- [Jim] Coming up on this week's "A Lively Experiment," an American is chosen as the first Pope in the history of the Catholic church.

What can we expect from Leo XIV?

And professional soccer finally arrives in Pawtucket, a year behind schedule, but with an enthusiastic fan base.

- [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.

- Joining us on the panel, Paige Parks, Executive Director of Rhode Island Kids Count, former Rhode Island Attorney General and former Sister of Mercy Arlene Violet, and Boston Globe columnist Dan McGowan.

Hello and welcome to this week's Lively.

I'm Jim Hummel.

We have a raft of local topics to get to a little later.

But first, after several rounds of voting at the Vatican this week, the white smoke emerged from the papal pipe on Thursday.

Chicago native Robert Prevost is the first American to be chosen Pope.

He in turn, chose the name Leo XIV.

So folks, we have a special guest this week.

We brought in our Vatican correspondent, Sister Violet.

- Hello.

- I know you've been looking at this closely, just your initial reaction.

- Oh, I'm very happy about it.

Obviously in his speech he kept referencing Francis, which of course was a more progressive type of pope.

He's from an order, has a vow of poverty.

The tell will be where he chooses to live by the way.

But community is focused, if you're a Saint Augustine priest, which he is.

Service, they're also very studious as a charisma of that office.

So he certainly, first of all, comes from the right background as far as I'm concerned in terms of leading the Catholic Church.

Now the issue will be how much he internalizes what he said, and that is to speak about justice.

And I do hope that he will continue to speak about the injustices, particularly those perpetrated by the United States of America.

I thought the silence was deafening among the Catholic Church, for example, when Mr. Trump cut off aid to Sudan.

It's like let those kids starve, the immigrant issue and the demonization of immigrants and treating them like second and third class citizens.

The setup of, in my view, concentration camps to ship these people off without any due process, et cetera.

It's a shame.

It's a shame as Americans, but nobody should be calling themselves a Christian who condones that type of behavior by their leader, Mr. Trump.

So I'm hoping to see him much more activist to talk about social justice issues and to remind us all that we're all created equal.

And in addition to that, I hope he'll finally reverse the longstanding prejudice and discrimination against the one group that continues to be discriminated against, and that is women all over the world.

And hopefully we'll see some sort of reversal on the second class citizenship of women in the Catholic Church.

- Well, we know he has a Twitter account.

- He has a Twitter account, and everything you just said was eloquent and smart.

And here's where I come in and just pour hot, you know, gasoline all over everything.

What I love about him, went to Villanova.

(all laughing) Seems to be a Big East guy, seems to be a big New York Knicks fan right now.

So I'm thrilled with the choice.

- I said to my kids yesterday, you know, there's a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer right now, trying to find some guy he was at a drunken frat party with in the 1970s.

Just 'cause he went through the college experience.

Paige?

- Yeah, well I'm looking forward to seeing what happens and the type of leadership that we can see from Pope Leo the XIV.

At a time where so many things seem so daunting and negative, it's nice to have a little bit of hope and optimism.

- Yeah, the selection of the name is great.

- Yeah, what about that?

(cross talking) - Well, as you know, Leo XIII was the great advocate for workers, safe, that they should be paid well.

They have a right to unionize.

Although that concept was not exactly crystallized at the time, Leo XIII was Pope.

But that gave me great hope that he is going to be a man of social justice, and I can hardly wait.

I would've liked him just slightly better, which is hard to imagine if he was a Cubs fan though because then I would know.

- Yeah, he's a White Sox fan.

- He will tilt the windmills.

(all laughing) - Did you have a concern?

I know some people that I read said that since Francis was a little bit more to the left, that they were gonna try to go to the right and pick somebody a little more conservative.

Did you have that concern?

- Yes, because it could be reactionary, and certainly the church has been reactionary in the past.

I wanna say one thing too, though, everyone says, and I've heard men in particular, you know, talk about, well, the church has been around for 2000 years.

We don't want change.

We don't want this.

That's a complete misnomer.

The fact of the matter is the church does change.

You know, we all remember the persecutions during the Copernicus time, and the church would not acknowledge that it was wrong about whether the earth revolved around the sun or vice versa.

And finally they acknowledge it.

