'My time is done': These RI lawmakers won't be back next year

PROVIDENCE – Cue up Paul Simon's famous ode to breakups: "You just slip out the back, Jack/Make a new plan, Stan/You don't need to be coy, Roy/Just get yourself free."

Then replace those lyrics with inside-the-clubhouse memories, regrets and, in some cases, reproaches of the small troupe of Rhode Island lawmakers saying, in their own way: Adios. See ya 'round town. Make a new plan. I'm outta' here.

One even did it with a poem.

Another left with a public rap on the knuckles for colleagues who, in his view, did not do the most they possibly could to ameliorate Rhode Island's health care crisis.

A third acknowledged it was a fluke that she ran at all, under the banner of the dormant Rhode Island Political Cooperative. But now it's time to get on with life outside the State House.

Five members of the House are not seeking reelection: Democrats Camille Vella-Wilkinson of Warwick and Brianna Henries of East Providence, and Republicans Brian Rea of Smithfield, Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung of Cranston and Patricia Morgan of West Warwick.

In the Senate, it's Democrats Josh Miller and Frank Lombardi of Cranston and Roger Picard of Woonsocket.

Two of the three departing Republicans are running for other offices: Morgan (U.S. Senate) and Fenton-Fung (Cranston mayor). Freshman Rea told colleagues he needs to spend more time with his family.

Here's what some of them said:

Frank Lombardi

Lombardi, who won his first Senate election in 2012, told The Journal: "My daughters have moved back from New York with their husbands, and I want to spend more time with them."

Any complaints or regrets? "I have never been a fan about how we end the session with rank and file members awaiting the decisions on the fate of bills. Having to wait, reconvene, wait, reconvene."

Biggest point of pride? "I would have to say the many people I have helped, putting everything in place to accomplish what they asked for."

Most surprising? "The night we lost the Pawtucket Red Sox."

Camille Vella-Wilkinson

Hats off to the departing Warwick rep for wearing the most eye-catching hat from her famous collection to the House chamber for her swan song.

A pro-gun Democrat, she memorably told colleagues during a "safe storage" debate about loading up her Mossberg and telling would-be intruders "that if they came through they were going to leave with two butt holes."

Her parting shot to the Rhode Island House was a poem, of sorts. A snippet:

"This coming January, I won't be here. I'm leaving the State House. I won't campaign./You won't see my hat. You won't hear my name.

I believe in term limits. As you can see, it's eight years for the governor and eight for me./ This is what I believe that I must do. It certainly doesn't reflect upon you.

Vet[erans] bills added up and that's not hard to do. They passed into law because of all of you.

We fought for the unions I'm happy to say, and replanted an evergreen contract one day.

But amid the good comes one sour note. The Seekonk tribe was robbed of our vote. So ladies and gents, that was my biggest regret.

My time is done. I've done my best. I leave it to you to finish the rest."

Josh Miller

After 18 years in the state Senate, Miller, the progressive crusader who chaired the Senate Committee on Health & Human Services, told his colleagues he'd had enough, before he actually told them.

It happened on June 11, just moments before the Senate voted unanimously to approve S 2712 Sub A, a bill to create "a medical debt relief program" to help people drowning in medical bills.

The campaign for the bill, one of several pieces of health care legislation, began with ambitious comparisons to how Connecticut, Arizona, New York City and Cook County, Illinois, were using their leftover dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to buy up medical debts already in collection. In Connecticut's case, it was $6.5 million worth.

Despite however much the Rhode Island sponsors wanted to pour into this effort, the new state budget for the year that began on July 1 earmarked only $1 million in state dollars for this purpose.

Other bills in the 25-bill package would have required insurers to pay doctors and other medical professionals in the state something closer to what they pay their counterparts in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and offered $70,000 a year toward medical school tuition.

One never happened and the other ended up a tax credit worth up to $6,000 a year to offset student loans.

