues, State Representative George Nardone, a Coventry Republican, that if there are new tax and fee increases in the budget, those should be offset by spending cuts?
Shekarchi: I can appreciate his point of view, but I will tell you that is not where the majority of the State House of Representatives felt that way. Matter of fact, I’m particularly proud of the budget that I did enjoy not only bipartisan, but tri-partisan support. We had Republicans who supported the budget. We had independents who supported the budget, and every single Democrat in the House supported the budget. So I appreciate Representative Nardone very much. He’s very diligent. He’s a member of the finance committee, but he’s in the minority view in his position.
Donnis: Speaking of the minority view, House Republican leader, Mike Chippendale, says the budget has what he calls an unsustainable amount of spending, and it puts an undue level of burden on Rhode Island residents and businesses. How do you respond?
Shekarchi: I’m particularly very proud, as I said, I appreciate, but some of Mike Chippendale’s caucus did in fact vote for the budget, so I’m proud of that.
Donnis: One member, I believe.
Shekarchi: Yep. That’s one member of nine. So it wasn’t exactly a huge caucus there, but I’ll take 10% or whatever, the reality is that the budget met the moment. We have a lot of significant needs. We have a crisis in primary care. We have healthcare issues in the hospital systems. You know, patients who needed funding to help them. We have residents in the nursing homes, they needed funding to help them. We have a transportation system that’s the lifeline for 40,000 Rhode Islanders. They needed a sustainable funding source going forward. We had cities and towns coming forward for increased aid and not only to the cities and towns, but to education. We, in the general assembly, stepped up. We passed a budget that met those needs. I’m proud of our budget. It’s a good budget, and I stand behind the budget.
Donnis: We’re talking here with House Speaker Joe Shekarchi and the new ban on sales of guns defined as assault weapons is now law in Rhode Island. It takes effect next year. How do you respond to the view of people on the other side of the issue who say they’re optimistic that this ban on sales of weapons defined as assault weapons will be eventually overturned by courts?
Shekarchi: So I respect people, mostly, in the Second Amendment community who have a differing view on this. And I’ve met with them and I’ve engaged with them and I want them to feel like they were heard and they were listened to because that was generally the case by me and by the sponsor, Jason Knight. What I say is, look, I understand that people feel extremely passionate about their guns and they’re very important to them, but we also have the majority of Rhode Islanders severely concerned about public safety, primarily for children. And these weapons of war, as you will, are very dangerous. They’re intended to inflict the most amount of killing in the least amount of time, and they really create a passion in people who are in the gun safety (field), the other side of that equation. What I will tell you is that every year I’ve been speaker, we’ve done gun safety legislation. I’m proud of my record. Every year that when we pass gun safety legislation, I hear that it’s unconstitutional. I hear they’re going to go to court and I hear they’re going to overturn it and that’s their right. And I respect it and I will defend it to anybody who wants to. People have a right to an appeal to be heard, to make their argument. But every year that I’ve been there, that argument has been made and they have failed, they have lost those appeals. So we’ll have to let this process play itself out and see what happens. But I’m very comfortable. This is a very constitutional law. It has already been tested in the courts in Washington state. We passed a very similar bill. It was upheld already in the federal courts, and I expect this one to be upheld as well.
Donnis: You prioritized more money for healthcare in the new state budget: $45 million more for primary care, 38 million more for hospital reimbursement, and $12 million more for nursing homes. How many years of elevating this kind of investment or spending will it take to really get a more solid handle on the healthcare crisis in Rhode Island?
Shekarchi: Well, it will, quite frankly, depend on a lot of things, but the point is, this is what was needed right now. This is what we could afford as a state to give them right now. And I was proud to do that. There are a lot of factors that go into caseloads in healthcare. There’s speculation that because of some of the new weight loss drugs, that has been a big primary reason that we have had deficits in our healthcare system, because a lot of these drugs are extremely expensive. They’re popular and they’re effective. But they’re also very expensive. So we’ve done the things that you talked about. We also passed legislation called 340-B, which allows hospitals to get the ability, hospitals and other qualified centers to get drugs at a discount from Big Pharma. So there’s a lot of, it’s a very complicated formula in terms of healthcare and there’s a lot of factors and a lot of variables. And the biggest variable is what is going to happen in Washington. So we don’t know what’s going to happen with the federal government regarding Medicaid, and we have to be very cognizant of that, and we have to be careful of that.
Donnis: Speaking of Washington, I wonder what advice you would have for Democrats nationally, given the disarray and disappointment about how President Trump won the election last November. How do Democrats need to change to win more elections?
Shekarchi: I think one of the biggest problems we had last year is the Democratic party did not go through a primary cycle. I think that in hindsight, that was very damaging to the party in general. Because the Democratic primary enthusiastically brings people out to the system. It also gives candidates an opportunity for a lot of earned media, free media to showcase themselves. What I can say, the best advice I can give you is that we need to have a very healthy debate among the party. We need to come together behind a particular candidate and then stand and support that candidate, whoever he or she may be.
Donnis: You ran Gina Raimondo’s campaign for General Treasurer back in 2010. Do you see any signs that she’s gearing up to run for president?
Shekarchi: I don’t see any signs, but I know that she’s being asked by a lot of national leaders to consider it. I know that it’s probably part of her thought process. But what I will tell you is that Gina is a very bright and talented person, and whatever she decides to do, she’ll be successful at
Donnis: Back in Rhode Island, you and your legislative counterparts decided to punt the issue of the bottle bill. Even though it’s been studied a lot, there’s a needs assessment that’ll report back after the next election. Why not take action sooner on that?
Shekarchi: There’s a lot, a lot of, it’s a good question, by the way. A lot of conflicting data on that, whether the proposed bill had the right fee amount, whether who was exempted from the bill or not. So part of the bills, there were two bills, and then there was a combination of both bills. One of them was called a producer’s responsibility. It was called a bottle bill, and the third bill was a combination of both bills. They were divided in two parts, which was an implementation analysis, cost assessment and analysis. So the data was as, I said to you earlier, very conflicting. So we wanted to have that assessment done and then report back to the general assembly and decide what, if any, action, we will take.
Donnis: On a lighter note, what is on your list for summer to do something fun and get away from the anxieties to the State House.
Shekarchi: Well, after probably about two or three years, I hope to get a Red Sox game in if we can get one. I haven’t been there in two years, not because I haven’t had the time. It’s just they haven’t been a good product on the field. So I’m hopeful that they’ll be competitive, maybe in the month of August and I can catch a game or two. And beyond that I’m going to try to attend one of the soccer matches here in Rhode Island. Try to support that endeavor as much as I can. And then just take some general time off to spend time with my dog.
Donnis: House Speaker Joe Shekarchi. Thank you so much for joining us.
Shekarchi: Thank you. It’s always a pleasure to be on.
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Here’s a special announcement for Political Roundtable listeners. I’ve hosted more than 800 editions of this segment since 2009, offering in-depth conversations with the most interesting politicians and other local leaders in Rhode Island. After this week, the program is going on a summer hiatus. But we’re not going away. Roundtable will return soon with a new name and updated format, including video and longer conversations. In the meantime, you can still keep up with the latest in Rhode Island politics through my reporting at thepublicsradio.org, and through my weekly TGIF column, out Fridays by 4pm. Political Roundtable is a production of The Public’s Radio. Our producer is James Baumgartner. Our editor this week is Jeremy Bernfeld. I’m Ian Donnis. As always, thanks for listening — and I’ll see you on the radio.
