The Rhode Island General Assembly Should Have a Speaker Who Supports the Democratic Party’s Platform

Bridget Eileen
2 min readJan 29, 2020

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We Need to Remove from Power a Person Who Asserts He Is a “Firewall” Against Commonplace Aspects of the Democratic Party Platform

The current Speaker of Rhode Island’s House of Representatives considers standard issues listed on the Democratic Party platform as “ultra left-wing” and asserts he is a “firewall” against these standard Democratic ideals.

http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20181107/mattiello-says-he-is-firewall-protecting-state-from-ultra-left-wing-groups

If he does not support these standard Democratic Party platform issues, then he should not be a Democrat, much less have a leadership role within the state’s Democratic Party.

Rhode Islanders, contact your representative immediately to let them know you feel the Speakership in the General Assembly should go to a person who truly supports the standard beliefs and issues of the Democratic Party platform. List of Representative at this link.

Here is the letter I wrote to my representative. Feel free to copy and paste!

Dear Rep. John Joseph Lombardi,

First, I would like to send congratulations on your re-election. Tuesday was a good day for Democrats in the state and in the nation.

I am contacting you today to send my strong disapproval of Rep. Nicholas A. Mattiello as the speaker of the General Assembly. In a recent Providence Journal article, and throughout his conflict with certain organizations, he has deliberately mischaracterized as “radical” and “ultra left-wing” the concerns and issues of many of your constitutents. A desire for gun safety, state-wide guarantee of a women’s right to choose, equal pay, protections for victims of abuse, support of trade unions, and advocacy for safer workplaces are commonplace Democratic platform issues. (https://democrats.org/about/party-platform/)

If Mattiello considers such things to be too “left-wing” for him, he should not be a Democrat. Further, and more importantly, he most certainly should not be a leader of the the Democratic party in the state’s General Assembly.

Again, I assert my strongest disapproval of Rep. Nicholas A. Mattiello as the speaker of the General Assembly and urge you not to support his speakership any longer.

Sincerely,

Bridget Eilleen

Federal Hill

This piece was first published on Bridget Eileen’s arts and culture notebook, Vintage-Bridge.com in 2018. It is just as relevant today! And in fact today, Representative Lombardi sent an open letter with other representatives that was highly critical of the current Speaker. It was awesome! Thanks, Rep Lombardi!

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Bridget Eileen

Writer and poet in Providence, RI; Communications Chair and Executive Committee for @ridwomenscaucus; pronouns: she/her