Rhode Island

• A Democrat Crosses the Aisle: Lincoln Rep. Gregory Costantino Spends $2,687 on a Letter Backing Republican Paul Santucci, Warning of the “Progressive Wing” and “Political Powerbrokers in Providence”
• Four Months After Getting Its Schools Back From the State, Providence Is Losing Its Superintendent and Three Top Deputies, While Four Schools Run on Space Heaters
• T.F. Green Called a Worker Arrested With a Gun a “Lower-Level Contract Employee.” Records Show He Was the Airport’s New Director of Operations, Paid Up to $120K
• DCYF Freezes Admissions at Narragansett Boys’ Facility Over Safety and Supervision, Three Months After an Audit Rated Its Supervision “Exceeds Standard”
• Outgoing AG Neronha’s Parting Plan: A Roughly $400M-a-Year State-Run Insurance Plan and a Health Super-Agency to “Directly Control Health Care Financing” in Rhode Island
• Federal Judge Rules McKee’s Top Two Aides Violated a State Worker’s First Amendment Rights by Firing Him Over an Off-Duty Post, Denies Them Qualified Immunity
• RI Democrats Put $228K in Mailers and Staff Behind Foulkes in Three Weeks as Block’s Cash Falls 76%
• Cranston’s Council Wants Eyes on the Money Before It’s Spent: After Back-to-Back Deficits, Contracts of $50,000 or More Would Need a Council Review, and the Final Vote Is Nov. 16
• Bottom Five in America: Cato’s First-Ever Freedom Grades for Governors Put Dan McKee Near Dead Last, and Rhode Island Ties for Worst in the Nation on School Choice
• RI Government Is Outgrowing Your Paycheck: State and Local Spending Up 32% Per Person in Five Years While Incomes Rose 25%, and RI Ranks No. 1 in Fire Spending, RIPEC Finds
• Pay a Charity, Skip the Courthouse: South Kingstown Police Ran a ‘Long-Standing’ Off-the-Books Way to Make Arrests Go Away, and Now the Town’s Failed Discipline Case Is Headed to Federal Court
• State Approved a Medicaid ‘Health Worker’ Provider; Prosecutors Say None of Its 7 Indicted Owners and Staff Were Certified, and It Allegedly Collected $2 Million Before Payments Were Cut Off
• Costco Director Running for Governor Announces Costco’s First RI Store 12 Days Before the Election, and Costco’s Tax-Break Ask Is Expected Next
• Only 11 of 39: Most RI Cities and Towns Missed the Legal Deadline for Their Audits Again, and the Law’s $10,000-a-Month Penalty Goes Unmentioned
• Moonlighting on the State’s Name: Head of RI’s Juvenile Lock-Up, Paid $160K+, Faces Ethics Probe Over an Undisclosed Consulting Business That Advertised His State Job
• Sued for Speaking Up: Burrillville Took a Turf-Field Critic to Court and Lost Under RI’s Anti-SLAPP Law—Now Residents Ask Who Pays
• Outsourced Referee: After Excess Foulkes Donations Surfaced, RI’s Board of Elections Ran Its Response Through a Lobbying Firm Whose President Had Just Given Foulkes $1,000
• ‘Free College,’ Paid For by Pell: RI Democratic Party Chair’s Husband Indicted in $20M Ohio Racketeering Case
• Graded on Its Own Curve: RIDE Declared the Providence Schools Takeover a Success—Its Own Scorecard Shows 10 of 43 Goals Met
• Empty Seats, State-Backed Bonds: GoLocal Counts Under 2,500 Fans Where RIFC Reported 7,092—and Rhode Island Taxpayers Still Stand Behind $60M for a Private Stadium
• $865K Later, Still No Audit: Woonsocket Is the Only RI Municipality Missing Its 2024 Books—So Its Leaking High School Gets Barrels, Not a Roof
• The 3.6% Mirage: Rhode Island’s Jobless Rate Fell Only Because 15,800 Residents Left the Labor Force—While Payrolls Shrank
• Blindfold by Ordinance: Providence Council Moves to Ban Flock—and Bar Cops From Using Anyone Else’s Plate Data
• Same Hands, New Candidate: Laborers Dump $250K Behind Foulkes—the Union That Installed RIDOT’s Alviti
• Revolving Door, Hospital Edition: McKee’s Former Health Secretary Will Run State-Backstopped CharterCARE—and Neronha Flags Ethics
• Already #1 in Debt Per Capita: Smith Hill Still Wants Rhode Islanders to Rubber-Stamp $600 Million More in Bonds
• $315 Million Résumé Check: CVS Settles Federal Opioid-Dispensing Case Covering Foulkes’s Four Years Running Its Pharmacies
• Hasbro Makes It Official: 587 RI Jobs Pack for Boston—Proof a $1 Riverfront Lot Is No Substitute for a Competitive State
• Policing for Profit: RI Police Line Up for a Cut of Alibaba’s $390M Forfeiture—and Hopkinton Admits It Spent ~$700K Positioning for the Payout
• Two Years After HUD’s Warning, State Auditors Find RI Housing Office Still Can’t Track Its Grants: $2.8M Unrecorded, $200K Left on the Table
• “Generally Yes”: Foulkes Backs Males in Girls’ Sports—and Tells ICE It’s “Not Welcome”
• Catch Massachusetts by Watching It Fall: McKee Spins Flat RICAS Scores as Progress—While Two-Thirds of Kids Still Miss the Mark