And I'm hoping that same scientific approach is taken by this pope as well.

Issues, the science on sexuality, for example.

Some of the doctrine in my view is ignorant of science in terms of the, you know, demonization of gay people, et cetera.

So I'm hoping this studious pope will apply a scientific element as well and begin to reverse some of the doctrines of the church that are not founded in right science and be humble enough to acknowledge when you get something wrong.

- Okay.

- And there's a lot of opportunities for correction, right?

A lot of opportunities, - Right, Paige.

- Okay, we are gonna be talking about him a lot in the coming weeks.

After many years in the making, they finally played soccer last week on the banks of the Seekonk River.

The Centerville Bank Stadium at Tidewater Landing opened, and we scheduled another guest who had a front row seat with his 2-year-old son, which I think that might be the headline here.

And you both survived.

- We both survived.

Jack, my 2-year-old had a wonderful time in the new stadium.

- [Jim] How much ice cream?

- We had a little bit of ice cream.

We had, he might have snuck a soda in too.

We're really bad parents, clearly.

No, no, he had a great time.

And the stadium, I will say this, you know, the challenge, and I wrote about a column about this.

You know, the thing, we all are nostalgic about McCoy Stadium, the challenge is none of us ever paid for tickets at McCoy Stadium for years and years and years.

- [Jim] Yep or $6 for general admission.

- That's exactly right.

- [Jim] Right.

- And so now, you know, yes, it's more money 'cause you're gonna be paying for tickets to go into this place.

And so we did, we, you know, two parents and a 2-year-old who got in for free, we paid $120 bucks for tickets.

That was a lot of money.

Now it was secondhand 'cause this, it was sold out and all that kind of thing.

But I will say, there's not a bad seat in the house.

It's beautiful.

It doesn't feel overwhelming.

Like when you go to, you know, Gillette or if you go to Fenway Park.

It doesn't feel like you're, you know, everyone's on top of you.

They did a phenomenal job with the actual seating.

It's spread out, so it doesn't feel like you're on top of people.

And so I thought they did a great job.

You know, the obvious questions about how much this thing costs and what it's gonna mean in the long run, I think are all very legitimate.

But here's the thing.

It could be a bad deal for taxpayers and still fun for all of us.

And the question is gonna be how long is it fun, and the trade off of how much does it end up costing?

- But that was the discussion around the new McCoy too.

- Absolutely!

- That in the end of the day, because they're having some financial challenges in Worcester right now.

Anyhow, open, and it's good.

And it seemed like it was a good vibe.

- Right, great For the city of Pawtucket.

Good for them.

This is really exciting.

For my family, my daughter just wants to know, do they sell cotton candy?

And is it good?

Because then if the answer is yes, then we will be there.

- [Dan] You'll pay all the money, yes, yes.

I saw plenty of cotton candy.

- Oh, perfect.

- [Dan] Let me assure you.

(Dan laughing) - I wish them every success.

I really hope, but it's really a long shot, you know, first of all in terms of the parking issue.

- Yeah, that's a challenge.

- I think that that's critical.

Obviously they wanna make it up with concerts, et cetera.

But the parking issue really is a downer in terms of people walking 15 or 20 minutes.

- You're right in the middle of a neighborhood.

- Right.

- In the neighborhood, so I just hope they succeed.

But I think the financial odds are against them.

- And so what has been, I've heard, the Revolution came in this week, which was a nice little bonus that's, you know, not gonna happen every now and then.

In terms of bringing concerts and other things, what are you hearing?

And also making it available probably for high school.

- Yeah.

- Not that that's a money maker, but.

- No, but that's, I think it's a big, it goes a long way to, McCoy Stadium did this very well for a long time.

I think you need those things.

I think you need to have the state high school championships there.

Maybe you get some kind of youth soccer tournaments there because you have to get people kind of comfortable and familiar with just going to the place, right?

That's a big part of it.

They say that they're in negotiations for a bunch of concerts to come, I think as soon as this summer.

They're working on other sports.

I think there's gonna, they're trying to get a women's team there.

I believe rugby is gonna have some presence there, and you're heading into the World Cup next year.

And so they feel pretty good about that.

But you hit it on the head.

