- Why are you fighting with teachers?

Why are you making this a teacher union issue?

It's not.

The system is broken.

- You got to be an insider, you got to play the game, you got to know a guy, and it reinforces that feeling in Rhode Island.

- It's just not a good look from a public optic perspective.

(lively music) - And welcome into our latest episode of "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel, joined this week by our political contributor, Harrison Tuttle, and Eva-Marie Mancuso, attorney and former prosecutor.

Former Speaker Joe Shekarchi is now two steps closer to a seat on the Rhode Island Supreme Court after a judge last week brushed aside an ethics complaint against him, and a judicial screening panel on Wednesday sent his name and four others to Governor McKee for consideration.

Eva, we've been talking about this for a very long time.

Now it's beginning to pick up speed.

Just your initial thoughts about what's going on the last week to get to this moment.

- So there's two issues that are very different.

And I actually heard the professor who filed the complaint against Joe on the radio, and I thought he did a nice job.

It's clearly legal to do what what he's doing.

I mean, it is a constitutional position and there's an exception in the law to constitutional positions.

Having said that, the optics are not good, right?

So I think we have to separate it out.

People are attacking Judge Leach.

He's making a legal decision and that's why he spent, you know, pages and pages explaining the decision.

Because something is legal doesn't mean it should happen or that it's good, right?

So now it goes to the JNC.

It gets to the JNC and they have- - The Judicial Nominating Commission.

- Right.

- Which is a group that was formed 30 years ago to try to take the politics, some of it out of the selection.

- And I've been there, full disclosure.

I've been there four or five times myself, okay?

They're volunteers and they're there to weigh the evidence, go back and forth, what have you.

Somebody from the governor's office and somebody should have done some training on disclosure, right?

And explaining to people.

They're busy lawyers.

They're people that are out.

They're not thinking about conflicts and things like that.

They're going to assess the information and make a decision from there.

So I think they made a mistake.

They should have disclosed that they had given to Speaker Shekarchi when he was the speaker.

Do I think that's fatal?

No, he was the speaker.

My husband and I last night were reading some of the online comments, and Sean started to laugh and he said, "Listen," he goes, "Here's one that says, well, it's different.

It's not like the speaker gave them money.

That would've been something to report."

But he was the speaker of the House and during the course of that tenure, some of them had given money.

- And so, just to set it up, Joe Shekarchi's raised four or five million dollars over the years.

Some people have given 10, 20, 30,000.

That's the way it works.

But I think what Eva's talking about is the disclosure to say, "Hey, listen, I think I can be impartial, but I gave him money."

So there's a relationship here.

- And it's, and you know, the other thing too is, and Harrison and I were just talking, it's Rhode Island too.

I mean, it's very hard, if you've lived here your whole life, to find people that don't know each other or don't have some conflict, or when I say conflict, I mean, some type of connection, right?

To me.

Okay, just so you know, I gave money to Speaker Shekarchi.

And, you know, I think there's a lot of people that gave money to me in 1998 when I ran for Attorney General.

I don't know if it's anybody that happens to be on the JNC that just made a decision.

- But it's on them.

- It's on them.

- It's just not a good look from a public optic perspective.

I mean, it's not my position to make a decision whether or not Speaker Shekarchi is qualified to be a judge or not.

From a public perspective, it just looks like there are groups of people that are getting special privileges, even though that may not be what is legally the case.

Anytime you have a powerful position like the Speaker of the House seeking to make an advancement on a career position coming at the backdrop of Senate consideration as well as a potential governor consideration now in which the current governor, Dan McKee, has to make a decision on whether or not to appoint him.

I see this as a inherently political decision that is getting in the way of the law and what we need to do moving forward to be impartial.

- We went through the same analysis when Justice Aaron Lynch Prada went through this- - Four years ago, yeah.

- Four years ago, it was the same type of discussion.

And it just, it looks bad.

But, you know, in those four years, it's not like the legislature said, "Well, we're really hearing the public and let's change this."

- They did nothing.

- They did nothing.

- Right.

- So what does that say?

That's the acquiescence to the fact that we believe that constitutional officers should be exempt from the one-year revolving door.

So, you know, it's a difficult question from a legal standpoint because there are so many political aspects to it that I think, as we say all the time, you know, the person in the coffee shop is saying, "Wait a minute, this smells bad."

- Yeah, that's the point.

Look, we live and breathe the politics, but to the average Rhode Islander, why should they care about this?

Well, we went 30 years ago, we went through a big change in how you pick judges.

