By Tessa Roy, WPRO
After an unsuccessful but close run in 2016, Republican Steve Frias announced Monday that he’ll make another bid to unseat House Speaker Nick Mattiello this year.
“We’ve got to clean house up there. We need a change, and so that’s what made me decide I’m going to do it again,” Frias told WPRO’s Tara Granahan.
In a press release announcing his run for Mattiello’s House seat, Frias knocked Mattiello for backing the PawSox deal, and for his PAC spending well over the legal $1,000 limit. Mattiello previously claimed the overspending was an accounting error, and repaid the $72,000 to his PAC after orders from the state Board of Elections.
“When you see that the people want a line item veto, and they don’t want a new taxpayer funded PawSox stadium, and instead we’re going to get a new stadium possibly and no line item veto, it shows the people aren’t listening up there,” Frias told Granahan.
Mattiello joined Granahan later, and said he’s running largely because of the economy, but also because of the car tax phaseout which he called “near and dear to my heart.” Pointing to last year’s budget impasse, he said he’s convinced the phaseout of the car tax will be removed if he is no longer the speaker.
“I believe very strongly that if I do not prevail and become the next Speaker for the next 2 years, the state’s going to go in a completely different direction and a lot of the improvements and movement forward that we’ve made, we’re going to lose,” he said. “So this is not a seat in my opinion for District 15 in Cranston, this is a seat determining who the Speaker’s going to be and what direction the state is going to go in.”
