Pro-gun business PAC targets local Dems Tina Spears and Alana DiMario
By Nancy Lavin, Rhode Island Current
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| The League of RI Businesses organized a fundraiser wine tasting at Gasbarro’s Wines on Federal Hill in Providence on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. From left, John Loughlin, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor; Laura Turini, a Democratic candidate for state Senate District 35; David Levesque, co-founder of The League; Leah Boisclair, a Democratic candidate for House District 36; and Mark Mesrobian, a Democratic candidate for Senate District 36. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current) |
David Levesque took the message to heart.
“If it wasn’t for the Speaker sitting in that conference room six or seven months ago, telling us ‘you need to be organized, you need to do this for the long fight,’ we probably wouldn’t be here now,” Levesque, a Narragansett resident and owner of Brewed Awakenings coffee houses, said in a recent interview.
Levesque got to work. He revived a dormant political action committee started during the pandemic to “fight against all the ridiculous rules and laws.” He made a website, registered the 501(c)4 with the Rhode Island Department of State, held fundraisers, and started to recruit 2026 state legislative candidates.
The pièce de résistance: a string of 40 political action committees — one statewide and one for every city and town in Rhode Island — allowing The League of RI Businesses to circumvent the $2,000-per-candidate annual campaign donation limit set by state law.
“With 40 PACs aligned in mission, The League has the capacity to direct up to $1 million annually toward supporting new, common-sense candidates and challenging extremist incumbents,” the business group boasted in a Nov. 17 press release.
Taking it to the next level
It’s a loophole already employed by seasoned political strategists to a much lesser, and less vocal degree. Amica, Bally’s Corp., and the state teachers’ union all have two PACs apiece, according to state campaign finance data. The Providence firefighters union has four PACS. The union representing local and state government and public school workers was the previous chart-topper, with five PACS.
“What the League of RI Businesses is doing is taking it to an extreme,” said Ric Thornton, campaign finance director for the Rhode Island Board of Elections. “It’s unprecedented.”
While not illegal, the move exposes The League and its financial beneficiaries to greater risk of reporting mistakes and violations. A candidate who receives a donation from The League’s Narragansett PAC, for example, would be wrong to report the donor as one of the sister PACs.
Thornton has already devoted a member of his campaign finance team to track the money flowing in and out of the 40 PACs with the aim of catching potential mistakes quickly. While unusual, he didn’t see the move as a problem.
But John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, does.
“Structuring it this way could allow some very wealthy individuals to have an outsized influence on elections,” Marion said.
Which is perhaps why federal campaign finance law states that only “nonconnected PACs” can max out annual donations to candidates.
Levesque, The League’s co-founder and manager of all 40 PACs, shrugged off concerns.
“Whether you have one PAC or 40 PACs, as long as you have your own separate bank accounts, which we do, and you abide by the state campaign finance laws as to how much you can share, there’s no problem,” Levesque said.
The municipal committees have yet to start raising or spending money. Most had a $5 or $10 balance, donated by Levesque or the statewide PAC, as of Sept. 30, according to the most recent state campaign finance reports.
Power in numbers
Levesque promises large sums of money will start flowing fast. Already, the group has raised $60,000 collectively, Levesque said.
“We’ve made more progress than the Democratic Party and the Republican Party,” Levesque said.
In the three-month period that ended Sept. 30, the statewide PAC raised nearly $10,000, including $2,000 donations from Providence hedge fund manager Russ Jeffrey; Gary Gosselin, co-owner of Shannon Motors, and Walter Martish, who owns chemical company Lincoln Fine Ingredients. Levesque also personally donated nearly $450 in the third quarter.
The state PAC ended the period with $2,314 cash on hand, after spending more than $11,000, including $9,000 for political consulting by Michael Levesque, a prominent figure in Rhode Island politics whose career includes two terms as West Warwick mayor and leading the Rhode Island GOP Chairman. Michael and David Levesque are unrelated.
David Levesque considers himself a political outsider. He’s never run for office, never run a campaign, never even finished high school, he said. His strategy comes from observations, lived experiences and deep-rooted ties to the business community.
“I just pay attention, I read a lot, I listen to people,” he said.
Levesque identifies as a Republican, and vocal Trump supporter, but The League bills itself as nonpartisan. However, its “common sense” platform rings conservative, preaching “disciplined spending,” and “reasonable gun ownership rules” along with cutting taxes on retirement benefits, estate transfers and high-value second homes.
The three candidates endorsed by The League so far are Democrats, though their platforms appear less progressive than the incumbent lawmakers they are looking to unseat.