They used to pluck them right out of the General Assembly, and good judges, some were good, some were not.

Some in the Supreme Court, they convened the grand committee.

So I think the Judicial Nominating Commission was supposed to eliminate some of that.

I just think the average person looking at that is you got to be an insider, you got to play the game, you got to know a guy, and it reinforces that feeling in Rhode Island.

- This wasn't an issue when the former senator majority leader Michael McCaffrey went up to be a judge either.

So this is, he took a year off or a couple of years off and went through the process without any issue.

So I think the question that's posed is why couldn't the speaker take a year off?

- Yeah.

Well, because Bill Robinson, William Robinson is in his mid-80s.

He's on the Supreme Court and Chief Judge Sentelle is pushing 80, you know at some point they're gonna step down.

So, but it raises the point, Eva, if Joe Shekarchi didn't have the title speaker before him, would he have made that list of five people?

I mean, he's a good land use attorney.

Would he have had juice were it not for his being the speaker?

And I think that's what people look at.

- Yeah.

So I think he would have myself because I know Joe very well as an attorney.

And I see him as being imminently qualified and, quite frankly, more qualified than some of the other people whose names have been put forward with this round, and I do.

Because it's not just having gone out and tried X amount of cases or what have you, it's also making decisions on lawyers.

The Supreme Court regulates the practice of law.

And that to me is something that is important because I want lawyers that have been in the trenches, trying cases and also doing work to make decisions like that.

I don't need people that live in ivory towers making decisions about what it's like to practice law.

- I was thinking from a political standpoint, now it's in the governor's court.

And you work for the governor.

He has a choice now, and I wonder if you, look, he's behind in the polls, and I was thinking about this as I was driving in today.

If he wanted to make a statement that, "Look, I'm not playing the game, I'm kind of the outsider here," to not pick Shekarchi.

Everybody said, "Oh, there was a deal that he was gonna step aside."

They've both denied that.

But what if Governor McKee says, "You know what?

I'm not gonna play that game."

Would that help him in his race for governor?

I don't know.

- He would have to check his focus groups on whether or not that that would be something that he would be interested in.

You know, that would be- - Focus groups.

- That would light Rhode Island politics on fire.

- If he snubs Shekarchi.

- If he snubs Shekarchi.

I cannot imagine that happening.

- What about that as a political move?

I mean, look at these people, Chris Bush is a former, he's Assistant Attorney General, John Roberts, a litigator.

Laureen D'Ambra, I mean, who has more judicial chops right now than Laureen D'Ambra and Superior Court Judge Luis Matos?

It's a strong field.

- So, I haven't advised the governor in quite a long time, as you know.

- Yeah, I understand that.

- I'm not gonna start giving him advice now.

- [Jim] Oh, come on!

- Or have a conversation about- - You're unencumbered.

- Or have a conversation right now about the many decisions that are a problem.

If I, you know, if the governor really wanted to be involved with the judicial nominating committee, he would've had his legal counsel make sure that everyone did disclose.

Because one thing that Joe Shekarchi is true, which is right, everybody knows that those people gave money to Joe when he was the speaker.

- You don't raise $4 million without probably getting it from four of the nine people, right?

It's got to come from somewhere.

- And the thing is, is that that's up to the, this is the judicial nominating committee.

You know, they should have advised them and they should have gone in there to make sure that the disclosures were made.

That's all that I have to say.

- All right, well, the governor now has 21 days.

We'll see if he holds.

- And that 21 days is so advisory, I have all the time because they wait sometimes two years to make decisions on things or they'll bundle them together.

And like I said, I was through the process in 2019.

- And you had to wait.

- And it was a year and a half before you made the decision.

So, you know, nobody's ever enforced the 21-day rule.

So it'll be interesting if they do it here.

- All right.

We'll wait and see.

A proposed bilingual charter school with preliminary approval from the state filed a federal lawsuit this week in the wake of lawmakers passing a three-year moratorium on charter schools, saying it should be able to open.

So Eva, let's begin with you again.

You are also the former Chair of the Board of Education.

You know a lot in this.

This school is the De La Comunidad Bilingual Public Charter School.

They're arguing, "Look, we already have skin in this game.

The legislature should at least let us go through, even if you're gonna put a moratorium."

- So let's begin with us all agreeing that the system is broke.

- Yeah.

- Whether it's we turn to charter schools are the answer or reforms are the answer, what have you, it's broke.

And to spend six years, this governor, setting up parallel systems with Learn365 and spending all the time there and not doing the work necessary to fix those schools is really very sad.

