Seth Magaziner, Lewis Pryeor and Paul Roselli make their pitch to voters in northwest Rhode Island

"I'm a Democrat because I believe the Democratic Party is the party of working people, those in the middle class, and those who are working their way into the middle class."

The Burrillville Democratic Town Committee (BDTC), hosted United States Representative Seth Magaziner at a meet and greet on Thursday, August 28th at the Pavilion in Harrisville, Rhode Island. Candidate Lewis Pryeor, who is
running for Senate District 23 against incumbent Senator Jessica de la Cruz, and
candidate Paul Roselli, who is running against incumbent Representative David Place for House District 47, also attended.

The following has been edited for clarity:

Fred Hunt; BDTC Chair: There's been a controversy in town recently and a lot of displeasure for our town council. People write on Facebook, “Why don't we vote them out?” Unfortunately, nobody's running against them this year, but in 2026 there will be four open seats. As the Burrillville Democratic Town Committee, we're [pushing for people] to go out there, get people involved, to join our committee, and get people to run.

Fortunately, we do have two wonderful candidates running for the General Assembly, Paul Roselli and Lewis Pryeor. We are looking to get them elected as a springboard to 2026 and hopefully, that will come to fruition.

Seth Magaziner

Seth Magaziner: I'm a Democrat because I believe the Democratic Party is the party of working people, those in the middle class, and those who are working their way into the middle class. That's the way it was for my grandparents in the New Deal era, during FDR. My grandfathers were both sons of immigrants. My grandfather Louis was a son of Jewish immigrants in New York City. He was a bookkeeper at a company that canned tomatoes. My grandfather, Bob, was the son of Irish immigrants in Worcester. He got a job after the war as a union steelworker at a company that made airplane parts.

Those were not glamorous jobs, they weren't anything special, but with those jobs, they were able to buy houses, raise their kids, and earn a ticket to the middle class to build a good life for themselves - a better life than what their parents had. That's what it's supposed to be about, right? If you work hard and do the right thing, you ought to be able to build a good life for yourself, a life where you don't have to worry about whether you can pay your bills and you can provide opportunities for your kids.

As the Democratic Party, that's what we stand for. We believe that the way you build the economy and make America stronger is by building and strengthening the middle class and helping people get into the middle class. It's not from the top down.

For years now, the other party has been trying to convince people that if we just take care of all these billionaires and all these big companies, then in their infinite charity, they will just help everybody else out. Make no mistake, Donald Trump, for all of his theatrics, is selling that same package of lies that the Republicans have been trying to sell people for generations.

[Trump] passed a tax bill - his only real accomplishment as president because he didn't do an infrastructure bill and he didn't fix healthcare - the only big accomplishment he had was passing a big tax cut, more than 90% of which went to the top 1%.

Behind all the theatrics and bluster, today's Republican Party is the same Republican Party that we've had for years and years - or at the very least, they're trying to sell the same policies. They're willing to stoop lower to do it than they ever have before. Maybe that's the difference.

As Democrats, we believe something different. We believe that if you invest in people, good schools, healthcare (or make healthcare more affordable), have good job training programs, and support unions because unions help build a middle class in this country - if you do those things, then people will be able to work their way up and you can build good, safe, fair communities. That's what we believe as Democrats.

We also believe in freedom. We believe in the freedom of people to make their own healthcare decisions without the government getting involved and the freedom of people to marry who they love without creepy politicians telling them what they can and can't do. We believe in the freedom from price gouging and being able to go to the grocery store and not have the big agriculture companies - the big grocery store chains - jacking up your prices. The freedom to go to the library and choose whatever books we want without having the government choose them for us.

These are things that we believe as fundamental rights that our friends on the Republican side don't believe in. They want Donald Trump and JD Vance and these other weird politicians in Washington to insert themselves into our personal lives and try to tell us how to run our lives. We have fundamental disagreements about that, but I'm hopeful. We've got a great presidential candidate in Kamala Harris, a prosecutor who has only ever worked for the people as a prosecutor, putting bad guys in jail as the attorney general, taking on the big banks who are foreclosing on people [and pushing them] out of their homes.

