- So the budget numbers come in late last week in the May Revenue Estimating Conference, an extra 233 million.

Should we still be passing the Millionaires Tax?

- No.

- Yes.

(laughs) - That's it.

- Governor McKee has got to be more aggressive.

He has got to go for the jugular.

Helena has to be more likable.

- Governor has to keep the friends he has and make new friends.

- For me, it's gonna be fun, popcorn watching how they destroy each other.

(lively music) - And welcome to this episode of "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel.

This week, we are joined by our political contributor, Bob Walsh, and National Committee Woman for the Rhode Island GOP, Sue Cienki.

With three months left until early voting begins, Governor McKee has a lot of work to do if he hopes to win the Democratic primary and move on to the general election in November.

Here are the numbers from a poll by WPRI in Emerson College, released on Tuesday.

565 likely Democratic primary voters answered the poll.

And they said, if the election were held today, 40% would vote for Helena Foulkes, 20% for Dan McKee, 37% were undecided, and 3% would vote for someone else.

Bob, let's begin with you, we give the disclaimer that you've supported the governor, that you're continuing to work to help him get reelected.

This poll reflects a lot of others that have been... - Yeah, I'm not going to be one of the people who comes in and says, "Oh, the poll's totally inaccurate."

I think polls are a snapshot in time.

And let's say, let's take this poll as a given, let's say on the day or the three or four-day period this poll was done, this shows you where the race is, what it doesn't tell you, because this is a public poll, not a candidate poll.

And if you saw a few hours before this poll came out, the McKee campaign released their polling memo and said, "When the messages are tested, when people are," it's in my words, not the campaign's words, people are asked to look beyond the bridge at the governor's other accomplishments on jobs and the economy and all the other things that he's going to talk about and get credit for.

And when then they talk about the things that folks might have forgotten about Helena Foulkes from the last election about Aetna and opioids and insurance and giving money to Mitch McConnell, all that.

Then 21 points move.

That doesn't mean suddenly the governor's in the lead, it means usually early on Foulkes moved one category.

So maybe 10% of the people who would've voted for Helena moved to undecided.

And maybe 10% of the people who are undecided moved to the governor.

So I think what we're looking at is a very competitive race.

And if you want to take those numbers, you're probably 30/30 for each of the candidates with a whopping 40% undecided.

So it's gonna be up to both campaigns to get out there, reinforce their positive messages, remind Foulkes of the negatives of the opponent, and bring those undecided into their camp.

And I like the governor's chances to do that.

- Yeah, I think Bob articulated it very well.

A poll is a snapshot in time.

I think the governor has taken a hit on the bridge.

So maybe those 537 people that they questioned were all from the East Bay and they're still angry and they should be about the bridge.

I think the governor, I think it's gonna be a lot closer, 'cause when people start to learn more about Helena, that she hasn't really been a successful CEO from CVS to Hudson Bay, the opioid crisis is going to hurt her and I don't know if people find her likable.

Whereas the governor, he was a meh small town mayor in Cumberland, he's a likable person.

I think that it's going to be, for me, it's gonna be fun, popcorn watching how they destroy each other.

- Every week for the last four months, I've said, "When is this election gonna get going?"

They've each got, the governor has less money than Ms.

Foulkes does.

She's got a lot of money.

It is, we're taping on May 21st and there's three months until early voting.

Is she not on the air because she's perceived front runner?

And why isn't the governor beginning to, is that 'cause he has a press conference every day?

Why are we not hearing more from the candidates?

- I think that, you know, well, it's late enough.

She'll be on the air soon so I'm not giving away strategic advice to the opposition.

I think Helena's campaign has the perception if they go up too early, and this is odd logic, but it's the only remaining logic that they might hurt the governor so much that somebody else jumps in.

I think they're afraid that Joe Shekarchi will change his mind and jump into the governor's race or Gregg Amore will jump into the governor's race.

- [Jim] Both of which aren't gonna happen.

- Both of which aren't gonna happen.

But this is the problem when- - But what was her mistake four years ago?

- She started too late.

- Exactly, she started too late.

- And there's a whole, now she could say, I ran again, people kind of know who I am.

There are new people, 3% said they had no, someone else, I mean, when you poll- - 37% are undecided, yeah.

- Undecided.

So doesn't she need to reintroduce herself?

And should have been doing it two months ago?

- Oh absolutely.

A friend of mine says, "When you know you have so many negatives, you try and inoculate yourself against those negatives."

Tell her story in the most favorable light to herself, and she's got more money, enough money to do it.

