Jason Knight is Running for Attorney General

In this episode, Rhode Island State Representative Jason Knight discusses his motivation for running for Attorney General, emphasizing his extensive public service background, legislative experience, and dedication to protecting Rhode Islanders. He also shares insights on gun legislation, government transparency, and the importance of unwavering integrity in leadership.

Key Topics

• Knight’s motivations rooted in public service, military, and legal careers
• Differentiating himself from other candidates based on track record and accountability
• The significance of substance over tactics in the AG race
• Experience from legislative work, especially in gun legislation and policy-making
• The role of the Attorney General as the "people's lawyer" with a focus on enforcement and leadership
• Insights on maintaining independence and integrity in the office
• Challenges posed by opponents attempting to undo gun laws and reinforce distrust in government
• The relationship between the AG's office and issues of government transparency, ethics, and infrastructure oversight
• Rhode Island’s unique environmental assets as a source of state pride and strength

Timestamps

00:00 - Introduction and the importance of attention to Rhode Island’s attorney general race

00:28 - Knight’s background: Navy veteran, prosecutor, legislator, and motivation for running

01:27 - The race dynamics and what sets Knight apart from other credible candidates

01:57 - Accountability, record, and leadership as key differentiators

02:56 - The role of legislative experience in shaping law enforcement perspective

03:22 - The attorney general’s role as the "people’s lawyer" and understanding government processes

04:45 - Personal background, values, and public service ethos

06:43 - The significance of gun legislation, campaign efforts, and past battles

07:51 - Responding to opponents working to dismantle gun laws

08:58 - The urgency of defending policies from political challenges

10:13 - The "Nerona Doctrine" and the independence of the office

10:43 - The potential for collaboration between the attorney general and inspector general roles

14:00 - Addressing concerns about government corruption and transparency

15:19 - Fighting elite insider culture and the importance of integrity in leadership

16:16 - Protecting Rhode Island’s strengths: environment, beaches, healthcare, and education

17:10 - The importance of political courage and decision-making in the office

17:30 - What makes Rhode Island unique compared to other states

18:29 - The critical role of the attorney general in overseeing public health and infrastructure

19:24 - Closing remarks and appreciation for voter choice

Resources & Links

• Jason Knight - LinkedIn
• Rhode Island General Assembly

Transcript

Bill Bartholomew 0:00

Joining us today, State Representative Jason Knight, one of four candidates in the Democrat primary for attorney general here in Rhode Island. Look, this is going to be one of those races that sticks out. I think we're talking a lot about the Providence Mayor's race. We're talking a lot about the governor's race. And frankly, the attorney general's race deserves that same level of attention and really digging down into detail. We're doing that here on Bartholomew Town. We'll have multiple candidate interviews for you over the course of election season. Representative Knight, first of all, welcome to Bartholomewtown. Why run for attorney general right now?

Jason Knight 0:34

Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate your work. And the reason why I'm running for attorney general is this. I've always uh been motivated to serve, and I've been a former prosecutor with that office. I've been a longtime state legislator representing Barrington and Warren at the General Assembly. I am a United States Navy veteran of the submarine service. I was eight years active duty. It's always kind of been in my DNA. Um the AG is an open race, right? Peter and Arona can't run again. And I think that uh I'm the best qualified candidate to run in and pick up uh from where he is leaving off, grab that baton and run with it, because what I bring is a deep well of experience and a track record for making Rhode Island government work and create results on the ground for the voters. Basically, I've always in my public service protected Rhode Islanders, and I want to continue doing the same thing as the next attorney general.

Bill Bartholomew 1:25

The other three candidates in this race, Joe Solomon Jr., Borwick, uh, Keith Hoffman from really the Nerona camp, if you will, and uh Kim O'Hearn as well, recently cannabis control commissioner. Look, let's get it straight. This is in my judgment, and I'd I'd like your feedback as well. This seems like a race that can be about substance and about tactic. What sets you apart from those other candidates right out of the gate, all of which are universally credible and viable candidates?

Jason Knight 1:54

Well, it should absolutely be a race about substance. There's uh you'll get no disagreement from me there. And I'm uh grateful for the other candidates who are running. Look, they're all lawyers, they all come with some level of public service, they all come with their accomplishments as lawyers. But, you know, most they're running on their resumes, whereas I am running on my record. I've been accountable to my voters for a decade. I have uh, you know, they've had a chance to see me in action. I've made promises, I've kept promises, I've been a straight talker, and I have they've had a chance to test my judgment and my leadership. And um, I'm bringing that to the rest of the state. I'm the only candidate in this race who is really set up to do what the AG needs to do. You're not hiring a lawyer to do lawyer's work, you're hiring a lawyer to be a leader and to make sure that the resources of the office are set out appropriately to protect Rhode Islanders from all the bad guys out there, whether they're on the street corner or in a boardroom or the White House.