I mean, like, they have, a couple of things that will at least guarantee sort of some level of viability, whether or not success is a different story, is can you get the concerts, can you get other things, other events in there?

And then it's the development around the place.

You know, everybody in Pawtucket, I was at the Pawtaucket Foundation, you know, annual event this week, it was at the stadium.

And people are bullish on Pawtucket.

The people who love Pawtucket, Alison Bologna from Channel 10, the people who love Pawtucket, love Pawtucket.

I've never seen anything like it.

They feel really good about it.

But it's a lot of what if.

Imagine if that Mill building gets redeveloped.

Imagine if we build a bridge, you know, to make this happen.

- And the backside of the development with the housing, the retail and the pedestrian.

- That's exactly right.

And so everything is, imagine what could be as opposed to just what is.

The stadium's great, but they got a lot more work to do.

- Most basically you have to hope the league stays together.

- 100%.

- Right.

- Right, because that's the major issue.

And it's great, but you gotta have more than a zero score for 90 minutes.

- Yeah, running around.

- Running back and forth.

- Just one last thing, 'cause we were talking about this in the green room.

The state technically owned McCoy Stadium.

I know there was a whole, you know, there, who puts in the, who puts in the renovations and all that.

The league owned, the owners of the team own it.

Good, bad?

I mean, we're putting a lot of tax money into it.

- Well, I think it could be a disaster for the state taxpayer precisely because of that reason.

They get to dictate the terms.

Hopefully they're good business people, and it'll be a success.

I want them to be a success.

I fear about it though.

- Okay, Rhode Island Kids Count put out its annual report this week.

And boy, great timing also that we had Paige on.

- Yes.

- When I talked to Paige last week, I said, which week do you wanna be on?

May 9th was good for you.

- Yes.

- Because you were fresh off, you have the book right there, which is.

- I have the book, yes.

- 440 pages, you can read it online if you want.

- Yes, you can.

- I'm joking here, and I'm light about bringing you on, but there's some serious stuff, particularly with what's going on with the federal government these days.

So what's the 30,000 view for you?

- Yeah.

- Looking at this.

- So our 31st annual publication of the Rhode Island Kids Count Fact Book, you know, it provides a whole comprehensive data set on kids, all the 70 indicators of child wellbeing.

And we are paying close attention to the programs that we know impact children and families that are federally funded.

So we were looking at nutrition programs.

So for SNAP, for school meals, over half of our kids in public school get school or participate in the school lunch program.

Any federal changes to that program or to the provisions that allow for schools to provide universal school meals, we're really concerned about some of those proposals could potentially cut the number of kids who are eligible for school lunch in half.

We're looking at early childhood.

Of course childcare is extremely expensive.

Fact Book shows again that the cost of childcare continues to rise, and there are potential threats to federal funding to support childcare.

- And you wonder, when you're putting it together, I think it's like a lot of things that are in flux during this first 100 days of the Trump administration.

You're worried about the cuts, but you don't know whether they're gonna become a reality, whether Congress is gonna step in at some point.

I mean, so there really is a lot of uncertainty right now right?

- There's so much uncertainty.

But what we do know is the data.

So what we do know is how many kids are impacted, how many families are impacted.

And it's really important for us to get the message out so that people understand when you're hearing about these potential cuts in DC, what does that mean for your kids?

And what does that mean for your neighbors?

And for many of the potential cuts, it could be devastating for our kids in Rhode Island.

- Yeah, and I would say, as someone who's covered Kids Count forever, it feels like the thing that I think is really important is it made all the sense in the world to be focusing on the uncertainty out of Washington.

But for folks out there who maybe are throwing their, you know, chair at the TV saying, oh, it's, you're just, you know, pouring gasoline on the President Trump fire.

Here's the thing.

To your point, the most important thing about the Fact Book is it has all the details that we should know about our kids and the direction of this state.

I think important factors like, you know, you wanna see where our money gets spent on education.

Well, we've doubled the size of multilingual learners in the state in the last 15 years or 12 years, right.

Things like that.

And so it's not about, it's important to highlight those challenges, but the data is the data.

And there's lots of, I think really alarming stats about kids.

There's also some really good news.

We're still very good when it comes to childhood health insurance, things like that.

And so what I love about Kids Count is you do a good job of both highlighting the good and highlighting the not so good.

