Brown and Mendes' Campaign Draws National Attention

Brown and Mendes' Campaign Draws National Attention

The campaign of Matt Brown for Governor and Cynthia Mendes for Lt. Governor of Rhode Island has picked up some national attention.

A feature in The Daily Poster asks the question, "Can Revolution Take Root In Rhode Island?"

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The Daily Poster -- an online news organization founded by David Sirota, a former top advisor to U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) during his presidential campaign -- featured Brown and Mendes this past week. 

The publication has broken a series of national stories ranging from the controversies involving the New York nursing homes and then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, campaign donations to U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Wall Street's influence on Congress.

Brown is considered to be the most progressive candidate running for the Democratic nomination for governor. He ran in 2018 in the Democratic primary and won 33.5% of the vote for governor against Gina Raimondo.

The Daily Poster cites Mendes and Brown's protest to draw attention to funding for the homeless:

 

On a cold evening last November, a handful of activists along with a state senator and gubernatorial candidate pitched tents in front of the Rhode Island state capitol in Providence. “I shouldn’t have to do this at all,” state Sen. Cynthia Mendes told a local news site that night. “But when we’re sure that the homelessness crisis has been resolved and no one is going to freeze to death, the protest will end.”

The encampment was organized by a new progressive insurgency in Rhode Island, which has announced plans to challenge dozens of incumbent lawmakers in the upcoming primary elections, citing the failings of the state’s Democratic establishment.

For Mendes, the insurgency’s tactics were already working. She was one of over a dozen progressives who ascended to the state house in 2020 after ousting the Senate finance committee chairman by over 20 points in a primary. Mendes had challenged William Conley due to his tight relationship with the establishment forces in senate leadership.

One legislative session later, Mendes found herself making demands from outside the state house, railing against the state’s political leaders. She spoke harshly of her colleagues that evening: “State leadership feels entitled to ignore the fact that people in their state are going to die this winter,” she said.

Camping outside the state capitol, though, would be much harder to ignore.

Alongside her was Matt Brown, a former secretary of state who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2018, and is running again this cycle. Mendes herself is running for lieutenant governor, and the duo announced their candidacies alongside a few dozen state legislative candidates as part of the progressive electoral organization, the Rhode Island Political Co-Op, which Brown runs.

Layered up in blankets and sleeping bags, Mendes and Brown slept in tents in front of the state house for a total of 16 days, and were joined by candidates and activists affiliated with the Co-Op as well as members of the Democratic Socialists of America, the Sunrise Movement, and homeless advocates.

On the 16th day, Gov. Dan McKee (D) announced about 150 new emergency shelter beds and a new quarantine and isolation facility for homeless people.

When asked about the camp McKee said, “We are listening to anybody who wants to talk about the issue. But I think it’s a little presumptive to think that any one group got us here today.” In early November, McKee had announced $5 million in funding to create 275 new shelter beds.

 

The Daily Poster Overviews The Co-Op - Created to Fund Progressives

The Daily poster also writes about the "Co-Op" -- founded by Brown and Mendes:

 

The Co-Op’s strategy, meanwhile, starts from the basis that Rhode Island voters have an appetite for a progressive agenda and an anti-establishment message, and that the biggest barrier to winning progressive governing majorities is running effective campaigns.

The organization was founded by Brown and two others, Jeanine Calkin and Jennifer Rourke, all of whom lost their primaries in 2018 and blamed their losses at least partially on the establishment outspending them and using aggressive tactics.

Reclaim, meanwhile, is investing time and energy in training organizers and engaging with communities to build support for progressive policies.

“Organizing work is not just deciding that you’re correct,” Ramamurthy told me. “Of course the left is right; that’s not really the question. The question is, how many people are going to stand up for the right thing?”

At times, the Co-Op and other groups in its orbit — like Sunrise and the DSA — have operated in parallel with Reclaim’s organizing work, of which elections are only a small part. Reclaim has endorsed candidates running with the help of the Co-Op, and has also allied with the Working Families Party, which has achieved legislative victories in Rhode Island such as paid sick leave by working in tandem with state house leadership.

But at other times, the Co-Op has alienated potential allies by making demands which its members find untenable, or by vilifying progressive lawmakers as not progressive enough.

“We’re all speaking the same language, yet we’ve never been in a room together,” said state Sen. Tiara Mack. Mack was elected to the state house in 2020 as part of the Co-Op, but has since left the organization. “There is no definition of what Rhode Island progressives are working towards. That has not yet been defined by the movement.”

The Co-Op has defined for itself what it means to be a progressive, and its goal is clearly stated: winning progressive governing majorities in the state. But the way it has delineated who is inside and who is outside its movement has created rifts among organizers and left progressive legislators struggling to meet the organization’s demands.

Once elected, many Co-Op members have disaffiliated from the organization. Sen. Kendra Anderson left the Co-Op after it changed its platform to require that its members support a $19 minimum wage, a policy she thought was untenable in her conservative-leaning district. Only two current lawmakers who ran their campaigns with the Co-Op in 2020 have retained their affiliations with the organization.

The Co-Op also expelled one of its own candidates after the 2020 election, Rep. Brandon Potter, for voting for the establishment’s pick for house speaker. Potter published an op-ed in response, arguing that his expulsion was a symbolic gesture given that abstaining from the vote would not have impacted the outcome. “Ultimately, I answer to the people of District 16,” he wrote. “I will continue to exercise independent judgement even when it’s uncomfortable, and I’m prepared to be held accountable by my constituents for all of the decisions I make.”

The analysis also looks at Brown and Mendes taking on powerful Democratic interests and RI's labor leaders.

Presently, there are four Democrats are running for governor -- Governor Dan McKee, Secretary of State Nellie, corporate CEO Helena Foulkes, and Brown.