- I personally prosecuted over 1000 criminal cases, and so I've learned something from each of the AGs that I worked for, but I expect to be my own attorney general.

- Welcome to "One on One."

I'm Ian Donnis.

Kim Ahern argued during the primary that she had the most experience among the candidates vying to be Rhode Island's next Attorney General.

She won the race with 36% of the vote.

Ahern is now likely to succeed outgoing Attorney General Peter Neronha, who is prevented by term limits from seeking reelection.

So what would be her priorities as Rhode Island's top prosecutor?

And as a veteran of state government, does Ahern have the distance to be an independent advocate for the people of Rhode Island?

(celestial music) Democratic nominee to be Attorney General Kim Ahern, congratulations on your primary victory, and welcome to "One on One."

- Thank you for having me, Ian.

I'm thrilled to be here.

- Give me 30 seconds on why you want to be Rhode Island's next Attorney General.

- Rhode Island's attorney general is your top law enforcement officer.

The most important priority is to keep Rhode Islanders safe.

Whether we're talking safe from crime or safe in protecting our fundamental rights and freedoms from this administration currently in Washington, DC, my whole career has been dedicated to doing just that.

As a prosecutor for the past three AGs, as a legal counsel to two governors, and as the head of a new state agency, safety has been my top priority and that's part of the reason why I'm running to be your attorney general.

- Peter Neronha is term limited, so that prevented him from seeking to continue as attorney general.

He's made a big impression in his two terms on an array of issues.

If you succeed him, what are the most significant ways in which you want to be similar and different from how Peter Neronha approached the job?

- Yeah, why?

I worked there at the Attorney General's Office for the last three AGs for just shy of a decade.

I was a criminal prosecutor.

I personally prosecuted over 1000 criminal cases, mostly involving domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, murder cases, and a range in between.

And so I've learned something from each of the AGs that I worked for, but I expect to be my own attorney general.

And one thing that I talked about on the campaign trail and that I hope to do if I get there in January is to form a new unit dedicated to fighting for reproductive justice and a woman's right to choose.

Critically important right now, the new US Attorney General confirmed recently by Donald Trump has said that he is going to make it his mission to roll back reproductive justice on all 50 states.

And so, it's a top priority for me to make sure we're fighting for a woman's right to choose, that we have a dedicated unit to do just that in the Rhode Island AG's office, which by the way, is following our neighbors next door in Connecticut and in Massachusetts.

And so, that's what I hope to do if I get there in January.

- Peter Neronha with other attorneys general around the US was part of a lot of lawsuits against the Trump administration, but we've seen how the president has moved more quickly than legal challenges on an array of issues, from the reshaping of government agencies, layoffs of government employees, et cetera, et cetera.

If legal challenges are not an effective way of countering the Trump administration, what does accountability look like?

- Yeah, I think they will continue to be a real way of holding this administration accountable, certainly over the next two years, and it'll be a top priority for me, just like it has been for Attorney General Neronha.

And you're bringing up the group of Democratic AGs, which is interesting that I'm talking to you today.

I was endorsed by the Democratic Attorneys General Association this morning.

So there's 24 Democratic AGs across the country, and they work together every week to make sure that not just our state, but that we're working side by side with those other AGs that are quite literally, I think, on the front lines of saving democracy across our country.

- But the question is, if despite these efforts the president is more nimble ahead of the timing of the court process, how do you Democratic AGs, or if you win your office, how do you hold the president accountable if he's moving faster than the court system?

- Well, I think we've shown in Rhode Island that we're punching way above our weight on these cases, and in any case that I've been following, we've demonstrated that we are nimble, that we can get to federal district court here within days, that not surprisingly, that our judges here are siding against the administration almost 100% of the time, which actually makes us more nimble than a lot of these bigger states, like California, for example, or in New York, where sometimes they're having to wait weeks, if not months, to get into court.

We can do it very quickly and efficiently while standing up for Rhode Islanders' fundamental rights and freedoms.

- Kim, how will you balance your national facing priorities like standing up to the Trump administration on reproductive rights with the resource intensive demands of the Attorney General's Office on prosecuting crime, domestic violence, sexual assault, et cetera?

- Yeah, our Attorney General's Office is very unique amongst the entire country.

We're one of only three AGs across the country that doesn't have local district attorneys.

And so, it's incumbent upon the Rhode Island Attorney General to be the statewide district attorney.