Unless she's raising the money and keeping half of it aside so she can pay herself back that whopping loan she put into her campaign last time, what is, a million to 1.8 million or something.

- I don't think she's gonna be in a soup kitchen anything.

- No, I don't think so either.

But the rich- - Well, she should.

She should volunteer at a soup kitchen.

- The rich, they are different though, right?

Never spend the principle.

So maybe, you know, part of it is to pay herself back the money.

But I would've been up a month, if I were her with that much money.

- I think her big mistake last time was she waited too late to go on the offensive and she's very quiet this time.

I don't know who is running her campaign, but I just think you have got to get out in front of this.

- It's out of, I'll tell you who's out running, it's out of town clowns who their view, and this started with Sheldon Whitehouse 20 years ago when he ran against Link Chafee 'cause I was trying to get him on a Sunday show I was doing, "Oh, you know, we'll do it in four months, whatever," their view is playing defense rather than offense.

We don't want the candidate to make a mistake, let's try to protect them and let's limit their public exposure as much as we can.

- [Sue] And you come across as not authentic.

- Exactly.

- I think that's her biggest problem.

- We were waiting for that big economic policy announcement from her campaign.

You know, I'll kind of like watching and they did the media alert to everyone.

I'm thinking, "Wow, this is gonna be a blockbuster."

And I think it was, well, two years after I get elected, if she wins, we're gonna have a $100 million bond to build more vocational schools.

Okay, I would generally support that.

But you know, as I said in that '84 campaign, where's the beef?

You've had four, you've been running for governor for four years.

You started running for governor the day after you lost the Democratic primary.

You probably had a little bit of time to think about the issues affecting Rhode Island as you should have had an entire plan, an entire agenda.

- Bob, I think the one thing that is also working against the governor is there is sometimes, he's been in six years, you know, he had that half-term from Gina Raimondo.

He'll be in 10 years if he runs altogether, kind of a fatigue with a candidate, and if you don't like what's going on, he kind of gets blamed.

The other thing too is people know Dan McKee.

It's not like he has to introduce himself and he's underwater with people saying it's unfavorable, union households are not necessarily, and you can talk to the union thing.

Union rank and file doesn't necessarily say go with what the leaders do.

I'm sorry, that's hard to hear.

But they sometimes diverge.

It's not like it was 20 or 30 years ago.

- They're not upset anymore.

- Well, two separate points there.

The first point, one disadvantage that Governor McKee had in inheriting the governorship from Gina Raimondo, and Seth Magaziner had the same disadvantage when he became treasurer.

Seth couldn't say anything that Gina didn't do as treasurer 'cause she was governor and he needed her.

The governor couldn't point out all the flaws of Gina Raimondo 'cause she was Secretary of Commerce.

And it would've been useful to have the Secretary of Commerce and resources to Rhode Island.

She really didn't, but it would've been useful.

So he couldn't do the normal, "Well, I inherited all these problems from my predecessor" and now it's kind of too late to do it.

But, you know, he didn't cause the bridge problem.

- She never got thrown under the bus.

- Right, she never gets thrown under the bus because she always went into positions where- - 'Cause the Illuminati in Washington gave him a call and said, "Don't talk about the Secretary of Commerce."

- [Sue] Well, it's interesting, one of the old jokes is- - Well, why would you you know, why would you pick on someone who could send you a lot of money, right?

- I think the old joke is have the envelope in your desk.

- Yeah, the three envelope thing.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

And he couldn't do that.

- And blame your predecessor and he never did it.

- And he couldn't do the blame of your predecessor 'cause they were in a position to help Rhode Island.

- The only thing she did was kept a congressional seat here because they ran the census, you know, they over-counted.

- On the labor thing, the governor absolutely cannot win this election without robust labor support.

Labor is allowed to communicate incessantly, and I've been in that world with their membership as to the comparatives on why support one candidate over the other.

There are a lot of reasons that they should support Dan McKee, but Dan McKee has to sit down with the labor leaders and lay out, remind everybody what he's done, talk about what he's going to do, and remind them all the reasons they should be with him and not her.

- All right, let's go through the scenarios.

Hypothetically, if one or the other wins, if Helena Foulkes wins and goes up against the Republican Ken Block and undecided, she would get 39% of the vote, 21% of the undetermined Republican, 19% for Ken Block, 18% undecided.

If Governor McKee wins, the hypothetical matchup is he would get 33% of the vote, the undetermined Republican, 22%, 22% for Ken Block, and 17% undecided.

