Rhode Island braces for the Trump Effect

Jan. 08--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Now what?

While some Rhode Islanders are thrilled at the prospect of a Trump presidency, others dread and fear what President-elect Donald J. Trump, his ultra-conservative Cabinet nominees and the GOP-led Congress might have in store for Rhode Island.

The list of worries is long:

The loss of "Obamacare" coverage for upwards of 70,000 Rhode Islanders?

A rollback in clean air and water requirements?

Steep cuts in federal aid to the College Crusade of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities and scores of other organizations, including Planned Parenthood?

A ban on Muslims entering the United States? A registry of those already here?

Deportation of the young immigrants who applied for safe haven under President Barack Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals?

And how about this: A federal slap-down of Rhode Island's fast-growing marijuana industry?

A number of seasoned local pols doubt there will be a disproportionate impact on Rhode Island, where former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Trump by 15 percentage points. Warwick's Republican Mayor Scott Avedisian is among them.

"I do not think that any president-elect would favor any one state over any other, regardless of whether he or she carried that state in the election cycle," Avedisian says.

Hospital and marijuana-industry lobbyist George Zainyeh, a former Democratic state legislator and gubernatorial chief of staff, says, "I don't think he has a target on Rhode Island."

"Everybody has the same fear," says Zainyeh. "It's the unknown. But I think it's premature to say the sky is falling."

"At the end of the day, we hope that everybody has the same policy goal, and that's to make sure the citizens of the country are able to get health care and be covered and not spend their life savings if they get sick," he said in a recent interview.

Put another way: "I don't think that Trump and his administration pose any greater threat to Rhode Island than any other state," says Rhode Island native Jennifer Duffy, the senior editor of the Cook Political Report.

"Thus, any of his policies on immigration could be as much of a problem for Rhode Island as it would be for Arkansas."

TRACK THE APPOINTMENTS AND THEIR PATH TO CONFIRMATION IN THESE INTERACTIVE AP GRAPHICS

But that is small comfort to those who fear the power that Trump is seeking to put in the hands of his attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions, and others who, in the words of U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, come from "a place that is culturally and politically very different than Rhode Island."

Count Mike Stenhouse, CEO of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity, among those who have high hopes for the Trump era, at the very least in the government-spending arena.

"With less federal funds likely to be funneled into programs such HealthSource RI, Education, HUD, etc ... the challenge for R.I. lawmakers is to be smarter with our state funds," Stenhouse says.

"We know we cannot raise taxes any higher, so they will have to prioritize spending ... make some difficult decisions ... so that more organic economic growth can occur and so that more families have a chance at becoming self-sufficient and moving up the income ladder."

Elsewhere, however, the dread and fear run high.

Immigration

According to the Rev. Don Anderson, executive minister of the Rhode island State Council of Churches, the members of an unnamed "congregation" in Providence got together just before Christmas to talk about how they can protect young immigrants from deportation:

Safe houses.

Anderson said the immigrants of particular concern are the youth who may have been brought here illegally at very young ages by their parents, who applied to stay here legally under Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA.

"The government has their names, knows they are undocumented and where to find them," Anderson said.

"The congregation that has contacted me is willing to step forward, should that be necessary, to literally house people ... in an act of civil disobedience, to provide them sanctuary," Anderson said.

In other words, he said, they are talking about creating a modern-day version of the network of safe houses for fugitive slaves known as the Underground Railroad.

The concerns in Rhode Island are shared by "faith communities" across the country, Anderson said: the new administration will withhold federal dollars from any municipalities -- or states -- that offer themselves up as "sanctuaries," and struggling cities such as Providence may not "be able to withstand the pressure."

Civil rights

In this arena, the strains of fear are deep and, for some, personal.

"This new administration has already shown a deep hostility towards many basic civil liberties and civil rights," says Steven Brown, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island.

He cites, as examples: Trump's "comments supporting the creation of a Muslim registration database, his express desire to overturn [the landmark abortion-rights decision] Roe v. Wade, his stated belief that people exercising their First Amendment right to burn the flag should face prison and revocation of their citizenship, his support for reinstatement of waterboarding and other torture ....

"Shall I go on?"

This is Brown's question heading into the Trump era: "Whether we as a state will stand up to efforts at the federal level to roll back hard-fought rights ... whether it is preserving freedom of speech and the right to dissent, tackling sex and race discrimination, addressing police misconduct, promoting reproductive freedom or keeping Rhode Island a safe haven for immigrants."

Whitehouse recently convened a meeting of people from a variety of worried groups -- including the NAACP and the Islamic School of Rhode Island -- to talk about Trump's nomination of Sessions for attorney general.

