Group of Progressive Rhode Islanders Issues Blistering Criticism of Aaron Regunberg

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

GoLocalProv Political Team

 

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Aaron Regunberg draws fire from progressives. PHOTO: GoLocal

David Cicilline has not left office yet, and it seems like candidates are announcing their intentions daily to run for the Democratic nomination for the soon-to-be vacant first congressional seat. Now, sparks are beginning to fly.

On Tuesday, former State Senators Jeanine Calkin and Cynthia Mendes, former State Representative Moira Walsh, former candidates for Providence City Council Monica Huertas and Corey Jones, and former candidate for State Senate Jennifer Rourke issued a blistering criticism of candidate Aaron Regunberg.

The six -- and Regunberg -- are all from the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Regunberg lost in the Democratic primary for Lt. Governor in 2018 by less than 3,000 votes.

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In February, Cicilline announced that he is stepping down from his seat in Congress this spring to take over the position as the head of the Rhode Island Foundation and collect a salary of $650,000 for the group dedicated to supporting those in need.

The six, in a joint statement, wrote:

When it comes to Aaron Regunberg, he has been showing women and particularly POC who he truly is for years. Why is it taking everyone else so long to believe us? As Aaron gears up for another run for yet another elected position, progressive men have been reaching out to ask us to end the rift in the progressive party. Every time we are asked to explain why we are not supporting him, we need to relive hurtful experiences, only to not be believed or questioned. This is why we have decided to explain our reasons. The rift was caused by Aaron and only Aaron can solve it…by stepping down.

The group added:

We know that going public with this may be received badly by some. But we all feel that the truth needs to come to light so people know who Aaron is and why we cannot support him.

Regunberg's campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment. 

 

Below are the statements from the six.

Former State Senator Cynthia Mendes

I never planned to run for office. I was a single mother who worked two jobs to make ends meet and put myself through school, and I was already actively serving the most vulnerable in our community. When I first said yes to running for office, many people's first reaction was shocking. “Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to be around politicians?” There was this sense that politicians were self-serving, egotistical, and fundamentally untrustworthy. But I was confident I wouldn’t become like them. Truly, that was my worst nightmare. This is why early on, I decided to guard my heart against whatever made politicians so gross. I never attended a single bill signing event. I saw those events where the press gathered on the statehouse steps, and legislators elbowed each other to get prominently displayed in the photo op while the governor signed the bill, and I knew it wasn’t for me. I call the State House the petri dish of ego. And while running for the Senate, I would often pray, “If I ever don't use this for good or get too comfortable and don't fight for people, please take it from me.”

I knew that getting into the arena of politics as an everyday person would not be easy. The right wing was becoming increasingly extreme, and the Rhode Island Democratic establishment was notorious for being in bed with large corporations and ruthlessly controlling the rank and file. There would be pressure to be obedient and “play the game.” I was prepared for that battle. But the hurdle I was not prepared for was a few progressive men who were in it for themselves. Powerful in their little lefty spaces, wealthy, career-driven men in the progressive movement who would be the biggest barrier to growing and unifying the left movement. Why? Because they couldn't agree on which one of them got to be our white savior. My former running mate was one of these men, but he isn't the only one. You can spot them because they usually went to an ivy league college, can self fund their campaigns with a few hundred thousand dollars, start nonprofits for communities they are not a part of, and haven't worked a normal job in their entire life… oh and they talk about how they want to save the working class… a lot!

I recently met with one of these culprits, Aaron Regunberg, when he called during his exploration of CD1 and asked to speak with me. It was not lost on me that the only time I’ve ever received calls from Aaron was when he wanted something. Aaron was startled to hear me compare him to Matt Brown. I’m not here to protect any man from the truth of who they have been. I said it as a warning that Aaron could either heed or ignore. I worked closely with Matt and learned a few things I wish I had learned earlier.

