Nicholas A. Mattiello (born 1963) is an American politician and Democratic former member of the

Rhode Island House of Representatives The Rhode Island House of Representatives is the lower house of the Rhode Island General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Rhode Island, the upper house being the Rhode Island Senate. It is composed of 75 members, elected t ...

, who represented the 15th District from 2007 to 2021. He served as the Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives from March 25, 2014 to 2021. In 2020, he was defeated in an upset by

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung (born December 10, 1980) is an American politician serving as a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives for the 15th district. Elected in November 2020, she assumed office on January 5, 2021. Early life and e ...

, the wife of Cranston mayor

Allan Fung Allan Wai-Ket Fung (born February 25, 1970) is an American attorney and politician who served as Mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island from 2009 to 2021. He was the Republican nominee for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2014 and 2018 elections as we ...

Political positions

Mattiello has been described as an "old-guard conservative." In 2011, he voted for Rhode Island's voter ID law. Despite his generally conservative profile, he voted for

marriage equality Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same Legal sex and gender, sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being ...

in 2013. Mattiello has also expressed the fact that he does not support the bill relating to the

Pawtucket Red Sox The Pawtucket Red Sox, known colloquially as the PawSox, were a professional minor league baseball club based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. From 1973 to 2020, the team was a member of the International League and served as the Triple-A affiliate ...

that was passed in the Senate in January 2018 and states that it was dead. He has expressed his disinterest in the idea of the taxpayer's money funding the new stadium, leading to the team to look outside of Rhode Island. He has been endorsed by

Right to Life The right to life is the belief that a being has the right to live and, in particular, should not be killed by another entity. The concept of a right to life arises in debates on issues including capital punishment, with some people seeing it as ...

and the

National Rifle Association The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent Gun politics in the United States, gun rights ...

. In 2018, Mattiello sponsored legislation commonly known as "Kristen's Law" that allows life sentencing for anyone who sells, delivers or distributes an illegal drug that leads to a fatal overdose. In July 2018, the Rhode Island Democratic Party, controlled by Mattiello, endorsed a pro-Trump candidate's primary challenge against incumbent Rep.

Moira Walsh Moira Jayne Walsh (born August 23, 1990) is an American activist and politician who represented the 3rd district in the Rhode Island House of Representatives from 2017 to 2021. Walsh is a member of the Democratic Party. Early life Walsh was born ...

, who had voiced her disapproval with Mattiello on previous occasions. In June 2019, Mattiello attempted to include $1 million in the R.I. budget to be allocated to a single chiropractor, Victor Pedro, despite R.I.'s Medicaid Medical Care Advisory Committee stating that "there wasn’t evidence that the treatment worked." Eventually, Mattiello pulled support for the bill due to public and political pressure. In June 2020, during the campaign to remove "Plantations" from the official state name of Rhode Island, Mattiello received criticism for not knowing what the holiday

Juneteenth Juneteenth is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Deriving its name from combining "June" and "nineteenth", it is celebrated on the anniversary of General Order No. 3, i ...

commemorated, and making the statement that he "did not think we had actual

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

in Rhode Island." Rhode Island ships were the center of the

Transatlantic Slave Trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

, importing more enslaved Africans than any other

North American North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Ca ...

British colony The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...

References

External links

Rhode Island House - Representative Nicholas A. Mattiello
official R.I. House website , - 1963 births 21st-century American politicians Politicians from Cranston, Rhode Island Living people Rhode Island lawyers Speakers of the Rhode Island House of Representatives Democratic Party members of the Rhode Island House of Representatives {{RhodeIsland-politician-stub