And now we're in a situation where we have charter schools fighting with the mainstream, so to speak, and what have you over it.

It shouldn't be a fight.

It's not about teachers.

It's not about, it should be what charter schools were, and that is a learning community, a place where we test new ideas and then they're brought into it.

That's what charter schools 20 years ago when I chaired the board was supposed to be.

That's number one.

Number two, the commissioner's office, again, appointed by the governor, made a recommendation, a complete recommendation to approve the charter school that's now in question, right?

In that approval, they're directed to place substantial weight on the fiscal impact of cities and towns.

In the 42 pages of wording that the commissioner presented to the counsel before they voted to approve them, there wasn't a word about financial impact on the community.

That to me, again, a volunteer board, you have the commission that sits, as I did, free of charge, that volunteers, spent hours doing it, they rely on the information from the commissioner's office in making their decision.

- And they didn't have it.

- And they didn't have any of it.

And so, now the governor says, "The reason that I vetoed the law is because of the financial impact."

Well, why aren't you holding your commissioner responsible for that and not looking at that whole issue and raising that issue?

Instead, they want to fight with teachers.

Why are you fighting with teachers?

Why are you making this a teacher union issue?

It's not.

The system is broken.

- Both of us agree the school system is broken, and it comes down to where we're allocating funding to make up for the inequities in our overall society.

You have schools like Barrington and East Greenwich that are outperforming schools and are our most populous cities in Rhode Island.

And that's because of issues around poverty and the lack of investment on the type of education that students need in places like Central Falls, Pawtucket, and Providence.

These are different populations with different learning styles.

But we're also seeing issues around allocation of funding around IEPs.

And so, a lot of parents right now are having to make the difficult decision, not a political one, but a decision on where do I send my kid to get the best quality education?

When we look at the data and we look at the test scores overall, the test scores are about even with the public schools and the charter schools.

The issue is that the public schools, the traditional public schools, really need to seek out reforms in order to meet the needs of parents and families across the state.

That means more CTE programs, Career Technical Academy programs.

That means more dual language teachers that reflect the student population.

Right now, that doesn't exist.

We've got an old workforce that is, and at least in Providence- - Got to be careful with the old stuff.

(both laughing) - That is predominantly white and have been trained under old curriculum models.

And so, whenever we have a new curriculum model, this isn't what a teacher who maybe have been teaching for 30, 35 years is used to.

And so, we need a new pipeline of teachers that reflect the community and the needs holistically for students.

- Okay, so I don't agree that old teachers can't learn new ways, in fact, I think it's the opposite.

And I don't like the discussion of the fact that it's a teacher issue because it's a system issue.

When you have 30,000 kids on a waiting list for an alternative school, that is shouting to me from the mountaintops that they're not happy.

And this has been systemic.

I mean, it's been for a very long time.

This is not a new issue that's here.

And so, we have to go in and sit down with our teacher unions and sit down with our administrators.

Get some of the fat out of the Department of Education.

We talked about this last time I was here.

You know, get some of the fat out of there.

Let's put it into the schools.

Let's focus on the principals and the schools that are happening so that they can make those kind of changes.

Yes, of course, it'd be great to have more Black and Brown teachers, right, that reflect the population that's coming in, but that's gonna take some time.

In the meantime, we can train them.

Teachers are amazing human beings.

Again, full disclosure, I have three kids in education, not in Rhode Island, but I do.

And they do amazing work.

And we're always saying, "Well, now the reason Dan McKee did it is because of the teacher union endorsement."

I don't think that's the case.

I think what the case is on it is that he's just saying, "Hey, I'm giving up on that form.

I'm just gonna create this alternative reality."

- I find it interesting what you say.

You said the results were about the same.

Aren't people flocking to charter schools because the parents think, well, there's perception or reality, that they think it delivers more.

You're saying it's about the same?

- Yes.

- But it's an alternative education, right?

- [Jim] It's the approach.

- It's the approach.

It's not the test scores.

And again, we're back to that, like, let's look at the test scores and how it's happened.

What about a child that's happy where they are, and it's wholesome, and they're nurtured for everything that they have.

Like you said, the career in tech and making sure that child has a good social emotional experience at school.

They want to go, right?

That's just as important to me at least.

And as a parent of five children, you know, or even just looking at it from a community standpoint, that's just as important, right?

You want the kids to be healthy when they go to school and how they feel about it.

- Sure, you know, full disclosure, you know, I work at Hope High School and I see it every day, right?

I see the disparities, I see kids come in with the same clothing, without food.

We have a food pantry at the school.