They are not poor leaders because they have trust funds and reckless ambition. They are terrible leaders because they are utterly disconnected from impacted communities (the ones they supposedly will save), feel entitled to power, their egos far outweigh their values, and they consistently use people to get what they want. (Which is likely to make boyhood fantasies of becoming president come true.) They are not in politics to help us. They are in politics to help themselves. They practice their own version of trickle-down politics. People want leaders who have shown up, have done the work, and built trust and relationships in the community. The ego of these men won't let them see that they are replicating patterns we are trying to abolish. We can't have left leaders who take more than they give. We already have that!

If Aaron truly cared about the progressive movement and not just his own political career, why didn’t he come out and support me when I announced that I was thinking of a congressional run? It's rumored that he even had friends call progressive orgs to discourage them from supporting me. Why? It's for one reason only; it didn't benefit him. But Aaron sure did drop his fancy clerkship position like a hot potato after I said that I wasn't running for CD1. How about when I was going toe-to-toe with the corporate conservative Dems in the Senate? Nope. No phone call or support then. Oh, wait. Certainly, he would have applauded when I got endorsed by Bernie in my LG race. Right? Not a word. (Actually, the opposite. He spent his time during that race being a nameless contributor to a national hit piece).

So here is the MO of these problematic progressive men. If they cannot control you or claim your wins in some way, or if your rise threatens to eclipse them, then you are a threat to them. The voters of Rhode Island didn't find this type of man believable last year when Matt Brown only garnered 8000 votes. Maybe Aaron needs to learn that people are looking for something more real, authentic, and inclusive the hard way; at the polls. How will these men save us from the results of a greedy, power hungry, patriarchal extractor and colonizer-designed system when they have yet to save themselves from it?

 

Jennifer Rourke - Candidate for State Senate

In 2018, when I ran for office, I had very few people that supported me. That was the same year that we had a progressive candidate running for governor and lieutenant governor. I came out and openly supported the candidate for governor because I had interactions with him, and he firmly believed what I believed in. However, the candidate for lieutenant governor wouldn’t even look my way when we were in the same room. He treated me as if I was less than. Even refused to take a photo with me.

That same year with the help of my good friends, Jeanine Calkin and Melanie DuPont we came up with this idea to help working class folks run for office. When we made the announcement of the Rhode Island Political Cooperative, Aaron came out and trashed us. An organization founded by a group of women, including a Black woman, was not good enough for him. It wasn’t good enough for him because it was not founded by him. We were a progressive organization, fighting to help progressive working class folks run for office. Instead of coming out to support us, he trashed our candidates.

Within a few months, I was informed that there was a rift within the progressives. That there was some sort of progressive Civil War. That war narrative was created and pushed by Aaron and his cronies. He even took it upon himself to trash me on a personal level, questioning my education, questioning my strategy, and questioning my integrity.

The fact that this person has the privilege to walk away from a position that many people work hard to try and get, and never ever a team to run for a seat that he is not guaranteed, is absolutely disgusting. As someone who has worked three jobs while running a campaign, I know that he is not the type of person that will represent me in a way that is beneficial. He is someone that looks out only for himself.

 

Corey Jones - Candidate for Providence City Council

I am the co-founder of Black Lives Matter RI PAC, and I live in one of the country's oldest historically black neighborhoods, Mount Hope. I previously volunteered and was a national delegate in 2016 for Bernie Sanders' Campaign. A few years back, when Aaron decided to explore a run for Lt. Governor, I served on his exploratory committee and was devoted to seeing him win that election. We were progressive allies… So I thought.

When I decided I was thinking about running for Providence Ward 3 City Council, I started making calls and met with Aaron asking for his support, and he was very excited about my plans but made no promises. But the exciting day I finally filed my campaign paperwork to run, I received a message from an activist and friend of mine “Aaron said he was considering running for that seat and he won the east side by 75% and that he would crush me if I ran against him.