Mark Mesrobian, general manager of Bonnet Shores Beach Club, has The League’s endorsement to challenge Sen. Alana DiMario for Senate District 36. The PAC has also backed Laura Turini, a nurse anesthetist, as the Democratic challenger to Sen. Bridget Valverde in Senate District 35, and attorney Leah Bosclair to primary against Rep. Tina Spears in House District 36.
All three incumbents supported gun restrictions, including a comprehensive state ban on assault-style weapons before it was watered down in a compromise reached on the final day of the 2025 legislative session.
Taking aim at progressives
Levesque insisted that gun rights were one of many issues — not the sole focus — The League considered in its endorsements. Mesrobian, for example, approached him with the interest in running a challenge to DiMario.
“I am not targeting her,” he said of DiMario. “Mark came to me. We think he’s a better candidate than her. We need someone that’s going to be pro-business.”
DiMario in response pointed to her votes of support for relief for small businesses in the wake of the pandemic, workforce development initiatives and removing the state tangible tax.
“They are an anti-gun safety group, not a business group,” DiMario said. “If they were a business group, they would be looking at my record.”
DiMario also said her three consecutive legislative victories as a candidate who campaigned on gun safety show that district voters support stricter gun laws.
Many of the Senate Democrats who The League is looking to challenge in 2026 primaries — identified on a webpage titled “The Wall” — also supported the attempt to oust the late Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, and later, after Ruggerio’s death, the challenge to now-President Valarie Lawson.
For example, Democratic Sen. Ryan Pearson, Ruggerio’s former second-in-command who unsuccessfully battled Ruggerio for the president’s seat in Nov. 2024, and ran against Lawson in late April, is one of the candidates identified by The League on “The Wall.”
But Levesque said he is not interested in the personal political feuds of either chamber.
“If there’s somebody up there who’s not doing what they are supposed to be, then we don’t want them there,” Levesque said.
Pearson, for example, missed a string of Senate sessions following Lawson’s election — a sign of poor performance to Levesque.
Pearson acknowledged that he deliberately skipped a few legislative sessions directly after the April leadership election in order to give the newly elected Senate leaders “an opportunity to lead without distraction.” However, he highlighted his 13-year attendance record at the State House, including as former chair of the Finance Committee and later as majority leader, positions which often necessitated 10-hour days at the State House.
Levesque is much more open in his desire to oust Rep. Julie Casimiro, a North Kingstown Democrat who voted alongside 11 Democrats to advance the more comprehensive assault weapons ban out of committee. Levesque said Casimiro privately acknowledged her concerns with the proposed legislation in conversations with him, but recommended the bill anyway. And according to Levesque, Casimiro did not have a good explanation for her change of heart.
“We will do everything we can to get her out of office,” Levesque said.
Casimiro did not respond to multiple inquiries for comment.
Shekarchi, who is backing all incumbent House Democrats, disagreed with Levesque’s criticism of sitting lawmakers.
“Everyone in the House is doing their jobs,” Shekarchi said. Of Spears specifically, he added, “I think Tina is one of the best representatives we’ve seen in a long time. I will fully 100% support her.”
Talk vs. action
Shekarchi remained skeptical that The League’s splashy announcements and big-money PAC strategy would amount to much.
“It’s a lot of talk,” Shekarchi said. “There are always people who come out guns blazing after I tell them to get involved. How well they actually do it, and how they perform, we’ll have to wait and see.”
Indeed, prior efforts to spur competition in state elections outside the confines of the two-party system have had little staying power, Marion said. There’s little trace left of the Moderate Party that former gubernatorial candidate Ken Block started in the early aughts.
The conservative-leaning Rhode Island Taxpayers, also known as the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition and the Rhode Island Shoreline Coalition, disbanded in 2016 amid waning financial support, The Public’s Radio (now Ocean State Media) reported.
“For a really long time the history of America is a history of a two-party system,” Marion said. “Trying to sidestep that has generally been a fool’s errand.”
More productive to good government watchdogs: reforming the state campaign finance laws that let The League leverage a multi-PAC strategy in the first place.
Common Cause may include this proposal as part of its 2026 state legislative package, Marion said.
DiMario was also eyeing The League’s strategy as an opportunity for policy change.
“I am not really concerned about that,” she said of Mesrobian’s challenge to her seat. “Money doesn’t win elections. Hard work wins elections.”
But, she continued, “I think this provides an opportunity for the General Assembly to look at campaign finance laws and to see where we need to tighten up some loopholes to make sure that money can’t have an outsized influence on the outcome of elections.
The state Board of Elections could alternatively develop internal regulations, or propose legislation, addressing campaign spending by related PACs. Christopher Hunter, a spokesperson for the board, declined to comment.
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