So what we need is to really address the student holistically.

No longer is school just a place in which kids go and they just learn.

This is an area in which they're getting social and emotional development being done.

And this is where the curriculum is so important when it comes to the flexibility and how we judge the way students are learning.

There are multiple ways in which students learn.

It's not just this rigorous process.

However, when a student walks into a classroom and they see somebody that looks like them, that's incredibly valuable because chances are that individual is able to relate to that student's holistic experience in ways in which other folks may not.

And this is not a jab at teachers who are not white or who are not people of color, this is merely saying that in school districts in which a majority of your population are Black and Brown, the teacher workforce needs to reflect that.

And we need a pipeline in order to make that a reality.

- Totally agreed on the pipeline piece.

I also think that you raise a really important issue at a place like Hope High School, right?

That that child's coming to school with a lot of issues besides just coming to learn, and we need to support that child, and that takes personnel.

- [Jim] Yeah, and look- - That's not the teacher's job.

The teacher has to teach.

So now we need to have the social worker there.

- It's the parental involvement too.

- Well, you know, and you know what?

You know, and if the parents are not there, then we stand in parental locus, right?

Or whatever the term is, I can't remember, that we stand there to help that child.

- I'm not asking for dispersions, I'm just saying the reason some of the suburban schools are doing potentially better is because you have more engaged parents.

Now maybe they're able to do that, whereas the inner city parents aren't.

But that's kind of the reality too.

You look at those costs per pupil, and you look at some of those better school systems, they're not throwing in any more money.

It's the structure.

- Absolutely.

- Are you happy going here?

Is your building look nice?

Is it not a dump?

And are the parents engaged?

Let me just ask you quickly, when you were the chair 20 years ago, charter schools were just beginning to take, where did charter schools fit in?

- Sure.

So I can tell you that I was completely against charter schools, period.

I didn't want to set up a dual system.

I wanted to go in 20 years ago and work with the system that was there.

And it was a guy named Mayor Dan McKee that convinced me.

- He was big time owner.

- That convinced me that we had to have these incubators, because that's what they, you know, we had Highlander Charter School, an amazing place.

We had these incubators that were there.

The mayoral academies, even though they were setting up a different system.

- [Jim] Blackstone Valley Prep.

- We went along with it, right?

And now all of a sudden we got to throw them out?

That's suspect to me.

You know, I look at it and say what we have to do now is we have to reform the way we look at charters and the way we look at the public schools.

Let's have them be the incubators.

Take the best stuff that's there, use it in the public schools, and let's work together as systems that are trying to do the best for the kids in the seats.

- You want the final word on that?

- Sure.

Public schools are infrastructure for our future.

So we really need to invest in not only the buildings, but the workforce, and most importantly, the students.

So we need to maintain public schools as a public infrastructure.

- Let me stay with you before we get to outrageous and kudos.

A year and a half, you were having protests at the State House before the governor State of the State speech.

He roped it off, wasn't allowed.

Long story short, ACLU filed suit.

You were right in the middle of that.

They opened it up.

Now there's been a settlement.

And so, tell me about that, the details, and whether you're satisfied with that statement.

- Well, we won a settlement when it comes to having access an hour before, during, and after the State of the State address, no matter who the governor is next year.

This is important because too often we have people in our state government who think that they're above the community that they serve.

However, the ACLU and the courts cemented the fact that we had a right to be there.

And it was on an issue around homelessness, which continues to plague our community.

It's continuing to be on the rise.

We wanted to express the fact that there were individuals who had stories to tell that the governor refused to listen to.

And once we were denied access, a project, which I'm incredibly proud of, Operation No One Dies was born the following year.

The community got together and they decided that they were gonna be a part of the solution rather than just protesting.

- Again, it's a failure of leadership in the governor's office that, okay, let's just close it off.

Instead of having the discussion, because I was actually there the year that it was very disruptive.

Kids were singing on the stairs and people were yelling.

- Well, and that was back during the 10 encampments on the state.

- Right.

And people were yelling and screaming.

And, you know, here's these middle school kids trying to sing Christmas carols.

Come on.

You know?

It was very disruptive.

But again, you know, you don't just close it down.

You have discussions.

And you work together so that you can build trust and community.

Once you do that, then you don't have people yelling and screaming during the speech.

Why?

Because they've been heard.

And you've got to give people an opportunity to be heard in a way that supports them, not the way you want to do it.

The way that makes them feel comfortable.

And that's the challenge.

That's the challenge, right?

Because you don't have control over everybody coming either.