But if I wanted to move to a different ward to run, then he would support me and send "resources.” I was working as a substitute teacher and running the BLM PAC and barely making ends meet. I couldn’t imagine the idea of even moving for political gain. I knew that he would never run for a city council seat because it just didn't make political sense, but I could not figure out why he would say that if he’s not really going to run for it? Later I was told a rumor that he was trying to clear the field for someone else to run. Aaron’s since apologized but in this upcoming congressional race we need a progressive leader that builds coalitions and trust in open and honest ways.

 

Monica Huertas - Candidate for Providence City Council

When a seat opened up in the Providence City Council several years ago, I decided to run. I had been working very hard for years for my neighbors, especially in fighting the pollution in the port, and wanted to continue that work on the council especially when projects affecting the port were being considered.

During that time, a rally was held in the neighborhood of Washington Park, and Aaron Regunberg came out and made a speech to the people that said we need to support a candidate that is fighting for the people of Washington Park. I was the only candidate that was fighting for environmental and social justice in that community. When I asked him if he was going to support me, he said to have my people call his people. Not realizing that my campaign had already emailed him multiple times about an endorsement with no response. In the end, he did not support me. He used the rally to uplift himself, and no one else.

 

Former State Senator Jeanine Calkin

It seems that some progressive men are not immune to participating in the patriarchy when it suits them. For far too long, these “progressives” claim one thing while behind the scenes, do the exact opposite. They swear to support equity and equality, and want more progressive women in office, but have no qualms about running or working against them.

My parents had always instilled in me that, when people show you who they are, believe them. For me this moment solidified during the first Women’s March in 2017. A reporter came to the rally which was organized by several women, including women legislators. When the reporter approached, they asked me if I knew where Aaron was. I wasn’t sure, so I directed them to some of the female legislators that had helped organize the event. Regardless, the reporter then proceeded to talk to him about a Women’s march instead of the women legislators. For his part, instead of directing the reporter to the women organizers of the event, he happily took the limelight for himself. This was not the last time I saw him seek out the press at events instead of sharing with women.

When I ran for office, I only did so because I felt I could make a difference - to put the people of my district first, be a voice for the voiceless and do the right thing, even if it was hard or inconvenient. During a vote to elect a new Senate President after the current president, Teresa Paiva Weed left, Aaron told me I needed to vote for Domenic Ruggerio or else I’d suffer consequences. I was not going to vote for a pro-gun, anti-choice leader. That’s not why I was elected by my constituents and I was not afraid to take on any consequences if they should arise. I did not appreciate the additional pressure or unwanted advice to do things against my conscience. Early on, I was learning that even if I was alone, I had to do what was right. All the while, Aaron continually took walks or voted in favor of bad bills he should’ve voted against, like the prescription drug bill 2017-5469, or the small cell siting bill 2017-5224, to name just a couple. This is not leadership, and these actions showed me his willingness to throw people under the bus to protect himself and his political career.

I never imagined having to write something like this. I like to see the best in people. However, I can’t sit by while friends and others are continually hurt by those that claim to want the same things, yet harm and use the people I care about.

 

Former State Representative Moira Walsh

When I met Aaron Regunberg, I was a 24-year-old single mom. I was a waitress at a local diner making $2.89 an hour and Aaron saw something in me that I couldn’t yet see in myself; potential. Aaron was charming and intelligent. He was well-spoken and managed to dominate any room he was in; not just because he was over six feet, but because his presence was commanding. He encouraged me to testify at the State House on a bill he was sponsoring that would raise the waitress wages. I was terrified, but I went anyway with a screaming toddler in tow, and as it turned out, I was quite good at public speaking. Soon, Aaron started suggesting that I run for office, and after much convincing, I agreed. Meeting Aaron Regunberg changed the entire trajectory of my life. And in truth, if you had told me back then that I would be writing this op-ed about how terribly I would be treated by progressive men, I would never have believed you.