What do you make of that?

- What do I make of that?

I think it's very hard when you have three people in the race.

I mean, this happened to John Robitaille when there were people in the race, he could have been governor.

- Four people.

- Four people.

Okay.

Thank you, mistake.

- [Bob] Ken Block was his spoiler.

- He was and Link Chafee and Ken Block.

- Yeah, I think that, you know, if I were Ken Block, I'd be talking to whoever comes out of the Republican primary and join forces, 'cause you're going to allow a Democrat to win based on the current polling.

So I think there's gotta be conversations about what are we doing?

Are we going to elect either Helena or Dan McKee again?

Or are we going to join forces?

- These numbers look okay for Ken Block at this snapshot in time.

- No, no, these numbers are great for the Democrats.

I could not be happier.

The way you read it out, Republican Ken Block, let the viewers know, this time, it's Republican, Ken Block.

That's two separate entities.

Ken was a spoiler the first time he ran as a moderate party candidate.

He took enough away from John Robitaille that Link Chafee prevailed in the race.

He was an indirect spoiler the next time running against Allan Fung.

He pushed Allan Fung so far to the right, Allan Fung, who was a likable candidate who might have had a shot otherwise had to take positions that he wasn't gonna get the rest of the sport.

Ken's a double spoiler this time.

His presence makes rational Republicans say, "Why am I gonna go through all the rigamarole of a Republican primary for governor?"

Have the vote divided up so you're not getting your best potential candidate for governor.

And Ken, I wanna give him credit here.

He will honestly answer questions about his opinions on Donald Trump, and I don't think they're favorable.

Whoever comes out of this Republican primary, given the bench so far is going to be pro Donald Trump, they're gonna divide that vote.

The Democrat's gonna win with 50 plus percent of the vote either way.

- Final question, what does Foulkes have to do and what does McKee have to do in the next three months?

- I think Governor McKee has got to be more aggressive.

He has got to go for the jugular and point out, you know, all of her mistakes.

Helena has to be more likable.

If you sit down with her, I think she is a likable person, you know, personally, I think she's likable, but she doesn't come across that way.

People are calling her Gina Raimondo 2.0.

They didn't think that Gina was likable.

I think she's got to come out and show her personality.

And Dan McKee has just gotta attack.

- All right, Bob and Sue, thank you.

- The governor has to keep the friends he has and make new friends.

- Okay.

- Simple math.

- That's simple math.

- Simple math.

- There you go.

Newly minted House Speaker Chris Blazejewski surprised a lot of people by announcing he not only favors creating an inspector general's office, but will pass it and fund it this session.

The proposed legislation was filed Tuesday, but exempts one major branch of state government, the general assembly itself.

Surprise, surprise!

- Yay!

- Were you surprised or were you not surprised?

- Well, I wanna give him kudos for actually introducing something that his predecessor, who was very risk averse, would never do, any of his predecessors would never do.

I think that he realizes that most Rhode Islanders want an- - 73%.

- Yes.

It is a very popular item that people want.

The legislation I have a couple of issues with it.

One is you don't put partisan people from your AG to your Secretary of State to your, who's the third person on it?

Secretary of State AG.

- But the governor ultimately picks.

- Yes, so they're all partisans.

You know, why don't you go to the Association of Inspector Generals and ask them to help you interview people?

- That's the Steve Friess proposal.

- Yes, Steve Friess.

And I love what Steve said is hire somebody from out of the state, if you want a truly independent, get an AG that has no bearing on this.

And then to not allow the legislature to have any oversight in the legislature when we know, you know, their budget just for the legislature is $63 million.

I mean, come on, there's gotta be some waste in there.

- They say it's a separation of power is the issue.

- [Sue] I disagree it.

- It follows the South Carolina model.

There are other models that you can figure it out if you wanted to.

- Well, I mean, this is funny, we're talking about the exception instead of the rule.

Kudos to Speaker Blazejewski for putting in a proposal that he first put in when he was first elected in 2010 and goes back at least to when Joe Walsh ran for governor in 1984, he supported an inspector general.

This is not a new idea.

So we're talking about an inspector general can have oversight of a $15 billion budget.

And people are quibbling because of the very rational reason that separation of power says they can't look at the judiciary, they can't look at the legislature.

That's not where the action is and especially the general is not supposed to look at the line items of a budget.

They look at big programs, big policies, things that might have gone wrong.

Those are spread out through the rest of the $15 billion budget.

Instead, my fear, and this happens all the time with the so-called reform groups, "Well, it's not perfect, therefore we cannot have it."

