David Cicilline, homeward bound, talks about Congress, polarized politics and local impact

PROVIDENCE – "You're free," a neighbor told David Cicilline on Friday afternoon outside The Butcher Shop on Elmgrove Avenue, referring to the Democratic congressman's impending departure from Washington after a dozen years.

On Thursday, Cicilline begins a new role as president of the Rhode Island Foundation.

A lot has changed since Cicilline traded Providence City Hall for Capitol Hill in 2010.

He overcame criticism of Providence's financial health in a tough first reelection campaign, was appointed to House leadership, got the LGBTQ-rights Equality Act through the House (though not the Senate), co-managed the impeachment of Donald Trump and became a tech antitrust warrior.

As the 61-year-old prepares to take over the state's largest philanthropic agency this week, Political Scene caught up with him to talk about Congress, social media, artificial intelligence and cocktails. The conversation is edited for length.

What's the biggest difference between the Congress you joined 12 years ago and now, and is it a change for better or worse?

I think there are deeper divisions between the two political parties than when I first arrived, and when I arrived there were big divisions. But I think there was more willingness to kind of work together. I think it has become increasingly difficult in part for two reasons. One, the arrival of sort of ultra-MAGA Republicans that are really not interested in governing or compromising on any important policy objectives. ... And then I think the advent of social media has intensified those divisions, and the kind of pervasive spread of disinformation on social media platforms, I think has contributed to ... very different sets of reality.

Is it also a focus more on cultural issues than economic? You can always negotiate over dollars and cents, but it is harder over more amorphous, emotional identity issues?

Yeah I think that's right. I think a lot of the division has been focused around igniting divisions in the country on issues of guns and religion and sexual orientation and gender identity and attacking different parts of society ... an effort to pit people against each other.

How has Providence changed since you were mayor?

I think Providence has continued to see steady improvement in so many areas. And I'm especially excited about our new mayor. But I think it's interesting we weathered a global pandemic and I think that had a lot of consequences for our community, for our state, for Rhode Island. I think maybe one of the byproducts of it was people began to reflect on their own kind of environment, their own communities. And I think it gave people a lot of appreciation of what Rhode Island offers.

When the Rhode Island Foundation opening became available, was that something where you knew if you got the job you'd leave Congress?

No, I didn't actually think about it when Neil [Steinberg, current Foundation president] announced his retirement, mostly because I was in a job which I loved and enjoyed.

So what persuaded you to take it?

It was in conversations with the firm leading the search that convinced me, after a series of conversations, that what motivated me to get into public office from the very beginning was to do everything I could to make life better here in Rhode Island. And I sort of began to really think about, OK, what likelihood will I have to make progress on things that I know matter in the next several years in the House, particularly under Republican control. And then learning more about the work of the Rhode Island Foundation, it became clear to me after a few conversations that this was a place where I could make a real difference in the state that I loved.

A few years ago you ran for assistant speaker and didn't get it. If that vote had gone differently, would you probably be staying in Washington?

I don't know that that would've changed it. It's hard to know because it didn't happen. But it was ... really, my decision to accept this position was much more about the opportunity it presented to make a real difference.

You got really close to passing Big Tech antitrust legislation last year, but it didn't make it through the Senate. Now almost a year later it feels like the conversation has moved on, because technology always moves on, and everyone is talking about artificial intelligence. Has the moment passed?

We had this very intense bipartisan investigation. We introduced bipartisan bills, passed them out of the House. We got two of those done. So we made some progress. We didn't get the other three. But what really, really changed significantly was the whole conversation about antitrust and Big Tech. And I think for the first time, Congress was embracing its responsibility to really rein in Big Tech and to promote good antitrust, good competition policy. And I think that's a permanent change in Washington. You're seeing now that significantly increase the conversation around artificial intelligence. And I think it's going to require Congress to move even more quickly.

What do we need to do about AI?

We have to stand up an agency of the federal government quickly that has the responsibility to promulgate regulations about AI to be sure that we are managing this in a responsible way, in a way that doesn't endanger our democracy, endanger our economy, promotes our competitiveness as a country. Almost all of this technology and all of these advancements are coming from the U.S. And so we have a responsibility to be sure they are regulated in a responsible way.