That unit, that side of the office, there's about 70 or so criminal prosecutors that do that, that's what I did when I was there, is the backbone of the Attorney General's Office.

And it has to be a top priority for the next attorney general, because that's where the rubber meets the road.

It's keeping Rhode Islanders safe.

It's what I've talked about since I became a candidate last October, and it's to be a top priority for me to make sure we're balancing those things.

The next AG has to walk and chew gum at the same time, and that's what I expect to do.

- If you win in November, one case you're likely to inherit from Peter Neronha is the state's lawsuit over the failure of the Washington Bridge.

As we know, most civil suits are settled.

Do you expect that this case will be settled if you inherit it?

- So first, just like many Rhode Islanders, like, I live in Providence, but my kids do a lot of things in the East Bay, they're pediatricians there, there's some other sports are there.

So, just like so many Rhode Islanders, I feel that frustration, right, when I've had to cross the bridge and go back and forth for appointments.

And so, I know it's a top priority for me if I get there in January to make sure that we're holding folks accountable for that.

So we're trying to make Rhode Islanders whole as best we can.

That being said, I haven't been at the Attorney General's Office since 2019, so I don't have the inner workings of the case strategy yet.

I hope to be the attorney general-elect if I get elected in November, and that will be one of my first meetings with the transition.

And I'm grateful for Attorney General Neronha for pledging to have a successful transition with me should I get there in November.

So that'll be a top priority for me to make sure I'm hyper-focused on the status of that litigation.

- There's a lot of concern right now about license plate readers, Flock cameras, that type of thing.

If you become the state's next attorney general, would you support imposing binding requirements on how police departments use this data, including requiring a warrant to access information?

- So I think whenever a new tool or technology is introduced, especially into the criminal justice realm, it's really important to have a transparent process, to have one where there's public accountability, to have one where we know, and particularly these municipalities, when they're entering into data sharing agreements with companies like Flock or anything like that, that we know exactly what's happening with that data.

And for me personally, like, I would be concerned about how long it's being retained, you know, what's going on with it, has the public had a proper vetting of it, and in particular, making sure it's not going into the hands of individuals that should not get it, in particular around ICE right now.

That being said, I was a prosecutor for just shy of a decade.

Like I said at the outset, I've prosecuted over 1000 cases, so you'd be hard pressed to find a prosecutor, I think, in this country that wouldn't want this as a tool in the toolbox if used effectively and used appropriately.

And so, that would be my priority in assessing any kind of Flock analysis or anything like that if I become the attorney general.

- What restrictions or guardrails would you support to ensure that that data is not used in an incorrect way?

- Yeah, I would support if the General Assembly, for example, wanted to give legal authority to the attorney general to help set those guardrails, to help work directly with municipalities to actually set what the standard should be, not unlike what we did with the body cam program.

So, Rhode Islanders should be really proud that we were, I think, the first state in the country to mandate statewide body cams for police officers, right?

And I was in the governor's office at the time, and we worked closely with the Attorney General's Office and with municipalities around the state to make sure they were funded, and also said that the Attorney General's Office at the time was setting the rules for their use.

And I think that's a good model and example of what we could do with a Flock-like camera.

- We're coming closer to the one-year anniversary of the shooting that rocked Brown University in December 2025.

A couple months later, there was a mass shooting in Pawtucket.

Do you feel that the state is doing the right things to try to diminish the likelihood of another mass shooting like that happening?

- When I think about that, I first go to just being a parent in the city of Providence.

My kids go to school there.

They go to school very closely to where the Brown shooting was, also not too far from the Pawtucket shooting.

And so, I have personally prosecuted murder cases involving firearms in our state.

I've trained in firearms because of those cases.

And nothing prepares you for that moment when you just sent your baby off to kindergarten and you get that notification on your phone that they had to participate in their first school shooter drill.

It tears you apart.

I wasn't prepared for it as a parent.

I feel like I'm still not prepared for it now, even though I've personally done these cases for the state.

And so, a top priority for me is to keep Rhode Islanders safe.

And so, making sure we're assessing how to make sure that dangerous weapons, and particular weapons of war, are not in the hands of criminals, not in the hands of people with documented mental health histories, making sure that as soon as I hopefully become the attorney general in January, that I'm working directly that same week with the police chiefs across this state to ask them what we could do to make sure if there's anything else that needs to be assessed, and then working closely with the General Assembly, should that be the case.

- Let's do a lightning round with some shorter answers to - Yeah, too long, too long.