This is precedent setting, this is a big deal.

- Get it in.

- Suck it up, people, - Get it in.

- Get it done.

- You're saying don't let the perfect be the enemy.

- Don't ever let the perfect be the enemy, especially when if you pass it the way some people are talking about, "Well, they have to have oversight."

It's gonna go to the Supreme Court.

They're gonna say it violates separation of powers.

You can't use separation of powers only when it's convenient.

You pass this rule.

Stick with the rule.

- Bob makes a great point, but you think there's a way to do it.

- I think there's a way to do it.

But I also think how it gets done, like, is he gonna put this bill in?

I think it should be in the budget.

Because if it's a bill, then you have the Senate.

If they're competing and that language isn't the same and it dies- - [Bob] Wrap it into the budget.

- Wrap it into the budget.

- [Bob] And there's no line on veto.

- [Sue] Wrap it into, go ahead.

- Now, this is somewhat funny because usually my tactic is well, put it in the budget, so it'll pass.

So again, it's convenient, you know, so sometimes we ignore separation of powers.

- We also find it a little ironic that your guy, Governor McKee, "No, no, no, no, we don't need an inspector general.

Oh, I think it's a great idea now."

Oh, come on, I mean, so disingenuous.

- Well, yeah, but if- - [Jim] He sees the writing on the wall.

- The prior Speaker of the House didn't care about it, why would you get into the fight?

Now we've got a Speaker of the House who cares about it.

It's okay, things change.

- Kudos for him, I think it's great.

- [Jim] And I will say- - We might have a third segment where things change in a minute.

- I will say, John Loughlin, the Republican running for Lieutenant Governor had this idea.

The problem with his idea was it was gonna be, "Well, I'm gonna file a bunch of public records requests," which we all know how that goes.

But I think, and people said, "Oh, they're scared of John Loughlin."

I don't know about that, but I think him putting it in the public domain helped.

- No, I don't think that- - Four days later, I think it did.

- I don't think it changed anything.

- He got a lot of press, Bob, he got a lot of press.

- He got a little bit of press.

And he was saying, "Well, I'm running for lieutenant governor.

I'd be bored at the job, so I'm gonna turn it into a different job that I'd be interested in."

- No, I think it was a good move on his, that's a good campaign move on him to get his name out there on a item that people really want.

- But I do worry that there are now four different bills filed, and at the end, I think what the Speaker wants, the Speaker's gonna get.

But I do worry this late in the session, it was almost like when Gina Raimondo proposed roadworks.

It was late in the session and it was a big scramble, and they put it off till the next year.

You think it's gonna go through this year?

- Well, I think that's why you put it in the budget 'cause what are they all talking about now?

- Bob, she's coming over to your side.

Put it in the budget.

- Well, if we're gonna start putting things in the budget, I've got a list here in my pocket of things I'd like to have in the budget.

- All right, let's shift gears just a little bit.

Late this week, all of a sudden, we're taping on a Thursday morning, the Education Commissioner says, who 24 hours earlier, had said, "We're not gonna give state control over to the Providence School System.

It's a dysfunctional system."

Said, "Now we're doing it.

And not only that, we're doing it July 1st."

What do you make of that?

- On Tuesday, you know, we're in Belgium and on Wednesday we're back to being in Providence.

Take it, give it back to them.

If it doesn't work out, you always can take it back, as Bob had pointed out.

Yeah, Bob had pointed out.

- [Bob] I've been saying that for a few years.

- That was in the green room.

- And in many public comments before.

- Give it back to them.

I don't know why anybody would want it, it's a dysfunctional system, it's not working.

But, you know, you have too many cooks in the kitchen at this point, who's making the ultimate decisions?

Give it back to the city- - Well, the governor relies on you for educational advice, I assume.

- Oh, I wish that were so.

(laughs) - What's been the discussion and why all of a sudden this big turnaround in 24 hours?

Gimme the inside dish, come on!

- I don't know why you can turn around in 24 hours.

I will tell you at a personal level, I've always been in the, you know, my opinion, on brand for the governor is local control.

He was a mayor, local control.

The Mayor of Providence says, "I'm ready."

If the mayor of Providence comes to me and says, "I'm ready," okay, take it, a central fall, same thing.

You ready, take it.

- Is it like a dog that catches the car, though?

Are they really ready?

- Well, that's the end of what Sue said.

If it doesn't work out in two years, you're gonna be back in there.

But it is incumbent upon them, and I disagree that it's dysfunctional.

