Rhode Island election tidbits

Last minute facts for those of you who have not voted.

By Will Collette

Police in Graham, North Carolina gas voting rights marchers who were
attempting to go inside to cast their ballots. The marchers had a permit. 

On Saturday, I updated my latest election coverage to note the endorsement of the three Charlestown Democrats running for Town Council by our federal Representative Jim Langevin.

I left out the peculiar endorsement by Republican state Representative Blake “Flip” Filippi for the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) slate even though there are two Republicans running in the race in opposition to the CCA Party.

This led to a fast and furious endorsement of Grace Klinger and Stephen Stokes, who are running as Republicans under the Charlestown Residents United (CRU) banner, from the Rhode Island State Republican Party to clearly rebuke Flip for breaking party rules.

For the record, Flip has also endorsed the far right armed militias that are terrorizing several states and he is also endorsing Donald Trump for re-election. Flip displayed his usual strong convictions by noting his endorsement of Trump came out of this deep reasoning: “I don’t like a lot of the stuff, the rhetoric, but a lot of the people I dislike and institutions I dislike hate Donald Trump.”

Attaboy, Flip! Voting hate all the way.

Last February, the Providence Journal asked Flip about his presidential preference and reported this result:

Filippi’s choice of words sparked some criticism on Twitter. He said he liked [Rep. Tulsi] Gabbard “because of her perspective on war and peace and if not her, Donald Trump because he is not a globalist. ... He believes in strong nation states.”

“To be clear I support both,″ he later said on Twitter.

State Sen. Gayle Goldin tweeted this response: 

“Filippi said he supports Trump because Trump isn’t a ‘globalist’ — a term embraced by alt-right to spread hate of Jews. We can disagree on policy (after all, that’s what we are elected), but I will not turn a blind eye to dog whistle antisemitism by R.I. GOP leaders.”

Former member of Congress from Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard ran a strange campaign for the Democratic nomination, drawing strong criticism from other Democrats, perhaps most strongly from Hillary Clinton who referred to Gabbard as a “Russian asset” being groomed by the Russians to run a spoiler third party campaign. Gabbard was also criticized for her free-lance “diplomacy” to some of the worst despots in the Middle East such as Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Gabbard barely registered above 1% in the primaries. Her best result was second-place in American Samoa (even though she was the only Samoan running in 2020) behind Michael Bloomberg that netted her only Convention delegate.

Early Voting

As we go into the last day of early voting, 3,531 Charlestown mail-in ballots and early votes have been registered by the Secretary of State. That’s 58% of the 6,115 total active voters in town. Remember to drop off your mail-in ballots at the drop box at Town Hall, NOT in a mail-box or at the Post Office, Under RI law, all votes must be RECEIVED by November 3.

Rating the General Assembly on the Environment

By Matt Wuerker, Politico

The Environmental Council of Rhode Island has issued its traditional pre-election scorecard and gives the whole General Assembly (as well as Gov. Gina Raimondo) an “incomplete, lacking leadership” rating for passing NO major environmental legislation in the past two years.

This is largely due to the blockades by Speaker of the House Nick Mattiello (DINO-Cranston) and lack of initiative by Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio and the Governor.

ECRI did what they could with what they had and listed legislators by their attempts to pass environmental legislation – they scored legislators by how many bills they introduced or co-sponsored.

Here’s how our local Senators and Reps did.

SENATE: Sen. Sue Sosnowski (D-South Kingstown) had the highest score in the state Senate with 25 attempts. Bridget Valverde (D-SK, NK, Narragansett and EG) came in sixth with a score of 9. 

Republicans Dennis Algiere who represents the southern end of Charlestown and Elaine Morgan who represents Charlestown north of One both scored ZERO.

HOUSE: The top South County score – ninth place – went to Carol McEntee (D-SK) with a score of six. Bob Craven (D-NK with strong Charlestown ties) came in 16^th with 5. Kathy Fogarty (D-SK) had two.

The rest of our South County House members tallied big fat goose eggs. That includes environmental activist Teresa Tanzi (D-SK) and Flip Filippi (CCA Party) who generally takes anti-environmental positions.

Teresa is so high on Speaker Mattiello’s shit list that she refrains from putting her name on bills so they don’t automatically get killed, though in some cases, she was actually blocked from co-sponsoring bills she really likes. If Mattiello fails to get re-elected or doesn’t get the votes to continue as House Speaker, Teresa may be able to resume her fight for the environment.