As a senator, vice president, and now as our next president Kamala Harris has only ever worked for the people versus Donald Trump who has only ever worked for himself. We've got great candidates up and down the ticket.

I have not given up on Burrillville. I've been on the ballot three times here, twice for state treasurer and once for Congress, and I'm two out of three. I want to make it three out of four this time with your help. I understand it's not easy. I understand that it's challenging, but I think if you go to people and listen to them and meet them where they are, you'll find that most people are not very partisan. They want to vote for people who will listen to them and I know that we have that with Lew and Paul. I am working hard to be a good listener as well.

One last observation I'll make. I didn't plan it this way, it just sort of worked out. When you go to Congress - and I'm new there, I'm a freshman - you've got your study groups and you've got your friend groups. Your study groups are the people you work with on issues. I'm on the Natural Resources Committee, so I work with a lot of other people on environmental issues and energy issues. On the Homeland Security Committee, I work with a lot of people on counter-terrorism and keeping people safe.

But aside from all that, I've got some members of Congress who I've made friends with who just happen to be my friends socially. And it just so happens that some of my best friends in Congress are Democrats who come from some of the most Republican districts. People like Mary Peltola from Alaska. Trump won Alaska by about 11 points last time - Mary won it by 10 points. She outperformed Biden by 20 points in Alaska, which is just unbelievable. Jarod Golden from rural Maine, Marie Perez from Washington State, and Gabe Vasquez from rural New Mexico - people like that.

I've asked them, what's your secret? What do you do as a Democrat to win in some of these very Republican areas? Because not many people in Congress at least have figured that out. What they tell me is they win by finding issues that matter to people that no other politician is talking about. Jared Golden in rural Maine will talk your ear off about issues facing the lobster industry and lobstermen that no one else is talking about. And Mary Peltola, the same thing. Marie Perez from Washington State - she and her husband own an auto repair shop and she can talk your ear off about the right to repair and how the big companies make us that you have to take your stuff back to the big companies to have them fix it for you - and charge you a lot of money - instead of just releasing the instructions and letting people fix their stuff or hire a local shop in town to fix it.

They find these issues that no one on the left or the right is talking about, but that matter to people. That's how they succeed. They succeed in these very Republican areas by talking about things that matter to people that no one else has talked about. But you can only do that if you're a good listener. So find those things, whatever people here in town are talking about. Maybe it's housing, maybe it's environmental issues. We were talking earlier about pain issues, chronic pain management, and addiction. Find things that aren't Republican or Democratic issues but matter in people's lives. People will appreciate that you're hearing them and that you're meeting them where they are.

I'm going to do my part in Congress. It's a real honor to represent Rhode Island. I'm focused on all the things that I mentioned at the beginning. We've got to take on price gouging and do our best to lower grocery prices, healthcare costs, and energy costs. We've got to protect social security. We've got to protect abortion rights. We've got to keep these MAGA politicians out of people's personal lives and let people have the freedom that this country was founded on.

I'm optimistic. I think we've got a great group of Democrats up and down the ticket this year. I think that people agree with us on the issues and as long as we're good listeners and as long as we work hard and meet people where we are, I believe that we'll be successful.

Lauren Niedel: What do you think about organizations like AIPAC paying $20 million to oust two of your congressional comrades?

Seth Magaziner: We need to get rid of Citizens United, period. No organization, whatever their agenda is, should be able to spend $20 million to target two members of Congress. That's insane. We see it with a lot of groups. AIPAC cares about issues having to do with Israel. Another one - out of nowhere this year, the cryptocurrency companies are spending tens of millions of dollars trying to knock out members of Congress who want to regulate cryptocurrency and make it safer. Like Sherod Brown in Ohio - they just dropped $13 million against him. And the list goes on and on. The oil and gas companies for sure. I was at the receiving end of it two years ago when I ran against Alan Fung. The Republicans spent $8 million in our district to try to elect Alan and beat me. Of that $8 million, only $2 million was money he raised through his campaign.

Three-quarters of the money that they spent against us was from dark money Superpacs funded by who knows who. We need to overturn the Citizens United decision and get back to a campaign finance system where there are limits and there are rules so that no one can buy an election. And the only way we're going to be able to do that is by getting a better Supreme Court, which means we have to elect Kamala Harris so that she can appoint the next Supreme Court justices and not Donald Trump.

Paul Roselli: I want to know where we are with funding for things like land acquisition, carbon sequestration, all those things that get money into both our federal and state forests to make sure that they're healthy and moving forward. Where are we?

Seth Magaziner: On conservation specifically, we're in sort of a holding pattern. When Republicans took control of the House, they proposed a cut of more than 20% to the Department of the Interior, which would have meant huge cuts to conservation and the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] for monitoring clean water and air. They tried to get rid of all of the subsidies for clean energy that were in the Inflation Reduction Act. As Democrats, we don't want all of those cuts. We wanted more funding for clean air, clean water, and conservation. There was a big fight last year. They almost shut down the government because we were arguing over the budget and we ended up doing this deal where it's a stalemate. We were level-funded last year and this year. No big cuts, but also not the level of new investment we want. This is another reason why we've got to not only elect Kamala Harris but take back the majority in the House and keep the Senate - so that we can properly fund the Department of the Interior and the EPA - for environmental protection and also for conservation and clean energy.

Burrillville Resident: A lot of schools in different states have the 10 commandments in the school and Bibles in the classroom. It seems like the separation of church and state is going away...

Seth Magaziner: They want it to.

Burrillville Resident: I know. Are there any plans on what we could do about freedom of, and freedom from, religion?

Seth Magaziner: We are in Rhode Island, right? We invented the separation between church and state and for the last 400 years, this is something that has protected people. As I mentioned, my grandparents - a Jewish grandfather from New York City and a Catholic grandfather from Worcester - back in their day, they were both discriminated against. The wasps were in charge back then and they didn't want anything to do with the Catholics or the Jews, but we've thrived as a country because we don't have a religious test for citizenship. We don't have a religious test for getting elected to government or anything like that.

Separation of church and state is very much the bedrock, but there have always been people who have been pushing back against this notion of separation [including] some of these creepy MAGA types in Congress and on the Supreme Court. They want to legislate their religion onto everybody else, and that's not freedom. That is not what freedom looks like. The Republican Party is not a party of freedom anymore. We are because we are the ones saying, “Get out of our bedrooms, get out of our libraries, get out of our schools.” It is not the role of government to legislate their religions into our lives.

Cindy Fenchel, Burrillville Resident: I don't have a question, just a statement. It has been my pleasure to work with the Congressman, both as treasurer and now in Congress. It has been my experience, both as a union leader when we reached out to him to help us with issues related to collective bargaining issues related to pensions and when the Catholic Church was trying to rip off the nurses and healthcare workers at St. Joseph's and also our state employees. He's always been available. Never once have I called and didn't get a return phone call either from the congressman or a staff person.

And that continues. We reached out to him a few weeks ago to have a conversation with him about the athletic field, the chart field. We wanted to have a conversation with him to see if there was something on a national level that could be done or if he had some insight that he could share with us. As always, we were sitting in this office within a couple of days of a phone call and had a long conversation and we were able to shift some ideas back and forth. The congressman's office helped as well. I just wanted to say thank you.

Burrillville Resident II: You're saying that you pick an issue and run with it. If we're going door to door in Burrillville campaigning for you, what do you think we could tell people what you have done in the last two years?

Seth Magaziner: I'd say a couple of things. We have been working on a bill that would require the big oil companies, which made a hundred billion in profits last year, to return some of those profits to consumers in the form of rebates. So if the price of gas gets too high or the price of heating oil gets too high, then they have to return a portion of their profits to their consumers. That may sound farfetched, but they've been doing it in England for like five years now. So that's one that we've been working on.