Bill Bartholomew 2:56

When you look at your experience in the legislature's sculpting policy, you would be moving in the attorney general's office to top cop. You'd be based on enforcement of that policy. How might that inform your perspective as that leader, knowing how the sausage was made and what went into the discussions along the road to things like gun legislation or anything else for that matter?

Jason Knight 3:19

Well, it it's, you know, I think having someone in that top spot. I mean, the you get your governor, you have your general assembly, the treasurer, all of that, the secretary of state, but the attorney general oper occupies a unique place. It is the people's lawyer. It's supposed, you know, the attorney general is there with the people as their client. I think it can only help the serving attorney general to have a deep understanding of how the other branches of government operate, particularly the General Assembly, home of the budget, home of all these uh policy decisions that the Attorney General is uh tasked with enforcing. So I think it only enhances the ability to uh it's kind of lawyering 101. The more experience and the more you know about your client you bring to the job, you're going to be a better lawyer and better able to protect them from all the craziness that's out there um lurking for Rhode Islanders these days.

Bill Bartholomew 4:14

I want to get into some of your sort of hallmark issues, certainly gun legislation, but also what I would call balancing criminal or law enforcement with actual justice and things like court fees or burden of burdensome fees that are essentially targeted at people who are experiencing poverty for the most part. Let's get into that in just a second. But before we do, just kind of working into a general synopsis here, what sort of uh how would you define your law practice in your personal work and what what else about your background has kind of put you into this moment here that really shapes who you are?

Jason Knight 4:53

You know, when I went to law school, um I had this I had this enormous interest in the law and politics and history. And I, you know, they said, Well, what do you want to do? And I said, Well, I want to, I want to put it in in service of the public. And so what that meant to me was actually serving um regular people, the voters, and I was interested in a in a government position, either uh attorney general that's a prosecutor or a defense lawyer, um, because both of them are in the court dealing with the real issues. You know, it's on the ground public safety stuff. It's super important that we handle that um appropriately. So I started as a prosecutor and I made the transition being a criminal defense lawyer, which I've been for the last 16 years, protecting Rhode Islanders from the government when it acts unconstitutionally or unlawfully. And it doesn't escape me that in this particular time in our nation's history, all the Democratic AGs in the country, including Peter Narona, are engaged in the process of pushing back on a government that's acting unlawfully or unconstitutionally. So I think that 20 years of every day in the courthouse really gives me a unique perspective amongst the candidates to make me better able to serve Rhode Islanders as the next AG.

Bill Bartholomew 6:11

Well, with that in mind, taking a look at your work inside the legislative body and especially on guns. That is, I would say you think in both directions. You think Representative Jason Knight, you think gun legislation. You think gun legislation in Rhode Island, you think Representative Jason Knight. So it'd be difficult for you to not own that as a hallmark of your campaign. So I would imagine that it is. What can you tell us about what you learned about gun legislation and passing gun legislation in Rhode Island that informs how you would approach the Attorney General's office?

Jason Knight 6:46

Well, it is a hallmark of my campaign because it stands out as an example of doing something really hard that three out of four Rhode Islanders wanted, but the political process just wasn't prepared to accept. I introduced that bill in 2018 and I pushed and I pushed and I pushed to get it over the line, uh, which we finally did last summer. And I think you can uh look at where I'm coming from with gun legislation through a bunch of prisms. Number one, I'm there to try to do the greatest good for Rhode Islanders, and it is uh beyond question that most Rhode Islanders want to see the strongest and toughest gun laws possible to shield us from the possibility of gun violence, even though it's not perfect. You need only look at Brown and tragically Pawtucket just in the last few months. So there's a ton of work to be done there. Um I think that uh the other way to think about it is that I'm not afraid of the hard task. I'm not afraid of having the hard conversation and talking to who I need to talk to, even if they don't agree with me about trying to move Rhode Island forward on that particular issue.