- Yeah, nothing to add except the work you do is so critically important.

Data, data, data driven, so kudos to Kids Count.

- Thank you.

- You know, we had a lot of things.

Kids were harmed during the pandemic for a variety of reasons.

I wonder, as you look and you've been, you've been the head of the organization several years, but you also have seen the longer picture.

How have things changed since, as we've come outta the pandemic?

Some cases have gotten better.

Are things getting worse?

Are they about the same?

- Yeah, there are some things that are getting better or maybe getting closer back to the pre-pandemic numbers.

I mean, no one likes to talk about our grade level reading and our math scores.

They're not good enough, not at all.

But we're starting to see that we're getting back to the numbers we were at pre-pandemic.

None of them are acceptable, but at least we know we're making some progress in that way.

But also we're seeing some things kind of slip back.

So when we're looking at school discipline for kids, we were starting to see improvements.

And then during the pandemic, when kids weren't in school, you know, schools were not reporting certain things 'cause kids physically weren't there.

But because of the mental health crisis, so many pressures that kids have had in trying to come back into person, we're seeing an uptick in school disciplinary issues.

And at the same time, we don't have enough school-based mental health professionals to help support kids.

But we did see some great programs that came out during the pandemic.

So the mobile response stabilization services, 92% success rate.

And helping kids get connected when they're in a moment of crisis to get them into treatment and care with being able to avoid going to the emergency room.

- [Jim] That's impressive.

- Very impressive.

- [Jim] 92%, wow.

- It's been a game changer, game changer.

So that came outta the pandemic.

So some things did help that we're able to address.

And what we need to do though is keep those things going.

So even though the pandemic is in a different phase, there's certain things that came outta this that we really shouldn't lose.

We need to hold onto like MRSS, the mobile response.

We gotta keep that going.

- All right.

We're getting down to brass tacks at the General Assembly session.

New leadership team in the Senate could determine what's gonna happen over the next six, seven, eight weeks.

Arlene, let me begin with you.

Val Lawson ascending to the Senate Presidency.

She does not seem to be concerned about holding the dual role of President of the NEA or even getting an advisory opinion from the Ethics Commission.

I think that's problematic.

- The conflict of interest issue certainly has to be monitored with her as well as Mr. Chacon, you know, on gun related issues.

I hope coming out of this session though, will be a recognition of one of the issues that Kids Counts talk about, and that is the health of children.

The primary healthcare situation in Rhode Island is at a crisis.

The information is also all in.

The Medical Association of Rhode Island has all the data of the flight of primary care doctors out of here, and the breakdown of community clinical care centers, et cetera.

They've got to act.

They've got to increase the Medicaid by 80, $90 million.

It'll be matched by the feds.

But that's a, that's a extreme crisis here right now in Rhode Island.

Please reimburse Medicaid payment better than you've been doing thus far.

- I think to your point with, on the conflict of interest situation with the NEA in holding these dual roles, I think this is a sign of your, the lack of the opposition party in Rhode Island.

This is a concerning thing.

And Senator Lawson should know that.

Doesn't mean she should absolutely step down, but she should be thinking about her, you know, every vote that she makes, and the.

- [Jim] As Dominick Ruggerio did.

- As Dominick Ruggerio did.

- When he became the President, he put the laborers aside.

- Yeah, and I think this is one of those things where if you had a more loyal opposition, if you had I think a little more critique, whether it was from the media or from, you know, thought leadership kind of groups, I think that they would take this a little more seriously 'cause right now it's not even, let me just say like in the Senate, they don't care about this at all.

And that's a problem.

They should be looking over their shoulders at this being a conflict.

Again, doesn't mean she's gonna be bad at the job or anything like that.

It's just a matter of, from this even being something discussed when they were making the decision about who was gonna be the President versus being, you know, putting it way on the back burner.

Oh, it's no big deal at all.

It's because they don't hear from enough people who are critical of these decisions.

- What are you looking at down the home stretch in terms of legislation that you're interested in?

- Sure, so in terms of Senate President Lawson, you might, there might be questions about ethics and hoping that she'll do the right thing.

But we're really excited because of her leadership that she has shown in both education, early childhood education and for families.

She's been a strong champion for paid leave.