I've introduced a bill that would guarantee 10 days of paid time off to all workers. That's another one. Another big priority of mine is banning members of Congress from trading stocks because when we as legislators make decisions we should be making based on what is best for America, not on what is best for our finances.

Those are some of the bills that I've been working on. We've also been working hard on bringing funding back to the state. We just announced $40 million for flood mitigation and climate resilience. We just announced over a hundred million dollars to fix bridges around the state. That's been a focus of mine as well.

I want to thank all of you once again. There are a lot of ways that you could be spending your time tonight and the fact that you are here gives me a lot of motivation and optimism that we are going to be successful in November and we are going to elect Kamala Harris. We are going to elect Sheldon Whitehouse. We've got to send him back so we can take care of that pesky Supreme Court. I certainly ask for your help and your support, but then you've got some great state legislative candidates as well. So thank you so much for getting involved.

We're going to turn Burrillville and Glocester blue again. I've been focusing a lot on Burrillville, but if there are any Glocester people here - I follow in the footsteps of Jim Langevin, who was a terrific representative for 22 years, but I also follow in the footsteps of John Fogarty. John Fogerty, who some of you may remember as a point of pride for Rhode Island. John Fogarty from Glocester had my seat in Congress for 25ish years and he introduced the bill that created Medicare. A lot of people don't know that it was a Rhode Island representative from this area who put in the bill that created Medicare. So big shoes to fill, but I'm going to work very hard and do my best.

Lewis Pryeor

Fred Hunt: Lew is running one of the most important races in Rhode Island and that's trying to defeat Jessica de la Cruz. Jessica is a rising star in the Republican Party and we have to nip it in the bud and Lew's going to do his damnest.

Lewis Pryeor: Yes, I'm running against Jessica, but I am getting support from a lot of people in Glocester and Burrillville. In Glocester I got the Fogartys coming out for me and that is a group I appreciate. Back in the sixties, I spent weekends in Glocester, but I grew up in Providence - in Olneyville. I went to Classical High School and Rhode Island College, where I got a business science degree in business management. I had my own business, Peter Pots Flowers, for 25 years then. Well, I originally had a little shop in Glocester, Putnam Pike Flowers for a few years and then we went and purchased Peter Pots flowers. We had five stores in Rhode Island and I had a staff of over 35 people.

I know what problems a small businessman can have. I feel my biggest accomplishment was when I was a CNA [Certified Nursing Assistant] for Homefront Healthcare in Woonsocket, and it was the most enjoyable job I had. I went to the homes of male seniors, veterans, and disabled people and I've learned a lot from them. I've learned how they fought wars. I've learned how the veterans were afraid to sleep on the ground where there were tarantulas and everything. They told me these stories and I learned a lot from them, but I saw that we still have a lot to do for seniors. My opponent voted against the bill that would require rental [increase] notices to be 120 instead of 30 days. With today's economy and the housing issue, how many people can jump, in 30 days, into an apartment that could keep them going as seniors? That was an issue. I thought she was way off course.

She would've got the Golden Girls kicked out because she was also against having multiple seniors living together. I think that's an issue that we should have because it keeps them from being lonely. They have a support system and that's something we need for all seniors.

As for open space and environment, I'll give a quick thing that Lauren remembers this. In 2017 I went into the Chepachet Town Hall to go to a meeting, but then I saw the Land Trust. So I went into the Land Trust meeting and they had on their itinerary a talk on putting glyphosates on the Land Trust's property, Wright's Farm. And when I saw that, I remembered Lauren Niedel talking about glyphosates before that.

So I Googled it on my phone and I brought up all these facts about how it's dangerous. My concern is the water, I'm tired of worrying. I've got an artesian well. I love the area and I love the environment. And when they were starting to do that, I brought it up. I'm asking, “How's that going to leak off?” They wanted to put glyphosates down to grow corn. It was Clayton Wright from Wright's Dairy Farm. He wanted to grow corn to feed their cows and use glyphosates to kill the weeds instead of a rototiller, which is a more expensive, time-consuming process. I said, “I don't want that in Glocester.” I fought with them. I went home, put it on Facebook and I got a lot of hits.

