Guliano’s takes an entirely different track, saying that she wouldn’t see her work as putting her oar in a constant fight between two parties but that she would a. found common ground and b. make it her chief priority to follow what the local towns and committees wanted her to do. “My main concern is the ability to sponsor legislation for your town,” Guliano said. “He does not sponsor legislation on behalf of the town. I believe that’s the responsibility of a representative. I would be at the beck and call of the town council and the school committee, that’s my job, to represent them at the State House. He feels it’s his job to represent the Republican Party.”
To that, Watson has often said that his job is not to sponsor bills, but that Republican Governor Don Carcieri “needs a voice on that floor,” and it’s important to “keep an eye on the entrenched Democrats.”
Guliano thinks his priorities are off. “When he is up at the state house and advocating for the Republicans, he’s not getting done what we need done,” she charged. “What I want to do is form a caucus of moderate and centrist-minded Democrats and Republicans to lead, based on doing the right thing, based on sensible policies and putting aside party politics and in particular, special interests, health care companies, health insurance companies, utilities, corporations, non-profits, unions...all have tremendous influence at the State House. That’s who’s really in control of the state house. It’s not a Democrat-Republican battle; the battle is between suburban and rural districts versus urban districts, between heavily union districts and non-union districts. It’s about individuals who crave power and control and it’s no longer about the people who elected them.”
Watson thinks Guliano is dead wrong on this point. “Where can you go to get away from the political process?” he asked. “You’ve got to prepare, to be ready, and what the Republicans do, is they frame the argument, and often times win the public support, in opposition to what the Democrats would otherwise do, and that’s more important than going along to get along,” Watson said.
That we may “need less of a two-party system,” is off-base, he said. The General Assembly is “split into two divisions, those who want to cut taxes and cut government and those who raise taxes and spend more money,” with not a whole lot of room in-between. “What does a moderate mean?” he asked rhetorically. “You have no opinion? You’re wishy-washy?”
Success, Watson said, is not judged by your ability to go home and tell of the bills you sponsored; it’s defeating the bad bills.
A look at the daily journals of legislators’ votes shows that Watson is indeed part of a pack, more often than not voting with fellow Republicans Joseph Amaral, Steven John Coaty, Laurence Ehrhardt, Nicholas Gorham, Bruce J. Long, John J. Loughlin, Jr., William J. McManus, Victor J. Moffit, Carol Mumford, John Savage and Joseph Trillo, to name a few, often in the form of voting in the minority ‘no’ while the Democrats vote the majority ‘yes.’ Guliano, though, doesn’t buy that the parties are really that lock-step, hunkered down. “My belief is with a centrist movement that is not influenced by party or special interests, we’ll gain momentum because they’ll have the support of the public,” she said. Watson said Guliano’s in for a bit of a surprise, if she’s elected: “she’s going to be yet one more vote that the Speaker can count on,” he said. “There’s no good reason to send another Democrat to the General Assembly. If that sounds too partisan, that’s just too bad.”
Experience Watson didn’t argue that Guliano, who has finished two of her four years on the school committee, her first local political office, is lacking in experience. After all, he didn’t have town board experience before being elected to the General Assembly in 1992. The point, Watson said, is “it all comes down to discipline in spending money, versus not, and her philosophy is incompatible with the wishes of our community.”
Watson was referring to this past budget cycle, when the school committee was asking for a revenue increase. “My opponent has demonstrated her interest in spending more money,” he said; “her record speaks for itself.”
The school district eventually got a 2.96 percent increase, after asking for five percent. “She took an aggressive stance is asking for as much revenue as she legally could, under state law,” Town Manager Bill Sequino recalled.
Guliano said her committee’s request to the town for more money for the schools more proves that she worked well with the school committee, to get their voice heard.
“I have never done anything independent of the school committee, without the school committee’s full support or without the school department,” she said. “I advocated for a greater share of the increase allowable under the cap. I felt that there was a disproportionate amount of the increase that went to the town. That’s what I was fighting for. We never said we should raises taxes above the cap. We were arguing over the increase we were allowed under the cap,” she said. The town’s share [the non-school share] of the budget was “disproportionate.”
Guliano also said she isn’t running merely to join forces with the Democrats, or because Speaker Murphy would recruit her, as Watson suggested during the forum.
“He didn’t recruit me,” she said. “I met Speaker Murphy once. It was after I had decided on my own to run, on the advice of local Republicans, Independents and Democrats, more Republicans than Democrats, quite honestly. The reason I went to see the speaker was because we were very concerned about the school bond legislation not getting through the house, because we did not have any representation on the house side, because Representative Watson refused to sponsor it, refused to help us shepherd it through the house. Town council members, school committee members, the board of education, several other house representatives were all involved in trying to get this through the house, we were all doing his job. There was nobody watching it for us over on the House side. We were all concerned because Bob had threatened to block the legislation; we were also concerned that the bill would somehow get lost in the shuffle.” Watson said he didn’t stand in the way of the school bond, adding that he only wished it had been divided up into separate questions instead of one at $52 million and he said he doesn’t buy Guliano’s comment about the Speaker Murphy. “The speaker doesn’t offer anything without a rate of return,” and “What has she already had to promise him?”