Is it better if the giants like Google and Microsoft and Apple are kind of leading the way on AI, because at least they're known actors? Or if it becomes more dispersed and AI development is happening all over the place, is that better?

Yeah, look, it doesn't give me comfort to know them as known actors. If you look at their conduct that was detailed in the report that I issued that documented pretty bad behavior of these monopolies. So no, I don't take a lot of comfort that they're the ones developing it. But what we ought to have is a set of rules that apply to everyone, both the small entrants into this market and big ones. And so I think the fact that there is so much market power in some of these large platforms necessitates a good regulatory framework that makes certain that this is conducting a way that protects our economy, protects our democracy, protects our privacy.

When you started your antitrust work, Twitter was very different and no one was talking about TikTok. If the rules you proposed on content moderation had passed, would the Elon Musk Twitter look a lot different now?

The Innovation Choice Online Act is a bill that specifically prohibits self-referencing and will allow more entrants into the market to compete. And so you would have platforms that would have an opportunity to come forward and say, "if you don't like the privacy protections that exist on this platform, or you don't like their unwillingness to curate and exclude violent or patently false information, we are offering a different kind." There would be competition on those ideas. And so the competition is part of it, to say give consumers more choices so that the marketplace can help generate better quality, better platforms, more options. That's only part of the answer, though. We also have to have some base privacy protections that ensure whatever the platform is, they follow some sort of minimum standards.

Would you ban TikTok?

I found that the conversation about TikTok is really interesting because all of the conduct that people were speaking about in TikTok and all this collection of data. There are American companies that do that every single day, who are relentlessly collecting personal data. They have become surveillance machines and they are using that data to predict the behavior of the user in a really intrusive way that people have really no control over. Most Americans, if they knew that and understood, they would be horrified by it. And what I found kind of puzzling about the response to TikTok is, yeah, there's reason to be concerned that data's being collected and what is the access of the Chinese Communist Party? But the very same information is being collected by American companies with the same dangers about misinformation, undermining our democracy, spreading misinformation about public health. And so I'm hoping that all of the kind of concern about TikTok will continue to create momentum for doing the kind of work that Congress needs to do in this.

Congressional Democrats rail against the debt ceiling, but if it's so bad, why didn't they play hardball and get rid of it entirely after 2018, when then-President Trump needed it extended, or especially after 2020, when they had control of both chambers and the White House?

Well, under the rules of the Senate, that would require a 60-vote majority to pass something out of the Senate. So that would require 10 Republicans to support that. I don't know that there were ever 10 Republicans willing to do it. So that's my guess. There was some conversation during the [2021-2022] reconciliation process. I don't remember because I'm not a senator, whether or not it was ineligible for reconciliation. If we could have raised the debt ceiling when we did reconciliation, then it absolutely should have been done then. My memory is that it was not, the parliamentarian had concluded that the debt ceiling could not be raised as part of the reconciliation process.

So if there was an opportunity to get rid of it in that 2020 cycle, it was a mistake not to?

Absolutely. I don't understand why we have it since ... we're required under the U.S. Constitution to honor the debt of the United States. So the idea of defaulting is not really an option under our Constitution. So I'm not sure why we created this artificial process that I think creates a lot of economic instability, and it's really unnecessary.

Heading toward the 2024 presidential election, as a Democrat would you prefer to see a rematch with Donald Trump, face Ron DeSantis or someone else?

I don't have a preference. That that's a decision for the Republican Party to make on their nominee.

From a purely strategic perspective, which race is tougher?

I think Donald Trump is unelectable. I think Donald Trump faces very serious legal peril, and so I think he's not electable in a general election.

Should your successor live in the 1st District?

I think everyone either lives or says they'll live here if they're elected. I think that will be a decision ultimately that the voters will make.

You're going to be one of those voters. Would you vote for someone who doesn't live in the 1st Congressional District?

So long as there was intention to move into the district.

Is Clementine, your new cocktail bar, going to become a political hangout where deals are made?

No. It's a cooler place than that.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Political Scene: Exit interview with RI's US Rep. David Cicilline