Allan Fung's prescription for Congress: Make Washington, D.C., more like Cranston

EAST GREENWICH — Allan Fung on Tuesday proposed healing America's polarized politics by making Washington a little more like Cranston.

The former mayor of Rhode Island's second-largest city kicked off his congressional campaign Tuesday by batting away questions about former President Donald Trump and urging people to come together like Cranston did after the 2010 floods.

He promised to back police officers and fight inflation so Americans can afford to eat out more, specifically at restaurants like Twin Oaks.

More: Sen. Jessica de la Cruz withdraws from RI Congressional race, endorses Allan Fung

"You see in Cranston, I worked across party lines, and beyond ideological differences, to transform a city that was once on the brink of financial ruin into one of the Top 50 Cities to Live in America," Fung said at a campaign kickoff rally at the Varnum Armory.

His message to "say goodbye to hyper-partisan politicians" is a familiar one for Republicans looking to win in Democratic dominated Rhode Island, but it's had a spotty track record as elections have become increasingly nationalized.

Fung's support for Trump may have guaranteed his defeat in the 2018 race for governor, and his Democratic opponents are hoping it proves so in the campaign to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin in the Second Congressional District.

More: Magaziner, Fung lead in Second Congressional District fundraising

"They want to use scare tactics like that [Trump hat] photo, like putting me in the Republican Party," Fung told reporters in a six-minute question-and-answer session after his rally speech. "I am standing strong asking people to support me, and I will have people in this district who are Trump supporters and disenchanted Biden supporters."

General Treasurer Seth Magaziner, one of five Democrats seeking to replace Langevin, has argued that a vote for Fung is a vote for Republican control of Washington.

Fung didn't deny it.

"I support a lot of the Republican leadership's policies and agenda they are putting out," Fung told reporters when asked, if elected, whether he would vote for Republican Kevin McCarthy of California for speaker.

His answer: "It fits in line with what I am hoping to do to reduce gas prices, reduce a lot of the inflation that is hitting out pockets."

Like most Republicans in Rhode Island and across the country, Fung on Tuesday pointed relentlessly to high gas prices and inflation as a reason for change in Washington.

"Every time we head to the gas pump, we think to ourselves – this is going to cost me the same amount to get to work this week as it would for a fillet mignon dinner at Capital Grille," Fung told the crowd.

He called for less federal spending and more domestic oil production to cut inflation and reduce gas prices, but didn't offer much more detail on how to achieve those goals.

"We must tap into sources like our drilled but uncompleted wells and get the domestic supply back into the market," he said on gas prices.

United States oil production collapsed during the COVID pandemic, and has been slowly rising toward pro-COVID levels, albeit unsteadily, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration numbers.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine exacerbated the rise in global oil prices.

Although he didn't mention any national GOP politicians by name, he bashed Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for earmarking $200 million toward a tunnel through the Presidio in her San Francisco district.

Pressed on where he thinks Congress should cut spending, the Presidio project was the only specific item he came up with.

He also said he would look to reallocate unused money in existing spending bills.

Fung's call in his rally speech to boost semiconductor manufacturing in America to curb inflation echoed the mantra of U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who defeated Fung in the past two Rhode Island gubernatorial elections.

Turning to foreign policy, Fung blamed a "weak mindset" in the Biden administration for emboldening America's enemies and appeared to link ending the war in Afghanistan to Russia's decision to invade Ukraine.

"Now the U.S. is in retreat, from the disastrous calamity in Afghanistan, to the genocidal insanity of Russia's invasion of Ukraine," Fung said. "Once, no one dared to challenge the United States. Now, since the Afghanistan withdrawal, everyone is thinking, 'Why not?'"

He also recounted standing "alongside my police officers as we guarded the local business district," Cranston's Garden City and Chapel View chopping centers, during the George Floyd riots of 2020.

More: Police out in force in Garden City; Cranston and Warwick under 8 p.m. curfew

"We didn't back down then. We didn't flinch," he said.

Fung, 52, is returning to the campaign trail after a yearlong hiatus working as a lawyer at Johnston law firm Pannone Lopes Devereaux & O’Gara LLC. He left the Cranston mayor's office in January 2021.

A graduate of Providence's Classical High School and Rhode Island College, Fung was mayor for 12 years, served on the Cranston City Council, worked as a special assistant attorney general and as a government relations counsel for MetLife insurance.

He faces former state Rep. Robert Lancia in the Republican primary.

In a response to the rally, the Magaziner campaign said the "very first vote Allan Fung would cast in Congress would be to make Kevin McCarthy Speaker of the House so he can push an extreme right-wing agenda that would hurt Rhode Islanders by privatizing Social Security, cutting Medicare and repealing the Affordable Care Act."

panderson@providencejournal.com

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On Twitter: @PatrickAnderso_

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Allan Fung second congressional district campaign kickoff rally