I mean, Providence has a lot of challenge and they've got some phenomenally hardworking people.

But you've made it harder on them, not easier on them by having two different chains of command.

It is, "Well, do I go to the state for this?

Do I go to the commissioner for this?"

- So it's dysfunctional.

- Well, the structure's dysfunctional, but the people are still doing the work, and I want do that differentiation.

- The teachers work hard.

- The teachers are killing themselves.

- Our system is dysfunctional, not necessarily the people who are, right.

- The teachers are giving it their all and then some, 110%.

- So we'll see where it goes.

Listen, anything else you wanna add to that?

- No, it's a dysfunctional system.

Good luck.

I wanna say to Mayor Smiley, good luck.

- We'll have a lot to talk about.

So the budget numbers come in late last week in the May Revenue Estimating Conference, an extra 233 million.

Should we still be passing the Millionaires Tax?

- No.

- Yes.

(laughs) - That's it.

Okay, onto outrages and kudos.

- No, I mean, it hasn't worked out anywhere that they've passed it.

It is ridiculous, you're gonna chase people away, people that have that kind of money can move.

They can say, "I'm done."

You're chasing away businesses, you're chasing away, we should be wanting those people here, spending their money here, going to restaurants, spending what they want.

- It's gonna raise $130 million in the first year, half of the surplus that we have now.

Why wouldn't you keep that card in your pocket for next year when it's gonna get more dire?

- Because there are so many things that we should be funding that we are not funding.

- Like what?

- See, this is where we just- - $15 billion budget!

- This is, no, we don't.

We have a $6 billion budget from state revenues- - And the federal money.

- And the federal money comes through and a lot of that is two or three or four to one matches that leverage money.

The other thing that's gonna happen, because of the cuts coming- - It was 9,000,006 years ago.

- Because of the cuts coming from the Trump administration, we are going to need that money.

- When are those cuts?

I've been hearing about these cuts for a year!

When are they coming?

- Medicaid.

I mean, it's happening.

It's happening.

- So the Governor says, "I want to use this to restore this and this and this-" - But even more than that.

- I don't hear anything specific on federal jobs.

- And this is where I get to do my full liberal credentials.

And neither one of the Democratic candidates is as liberal as I am because everyone comes on the show and says, "Well, we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem."

We have a revenue problem.

We're trying to compete with Massachusetts and Connecticut.

We're trying to keep up.

We have a lower tax base than either one of those states.

You wanna have commensurate services?

We pay our teachers less.

We pay our state employees less.

We do not have the resources to do everything we need to do.

I want free school lunch and breakfast for everybody.

Some of that money can go to that.

- Oh, that's just terrible.

- I want more.

Right, 30, okay, 39 million.

All right.

All right.

So there's a third of that money right there.

- [Sue] Because he thinks the government should take care of everybody.

- I do think the government should take care of everybody.

- You're talking about real money.

- Yeah, limited government.

I disagree with Bob on this.

- And I think, right, and this is our fundamental disagreement.

- $15 billion budget, the government should not be doing everything.

We tax everything.

I mean, even on the radio this morning, they were talking about putting lids on- - So you don't get drugged at a bar.

- So you don't get drugged on the bar.

- Well, that's situational awareness.

That's a different topic.

- So this is what we do, we nickel and dime everybody.

- Well, but remember- - Nickel and dime everything.

- The governor has proposed getting rid of the tax on all Social Security for retirees, that costs money.

- This much, it's so tiny, it's so tiny.

- But it's a real issue.

There's an op-ed I think from AARP today supporting that proposal.

- What are they gonna come out as anti-AARP?

- Well, you wanna talk about the state tax and everything else.

- Probably 90% of the people that are eligible for Social Security, it's not gonna affect that at all.

- Bob, I said this last week, here's the problem that when they get the extra money, it's like, "Oh, it's found money."

And over the last two budget cycles, two years ago, they took the governor's budget and they added $250 million, which is a base you have to start from the next, because they had it, because they had it.

Instead of putting it in a rainy day fund that could really be, let's make a rainy day fund 100 or $200 million.

If all those cuts are coming- - I think it is.

- But I mean, add to it even more.

No, they had to deplete it because of the SNAP benefits last year.

- Ah-ha!

So cuts do come down.

So we need the money.

- No, what I'm saying is, so the state, if the feds are gonna put it on the state, the state needs to be building up its reserves to be able to fill the gap, at least short-term.

- [Bob] If you're gonna- - They have a penny in their pocket and it's burning a hole and they have to spend it.