(laughs) - a couple of questions.

What current Rhode Island elected official do you most admire?

- Oh, well, that... (laughs) I have been really... As I've traveled the state over the past 11 months, I've really enjoyed seeing Treasurer Diossa and Secretary of State Amore and the way they handle themselves and the way they conduct themselves for their constituents and really make it a point to get across all 39 cities and towns.

- If you could have lunch with any US Supreme Court Justice, past or present, who would you select?

- Past in living or dead?

- Yes.

- Wow.

Sandra Day O'Connor.

- And what book or movie has most shaped you and your work involving the law?

- Oh, wow.

(chuckles) When when I went to law school, my late father told me I had to see the movie "The Paper Chase."

And, you know, it's kind of like in jest a little bit, but it really does prepare you for the law and for like what's to come in law school, and then I think set the tone for what it's like to be a lawyer.

- John Houseman was a great actor and character.

Let's talk a little bit about open records.

Reporters and advocates of transparency have been frustrated by delays in how the state releases public records and the redactions that are made in executive communications.

You were deputy counsel for two governors, Gina Raimondo and Dan McKee.

If you're the next state's attorney general, can you be trusted to penalize state agencies that stonewall efforts by the press to get information?

- I think definitely.

So, first, the attorney general acts in a quasi-judicial role in the setting, and I think most folks don't really maybe recognize that if you haven't done the attorney general's training or kind of handle APRAs on a daily basis- - The Access to Public Records Act.

- Yes, yes.

And so, it's a critical function of the Attorney General's Office to do that.

And not only have I done that in the sense of I've done it for the governor's office, but I've also been the head of a state agency.

And when I was the head of the Cannabis Control Commission, we got lots of APRA requests, and one of my top priorities was transparency.

And it was always important for me as the head of that commission, the head of a state agency, to go above and beyond what was required in open meetings and in the Access Public Records Act.

I'll give you an example, right?

Like the open meeting sets a pretty low floor for what's required for public bodies, right?

You just have to post a notice 48 hours in advance and tell the public where you're meeting.

I thought that wasn't enough.

Government should be easy to find and accessible.

It should be the case for individuals that can't maybe make it to my meeting in downtown Warwick on a Friday afternoon that they should still be able to know what's going on.

So we had our meetings available on Zoom live, and we had them up on the website right after so you could see them.

And so, that's the type of example that I wanna set as the next attorney general.

- Peter Neronha has focused a lot of attention on the issue of healthcare.

He required the creation of an $80 million escrow fund that explains why two hospitals, Roger Williams Medical Center and Fatima in North Providence are still open.

How do you assess his victories on healthcare, and what do you see as unfinished business?

- I agree with him that healthcare is in crisis across our state, that the next attorney general needs to be very, very focused on this and use the full breadth and scope of the office to make sure we're fighting for patients, for providers, for staff, for individuals that are going in and out of these facilities every day.

And, you know, I've said this to him, and I've said it publicly that he set a real example for the type of attorney general that I want to be.

That I will not hesitate, for example, to get on a plane and go to a bankruptcy court in Texas should that be required in the healthcare setting, which is what he had to do last year to keep Roger Williams and Fatima open.

And so, it's critical, and I heard it every day on the campaign trail.

- Peter Neronha sued the top three pharmacy benefit managers.

That case is now in federal court.

If you're the next state attorney general, how will you use the power of your office to try and lower or diminish the increase of healthcare inflation for Rhode Island consumers?

- The Attorney General's Office is so important because it has this breadth and scope that we've been talking about today, right?

To be a fighter for healthcare access to be a fighter for consumer protection, in particular in what you're asking about in the pharmacy benefits realm.

This is another case that I hope to get briefed on, if I become the attorney general-elect, to get fully, you know, behind the wall, so to speak, on what's actually going on in that litigation.

But I will say this, that I've been asked about that over the past 11 months, 'cause people are hurting.

Affordability is a top issue.

The price of prescription drugs is challenging if you don't have the right type of coverage, especially for our older senior population.

And so, that will be top of mind for me.

It's hard for me not to bring up my late dad again.

Like, he was a Vietnam vet.

He had great healthcare because of the VA, but at the end of his life, you know, he had lots of struggles.

He had MS and a lot of other things.

And because of a small independent pharmacy, like, I could actually call a real pharmacist and get a pill pack done for him even though he was 10 hours away from me.

