The League of RI Businesses is a wolf in sheep’s clothing
An oped from Bill Ibelle
There’s a new, big-money player on the Rhode Island political stage that’s targeting many of our finest environmental legislators because they also support gun control.
The League
of RI Businesses is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, posing as a
moderate, bipartisan, pro-business organization, when in fact, it was created
last year specifically to knock off legislators who voted for a ban on assault
weapons.
So if you feel safer knowing the guy down the street has an
assault rifle hanging in his living room gun rack, then by all means, vote for
a League-endorsed candidate. (listed below).
So Levesque and his cohorts rarely mention assault weapons
when explaining why the League has targeted so many fine legislators. Instead, in
an interview with Ocean State Media, he said that the League is merely
targeting legislators who “fail to support the Constitution.” Only when pressed
repeatedly by an interviewer does he concede that he’s referring exclusively to
the Second Amendment—the right to bear arms.
Apparently, the League believes that James Madison had
assault weapons in mind when he introduced the amendment to Congress in 1789.
Never mind that an assault rifle, at that time, was a musket, a ramrod, a
powder pouch, and a lead ball that took nearly a minute to load and, because it
had no rifling, had the accuracy of a pea shooter.
He’s also against renewable energy because it’s
unprofitable, doesn’t work, and has driven up electric rates by 27 percent —
all untrue. What is true is that he revealed his true colors when he claimed
that if we eliminated all state wind and solar programs, “we could literally put
almost $30 million a month back in the hands of Rhode Island businesses.” Translation:
The heck with our children’s future, we want bigger profits now.
Levesque insists that his group wants “middle-of-the-road,
common-sense people” in office. This seems just a wee bit hard to believe,
given that Levesque is a vocal Trump supporter who, when asked by the Providence
Journal about our president’s second term, said, “I
think it’s going awesome.”
So if ICE raids make you feel safer; if you
think the war with Iran is the best use of $37 billion in taxpayer money; if
you believe the skyrocketing price of oil is the path to affordability; and if
you thrill at the grade-school insults our leader routinely hurls at our
foreign allies—then by all means, take the League’s advice on who to vote for.
If you’re still not convinced that this organization is
poison, consider the League’s subversion of the state’s campaign finance laws.
To get around the state’s $2,000 limit on individual donations, they formed 40
separate Political
Action Committees (PACs). In an interview
with Channel 12, Levesque boasted that “What we did is extraordinary.
It’s never been done before. We opened more PACs than anybody’s ever done [in
Rhode Island]. This will allow us to give $80,000 to an individual candidate.
There’s no other organization in the state of Rhode Island that can put that
kind of money into a candidate’s hands.”
Just to be clear, the state donation limit is $2,000 and the
League says its armada of 40 PACs makes it legal to give $80,000.
If you would like to reduce the influence of money in state
politics, you might want to vote against the candidates the League is
financing.
Here is a list of incumbents the League has targeted and the
candidates it is backing to unseat them:
The League also endorsed nine incumbents: John Brien, Elaine Morgan, Leonidas Raptiakis, Patrick Maloney, Gregory Constantino, Marie Hopkins, Paul Santucci, Stephano Famiglietti, and six candidates running for open seats:
