Morgan talks cabinet picks as primary election approaches
WARWICK –– On Thursday morning Rhode Island House Minority Leader and Republican gubernatorial candidate Patricia Morgan announced that she will ask John Robitaille to serve as her secretary of commerce if she is elected governor in November. Robitaille is the third person Morgan has named to her potential cabinet, and all three announcements come before Rhode Island voters have selected a party nominee for the election in November.
Earlier this week Morgan announced her intention to bring on two other well known Rhode Islanders to work in her administration, including former Attorney General Arlene Violet and former Moderate gubernatorial candidate Ken Block. Violet would be tasked with serving as the state’s first Inspector General, while Block, a software engineer, would oversee a waste/fraud
analysis and investigation of the state’s Temporary Disability Insurance program free of charge, an offer he has made to other sitting Governors. Robitaille, Morgan said, will be asked to head up the Commerce Department, improving and reforming the state’s business climate and economy.
Robitaille is a former business executive, small business owner and Executive Director at the Johnson and Wales Center for Entrepreneurship. Morgan says he knows the struggles of both small and large businesses and understands the change that is necessary to reinvigorate the state’s economy.
“He knows it will be a tough challenge,” she said Thursday.
Robitaille has not yet confirmed he would accept the position but has said he is “strongly considering” it.
“I’ve agreed to strongly consider joining her administration as Commerce Secretary if she is elected governor,” he said. “Patricia and I spoke about this position, the on-going challenges to attract and retain businesses, and what Rhode Island needs to do to become more business-friendly. I believe we could work together to create a more business-friendly environment where innovative new ventures are launched and supported, and where existing local companies thrive and expand. This is no easy task; Rhode Island has a long way to go, and it will take cooperation from many stakeholders.”
Morgan believes Robitaille can help provide a new and better focus for the
Commerce Department than Gina Raimondo has in recent years.
“When I speak with business owners, they talk, not just of a bad business environment, but of a hostile one,” said Morgan. “Clearly, the numerous national rankings attest to how difficult it is for companies, large and small, to succeed in Rhode Island. We’ve been bouncing along the bottom for far too long.”
While other states are building factories and corporate offices, she said, Rhode Island is putting up hotels and apartment buildings.
“It will take reform of the foundations of our economy to make our jobs climate strong again,” said Morgan. “Over decades, state leaders have hampered our economy with bad policies, laws, practices and regulations.”
Morgan said together with Robitaille and others, her administration would focus on the original goal of the Commerce Corporation — to work with the legislature and state agencies to reform and eliminate bad policies.”
In explaining her plans for the Commerce Department if elected, Morgan also criticized Governor Raimondo’s work with the agency, which was created the year before she was elected governor.
“Governor Raimondo took this important agency down a path of corporate welfare, tax subsidies, grants and credits,” she explained. “The $278 million spent has not provided the well-paying, permanent jobs that Rhode Islanders want.”
Morgan also reiterated her plan to develop three new state business parks in Rhode Island modeled after the successful Quonset Business Corporation — Quonset North, Quonset East Bay and Quonset South. She said such actions will put “Rhode Island on the path to prosperity again” and Robitaille is the person to help her do that.
“He is an incredibly talented guy who has a focus on what is right for Rhode Island,” she said.
Robitaille, who currently resides in Charlestown, South Carolina, ran for the Rhode Island gubernatorial seat in 2010 as the Republican party nominee and lost to Lincoln Chafee.
The primary will take place on Wednesday, September 12, when Morgan will face off against Cranston Mayor Allan Fung and Giovanni Feroce for her party’s nomination.