Bill Bartholomew 7:48

Yeah. I think that that is something right now, when we look at this discussion. For example, you know, you got these guys running around, you know, the coffee shop guy, I I did a thing with him on lively experiment, you know, whatever. They're just out there, MAGA pro-gun, disguised as, in some cases, moderate Democrats, and going door-to-door selling this idea that the work that you've done in your gun legislation pursuits and the and the coalition that you were able to construct that required the support of also in the other chamber from the late pres Senate president Dominic Rogerio, a lot of specific lanes to open up. There's a lot of people who are trying to undo what you've done right now on the legislative level. And we've seen how dismantling government at the federal level is much easier to do than to restore it. So when you look out at this the landscape right now, does that feed an urgency to your message right now when there are people who are actively literally working against the work that you did? Does that motivate you?

Jason Knight 11:17

Oh my God. Um absolutely. You know, Rhode Islanders are going to have some choices in this election. Uh the League of Businesses are putting up their candidates, and you're right. They're they're MAGA candidates that as much as they try to run from the issue, you know, they want constitutional uh actors uh in uh, you know, in these elected positions, which is just code for um Second Amendment zealots, frankly, people who uh are part of the MAGA movement and deny uh the legitimate election of Joe Biden. I saw that clip uh that was out there on social media that you had with uh Mr. LeBec. I think that what I bring to the race is a mo I want to stand here and stand up to scrutiny to the public to be a candidate who's running for the right reasons, which is to leave the office for the benefit of Rhode Islanders. And um yeah, it motivates me because I think that you know, elections have consequences. Uh we can certainly make mistakes in in elections. I am I want to make sure that the people have a choice and a good choice in this attorney general's race. And uh, you know, if you're looking for a leader who is a great lawyer, then I'm the guy.

Bill Bartholomew 12:33

Let's talk about something that's become what I am gonna coin right here. And if anybody takes this, you know, please credit Bartholomew Town, because here we go. The Nerona doctrine, which is assertion. Peter Nerona asserted that the Attorney General's office is an independent, constitutionally elected office. I mean, that's obvious. It's as obvious as the sky is blue during the day most days, but he asserted it by challenging the executive branch on a regular basis from what some could call an investigative side. Uh, when you talk about the ILO contract, that was something that the McKee administration kind of backed into coming out of COVID, an education contract. Ultimately, it was not a violation of ethics. But Attorney General Nerona gave a lengthy presentation as to why he found it to be abutting the edge of an ethics concern. For example, there are many others. Personal disagreements and beefs aside, there's a lot of talk now about establishing an inspector general. Give me a break. You know, for the most part, if it's not a constitutionally elected office, there's always going to be an opportunity for people to pick apart the neutrality of that figure if it's selected by elected officials. There's always going to be that lane. So the closest thing we have right now is the attorney general, not an inspector general, but you've got subpoena power, you've got some level of oversight opportunity. Do you see that as the lane that you would continue to pursue the attorney general's office as really for anybody out there screaming about the need for an inspector general, take a look at Cranston or North Main Street? That might be the closest thing that you could have to in the attorney general's office. Do you agree with that?

Jason Knight 14:18

There's a couple of questions in there. So, number one, I appreciate the work that Peter Narona has done. I think he really has sort of transformed um what I call the public advocacy side of the office and really uh made it much more front and center in the office. Uh and he's doing what, I mean, he's doing exactly what lawyers should do, which is to uh you be a lawyer for your client, right? The attorney general represents the people of the state of Rhode Island. The attorney general uh is not there for the governor, doesn't represent the speaker, doesn't represent the Senate president or any of the other players. There are times when they're going to represent them in court as a on a public agency level, but the client is and always should be the people of the state of Rhode Island. So, like any good lawyer, you work with who you need to work to advance your client's interests. And I think Peter has done that and he's and he's shown um he's shown uh a new way that it can be done, and I absolutely intend to follow in those footsteps. When it comes to the inspector general question, I don't see any I don't see any conflict between the two. I think that you can have an independent constitutional officer as the attorney general, and I think that through uh the appropriate kind of legislation, you can create an inspector general who is within these departments that has enough independence and is shielded, basically they're gonna need heat shields, frankly, from the political process to do legitimate investigations and to say, hey, where is all this money going? Why is it that EOHHS, you know, wakes up one day and there's 30 million that's not in the right pot? That's crazy to me. Why is it that a bridge on a United States of America interstate highway almost falls down and no one knows about it? That is crazy. We should bring every tool that we have to these concerns uh of about these public affairs. Uh, I think the AG and the uh inspector general can operate on independent, um, but uh independent paths working towards the same goal.