Whitehouse recounted Sessions' comments from a 2006 Senate floor debate about immigration: "Fundamentally, almost no one coming from the Dominican Republic to the United States is coming here because they have a provable skill that would benefit us and that would indicate their likely success in our society."

Roger Williams University Prof. Jared Goldstein, a onetime attorney in the Department of Justice, questioned whether the Department of Justice, under Sessions' control, would continue to investigate allegations of police misconduct.

He cited an ABC News account of Sessions' comment, during a November 2015 Senate hearing, "that police officers all over America are concerned" about legal actions taken by the Justice Department against police officers and police departments.

Sessions said an "experienced law-enforcement officer" in Alabama told him that "the legal actions that have been taken and the marches in protest about police do have the tendency to cause [police] ... to stay under the shade tree, and not walk the streets."

Representatives of two local Muslim organizations who were invited to Whitehouse's meeting talked about "the real fears" of hate crimes, a Muslim travel ban and government-sponsored actions to ban the personal practice of Islamic Sharia law, as has been proposed in more than two dozen states.

Sessions has publicly supported Trump's call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration and suggested that a "toxic ideology" lies at the root of Islam, according to The New York Times.

"That's our fear, that he is not going to be that harsh on hate crime," said Hilmy Bakri, of the Islamic School of Rhode Island.

"A blind eye," said Whitehouse.

"I hope not," said Bakri, "but you know, he can pick ... and I am afraid he is going to pick the wrong battles. The president-elect has already been a person who has not been our champion."

"You are a champion of understatement," said Whitehouse.

Marijuana

For better or worse, confirmation of Sessions as attorney general may also dim the prospects for legalization of marijuana in Rhode Island.

"Good people don't smoke marijuana," Sessions said during a Senate hearing in April. "We need grown-ups in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized ... that it is in fact a very real danger."

What that means for the renewed legalization drive at the Rhode Island State House is, at this point, anyone's guess.

Last year, Rhode Island's Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo began to lay the groundwork for potential legalization by creating a new regulatory framework within state government for the cultivation, sale and taxation of medical-use marijuana, which has been legal here for more than a decade.

With recreational use now legal in Massachusetts, advocates are already gearing up to renew their drive in Rhode Island.

Jared Moffat, director of the pro-legalization group Regulate Rhode Island, is counting on the president to overrule his attorney general nominee on this issue.

"Mr. Trump said in October that he thinks marijuana policy should be a "state-by-state" issue ... It's also worth remembering," he notes, "that medical marijuana is just as illegal under federal law as adult-use marijuana, so it's unclear what would serve as the legal justification for going after adult-use policies but not medical marijuana."

Planned Parenthood

While Planned Parenthood is synonymous with abortion in the minds of some, spokesman Craig O'Connor says his organization provides overall women's health care for 2.5 million patients nationwide, 8,000 in Rhode Island.

His concern: Republican Congressman Tom Price, Trump's choice for health and human services secretary, and Vice President-elect Mike Pence "have both made de-funding and opposing Planned Parenthood a significant part of their political careers."

House Speaker Paul Ryan announced Thursday that Republicans will move to strip all federal funding for Planned Parenthood as part of their effort to dismantle Obamacare.

O'Connor fears the far-reaching impact: "In Rhode Island, about 15 percent of our patients are covered by Medicaid. If Paul Ryan, [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell and Tom Price bar Planned Parenthood from reimbursement for medical services under Medicaid, it means our patients will lose access to their trusted health-care provider, and critical preventive health services like birth control, cancer screenings and STD [sexually-transmitted-disease] tests.

"We should aim to break down barriers to health care," he argues. "They want to build more barriers [that would] have a disproportionate impact on those who already face inequities in the health-care system, including people of color, people who live in rural areas, people with low incomes and immigrant communities."

A fundraising drive is under way.

The message: "In the coming weeks, the care that Planned Parenthood provides could be at risk like never before.

"Politicians like Mike Pence, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have made it clear they want to deny patients access to care at Planned Parenthood health centers -- no matter how many millions it hurts ... If they get their way, the consequences will be devastating and far-reaching.

"This is the most dangerous threat we have ever faced, and we are gearing up to do whatever it takes to protect the millions of patients who rely on Planned Parenthood health centers."

In Rhode Island, O'Connor confirms, the effort will include a renewed push for a law that specifically guarantees access to abortion.

No such law exists in Rhode island. In fact, Article 2 of the state Constitution says, in part: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to grant or secure any right relating to abortion or the funding thereof."