On the night of the vote on S 2712, Miller rose from his seat and said he would not vote "no" on any of the scaled-back bills that made it to the finish line, but his colleagues needed to do better for the state to take the health care workforce shortage seriously.

"But if we are serious about our health care workforce, we should look to Massachusetts," he said. "It spends over a hundred million dollars on similar programs rather than tax credits and tuition relief and medical debt that only takes care of a fraction of those who need the relief."

When asked at the time if his comments indicated he wouldn't run again, Miller said he hadn't decided. But days later, he made it official.

When asked what led to his decision, Miller, who for years led the push for abortion rights, gun control, gay marriage and other tough sells in the more culturally conservative State House chamber, told The Journal there were a few reasons.

One was that he turned 70, started collecting Social Security and needed more flexible leisure time.

Another was his frustration in how hard it was to get long-term reform because of the focus on the "dollar sign in the fiscal year budget" or the concerns of a "lobbyist with a very specific lens."

"There is a lot of stuff that's done incrementally and it's not the right time to be incremental," he said about health care specifically, but said it could also be seen in the housing bills and in addressing the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority.

"Things can get really skewed," he said.

There was more, including the moments of frustration that led him to hurl an obscenity at a gun rights advocate who aggressively confronted him with a camera after a State House rally in support of an assault weapons ban, and to key a car with a "Biden Sucks" bumper sticker a little more than a year ago.

Brianna Henries

Stay tuned for the book. Working title: "From Lipstick to the Legislature."

An unlikely candidate when she first ran four years ago with the Co-op against a vulnerable East Providence incumbent, Henries described herself this way: of Native American, African American and Cape Verdean descent; a theater teacher at Valiant Arts Studio; who serves in ministry and creates social media content.

She's leaving the legislature to get married on Aug. 8 and start a new chapter in her life. Henries told colleagues how she ended up a candidate in the first place in 2020 while quarantined and sleeping on an air mattress while her then-boyfriend had COVID.

"I had cleaned up one too many puppy puddles and had had it," she recounted. "I was crying, I was sobbing. There was way too much police brutality on my TV, and then they had the audacity to have murder hornets."

"And then a message comes through on Facebook Messenger and says, 'Hey, we've heard from [then-candidates and future Senators] Tiara Mack and Cynthia Mendes that you would be a wonderful fit to run for office," she continued.

Initially, she said, she thought "I don't want your life. I don't want any of this stuff."

But she went back to her family, telling them, as a joke, that she'd been asked to run for office.

"But no one got the joke," she said. "And everyone said, 'Well, duh. Yeah, do it.'

"I slept on it,'' she said, and decided her experiences as a retail manager, makeup artist and part-time theater teacher with no college degree who "faced eviction and many other adversities" could potentially make a change.

"I knew that if I could win, so could other people from other walks of life," she said. "Whether you're a cafeteria worker, sex worker, an accountant, your stories and experiences belong here."

Summing up her proudest moments, she told colleagues on the last night of the session:

"I feel truly blessed to have been in the room to pass bills that have created a $15 minimum wage, expanded housing opportunities, protected abortion access, and made Rhode Island greener and safer through climate and gun safety initiatives."

She also cited her roles as the lead House sponsor of the year-old law that made Juneteenth a state holiday, and House passage this year of a "Crown Act" banning discrimination based on "traits historically associated with race'' including hair texture and hairstyles. (The bill died in the Senate.)

Roger Picard

After 32 years in the legislature, including a 1993-2008 stint in the House, Woonsocket's Senator Picard, 67, told The Journal that there was no one thing and he just felt "it was time to move on. That simple."

A social worker in the Woonsocket schools, he said he and his wife are both nearing retirement age. He plans to work one more year and then retire.

And then?

"I don't know," he answered. "But I do know there is stuff out there, and once I am no longer serving [in the legislature] I'll have the opportunity to kind of seek and look around and find some things to do."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: A handful of RI lawmakers retiring this session. Here are their reasons.