So we're really excited to see where that is going to go now that she's in this new leadership position.

We are also looking very closely at Revenue for Rhode Island 'cause we know I need more revenue in the state.

So we're looking to see where that is going.

We're also really excited.

The Senate just passed a bill that would make the Youth Member and the Teacher of the Year voting members on the Council of Elementary and Secondary Education and Board of Education, that's something that we've been strongly supporting.

We're looking to the House now to move that bill along because these are the folks who are most impacted, see every day what's happening in the classroom, and should be able to have a vote on the policies that impact them.

And of course, we have a lot more priorities around early childhood.

I've mentioned already the potential cuts, childcare continues to increase.

We need to make sure that we have a strong early childhood learning system.

- You're not there with Jack yet, but I was interested to see with the cell phones that they're talking about a statewide cell phone ban.

A lot of people would say that's, you know, a couple years too late.

The Los Angeles district, the whole district did it last year.

It'd be interesting to see whether that goes through.

- Well, it's very trendy right now.

- Yeah.

- You're seeing it pop up all over, you know, states all across the country or at least cities all across the country.

So I think we're following suit in a lot of ways.

I'm torn on this.

I hate the idea of my kid just being tethered to a cell phone for the rest of his life.

I don't love that.

I'm also a little bit, you know, concerned that we're just saying, let's put the, you know, put it in the locker, and we're not realizing that students and anyone is gonna, they're gonna have to learn to use their cell phone effectively.

And so finding the ways to incorporate it to make sure it actually, they can use it when they get to college, when they get into the real world.

So I'm a little torn on it, but it does sound like it is.

I think Speaker Shekarchi said he's a bit open to it.

I'll tell you the other thing that, to just keep an eye on.

So you've got kind of the big shiny issue, which is the gun, the assault weapons ban.

I think the assault weapons ban will probably move.

But to Arlene's point, the real issue, the issue that is probably the most significant is this primary care provider crisis that we've had.

And you listen to Speaker Shekarchi talk about it, we'll know a little bit more this week or by the end of the day today, we tape on a Friday, about revenue estimates that are coming in, but they don't have enough money to figure out how to fund, you know, how to sort of solve this healthcare crisis or this primary care provider crisis.

And I think they're gonna have to either think about coming back for a special session in the fall.

I think the wealth tax is potentially on the table.

And if not, heading into an election year, you're gonna have Governor McKee on the ballot.

You're gonna have all these legislators on the ballot.

They're gonna have to figure out something next year that is substantial when it comes to the healthcare challenge.

- And there's no way they wanna raise taxes in an election year.

- No, you do it now, and you worry about it next year.

- Yeah, yeah.

- What do you have your eye on?

- Well, you know, with the phones, of course AI, cheating, which is becoming a massive issue too in classes, kids going to the phone to get the answers and cheat.

So, and of course the counterpoint to that is everyone's always afraid there's going to be a shooting in the school, and how's my child gonna warn me and let me know how it is.

So I don't think it's as clean as it's portrayed.

I think the better thing is to educate kids how to use the phone as opposed to banning them from having it on them.

That, banning doesn't teach anybody anything.

- Yeah, I also wonder with a $14 billion budget, and it's gone up so much since Covid, I understand the taxing.

That's kind of the trendy thing now.

Let's go and, and kind of mimic Massachusetts.

But at some point, when is the state gonna say we need to really hold the line on spending?

- Yes.

- As Mike Dibiase at Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council says, we don't have a revenue problem, it's a spending problem, right?

- He's absolutely right.

- But he also says that we need more money for education, right.

So RIPEC has also released reports that said we're not spending enough on certain areas.

So which one?

- [Jim] So where is it gonna come from?

- Which one is it right?

- Yeah, I don't know.

What do you think?

- Yeah, and the same, I mean, it's the same thing.

It's education.

It's the healthcare challenge.

There's a lot of money that actually needs to be spent.

You know, the easy thing, everybody, you know, a lot of people who watch this show say well, let's get an Inspector General in there.

They're not gonna cut billions of dollars in waste.

They're not gonna find that much waste.

You know, is there money to cut?

Absolutely there is.

I don't know that there's billions of dollars.

And I think you have, if you combine what you need for education and what you need for healthcare, you have a billion dollar problem.

