In Tuesday’s election, RI elected more women to office than ever before! Congratulations.
The one disappointment among the great successes of the night was that 3,421 people in District 15 voted for Representative Nicolas Mattiello – fewer votes than many other reps got, yet still enough to send him to the State House, with a margin of 300 votes. While these votes may be enough to send him to the State House for another term, that does not mean he is fit to be Speaker.
Your phone calls can remind members of the Rhode Island House that Rep. Mattiello kept a sexual harasser in power, covered it up and lied about it. He said bringing the RHCA to the floor would take up all the oxygen in the room. He said there was no real threat to Roe v. Wade, when in fact there were 14 pending court cases that could undermine Roe v. Wade.
Representative Mattiello is clearly out of step with this state and our values. We respectfully ask that members of the RI State House vote for new leadership that will be open and inclusive. That status quo must end!
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**We want to see him NOT get reinstated for simple reasons like:
- Lying
- Covering up
- Not protecting coworkers
- Being insensitive to sexual harassment matters
**For more specific issues in the news as well the 48-hours since being elected and secret-ness of this meeting today read below!
(A) CALL your district representative and urge them to vote for
other leadership rather than Mattiello in this position. Call List
Democratic Caucus TONIGHT! Details
Nicholas Mattiello should not be reinstated as Speaker of the House by his colleagues because:
- He knowingly violated RI campaign finance laws during his 2016 re-election bid & was forced to repay $72,000 by the RI Board of Elections earlier this year
- He allowed the RI Democratic Party to endorse alt-right Republicans, liars and criminals over progressive women incumbents 1. Republican Michael Earnheart was endorsed over progressive incumbent Moira Jayne Walsh (endorsement later rescinded) 2. Greg Acciardo (criminal record) endorsed over RI Democratic Party Women’s Caucus Vice Chair Bridget Valverde (endorsement later rescinded) 3. Holly Taylor Coolman (running on an anti-choice platform) endorsed over progressive incumbent Marcia Ranglin-Vassell, one of a handful of RI congress-people of color 4. Mark McKenney (friend of the now deceased senator who formerly held Calkin’s seat) endorsed over progressive incumbent Jeanine Calkin (Calkin lost her primary to McKenney)
- He donated the maximum allowable campaign contribution to Moira Walsh’s opponent — alt-right Trump-voter Michael Earnheart — after Earnheart’s RI Democratic Party endorsement was rescinded
- In 2018, he quashed a number of popular “women’s issues” bills because they did not align with his and his lobbyist friends’ interests. These bills included the RHCA, a multi-bill package of bills that emerged from a sexual-harassment study chaired by Theresa Tanzi, a bill that would have helped secure justice for victims of childhood sexual assault, and a bill that would have ensured equal pay for RI women
- He retained Cale Keable “as a key member of his leadership team for his entire tenure as speaker” even though he allegedly knew Katherine Kazarian had “endured years of sexual harassment” by Keable.
- The Reproductive Health Care Bill –how it is supported by 63% of RI and yet he still refuses to bring it to a vote. (That’s the opposite of what the Speaker’s job description should be.)