To Watson’s point that East Greenwich is a town supportive of Carcieri and knows Watson’s record, Guliano counters that a majority of people are unaffiliated, not sworn to Republicans or Democrats, which makes them more open to a new person. To Watson’s point that he’s there to help the governor, Guliano said, “Frankly, what would help the governor is to have more Democrats support his initiatives. He doesn’t need Republicans ranting and raving; he needs Democrats that are going to logically and respectfully agree with him and that’s how it’s going to get done, and there are a lot of moderate Democrats in the house; we just need to speak up. He’s already got Republican support; what he needs is Democratic support, to get things done.”
Watson said his biggest strength is his experience and know-how and talked about being firm, not “being afraid to say no” while Guliano described her strengths in terms of consensus building.
“Telling people what to do is easy but working with them, convincing them this is the right direction is much harder, but that’s my strength and I’m known as a consensus builder and I’m respectful of everyone and I believe I can be effective,” she said. Watson said: “I’ve served with all of these people, I’ve seen what makes them tick, I know why the building does a lot of what it does,” and said Speaker Jim Murphy likes to “feed” his Democrats and “feeding the Democrats is a “very expensive undertaking.”
Cuts? Asked what they would cut, Guliano said, she wants a “reduction in operating costs, state and local, including salaries and benefits,” and that “cutting programs to our most vulnerable citizens should be the last thing that we do. Reduce the bureaucracy first.”
Also, “Health insurance cost is at the core of the fiscal problems we’re facing,” she said. “It’s gone up 100 percent since 2000. Even if we address that one issue, it’s going to put us in better shape. The long-term issue is pension reform and economic growth and in the short-term, it’s health care.”
Watson said, “Our board of higher education is a fertile ground to look at,” and also the Department of Corrections. “There’s a huge amount we devote to crime and punishment and there are ways we can mete out punishment without filling our prisons at exorbitant costs. Sometimes we load our prisons with offenders whom we can provide alternative punishments for, that would not make us any less safe and would save our state $100 million.”
If you mention any of the measures the Democrats wanted passed that Watson was against, according to the General Assembly’s Daily Journals, such as
H7880, The Electronic Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling Act; or H7755 A, which would put live digital video cameras in school buses; or S2145, an act that would fine people who had unsafe equipment on cars, or suspend their licenses; or H 8270, that would establish a historian laureate; or S2566, an act that would make it an offense to transport an equine animal in a vehicle with two levels, Watson said he’s not impressed with bills that raise costs.
“I’m proudest of the things I’m not willing to support,” he said. “Some people want to be proud they passed a bill, that doesn’t matter one bit to the public, that means nothing,” whereas, he “will support the governor’s agenda.”
The candidate forum Watson said the “Democrats have controlled the Rhode Island General Assembly for 72 years,” with the result that the state is the highest-taxed state in the nation, with one of the most unfriendly business climates, and if the people wanted a change, they had better hold on to the local Republican representative they have, saying he was one of 13 Republicans trying to stand up against 62 Democrats.
Guliano countered that “you have to put party politics aside, and do what’s right, building consensus with the suburban and rural communities, to increase cooperation for business.”
Guliano said lowering health care costs was probably the most important issue and that the state needed to cooperate on a health insurance plan, which would happen only with bi-partisan cooperation, while Watson said “some legislators can’t say no” when it comes to widening eligibility and increasing the benefits people get and “we need to control costs, we can’t mandate benefits and increase eligibility,” and “I’m proud to say I voluntarily pay my own health insurance.”
On the question of continuing utility service for those too poor to pay, Guliano said should “would give amnesty based on need, but we can’t keep funding” if the bills are ballooning, while Watson said “generosity and charity has a place, but only that you can afford to pay,” and that “we need to be certain we are addressing a problem.”
The best line of their debate probably goes to Watson, who quipped that “The hardest thing you can say at the General Assembly is ‘no.’”
In conclusion, Guliano said, “I believe in working hard” and “we’ve got to put partisan politics and special interests aside,” and that “a good idea is a good idea, no matter who comes up with it.”
Watson took a harsher tone. “With all due respect to my opponent,” he said, “I oppose the Democratic machine, I oppose their budget” and said he emphatically supported Governor Carcieri and his budgets.
He warned, “If we don’t watch out, we are at that tipping point and we need to do more and if we don’t, we’ll go over the edge.”
After the forum, Guliano maintained Watson was putting party above people. “You represent your town the state house,” Guliano said. “You’re there to serve. It’s never about you; it’s about the people you serve. The problem is the people who have been there too long think it’s about them, that they have the power. It’s not; it’s the people who have the power.”
Watson said, “I never underestimate an opponent,” but “people of East Greenwich are aware of my record and support what I do on their behalf.”
