With West Bay accounting for two-thirds of all of the new representatives in the Rhode Island General Assembly, the state’s representatives-elect headed to Providence last week to learn about their new jobs.

Overall, the House ranks remained relatively stable, with only 6 of the 75 seats changing hands in 2024. Of those six, half involved partisan seat switching, with Republicans flipping two Democratic-held seats and Democrats flipping one GOP-held seat.

Chris Paplauskas (R-Cranston), Marie Hopkins (R-Warwick), Earl Reed III (D-West Warwick, Warwick, Coventry) and Richard Fascia (R-Johnston, Cranston) attended the orientation. The four will become the representatives of House Districts 15, 21, 26 and 42, respectively, and joined Jenni Furtado (D-East Providence, Pawtucket) at the orientation last Wednesday. The sixth freshman representative-elect, Paul Santucci (R-Smithfield, Glocester), was not in attendance.

The morning breakfast kicking the ceremony off included remarks by House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi (D-Warwick). Shekarchi, as well as Majority Leader Chris Blazejewski (D-Providence) and Minority Whip David Place (R-Burrillville, Glocester), welcomed the newcomers to the House chamber and, in Fascia’s words, made the group feel welcome.

“These people are dedicated to their constituents and dedicated to the people of Rhode Island,” Fascia said. “They want to make sure that all of us have all the tools necessary to represent our districts in the best way possible.”

Following the breakfast, the six representatives-elect got to learn about the legislative and budgetary processes, as well as go through more minute details, such as receiving their IDs and assigned parking spaces.

Hopkins said that throughout the day, different House staff members approached the six newcomers and explained their roles and how to contact each of them.

“There’s so much staff, so many people unnamed to the public right behind the scenes that are doing this work,” Hopkins said. “The representatives get their name on it and get the credit, and that’s all wonderful, but there are a ton of people involved to get this going … This is a lot bigger, I think, than people really realize.”

Paplauskas seconded Hopkins, saying that he was impressed by the work that House aides and staffers regularly do.

A long-term member of the Cranston City Council, Paplauskas said that after working with the state government on multiple issues throughout that time, seeing things from the other side was a great experience. 

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be in government for the past 10 years,” Paplauskas said. “I think my biggest takeaway was how well organized everything is at the State House. Thousands of bills get put in between the House and Senate, and that team of employees works through all of that to make sure that the bills get to their committees and get heard.”

Paplauskas said that some of his top priorities would be working on Meshanticut Park, looking at Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) money for Cranston and opposing the reinstatement of truck tolls.

Though Fascia said that the orientation was an important experience for him, he said that his work preparing to be a representative was going to be a much larger process.

“Only 75 people in the entire state of Rhode Island get to sit in these seats,” Fascia said. “So this is a learning curve. You cannot be fully prepared in one day for everything that is necessary to do the best job. It is a process.”

Though each of the fellow representative-elects agreed, Hopkins, Fascia and Paplauskas said that what they did learn at the orientation would be valuable information for their tenures in the State House.

“It was a great experience,” Paplauskas said. “I’m looking forward to working with everybody.”