Patricia Morgan to 990WOB: "Allan Fung has Created this Myth Around his Leadership. I think the People Need to be Aware of It."

Christian Martinelli and Tyler Salk


One month before the primaries on September 12th, Patricia Morgan sits at a 32.4% favorability rating amongst Rhode Island voters, with many voters having no opinion on her. She’ll likely need more than that though to win the primary and find herself against the Democratic nominee come November.

Looking to defeat GOP favorite Allan Fung in the primaries, Morgan puts a lot of her focus on fiscal conservatism and fixing the state of Rhode Island. Patricia spoke with members of the 990WBOB.com political news team to speak about her campaign.

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“I am confident I can lead the state in a better direction.”, said Representative Morgan when asked about her decision to run. “I really think we are going down the wrong path [with Raimondo].”

“I want people to be able to find better financial security, and [make it so] that their children will decide to stay in Rhode Island and find good jobs here, rather than somewhere else. That’s why I am taking on the challenge.”

The state representative gets a lot of her working class background from her time spent in Ohio as a young girl. “My dad built tires for firestone, we were warm, close knit family growing up. We had chickens… not to bring up a bad subject for Allan Fung.”

She plans on bringing these family and working class values to the state of Rhode Island if she is elected Governor.

“There is not enough money to pay for every new job that we’re going to get in Rhode Island. We need to make an environment here that is welcoming to companies that allows them to thrive and grow.  She’s [Raimondo] just not doing it.

Many of these jobs require some sort of college education. As a graduate of Kent State University Representative Morgan wants our students to stay in Rhode Island for their careers when it is their time to join the workforce.

“Children need to get a really good education, if they don’t they simply can’t move into their adult life and grab those opportunities available to them.” The former high school valedictorian continued to say, “Without education and being able to maximize my potential I wouldn’t be where I am today. I want you to find good jobs and opportunity here in Rhode Island with all your friends and family around you.”

We need education to be consistently high on all levels, and Representative Morgan echoes this sentiment. “Test scores are very alarming. Both reading and math are bad. We can’t say we value schools when they are cold and drafty, roofs leaking, and not up to date with technology. Teachers are being constrained by RIDE (Rhode Island Department of Education) by too much paperwork. Students are losing educational moments.”

One of the most urgent issues that faces our students today is school safety. The first female minority leader of the house of representatives in Rhode Island believes our schools need upgrades.

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“Our schools need to be repaired and modernized. I want to get that money ( $23 million Google settlement fund) and use it for security upgrades [to schools]. I can’t imagine being a teacher or student, especially in a high school, but even younger and having to worry about someone coming in the front door with a gun to shoot me. I think we can do better for our students.” She went on to add, “That Google settlement money is just the ticket it can give every school in Rhode Island $75,000 to buy bulletproof glass, special key swipe locks, and sealed vestibules.”

Patricia Morgan's campaign handouts emphasize how she is different than Cranston Mayor Allan Fung

Representative Morgan’s biggest competition in the Republican Primary is Cranston mayor, and current GOP poll leader Allan Fung, who currently is sitting at 56% favorability rating amongst Rhode Island voters. This makes him the most likely candidate to represent the Republican party, but Patricia Morgan thinks otherwise.

“Allan Fung has created this myth around his leadership. I think the people need to be aware of it. He keeps pointing to the idea that he is a fiscal conservative. He is not a fiscal conservative. He is so much like Gina Raimondo in his leadership. You can say they have too many similarities which will hurt Rhode Island going forward.”

Representative Morgan made headlines on Wednesday when she stood outside of Cranston city hall with someone in a chicken suit to mock Cranston Mayor Allan Fung for not wanting to debate her.

On the debate she said, “I don’t think he wants to answer the uncomfortable questions. I think it needs to be statewide, needs to be televised, and should be on every forum.  Every media has different listeners or viewers. I have accepted every debate that has been offered to me.”

Representative Morgan did however miss some of the early opportunities to discuss the issues with her opponents during the election process. She did not attend the gubernatorial forums put on by the Moderate Party's Bill Gilbert, which were attended by some of the other candidates.

Ms. Morgan responded by saying, “Yes, early on. Those were forums I didn’t think those were debates those were more conversations. My hesitation there was that not all the candidates were there and I hadn’t yet put out my platform and didn’t want them stealing my ideas.”

Speaking of those candidates when Representative Morgan was asked about who she would support if she was to lose the primary election she was not able to identify who she would put her support behind.

“I would certainly look at who was going to be the best candidate. Right now I’m planning on winning. In March Allan Fung gave his pledge to have a debate. He’s weaseled out on that.”

Minority house leader Morgan is known for not being a fan of the job Governor Raimondo has done in office and has been quite outspoken about this fact.

When asked if Gina Raimondo had accomplished anything that Morgan was a fan of, she said, “I'm a big supporter of career education. I think she’s made some progress towards that. But a lot of the money she spends on it is poorly spent.”

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.She believes the state of Rhode Island deserves better leadership than Raimondo is providing.

“I’ve been a member of the House of Representatives now for eight years, it’ been a front row seat to disfunction. I have seen the bad priorities that our government is pursuing now. I’ve seen every year that we have taken more taxes, fees and tolls from the people and I know from my constituents that they are struggling to make ends meet. They [Rhode Islanders] are good people and they deserve a better government than they are getting. I intend to give it to them.”

Morgan feels that she helped to improve the state during her time in office. She has many victories and propositions that she is proud to bring to the forefront.

“I proposed eliminating income tax on social security. And I’m proud of that because I think it helped a lot of our retirees have just a little bit more money every month.” She continued to say, “I also was the Rep that proposed the elimination of the car tax. The speaker ran on eliminating the car tax. I brought it up in June and he was running on it in July.”

She believes there is a lot of fraud that goes on in our government and wants to implement an inspector general to try to stop that from being the case if she is to gain the Governor’s office.

“I have been pushing with my colleagues for an inspector general. An inspector general is kind of like the watchdog for the people of Rhode Island. He can go anywhere that he wants to to collect waste, fraud, and abuse, and help agencies eliminate it. We need that desperately in Rhode Island. We’ve done a study and our tax burden for Rhode Islanders is about $9600 per person. That includes babies.”

She finished by saying, “We need to keep our young people here in Rhode Island. We need to keep our retirees here in Rhode Island. More than that we need to keep working aged people in Rhode Island. I’m the change maker in this election. I’m the only one, who will take on the insiders. Who will fight the battles that are important for every day Rhode Islanders. I pledge that I will.”

For more information on Patricia Morgan’s campaign you can visit her website at PatriciaforRI.com.
Call her headquarters at (401) 615-3512, and be sure to follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
She also invites all voters to visit her headquarters at 1170 Bald Hill Rd. Warwick, RI.

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