As early and mail-in voting starts for the September 9,
beware of phony Democrats
By Will Collette
As I've reported previously, there is a push by a MAGA group
called "the League of Rhode Island Businesses (LORIB)" to oust
Democrats around the state, but especially in South County. Some of their
candidates are masquerading as Democrats so they can run in the Sept. 9
Primary. Others are running in the General Election.
LORIB is run by a rightwing MAGA guy named Dave Levesque who
owns a chain of coffee shops. He lives in Narragansett. He formed LORIB to push
his agenda of protecting the rich from taxes and opposing sensible measures to
control gun violence. He set up a state Political Action Committee, as well as
39 local PACs, one for every Rhode Island city and town, including Charlestown.
None of these local PACs are actually local. He runs them
all and set out this year to challenge just about every South County Democratic
woman legislator, including Charlestown’s own state Representative Tina Spears.
In Charlestown, Levesque and the LORIB machine are promoting
criminal defense lawyer Leah Boisclair to oust Tina Spears in the September 9
Democratic Primary. They actively tried to get Republicans and MAGA
supporters to switch their party registration to Democrat to swing the numbers
in Boisclair’s favor.
The deadline to make that party switch was August 10. Nancy Levin reported in the Rhode Island Current on August 17 that only 198 Republicans statewide had switched to Democrat.
Boisclair’s signs and her mailings (so far) have been pretty
low-key and vague. My main take-away from them so far is that she owns a dog.
She stripped her Facebook page of dozens of rightwing posts – although not
before we captured those posts in screenshots.
One fact she absolutely does not mention is that her law
practice is built on representing people accused of heinous crimes, including
child rape, human trafficking and domestic violence. She not only represents
them but actively tries to recruit such clients with come-ons like this from her own website:
 |
| Nice touch with the stilettos and red lace underwear |
And what specific sex crimes does Boisclair want to defend against? Conveniently, she expressly tells us on her website:
She has no record of community service, involvement in the
Democratic Party or political interests in anything other than MAGA, guns and
defending pedos.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall for Boisclair family Thanksgiving dinners. I'd love to hear Boisclair explain to her grandmother what she does for living.
The money war
But who cares if you have enough cash to create a thick enough smokescreen.
LORIB kicked in $10,500 from six of its PACs that showed up in
Boisclair’s campaign finance form for the last quarter of 2025. According to
that report, she received $2000 each from the PACs claiming to be in
Charlestown, Block Island, North and South Kingstown and Westerly, plus $500
from Newport.
Her most recent campaign finance report filed with the Board of Elections shows TWENTY LORIB PAC donations. All give their addresses as 1140 Reservoir Avenue in Cranston, with Levesque as their leader. Here's the list:
- LORIB statewide: $2,000
- LORIB Bristol: $250
- LORIB Charlestown: $500
- LORIB Cranston: $1,300
- LORIB Cumberland: $600
- LORIB Hopkinton: $250
- LORIB Jamestown: $250
- LORIB Lincoln: $250
- LORIB Narragansett: $500
- LORIB Newport: $250
- LORIB North Kingstown: $200
- LORIB North Providence: $300
- LORIB North Smithfield: $1,000
- LORIB Pawtucket: $300
- LORIB Portsmouth: $250
- LORIB Providence: $300
- LORIB West Greenwich: $500
- LORIB West Warwick: $250
- LORIB Westerly: $500
- LORIB Woonsocket: $250
It’s amazing how
much interest our local House District 36 race is drawing from all over the state,
drawing in a total of $20,000 just from LORIB affiliates.
But understand, it’s all Levesque.
Levesque appears to have some pretty good legal advisors on
how to work around campaign finance laws. He avoids the $2000 limit on contributions through his 40 PACs. If he wants to drop big bucks in a campaign, he just cuts separate checks, each no more than $2000.
Four of his PACs gave more than $2000 to Boisclair but
again, no problem because there were two checks, one in calendar year 2025 and
the other this year. I checked with the Board of Elections, and the $2000
contribution cap is an annual cap.
Boisclair’s campaign finance
reports show lots of money from unidentified donors, lumped together as "aggregated donations."
Again, LORIB’s strategy has
been to encourage dark contributions by asking donors to write checks UNDER
$200, so the money doesn’t have to be identified by source.
Boisclair may be a nice person who is kind to dogs. But that
doesn’t make her a good state Representative. Boisclair made a voluntary career
choice in setting up law practice to represent clients accused of terrible
crimes.
She has a right to represent them but her choice to do that means I
don’t want her to represent me.
She certainly is no match for our current Representative
Tina Spears who has an impeccable record of achievement, integrity and public
service. For me, Tina is the only choice.
Other LORIB news of note
As I expected, LORIB has added incumbent wingnut Senator
Elaine Morgan as an endorsed candidate. Morgan has been an embarrassment to her
district, which includes the northern half of Charlestown, since she was
elected.
Morgan has been busted for campaign finance fraud and likes
to cavort in places she doesn’t belong, pretending she’s a law enforcement
official. The most recent escapade happened last year, when she “raided” a housing for the homeless project in Providence. She claimed she was an official with
Elon Musk’s DOGE and was looking for waste, fraud and abuse.
Morgan faces a serious challenge this year from Samantha “Sam” Wilcox, chair of the Richmond Town Council. Go Sam!
Sen. Alana DiMario (Narragansett/So. Kingstown) also faces a DINO/LORIB challenger in the Democratic Primary as does Democrat Bob Craven, Jr. in the race to fill his father's vacant seat. The same dynamics are at play in these races as we're seeing in Charlestown.
LORIB also has challengers to South County Democrats in the General Election, including Charlestown's Democratic state Senator Victoria Gu, but we'll hold off on going into those races until after we've passed the Primary.
While LORIB doesn't seem likely to officially push any candidates seeking office beyond the General Assembly, there are several "LORIB-Adjacent" candidates to flag.
They include DINO Attorney General candidate Joe Solomon whose yard signs seem to appear right next to Lean Boisclair's all over Charlestown. He also tried the ploy of enticing Republicans to cross over to vote in the September 9 primary to vote for him. Republican Gubernatorial contender Aaron Guckian, behind in the polls in the Republican primary, announced his candidacy at a LORIB event.
Finally, the Florida MAGA nut Vic Mellor who is running in the Republican Primary for the party nomination to run for US House District 2 against Seth Magaziner, also seems pretty tight with Levesque and LORIB. Of note, even though Mellor is a serious rightwing nut, he is also a registered agent of the government of Cuba.
One of my colleagues speculated that maybe Mellor wants to front for hotel and resort businesses after Donald Trump invades Cuba.