O'Connor, the Rhode Island director of public policy and government relations for Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, acknowledges this will "be a bit of a challenge given the makeup of our General Assembly."

Health insurance

Raimondo has focused her public comments on the potential consequences if the GOP-led Congress wipes out the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, that provides subsidized health insurance to about 70,000 Rhode Islanders under expanded Medicaid eligibility limits.

In a recent interview, she said: "The thing that would be potentially devastating for Rhode Island is a not-thoughtful, too-quick unwinding of the Affordable Care Act."

Price, a steadfast opponent of the Affordable Care Act, had this to say shortly after Obama signed the bill in 2010: "Congressional Democrats and the Obama administration blatantly ignored the voices of the American people and rammed through a hyper-partisan piece of legislation that will have a disastrous effect on our nation's health-care system," according to The New York Times.

Now, according to The Times, Price says: "Premiums have gone up, not down. Many Americans lost the health coverage they were told time and time again by the president that they could keep. Choices are fewer." (Needless to say, Obamacare backers disagree with this sweeping denunciation.)

But repeal -- coupled with a much-discussed and, in some circles, feared shift to "block-grant" funding of Medicaid, the government-financed health-care program for the poor -- would have a trickle-down effect on the state's hospitals.

The math, as the Hospital Association of Rhode Island sees it: As many as 100,000 patients without coverage if everyone enrolled in health insurance through HealthSource RI dropped out, which would trigger an increase in free care provided by hospitals.

"These payment reductions and increases in uncompensated care will devastate already fragile hospitals," said HARI spokeswoman Amanda Barney.

The risks?

"Rhode Island was very successful in expanding Medicaid, and many more Rhode Islanders have access to health-care services due to this important initiative," says HARI President Michael Souza. "If Medicaid expansion is rolled back, there are concerns about access for Rhode Islanders, as well as the stability of the Rhode Island Medicaid budget."

He said hospitals in Rhode Island have already been hit with more than $1 billion in cuts to finance the tax credits and expanded Medicaid eligibility that are integral to the Affordable Care Act.

"If the bill is repealed, will these funds be reinstated?" Souza asks. "If not, hospitals will be struggling to provide care for the newly uninsured while balancing cuts that were put in place to provide insurance to these individuals."

Poverty relief

As an organization that advocates for policies that help the poor, the Economic Progress Institute -- ensconced on the Rhode Island College campus -- has a long list of worries, including: "health care, affordable housing, child-care assistance, early-education opportunities, workforce training and other building blocks of a prosperous citizenry and economy."

Example: The institute's policy director, Linda Katz, fears many "family-friendly work policies" would be "undermined" under the leadership of Andrew Puzder as secretary of labor.

The chief executive of a company that franchises fast-food outlets, Puzder has been an outspoken critic of worker protections enacted by the Obama administration, including: the Affordable Care Act, expanded eligibility for overtime pay and policies governing paid sick leave.

Education

As a member of the U.S. Senate committee that will hold a confirmation hearing on the president-elect's nomination of Betsy DeVos to lead the U.S. Department of Education, Rhode Island's Whitehouse convened a meeting recently of a dozen local folk with "a stake in public education."

Whitehouse made no bones about his own concerns about DeVos: "President-elect Trump has nominated ... a billionaire, whose views on education seem to be out of line with many Rhode Islanders' values, to set federal education policy."

The group that he invited to meet with him, on the University of Rhode Island's Providence campus, included teachers, administrators, charter-school advocates and representatives from a number of organizations, including the Providence Student Union, the College Crusade, RI Kids Count, and the Providence After School Alliance. An oft-heard concern: "Her support for deregulated low-performing charter schools, her advocacy for private school vouchers and her stance on the role of teacher unions."

"Betsy DeVos does not have the qualifications to lead our nation's schools, having never attended or been employed in a public school," said Warwick first-grade teacher Barbara Pellegrino. "She does not hold a degree in education."

Her "anticipated vision of for-profit charter schools and private school vouchers runs counter to what is positive and powerful about the charter movement: that we are public, nonprofit schools, accountable to the public for our management and results," said Sarah Friedman, co-director of The Learning Community, a K-8 charter school in Central Falls.

Andrew Bramson, president and CEO of the College Crusade of Rhode Island, adds: "With regard to higher-education issues, Betsy DeVos is an unknown quantity."

His organization is funded in part by $3.1 million a year in U.S. Department of Education grants -- expiring in 2017 -- for college-readiness programs and scholarships of up to $4,500 a year for 3,900 first-generation students from "economically disadvantaged" families in Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Woonsocket and Cranston.

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