- If you're gonna solve the primary care physician shortage, if you're gonna solve the housing problem, if you're gonna solve the trying to be competitive in education funding, you'd need money to do it.

- But the governor's budget was balanced.

He did all of his priorities and then, all of a sudden, and he balanced the budget, whether you like how he did it or not.

Now, we have $33 million.

"Oh, well, you know, we need to do this and we need to do that."

- We all have been doing this for the same amount of time.

The governor's budget becomes the starting point.

The governor's budget, like a poll, is a snapshot in time.

The final budget passed by the legislature reflects all the interests and priorities- - You've been hanging around already too long.

- No, I said, the governor- - No, I'd say this anyway.

I'd wanna spend more money than the governor does, I'm sure.

- The governor's budget is dead on arrival every time he presents it.

- I call it a snapshot in time.

- But the reality is, 95% of what the governor proposes, you know, you get the Doctor Pedros and a couple other things added in.

But really, most, the vast majority makes it through the House because if they're gonna cut something, they have to figure out where the revenue's gonna come for something else, right?

- We got a lot of good stuff that Rhode Island can be better at if we have the revenue and resources.

- All right, as if we haven't done enough outrage and kudo already, let's get to the official outrages and kudos, do you have anything this week?

- [Sue] So I have lots of outrages.

- Can you limit yourself to one or two?

- I'm trying to limit them.

The assisted suicide bill, I think that that can be a very dangerous proposal.

I hope it goes nowhere.

The homeschool bill, I think that's an overreach of the government.

I think that that's outrageous.

I think, you know, again, the infrastructure problems that we have here from Mount Hope to the Washington Bridge, it's terrible.

The W-2, I have a lot of things, a lot of the bills.

The kudos, I'm gonna give kudos to this new speaker that he's actually proposing something 'cause his predecessor was very risk averse.

I don't think he would ever run for governor 'cause he likes to just slide right in and be appointed.

- I'm asking you right now, is he gonna become a Supreme Court Justice?

- I think that there are some very well qualified people.

Laureen D'Ambra?

It's hard to get, Laureen D'Ambra was child advocate and then she's been a family court judge for a long time.

She's got bonafides.

- Yeah, you have two judges, you have two lawyers that do appellate work.

I think that it is a big mistake to jump in and take the highest court seat from somebody that has never been a judge or doesn't do that type of work and that doesn't, he'd be a great land use judge, great.

- He can continue appearing before the Coventry Zoning Board.

- Yes.

I think that would fine.

- I'll raise you a kudo.

- I wanna say I think he'd be a great Supreme Court Justice too.

And I think because there'd be other openings in the future, you might see more than one name on that list come back in the future.

I'll do all kudos.

You know, to be the contrast, be the upbeat person, and I'll do as many kudos as I can.

- Be a little Bobby Sunshine.

- Right, there you go.

We're taping Thursday, so tomorrow, Clean Water Action will celebrate its 24th Breakfast of Champions.

Once again, giving awards to environmental champions throughout the state.

And the great thing about Rhode Island is we have no shortage of folks who deserve that award.

And I think Capitol TV's filming.

So tune in next week and you can see all the people who get those awards.

Water Fire next weekend.

500th lighting, 31 years now in existence.

500th lighting.

- [Jim] Full disclosure, Bob sits on the board.

- Oh, I'm on all these boards.

Are you kidding me?

These are all self-serving.

- You're busier in retirement than you were working.

- I'm busier in retirement.

- You got 30 seconds left.

- Okay, we'll do the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act.

The Power Trio out of East Providence, so, you know, the Towny Trio is doing it.

Secretary of State, President Lawson, and now Majority Leader Kazarian with a whole coalition of folks, including John Marion, are trying to get the Rhode Island Voting Rights Act passed to stand up to some of the stuff that's coming out of D.C.

And finally, if you read "The New York Times" this weekend, you're gonna read about why Rhode Island is a great place to come visit, and that kudos goes out to the Providence Convention Visitors Bureau, the GoProvidence folks who are always trying to bring people to state.

That's four kudos.

- I don't think I've ever packed in so many, in like two minutes, it was rapid fire.

- Well, I'm proving to the President you can do a positive weave.

- All right, Bob and Sue, thank you.

It was a quick 30 minutes.

Thank you for joining us.

Be sure and check us out on Facebook, X, Instagram, and on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel.

We'll see you next time right here on "Lively."

- [Announcer] "Lively" is generously supported in part by John Hazen White's "Lookout."