To the Editor:

It is a new day in Rhode Island. Speaker Mattiello, who dominated the RI House of Representatives for six years, has been defeated, and it looks like Representative Joe Shekarchi will be the new House Speaker. With new leadership coming in, there have been calls for reform in the House, and I echo those calls. Under Mattiello and many of his predecessors, we saw many abuses of power, including political punishment with representatives being thrown off committees for voting against the Speaker, opponents denied committee positions, and certain bills blocked because the Speaker did not like who sponsored them. This needs to end. However, this can only be done together. That means working with liberals, conservatives, moderates, progressives, democrats, and Republicans.

The tactics being used by the RI Political Cooperative is a step in the wrong direction. The expulsion of Representative-Elect Brandon Potter from the Political Cooperative for voting for Representative Shekarchi is absolutely repugnant. It brings back memories from when the Speaker ousted State Representatives from committee chairmanships in 2019 because they did not vote for the Speaker.

If this “uncooperative” group takes control of the House, it looks like they would use the same tactics as previous Speakers, if certain representatives had differences of opinion or did not embrace the Cooperative’s agenda.

Let’s not continue the mistakes of the past. Let’s put our political differences aside and work together on this one issue; reforming the Rhode Island House of Representatives. Sometimes, I bring up my concerns regarding the unchecked power of the Speakership with people I know from my life. People who could be considered liberals, moderates, and conservatives, and I have found that many of them share my concerns regarding the Speaker’s historic abuse of power. This is a concern many Rhode Islanders’ share. Instead of the RI Political Cooperative’s route of “my way or the highway,” progressives should be working with Democratic moderates and House Republicans to change the Speakership to a position that will serve all Rhode Islanders.

Nathan Cornell

Nathan Cornell is a member of the Warwick School Committee.