Westin J Place

I believe Rhode Island needs to get back to the basics of what made our education system successful: reading, writing, mathematics, science, civics, and preparing students for the future. The current formula is not producing the results Rhode Islanders deserve, and simply increasing funding is not reform.

We should reward achievement and give students multiple paths to success. Not every student needs a four-year college degree. Trade schools, vocational programs, apprenticeships, and career and technical education should be treated as valuable alternatives, not second choices.

I also support school choice. A child’s ZIP code should not determine whether they have access to a quality education. Parents should have meaningful options when their assigned public school is failing their child.

Funding should be based on the actual needs of students and communities, but it must also come with accountability. Chronic absenteeism should not be ignored, and schools should have the

tools to address chronically disruptive or dangerous behavior without allowing it to continually interfere with the education of everyone else. Parents must also accept responsibility for their children’s behavior.

We should encourage students to attend school, work hard, achieve, and take pride in their accomplishments. Our goal should not simply be to spend more on education. It should be to produce better educational outcomes while giving parents and students more choices and respecting local taxpayers.

I strongly support the Second Amendment and the constitutional right of law-abiding Rhode Islanders to keep and bear arms. I believe responsible firearm ownership is important, and I support firearm safety education so that gun owners understand safe handling, storage, and use.

I also support safe storage, but I do not support laws that mandate how a responsible firearm owner must store their firearm in their own home. The Constitution protects our right to keep and bear arms; it does not give the government the right to require us to lock those arms away indefinitely or make them inaccessible when we may lawfully need them.

Rhode Island has enacted an increasing number of restrictions on responsible firearm owners. I will not support legislation that violates the Constitution or unnecessarily infringes upon the rights of law-abiding citizens.

Instead of continually creating new restrictions, we should focus on the people actually committing firearm crimes. I support stronger penalties for flagrant unlawful firearm offenses, particularly for repeat offenders, and making sure existing laws are properly enforced.

I believe we can promote firearm safety and protect our communities without treating responsible gun owners like criminals. As a Senator, I will defend the constitutional rights of Rhode Islanders while supporting education, responsible ownership, and serious consequences for those who unlawfully use firearms.

As someone who works in healthcare, I see firsthand how difficult it has become for patients to find affordable care and for independent medical practices to provide it. We need to address both the cost to patients and the cost of delivering care.

We need to strengthen primary care, reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, and make it easier for independent practices to operate. Excessive insurance bureaucracy and regulations increase costs and make it harder for providers to remain independent.

I also believe we need to be realistic about how we address the provider shortage. Spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a new medical school at URI may have long-term benefits, but it will not meaningfully solve today’s shortage. It could be 15 years before we see meaningful numbers of graduates entering the workforce. Rhode Island cannot wait that long.

We need to make Rhode Island a place where healthcare professionals want to live and work. That means addressing housing costs, taxes, education costs, and the overall cost of living while creating an environment where medical professionals can establish practices and build their careers.

We should also increase competition and price transparency so patients have more choices and can make informed decisions about their care.

My goal is to make Rhode Island more affordable for patients and providers. If we want more doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals here, we need to make it worth their while to move here, stay here, and practice here.

I believe Rhode Island’s voter ID laws are working, and I support maintaining them. However, I do believe there are areas where we can improve election integrity and public confidence.

One concern is that Rhode Island-issued driver’s licenses and identification issued to individuals who are not eligible to vote can look the same. There should be an obvious distinction between identification used by eligible voters and identification issued for other purposes so there is no confusion about who is

eligible to participate in elections.

I also believe Rhode Island could benefit from additional oversight and regular verification of its voter rolls. While door knocking during a campaign, I have personally encountered addresses where multiple people were listed as voters, only to learn that the address was actually a group home where none of those individuals were registered residents. That does not automatically mean fraud occurred, but it demonstrates why voter rolls need to be regularly reviewed and kept current.

I support reasonable oversight and verification to ensure our voter rolls are accurate. However, that does not mean the federal government should have unrestricted access to Rhode Island’s sensitive voter information. Election administration is primarily a responsibility of the states, and any federal request for voter information should have a clear legal basis and appropriate privacy protections.

We can protect election integrity, improve the accuracy of our voter rolls, and preserve Rhode Island’s authority over its own elections at the same time.

I do not believe Providence should be dictating how every Rhode Island community develops. Our towns are different, and the people who live in those towns understand their land, infrastructure, neighborhoods, and limitations far better than legislators sitting in Providence.

The state’s 10% affordable-housing requirement is a good example of a policy that ignores local realities. Many communities simply do not have the available land, sewer capacity, or water resources to accommodate the level of development these mandates envision. We cannot create land that does not exist, expand a sewer system beyond its capacity overnight, or demand unlimited development from communities dependent on wells with finite water resources.

Housing is important, and I support responsible development, but the state should not use the housing shortage

as an excuse to eliminate local zoning authority. Town councils and residents should have the ability to determine what development makes sense for their communities.

If Providence believes its approach to development is best, Providence should have the freedom to implement it within Providence. The same principle should apply to every other Rhode Island community.

Let Providence make the decisions it believes are right for Providence, and let our towns retain the authority to keep our towns ours.

What differentiates me is that I am not a career politician. I have spent my life working, running a small business, managing a healthcare practice, and raising a family. I understand what it means to make payroll, pay insurance, deal with regulations, and sit at the kitchen table trying to figure out how to make everything work when the cost of nearly everything keeps going up.

I am also running to represent the people of District 38, not a political party or the interests of Providence. I believe government should work for the people who live here, and decisions affecting our communities should be made as close to those communities as possible.

If elected, my top priority will be making Rhode Island more affordable for working families. That means addressing energy costs, taxes, housing costs, healthcare, and the regulations that make it increasingly expensive to live, work, and operate a small business here.

I will also fight to protect local control and the constitutional rights of Rhode Islanders. I don’t believe every problem requires another government program, another tax, or another law.

My goal is simple: make Rhode Island a place where working families can afford to stay, businesses can afford to operate, and our children can afford to build their future here. I will bring common sense, accountability, and an independent voice to the Senate.

Yes