• “Not Likely to Imperil”: Five Months After Outpatient Clearance, a Repeat Child-Stabbing Suspect Is Charged With Stabbing a Toddler in a Providence Stroller
• Every Claim Failed: Auditor General Finds BHDDH’s Opioid-Clinic Oversight Didn’t Work—and Medicaid Paid $875,696 in Daily Methadone Bills It Should Have Bundled
• From Hospital Lobby to the Legislature’s Checkbook: Speaker Picks HARI’s Registered Lobbyist—a Donor to Three of the Five Leaders She’ll Answer To—to Run JCLS
• One Signature, No Vote: Woonsocket’s Ousted Ex-Mayor Gave a $3.8M Building a $2,925 Tax Bill—Now the Developer Is Suing the City
• Seven Years Under the State, Three Months of Infighting: Providence School Board Member Demands the Superintendent Resign
• Spreadsheet Cure, Party Subsidy: Foulkes’ 28-Day Filing Returns $21,895 as RI Democrats Drop $126K In-Kind
• Tax Treaty Now, Buyer’s Remorse Later: Johnston Gave Amazon a 20-Year Deal—Now Its Rescue Trucks Are a ‘Medical Uber’
• Paid to Stay Home, Paid to Go: Providence Gives Its On-Leave DPW Deputy $123,819 and a Ribbon-Cutting Invite—and Still Won’t Say Why
• Sue First, Discover Later: State Drops a Second Washington Bridge Defendant and Asks to Push Trial Into 2028
• Checks and Balances, Cancelled: DSA-Backed Sanchez Claims Providence Council Gavel to Pass Rent Control With Morales
• Ban First, Study Later: Smithfield Outlaws Data Centers in Every Zone, and the Landowners Sue
• Big Tent for Municipal Socialism: Foulkes Will Endorse Providence’s DSA Mayor
• McKee’s Health Chief of Staff Is Now the Hospitals’ Lobbyist
• Cut the Buses, Dream the Billion: RIPTA Studies Light Rail After Historic Service Cuts
• Spend Top Dollar, Rank Dead Last: RIPEC Finds Rhode Island’s Arterial Roads Worst After RhodeWorks
• Home Rule Goes to Court: Portsmouth Files Suit Against Rhode Island’s Housing Mandates
• Band-Aid on a Mandate: McKee’s $28M RGGI Credits Paper Over Rhode Island’s Winter Rate Spike
• Still His Pick: Panel Sends McKee Three Names for Rhode Island’s First Inspector General — Then Asks Him to Wait Weeks
• Tenure Low: McKee at 15% Approval as Bipartisan Majorities Doubt the Washington Bridge Will Open by 2028
• Abuse of Trust: Ex-Central Falls Judge Pleads Guilty to $98K Immigrant Fraud and Six-Figure Tax Evasion
• Over the Cap: After Taking the Democratic Nod, Foulkes’ Campaign Banked $26K Past Rhode Island’s Donor Limits
• Donor Gatekeepers: After $30K Flowed to Shekarchi, Rhode Island’s Judicial Panel Finally Debates Whether Donors Must Recuse
• Politics Over Pensions: Providence’s DSA Mayor-in-Waiting Backs Ballot Measure to Weaponize City Cash Abroad
• Transparency on Pause: After a $99M ERP, Rhode Island’s Salary Portal Goes Dark for Nearly a Year
• Still Won’t Say Why: Providence OKs a Secret Settlement for the DPW Deputy Who Drew $128K on Leave
• Don’t Delete the Evidence: DOJ Puts Amore on Litigation Hold as 2024 Election Records Clock Runs Out
• Desperation Is Not Diligence: Block Says Assembly Risked $18M on Unverified CharterCARE Turnaround Math
• Eight Months on Paid Leave: Providence Still Writing $128K Checks to a DPW Deputy It Won’t Explain
• Home Rule Fights Back: Portsmouth Authorizes Suit Against Rhode Island’s One-Size-Fits-All Housing Mandates
• Kennedy Plaza Isn’t a Free-Speech Zone When RIPTA Calls the Cops on Gospel
• Laboratory for Municipal Socialism: Morales Allies Spell Out Providence’s Mandate
• Mandate Without a Price Tag: Rhode Island Energy’s Maine Wind Deal Leaves Ratepayers Guessing
• Scrap the Cams: Morales Would Kill Providence’s Flock—Days After Cranston Used It to Nab Thieves
• Good Money After Bad: Six Months After State Bailout, Neronha Puts CharterCARE on Receivership Watch
• The Machine Holds: Business Reform Slate Goes 0-for-9 While Assembly Incumbents Survive
• Donate, Then Dictate: Sunshine Bankrolled Hobbs, Won a Rate Hike—and Escaped Penalties After a Foster Child Died
• St. Paul Ran Providence’s Rent-Cap Experiment—Builders Left, Politicians Backtracked
• Voters Skip the Handpicked Heir: Ahern Beats Neronha’s Pick for Rhode Island AG
• Price Caps Don’t Build Homes: Providence Hands DSA a Mandate to Cap Rents at 4%
• Accountability Arrives at the Ballot Box: Foulkes Unseats McKee After the Washington Bridge Reckoning
• Selling Choice for Union Endorsements: McKee Handcuffs Rhode Island Out of Federal Education Scholarships
• Competence on the Ballot: Rhode Island’s Primary Puts the Washington Bridge Mess Front and Center
• Union Boss With the Gavel: Rhode Island Ethics Panel Clears Senate President After Freezing Charter School Competition
• Punishing Capital, Not Competing for It: Rhode Island’s Second-Home Tax Faces a Constitutional Challenge