State Senate Candidate Lenny Cioe is asking Senate President to follow Biden's lead and step aside

"Biden stepped down for the country," said Cioe. "Dominick Ruggerio needs to do the same for Rhode Island."

“I got the idea at the doors,” said Lenny Cioe to me as we discussed his campaign for State Senate. “People would say, ‘Why isn’t the Senate President following Biden’s lead and stepping aside?’”

Cioe, a registered nurse from a working-class North Providence family is running in the Senate District 4 Democratic Primary against Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, inarguably one of the most powerful politicians in the state. It is safe to say that Cioe is running to the left of the Senate President, a conservative Democrat with a mixed record on social issues like abortion (he opposes abortion but has allowed votes to expand abortion access). On economic issues, the Senate President has opposed reforming payday lending that targets low-income Rhode Islanders with usurious interest rates, and he favors expanding gambling in the state over taxing the rich.

“A lot of people are upset about the igaming bill,” said Cioe, referring to the Senate President’s 2023 push to extend the “current Bally’s monopoly over casinos in the state to igaming, meaning that the company’s online arm Gamesys would be the sole operator active in the state… The law imposes a 50% tax on online slot revenue with the remainder divided between Bally’s and IGT.” [See: Rhode Island becomes the seventh state to legalize igaming]

“People feel that it violated the Rhode Island Constitution and that it should have been on the ballot for a vote,” said Cioe. “And people are sick of these late-night deals that get done without real discussion or oversight.”

But what people in the district are mostly concerned with, according to Cioe, is the Senate President’s health, and his apparent inability to be present and do the job the people have elected him to. Responding to this, Cioe issued a press release earlier today asking the Senat President to step aside, as President Joe Biden recently did, making way for Vice President Kamala Harris to run for President.

“I've talked to thousands of my neighbors in our district, and if I know anything, it's this: They demand and deserve responsive, accountable, and professional representation up at the State House,” said Cioe in his press release. “Last week we saw an act of incredible political courage by President Joe Biden when he decided to step down from the race for president and pass the torch to Kamala Harris. Biden stepped down for the country. Dominick Ruggerio needs to do the same for Rhode Island. That's why I'm running for State Senate District 4 against Ruggerio. Even though he's not able to be present in the State Senate, he's still running because he doesn't know when [his] time is up. I am calling for Dominick Ruggerio to step down from Rhode Island’s State Senate. Like Joe Biden, it’s time to pass the torch to the next generation of state leaders.”

I met Cioe during his lunch break.

“He needs to debate me because if he can stand up and debate me and show that he's able to, then his health issues are off the table,” said Cioe. “But if he can't, it raises a serious question about how he's going to represent the people.” This is Cioe’s third campaign against the Senate President. The two have never shared a stage to take questions from voters. In fact, after Cioe’s first challenge in 2020, the Senate President used the state’s decennial redistricting to shed districts favorable to Cioe.

“He redistricted me out of Providence and parts of Fruit Hill,” said Cioe. “Anywhere that I won two-to-one or sometimes three-to-one, I was redistricted out of. But even though I lost the last election, I made enough inroads into the new areas that I feel I can try again.”

Instead of debating, the Senate President relies on mailers. “His mailers contain lies and disinformation and I never got a chance to answer those,” said Cioe. “If we had a debate, I could have answered them and instead of him deflecting, we could have talked about the issues.”

As a healthcare provider, Cioe also has issues with Senator Ruggerio’s recent slate of healthcare bills. “He never raised Medicaid reimbursement rates for primary care providers or seriously addressed the nursing home situation,” said Cioe. “The state is still hemorrhaging primary care providers and nursing homes and assisted living facilities are still closing down.

“Your primary care providers are your most important piece of the puzzle,” said Cioe. “Get their Medicaid reimbursements up, then work your way out. If you look at the problem, you realize that the main issue is holding onto primary care providers. I know it's a nationwide issue, but it's even worse here in Rhode Island. Primary care provider offices are small businesses with good-paying jobs. They hire nurse practitioners, nurses, medical assistants, and medical secretaries. These are all good-paying jobs that create a better economy in Rhode Island. By expanding out [through Medicaid reimbursements] you solve the problem.”

I asked Cioe what he was hearing from voters when he met them at their doors.

“A of them are worried about their taxes and education. A lot of the residents in District 4 are getting older,” said Cioe. “They're afraid of rising costs and the cost of medication. Each door is a different story. Older people on a fixed income are caught between a rock and a hard place trying to make it stretch. These people paved the way for us, so we need to give them the respect they deserve.”

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