At the next meeting, they withdrew. They said they would not grow the corn. They were not going to put glyphosates on the Land Trust property. So you can get action. But again, the public has to know this because they try to get things through so easily. We're seeing that right now. We're having problems in Glocester with the police station. It was an issue that wasn't talked out. We should have had meetings with the whole area - more than one meeting because not everybody can make the first meeting - having little groups going to the town police station. That's not the way to do it. The issue should have been brought up - the final cost and what's going to be any variable in between. Then you go to Burrillville about the turf. Oh my god, that's a hot one. They want to put down the turf that could cause cancer.

I had cancer, I had stage four and I got rid of it. That anybody would consider some chemical that could pollute the water - we don't need it. I remember back in the 1990s with the gas station and all their water got polluted in Pascoag. They had problems with that.

It's enough. We've got to watch out for our natural resources. I agree with buying public land because when I was a Councilman in Warwick, I worked with the Republican administration, Scott Avedisian, Mayor Lincoln Chafee, and Democrat Jerry Gibbons. We worked with Barton Farms on Centerville Road. My area was District 8 eight, and I had 9,000 people in it. A girl came into my shop one day, “Lew, they want to turn Barton Farms the last cow field up on Centerville Road into housing.”

I said, “Okay, let's get a meeting load with the neighbors.” Pierre and I had over 60 people in our house and we met, talked, and started a group called the Centerville Neighborhood Association of Preservationist Actions. It was a long name, but we all worked together... We got the land purchased and it's an open space area now. It's got greenhouses on it and it's surviving. I'm for open space and saving land.

I'm looking forward to winning. I'm pro-choice. We should have a choice. Whatever anybody wants to do with their body is their choice, nobody else's between them. It's between them and the doctor, no one else. What about HIPPA? Let's keep it going with privacy.

And I'm gay. Surprise! I've been married to my husband over there for 43 years. Anybody who has anything to say about it, mind your business. We've been together and I've seen people in the past who are gay get drinking issues. I've seen a friend of mine, his parents owned a place in Chepachet, they found their son hanging from a tree when he was 18. I've seen other people struggle by drinking more to confront it, but that's not the answer. I've got a nephew, but now she's a niece. She's now Serena. But it's hard for me to get her name right because for years I've known her and now she's Serena. I've got to respect that, which I have no problem with for sure. And I've seen other kids and other people and it's a struggle for them.

We should stop bullying them. We should let them live their lives. We went to the Pride in Aging RI group this week and it was great because they were talking about helping with housing for gay people - because as we get older, we can't always get housing like everyone else. It was people from the State of Rhode Island, officials helping aging people who are gay. This is what we need more for all aging people because it's not easy.

We live with my mother, she's 93. She cooked up a storm at my house for those who went to the Glocester Democratic Committee party we had. The next day she was crying, she was so happy she saw people. That's the thing I learned from my clients when I was at Home Front - they just want to be respected. They don't want to feel useless because they can't do everything they used to do. My legs don't always want to run down the street. If I'm lucky, I'm walking fast. We all have those issues and we should be helping the elderly more. We should be letting people live their lives.

Another thing my opponent did, and I don't appreciate it, she voted against the state budget in protest. You're not going to work with anybody else in the State House if you vote against the budget. She was the only person to vote against it. She voted against the fire stations getting money. She voted against funding the Zambarano Unit at Eleanor Slater Hospital. All the money that was coming to Burrillville, she voted against it. The money going to Glocester - she voted against it. You don't play politics. Once you get elected, you work for the people, you take your politician hat off and you go in and work your butt off for the people of your district. That's what I did when I was a councilman, and that's what I'll do again.

