Gov. Dan McKee delivered his fourth State of the State speech on Tuesday. It was around 6,000 words and took one hour and three minutes.
Here are five things to know about it.
The last three Rhode Island governors have supported banning military-style “assault weapons” every year since at least the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012.
But a string of Second Amendment-friendly General Assembly leaders, most recently Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, have rendered that executive branch support moot.
So McKee’s decision to stump for an assault weapons ban as the finale of his State of the State speech − and include it in his budget − could mean a better chance of breaking through.
Or it could just mean that McKee’s team thinks it plays particularly strongly with potential primary voters, as evidenced by the strong response it received from speech attendees.
It should be noted, however, that the House of Representatives writes the final version of the annual budget and is under no compulsion to keep assault weapons legislation in the budget.
And after the speech, House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, who supports an assault weapons ban, said he does not think that such legislation belongs in the annual tax and spending bill.
Why?
“It’s a social issue. I understand why the governor put it in,” Shekarchi said. “I know people feel very passionate about it and I understand the passion on the issue. But it really is not a fiscal issue, and I try to keep my budgets really to the fiscal.”
Opioids and homelessness
And assault weapons aren’t the only area where disagreements between McKee and Shekarchi are beginning to emerge.
You can see outlines of next year’s gubernatorial campaign in the way McKee’s speech dealt with recent criticism about his handling of homelessness and emergency shelters.
He did not, as some had hoped, use the speech to declare a state of emergency.
He did, however, link the issue of homelessness to the opioid epidemic, a political weakness for expected Democratic primary challenger Helena Foulkes, who was head of CVS Pharmacy during the peak of the crisis a decade ago.
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“Substance abuse, the shortage of available housing, the need for more job skills training, and mental health issues –these are just some of the contributing factors to Rhode Island’s growing homelessness problem,” McKee said.
McKee did not mention opioids in last year’s speech.
On what he intends to do about the problem, McKee pointed out that the General Assembly last year refused to pass his proposal to fund homeless services by extending the hotel tax to whole house rentals on short-term rental websites such as Airbnb.
This year he said he intends to propose two dedicated funding streams to combat homelessness.
The issue has started to become a sticking point between McKee and Shekarchi, who have previously been closely aligned.
“He put in a plan to tax Airbnb, and it would’ve created a small amount of revenue. … We actually put in more revenue,” Shekarchi said. “So the issue about the homelessness isn’t funding. There’s plenty of money. Matter of fact, the money that we have allocated, millions and millions of dollars, has not been fully spent yet. So it’s not a funding problem. … There’s plenty of bed capacity. We’re just not bringing the people together, the homelessness people with the beds that are available.”
The budget
The day before McKee’s speech, Foulkes attacked the governor over the fact that Rhode Island is entering the year with a roughly $300 million budget deficit.
“Rhode Island families face an undeniable truth: While they sit at their kitchen tables making tough choices about groceries, heating, and housing, Governor McKee has repeatedly chosen to spend beyond the state’s means,” Foulkes said in a Monday news release.
In the State of the State speech, McKee said his budget will provide a “roadmap to close” the gap, but he didn’t give much of an idea where new revenue or savings will come from and if anything could be cut.
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As the campaign progresses, Foulkes is also expected to hit McKee on his handling of the defunct westbound span of the Washington Bridge and the cyberattack on the state’s public benefits computer system.
On the Washington Bridge, McKee on Tuesday said he “inherited a bridge that was in the midst of being repaired – even though it turned out that it was not repairable.”
After “challenges along the way,” he said, “today, I can say with confidence that we are now on the right path.”
Biggest applause line
McKee’s call for an assault weapons ban at the end of the speech produced by far the loudest cheers of the night and one of the only standing ovations, although far from a unanimous one. (The other was for retiring National Guard Commanding General Christopher Callahan.)
A dashboard for dashboards?
McKee loves dashboards, publicly accessible digital counters for tracking key policy-related statistics.
The giant screen facing the conference table in his office is often displaying the school attendance dashboard.
And his State of the State speech Tuesday highlighted four separate dashboards (surely a record), including two new ones his administration is launching:
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A dashboard tracking available shelter beds
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A “Trashboard” that will count pieces of litter that have been picked up.
In addition to the school attendance dashboard, the fourth dashboard mentioned in the speech tracks municipal street maintenance projects.
Could a dashboard for tracking the number of state dashboards be next?
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Gov. McKee’s 2025 State of the State speech: 5 key takeaways