And so there probably needs to be some more revenue coming in.

Do I think it's the right idea to be taxing people, anyone making, you know, more than $600,000, 625, whatever the number is.

I think that's alarming.

And I think there's a, you know, there's a legitimate debate to be had either way, but there's no question you need more money to fund these major, you know, challenges that we have.

- Yeah.

- Well, and we absolutely have very real challenges.

I mean, our data shows that all the time, right?

We have real challenges where additional funding can be needed.

There are national reports that show that we are underfunding certain parts of our system, so we need more revenue.

The question and the challenge and our deficiencies in funding certain programs is real.

And we don't have to debate that.

Is increasing revenue by increasing this tax for the top 1% the answer?

I think yes.

And Rhode Island Kids Count supports this because in all reality, the needs of our 209,000 children in our state who will become 100% of our future, if we are not investing to make sure that those young people have what they need.

I'm sorry that far outweighs the interest of a few, small number of Rhode Islanders who are very fortunate enough to be able to earn over $625,000 a year.

- I beat this drum many times though.

I think you can't look at the raising the tax on the rich without looking at the estate tax.

And that's why Alan Hassenfeld is now a resident of Florida.

That's why John Hazen White's a resident of Florida and others who have gone because they haven't looked at the ceiling.

- It hurts charitable giving too because then they move outta the state.

Look, maybe that is the answer, but nobody ever studies anything.

So for example, if you're an S corporation and a professional, you only look like you made that much gross money.

But what you have to subtract, maybe even tariffs that you have to pay, et cetera, you could put small business out.

So before we do any of these major steps for crying out loud will we study them and get the data?

I'd like to know how many small businesses are S corporation that this could endanger because it's sophomoric.

They really don't make that kind of money because now it comes into the income tax.

But they have to take all the expenses that they have and maybe even potentially tariffs from all of that.

And they're probably poorer than somebody who's got a state job by the time it's all over.

So study it, please, certainly.

- Well, there are reports and there have been studies.

So RIPEC has done a report, Economic Progress Institute has done a report, and even using this RIPEC's number, so I have the report in front of me here is there is a small number of corporations who have what are called lik a pass through income, right?

And that's a really small number.

And if you look at EPI's also calculations and trying to estimate how many of those corporations, those pass through corporations actually earn after deductions, so this would all be after the deductions are considered.

All of those things that still land at 625 or more.

We're talking about less than 10% of all pass through small businesses.

So 90% of our businesses who do use pass through income will not be impacted.

- Isn't the reality though, that you gotta get Speaker Shekarchi and, the Senate's changed now, but you gotta get Speaker Shekarchi and Governor McKee on board, and barring some huge drop off of of federal aid, I'm not sure that they're gonna be on board.

- I think that's right.

I mean they're both pouring a lot of cold water on this idea, but leaving the door open to some degree.

So you hear Governor McKee say this a lot, Governor McKee is against raising taxes, except unless it's a really good idea and then maybe we should pay for something.

And so I think Governor McKee does not want to raise taxes.

He certainly doesn't wanna raise, you know, raise taxes heading into what's going to be clearly a very tough reelection.

Speaker Shekarchi wants to run for governor.

He's another one who doesn't want, he wants to be the guy who goes into the chamber events and says I'm your, you know, I'm your firewall.

Which was a famous Nick Mattiello line.

He wants to be that guy, but they both leave open if we've got these federal, you know, federal money problems coming in, things like that, then you know, maybe there's no choice.

But I think it's for those two, for the governor's office and for the Speaker in particular, it's gonna be more of, you know, gun to the head, we had to do it as opposed to the Senate, which seems a little more open to actually just doing it.

- All right, I'm making an executive decision.

This is such a good panel.

We've gone so quickly, I blew right through Outrageous.

So we are gonna do a lively extra.

If you wanna hang with us, we're gonna go to a special online segment.

When 30 minutes is not enough, go to ripbs.org/lively.

For those of you who can't join us online, Paige, and Dan and Arlene, great to see you.

And if you stick around, we're gonna do our Outrageous in the online bonus segment.

So we appreciate you spending some time with us this week.

Join us online or join us next week as "The 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 and Rhode Island, PBS.