Long after most lefties had written Aaron off, I was still defending him. I truly believed that he was a good person, a solid progressive, and even, a friend. I even tried to set up a meeting to heal the rift within the left wing of the party. I promised that I would act as a moderator between him and the progressive women who were (rightfully) angry at him. I told him in no uncertain terms that his job in this meeting was to actually listen to the grievances these women had, to not get defensive or angry, and to try to see things from their perspective. I told him under NO circumstances should he reach out to these women directly as they had made it clear that they didn’t feel comfortable talking to him without a neutral third party. Within days of this conversation, Aaron called one of them and left her a voicemail: “Moira said you didn’t want me to call but here I am.” And while it didn’t occur to me at the time to be anything but a boneheaded move, I realize now that this was just Aaron being Aaron. He simply could not be told by a woman what to do. He was not capable of believing women when they told him they were uncomfortable or unhappy. He was either incapable or unwilling to consider what other people wanted.

The week I won my election, there was a meeting at my campaign manager’s house. It was at this meeting that Aaron, my manager and another male staffer got into an argument over who should get to take credit for my win. They couldn’t decide which man should get to write an op-ed claiming credit for my victory; but it seemed they all agreed that the one person who would not get recognition was me. It made me feel awful but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful for the help they had offered. And perhaps, I would not have won without them. Over the next few months and years, Aaron would take credit for any female candidate that he had knocked doors for. “How can you say I don’t care about women of color? I got Marcia Ranglin-Vassel elected! I got Leonela Felix elected!” Time and time again, women would win and Regunberg would take a victory lap. I should have known then.

Over the course of our friendship, Aaron told me about all the progressive values he believed in. He swore that we needed more women and women of color at the state house. It wasn’t until years later that I realized that in nearly every race he ever ran, Aaron ran against a woman of color. He swore that he understood the plight of waitresses and wanted for them to make a livable wage. It wasn’t until service workers tweeted en masse that I learned he was frequently accused of tipping poorly, or not at all. He swore that he cared about violence against the black and brown community and that he believed that police had too much power. But in my first session with him, he sponsored a bill that would give Brown University police officers the authority to carry guns.

And then came the LG race. Regunberg ran against Dan McKee, one of the most boring, incompetent, and forgettable candidates around. And he lost. When the seat opened up again, I thought I would try my hand. Aaron called me furious. “How dare you run for my seat?” I was so deeply confused. His seat? He had never held that seat. He had never won that seat. What made it his? He was a progressive man. He had “made” me. And as such, he decided that he could control me. He didn’t care about my future, my leadership skills, or the trajectory of my political career. He didn’t care if I would put in good policies that helped my community. He didn’t care that I was a single mom and waitress who had clawed her way to the top of the ladder…he cared that my shine might eclipse his. If he had called and said “I still want to run for LG and I don’t want to run against you because you’re my friend,” I might not have my name on this article. But instead, he decided that as THE progressive man, he could tell me what to do. He would be angry at me and demand that I step down. And regrettably, I did.

Time and time again, it turned out that while he may have “believed” in good policies, he did not feel compelled to personally practice them. And Aaron Regunberg is by no means an outlier. There are dozens of “progressive” men in Rhode Island alone who behave in exactly this fashion. They are the timeshare salesmen of Democrats and they can dupe even the most competent and accomplished people. At first, they seem like a great investment. And the next thing you know, you’re out 15k with a condo in NJ that you never wanted and don’t have any use for. These “salesmen” offer you a false bill of goods that you will end up paying through the nose for and will be stuck with until you die. But take it from someone they tricked, this is not the kind of Congressman you want. These men do not care about you, no matter how much they pretend to. They don’t even believe in the goods they are selling….they just know that you do.

When you hear these men swearing they’re progressive, make sure their actions match their words, read the fine print…or you’ll end up like us, a group of Progressives who were tricked into giving up our agency and left with nothing but a case of buyer’s remorse.

 

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