But I was there when the kids were trying to sing, and it was pretty disruptive and pretty disappointing that any member of the public would do that.

But I also understand that if you're not being heard, you know, I'm kind of, I can be loud when people wanna- - Is that true?

- Shut me off too.

- Eva, we got to adjust the mic levels for Eva.

When, quickly, we had you and Eva on, when you were right in the middle of Operation No One Dies, and that was you got churches to buy in.

You were gonna do an after action kind of report.

We had an incredibly difficult winter that nobody expected.

You were open more than 50 days to provide shelter on the coldest nights.

How are you feeling now in the summer and then heading into the winter?

Because, you know, the snow's gonna start flying before we know it.

- Yeah, there's a significant lack of daytime shelters right now in the summertime.

- Cooling centers.

- Cooling centers.

We need to address that at a statewide level.

When we had the hottest day, some of the hottest days of the summer during that weekend of July 4th, there were not enough cooling centers available just due to the holiday.

And so, we really need to show up our infrastructure.

People are dealing with heat strokes and other forms of medical issues that will make them have issues, hospital.

But this winter, we're extremely encouraged to see the continuous support that we've gotten from the community.

Not only that, but we're aiming to be open every single day.

- [Jim] Wow.

- Instead of when it's 22 degrees RealFeel, just because we saw the consistency and the change over time when people knew that they had, could have a place to stay every single night.

- Kudos.

Really.

That's a really, really great way to start kudos because a big part of what I want to talk about is what the Bishop is doing with the immigration issue and being out there, out front.

- Are we officially into, let's go do outrageous and kudos.

Eva slid right into it, that was a nice segue.

So, do you have a kudo?

- I've been hanging around with you too long.

- Yeah, you should be sitting in this chair.

- No, I've been hanging around with you too long.

But it really is a nice way because it's all about the dignity of the person, right?

And that's what the Bishop and, you know, Bishop Bruce has been out there.

We have another rosary coming up this weekend.

Unfortunately, I'm gonna be in the pool with my two-year-old at the same time, but it's nice to see each one growing and just doing little things like praying, right?

You don't have to give a million dollars.

You don't have to do anything.

Just to show your support to say, "We have to join this together."

So that's the kudos that I have for the work that you've done to raise the profile, to say, "Listen, these are our brothers and sisters.

We don't care if they're documented.

We don't care where they come from.

We don't care what their mental health status is.

We have to treat people as human beings," hard stop.

- It seems pretty basic, doesn't it?

- It seems very basic.

- But it goes over a lot of people's heads.

- You know, it's something that we learned.

You know, I mean, as you know my father that was a coach and part of it.

And my father used to say to my mother all the time.

my mother would say, "Tony, you're bringing home more kids to eat."

My father would say, "Put more water in the gravy," right?

"Water it down a little bit.

Cut the meatballs in half, we can help everybody."

And for a state and a country like this to have a situation when we have to say us or them, not right.

Not right.

It's time.

So I am here to give kudos to my partner here.

- There you go.

- Thank you.

- Harrison for the work that he's done because he's even got the Bishop of Providence now that's out there.

And that's what we need.

We need that kind of swell where regular people, right?

That's how they look at it, regular people like you're not a regular person.

- All right, so you're not gonna see this, but the three of us are gonna stand off to the side after the show, hold hands and sing "Kumbaya."

- Stop.

- That'll be- - All right, listen, that was really nice.

- That was beautiful.

- I'm just saying.

- I don't want to rain on your parade.

Do you have an outrage or a kudo?

- Sure, kudos to the Nonviolence Institute.

They just recently announced that they have a partnership now with the Woonsocket Police Department to bring in peer mentor support to do violence reduction.

Of course, we know there's been a lot of violence reported, the murder on the pedestrian bridge, but also things that happen every single day in Woonsocket.

It's been a long time coming.

An individual community organizer, Bonnie Piekarski has been working at this for a very long time.

The Nonviolence Institute does great work.

They don't get enough funding, and they have a proven track record to be able to reduce violence in the cities.

- And sometimes our friends in the northern part of the state tend to get ignored a little bit.

- [Harrison] Correct.

- So it's nice to see Woonsocket.

- Correct.

- All right.

Another great half hour.

You guys are good together.

Maybe we'll bring you back again.

Maybe when the snow flies, we'll have you back again.

Either way.

- Oh boy, we'll see.

- Eva, good to see you.

- You too.

- And Harrison.

Thank you for joining us.

Be sure and check us out on Facebook, X, Instagram, and on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel and wherever you get your favorite podcast.

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

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