Bill Bartholomew 16:20

We'll see how this plays out. There's a lot of different ideas for there. It does seem like the current plan from now Speaker Blazzewski is probably gonna have the most momentum uh as as things shape out, but we'll see. Um you mentioned the Washington Bridge. Look, that speaks to a larger concern, which is faith and trust in government.

unknown 16:38

Yes.

Bill Bartholomew 16:39

True-down. True it out in a moment, and people have a right to say, whoa, what's going on here? So as attorney general, you know, you have oversight of a lot of different, or you have jurisdiction over a lot of different aspects of infrastructure, or essentially pushing back on that which feeds the notion that Rhode Island is somehow corrupt or it's fallen apart. A good example would be the 610 project that Attorney General Nerona was deeply engaged in. How do you answer as a constitutional officer to that notion that the state is inherently corrupt, it's inherently insider deals, it's all who you know politicking. How do you one answer to people and legitimately say, yeah, we're gonna try to solve that problem without trying to create problems? And two, how do you level set to say, well, this is just a problem with our politics on a national basis. It's not just a Rhode Island thing.

Jason Knight 17:38

There's a lot of questions in that question. Uh let me take them, let me let me take them in order. So, number one, I ran when I first ran, I explicitly ran on we're I'm not gonna be uh we're gonna get rid of this I know a guy culture, or I'm gonna work against the I know a guy culture in Rhode Island, which is president of the statehouse. But if you'll notice, if you've been a close observer over the last 10 years, particularly in the House, where transparency has really gone up, that element is while I'm I'm not here to say it's gone, it's certainly come down a bit. And we have to fight against it every single day. I mean, remember, I, along with another uh other group of Democrats, voted against a sitting speaker, a Democratic speaker, because we weren't going to play those kinds of politics. Um electing good people is a start. And this brings me to a core issue when it comes to the Attorney General's office for sure. There's going to be a time in the next attorney general's tenure, it doesn't matter who it is, where there's going to be a decision that has to be made where the rule of law and justice point in one direction and politics and public opinion and maybe what other players in politics, such as the governor or the speaker or the senate president or whoever want, might go in the other direction. You need to have someone who has developed that political muscle of uh really sort of walking the walk of being a straight talker and making the right decisions to not be afraid to make the right decision, even though the politics says do something else. We don't have enough of that in Rhode Island. We need more of that in Rhode Island. That's the kind of politician I am, and that's the kind of attorney general I'll be.

Bill Bartholomew 19:29

Last question, and this is something you'll be the first here. So attention, every other candidate that's going to appear on this show right now. You can't take this answer or you better build on it. But this is something that I want to ask everybody who's running for a major office. What's one thing that Rhode Island has as a strength that nobody else has that makes us truly unique?

Jason Knight 19:49

Well, uh you're you're singing my song uh because when I talk to folks about what Rhode Island has to offer, I always talk about the things that you can't put on Amazon, the things that you can't ship out to China. It's our environment. It is our beautiful beaches and coasts. We are a tremendous place to live. There's a lot of work that we need to do to make it better. I mean, we have a healthcare uh system that is teetering and really needs to come along in terms of um protecting the providers, protecting the patients, making sure that the system is stable. And by the way, the AG has an important voice in that process as uh the regulator in that space. Our education system really needs some help. I know there's a governor's race going on, it's hotly contested. There's going to be a lot of ideas about education, but we need to get a handle on that problem because what we have that makes us special, we need to protect. And it is the things that you can't send out to the internet somewhere. Um, the attorney general can be a big part of that conversation because as a lawyer, you're always supposed to be doing this one thing for your clients. Well, you do many things, but one of the things you do is you sort of try to get above it all and look out and see what dangers are coming down the road and raise the red flags. I think you'll see that with Peter Narona's tenure. You'll certainly see that with mine. And that's what I think um Rhode Island really has to offer that, you know, we can preserve and make better.

Bill Bartholomew 21:13

And representative, you mentioned something there with oversight of our hospital system and really our healthcare system on the whole. That's a major tenant of the attorney general's race. Not something that I left out here uh without thinking of it. It's something that I believe we need to dig into. So coming up later on this election season, we'll be inviting all four attorney general candidates for a forum on oversight and really just everything that comes to our public health infrastructure right now, because that really is one of the governing principles uh I think that people should be paying attention to when it comes to this attorney general's race. Representative Knight, thanks so much for your time today.

Jason Knight 21:51

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. And I just want to say this I'm really glad that people have a choice in this election. There hasn't been a competitive AGs race in nearly 15 years. Uh it is uh it's it's an exciting time. It's an exciting time to be a candidate. Thank you for having my having me on, and I'd be happy to come again.