And I'll always remember that, because it really makes a difference for caregivers and for our seniors and for our veterans.

- On a related note, we've seen how private equity firms are buying up veterinary services, dental clinics, other everyday- - Children's sports.

- Well, you would probably know more about that as a mom of three daughters.

But this often flies under the radar of federal antitrust regulators, but it does impose higher cost and less choice for consumers.

If you're the next attorney general, how would you approach the issue of private equity trying to roll up more of these small firms that interact with the daily lives of Rhode Islanders?

- Yeah, just like I said, the attorney general needs to be a watchdog for consumers, whether you're talking veterinary services, healthcare, youth sports, potentially, but, you know, for me, it's a top concern if it's an everyday bread and butter issue like we've talked about here, like affordability and, in particular, healthcare.

What we saw in some of the mergers that you just brought up was that if we're letting healthcare systems in Rhode Island be bought by billionaires in California, not surprisingly, they don't have our best interest at heart.

And so, it's the attorney general's job to fight for you, to fight for Rhode Islanders, to fight for healthcare access, and that's what I intend to do.

- Kim, as you said a little earlier, you previously served as the state's first head of the Cannabis Control Commission.

You stepped down to launch your run for attorney general.

I know you'll say that the slow process of rolling out 24 new licenses that were planned in 2022 was an effort to get it right and be careful with the new industry.

But how do you respond to critics who say that this slow process that was remained incomplete at the time when you left the Cannabis Control Commission has mostly benefited those already in the cannabis business and hurt entrepreneurs who wanted to get in?

- Yeah, I'm very proud of my time at the commission, like leading a team from scratch, building a brand new state agency, writing the first set of regulations, building out seven new public bodies, and also writing the rules for really a novel set of cannabis licenses that have never been done across the country, including like workers' cooperatives, as an example.

So, yeah, the goal, like you just said, was to get it right, and to make sure we were doing what the General Assembly asked us to do.

And unfortunately, that came at the sacrifice of speed.

And I do sympathize in part with some of the folks that have been waiting all this time.

But at the same time, my priority was always safety, equity, and transparency.

And in particular, making sure that some of the decisions that I had to make in that role was to protect Rhode Islanders.

And I said this on the campaign trail, I said this at debates, some of those votes were contentious.

They were not unanimous, right?

They were split two to one, for example.

It was not just me, I was in a commission of three.

And so, I viewed myself, first of all, as a firewall against special interests to make sure that at the end of the day, anyone that was gonna try to have access to this industry could.

I would be remiss too, if I didn't mention this, that it's very litigious.

And at the end of the day, some of these lawsuits ended up being fatal to the licensing process that was rolled out after I left.

And it appears now that that's back on track because of the General Assembly and the commission working together to get that done.

- Cannabis has now been legal in Rhode Island for more than four years for adult use.

How do you view the balance between what the state gets in added revenue versus the possible social cost of people using cannabis and possibly abusing it?

- I appreciated when I was on the commission that even though it was me with two others and we were all lawyers by chance, that we approached a lot of the decision making as parents.

All three of us had kids and talked about that, and talked about how when we made these decisions, we were trying to do it at a lens of what we would wanna see happen as parents, first and foremost.

And I stand by that.

(chuckles) I think it's been a detriment.

I think the federal government's starting to maybe move in this direction, but it was a detriment that the federal government wasn't able to study this, right?

Because it was federally illegal.

And so our higher ed institutions, URI, for example, has a whole school of pharmaceutical studies that could be doing this type of study, and they were prevented from doing that.

And so, I think the jury's still out, and it needs to be studied for these long-term effects that I was still troubled by.

And I voiced this a lot as the chair, right?

And so until we have definitive answers, it was incumbent upon all regulators to make sure we don't make mistakes that have happened in other industries, and making sure we're keeping it out of the hands of kids that are under 21, not advertising to them, making sure that we're working with law enforcement to have the best tools available to go after, for example, people driving under the influence.

- Kim, I've got to ask you about the issue of brain drain.

This is something Rhode Island has been struggling with for decades.

You can go on C-SPAN and find Lincoln Almond and Myrth York debating it back in the 1990s.

You're a mom of three daughters, I'm sure you would like to see your kids remain in Rhode Island once they become adults, and you're a counter example to this.

You grew up in Pennsylvania.

- Virginia.

- Michigan?

- Virginia.

- Virginia, excuse me.

- My mom was from Pennsylvania.