Paul Roselli

Paul Roselli: Some of you may know me, some of you may not. I moved to Burrillville in 1983, decided I wanted to do something with my life, and waited about 20 years to do that. Now I can't stop. For the past 30 years or so, I've devoted my life to making sure this place remains rural. Making sure that all the things we cherish here, whether it be the trees, beautiful sunsets, clean water, and clean air remained that way. I'm running against an opponent and Lew is running against an opponent who doesn't believe that.

I want you to remember two things from my time here today. One is my belief in science. I love science. I got a BS in plant soil science way back in the seventies, got an MA in education in the middle seventies, and waited for 30 or 40 years before I went back to school when I was 63 years old at Bryant University and got a master's in environmental studies.

It was a change of life for me to go back to school at 63 years old. But I believe in science. I believe that science has a role. Our current town council and house reps and pretty much the Republican Party don't believe in science. I believe in science. I believe that science has not only a role but a duty and that we must use it.

The second thing I want you to remember, from my time here today, is my love of country. I know those are high aspirational goals, but we need to take back the flag. We need to take back this idea that democracy only belongs to those who have a sign in the back of their pickup truck. I don't mind having a flag in the back of your pickup truck, but I think we need to take it back on the local level.

Some of you may know that I spent five years of my life devoted to making sure there wasn't a power plant in the northwest corner of Rhode Island. I decided, along with others, to make sure that the rest of the state and the region knew about this power plant. I took on the leadership role of looking at the application and taking that application statewide, doing 47 of these things called Learn the Facts presentations. I know that was a few years ago, but you see, all of a sudden it's rumbling back with the idea of PFAS in the artificial turf. [See: Burrillville residents battling Town Council over forever chemicals in artificial turf]

There's this idea that big government or even local municipal government knows the answer. They don't know the answer. They haven't looked at the science. They haven't devoted their time and energy to delving into not only the love of their country but the love of the people who live here. I grew up in Providence and went to elementary school and high school at LaSalle Academy and then went to the University of Rhode Island.

I'm running against a person who, if you look around town has more signs than me. I probably have more signs here today than anywhere else in Burrillville. But the idea here is that we meet someone who understands the place we love. I don't think those two people do. I don't think those two people understand this idea of the sense of place. Big corporations, whether it be $8 million for Allan Fung or in the case of Senator de la Cruz, thousands of dollars from the state Republican Party.

They understand what you want. I think I do. I'm for clean water, clean air, a healthy environment, getting doctors' bills off your back, and making sure that the state budget is fair, equitable, and manageable. Making sure that we have enough money for natural resources and education. I'm a firm believer in education. I teach a class at Bryant University on energy and I'm Mr. Wizard in that lab. I make things explode and we make hydrogen gas and we make electricity. The idea is that we use science to understand the natural world and to understand their world as well.

So before you leave tonight, two things I'd like you to do. Maybe three. One is to vote. You've got to get out there and vote. And when you get that ballot, make sure you flip it over because on the other side are a couple of referendums that need to be approved. The big one is the natural resources and open space referendum. Burrillville, in the last 16 years, has not approved those referendums for open space. They've always been on the other side. The entire state, since 1960, has voted to approve those open space acquisitions - conservation of land, agricultural preservation, clean water, clean air, all those things. Burrillville has not. It's now up to you each one of you. When you get that ballot, flip it over and vote to approve that referendum.

The second thing I'd like you to do is take a sign before you leave here tonight, take a sign for Lew, and take the sign for me. Just remember, as you drive around town here tonight, signs don't vote, but the people who have those signs do - even for the primary, even though Lew and I don't have challengers.

The last thing I'd like you to do, and I know this may sound kind of weird, but I belong to an organization where every time we are there, every time we walk into that meeting hall, the first thing we do as part of that meeting is say the Pledge of Allegiance. When I say it, it's my opportunity to appreciate where I live, appreciate my country, and appreciate that I have the freedom to get up here in front of you and talk about some of the issues that I have and I'd like you to listen to. This is the only place I know, the only place in the world - and I've traveled - that you can walk into any place and the first thing you do is talk about the country where you live and the country where you love.