- My mistake, excuse me.

But you came here to go to Providence College, you chose Rhode Island, you built your life here.

From your perspective, what does the state need to do differently to get more young people to stay here?

- Affordability, right, is a top issue.

I know that the other people running for statewide office, we hear about it every day and are committed to working, hopefully, if we all get there over the next four years to make Rhode Island a more affordable place so that you can live here, raise a family here, afford to buy your first home here.

It's just getting harder and harder, and it's getting more and more out of reach.

And it didn't used to be the case, you know?

Like it used to be so expensive to go to New York to go to Boston, and so it was just... It still is a great place to raise a family, but we need to make it more accessible for everyone.

And, yeah, you're right.

So, I moved here to go to Providence College.

I fell in love with the state because of our amazing quality of life that we have here.

And I fell in love with my wife, who also is not from here.

And so, we've been choosing Rhode Island every day since to make it our home, and I hope we make it easier for others, not just my kids, but for all kids to stay here and do the same.

- One other area the attorney general has responsibility over is environmental enforcement.

Some people think that the state moves too slowly in clamping down on environmental violations.

If you're the next attorney general, what would environmental regulation and enforcement look like?

- Yeah, the reason to tie into the prior answer, the one reason I love living here is our quality of life.

That we're so close to these amazing shorelines.

We're so close to the ocean.

You can get there after work, right?

And we need to do everything we can to make it safe and to make sure we're preserving this environment for future generations.

I am one of, well, now I'm, you know, the Democratic nominee, but at the time and during the campaign, I was saying this.

When I was at the AG's office, I was the environmental crimes prosecutor.

So, I've actually handled environmental crimes on behalf of the state of Rhode Island, and they're extraordinarily difficult to prove.

They're very resource intensive.

And so, what does the next AG need to do?

We need to be make sure we're bringing the full scope of the office to those cases, in particular as the federal government is gutting, literally gutting, EPA to do the same.

And working closely with the Department of Environmental Management, in particular, their investigative staff, because those two things have to function together to be able to effectively prove environmental crimes.

- The Act on Climate gives the state and citizens the ability to sue if the state is falling short of its clean air goals.

Do you support, would you support lawsuits over that if you're attorney general and the state is falling short over its goals?

- Well, first, my goal is always to be a consensus builder and make sure, you know, gathering people around the table and making sure we're talking through estate agencies about what they're doing to try to accomplish those goals as we're mandated by the General Assembly.

Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse set a really good example on this.

He had an environmental roundtable that he convened environmental stakeholders and outside groups quarterly at the Attorney General's Office.

And that's what I intend to do should I become the attorney general-elect, and certainly that will be a top line of dialogue should I get there next year.

- You cut your teeth as a young political activist helping to co-sponsor a discussion series known as "Drinking Liberally" back in the day at the Wild Colonial Bar in Providence.

Some of the other participants were Chris Blazejewski, now the Rhode Island House Speaker, Matt Jurczyk, a political strategist and lobbyist.

You had your victory event there on primary night.

I wonder what was going through your mind about where you were back then, where you are now, and the time in between when you celebrated your victory on primary night?

- It's an impressive alumni group that you're talking about there, so I'm honored to be included with that group.

But also, the Wild Colonial is very close in proximity to the Attorney General's Office, and I worked there for just shy of a decade.

And on my hardest days in that office and on my best days in that office, it would sometimes end at the Wild Colonial on a Friday evening just being able to catch up with colleagues about the week's events and what happened in court that week.

And so, it's always been a special place to me.

I also played on the Wild Colonial softball team.

And so, what was going through my mind that night, just that it was a culmination of years and years of all different parts of my life coming together.

And when I looked out on that crowd, that's what I saw.

And then, I was mostly thinking about who was right next to me.

My three daughters.

They're 11, eight, and two.

It was well past some of their bedtimes, but I just hope that, not just for them, but for other people's daughters and kids that they can now see someone in the Attorney General's office that looks like them.

- Democratic nominee for Rhode Island Attorney General, Kim Ahern, thank you so much for sitting down with me.

- Thank you for having me, Ian.

- Thanks for watching "One on One."

I'm Ian Donnis.

You can find all of our past interviews on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel.

You can also listen to "One on One" wherever you get your podcast.

And if you'd love Rhode Island politics, sign up to receive my free TGIF com in your inbox every Friday at oceanstatemedia.org/tgif.

We'll see you next week.

(celestial music)