Representative Marie Hopkins

Just as you grew and made mistakes, and learned to correct, and overcome and improve- so has this nation. We should not attempt to change our story because it is the story of growth and the trajectory of our humanity. Those who attempt to wash and spin our journey are causing great harm!

@UziCryptoo Allow me to prescribe Atlas Shrugged.

The 935 U.S. billionaires have 9.4 trillion in wealth, built off our work. If they only had a thousand million $ each, that would be 8.4 trillion that could be used on wages, feeding children, education, housing, healthcare, childcare, infrastructure and the kind of country we should actually have. And they’d never miss a gourmet meal or private jet flight or 5 star hotel stay.

To My Fellow Rhode Island Taxpayers — Straight Talk on the New Inspector General: I understand why a lot of you are frustrated that the new IG doesn’t cover the Legislature. You want every part of government watched, and that’s fair. We finally got this done this year after fighting for it a long time. Speaker Blazejewski sponsored the bill and it passed. That’s bipartisanship in action — we should all celebrate it. This new IG will go after waste, fraud, and abuse in the executive branch (the Governor’s office) — the agencies, big contracts, DOT projects, and basically where 99.5% of the big money in our $15 billion budget gets spent. That’s real progress, and we need it. Yet I still hear a lot of you are mad that the Legislature isn’t included, so let me explain why: It comes down to Separation of Powers. Republicans strongly supported that constitutional amendment in 2004 and voted for it. We wanted three independent branches so no one could dominate the others. It is now law — law *YOU voted for at the ballot box two decades ago — and we are now literally bound by it... The new IG is set up only in the executive branch, so it can’t constitutionally oversee the Legislature (or the judiciary) without breaking the rules. We are kind of stuck there. That said, this past session the Republican caucus absolutely tried to go further. We pushed amendments to add even stronger oversight on the Legislature too. Those amendments got voted down. We can try to bring them back next year and keep fighting. We are always in the arena for you. But honestly, this fight is small potatoes, because here’s the part a lot of people miss: We in the Legislature don’t cut checks. We don’t award contracts. We do NOT pick vendors, contractors, or move big money around. That’s all Executive Branch work. There’s simply no real opportunity for the kind of “contract corruption” the IG is designed to catch. We authorize a budget, and the Governor’s office awards the contracts through the agencies. We don’t control that — constitutionally, we can’t. The contracts are way, way above us. Our House and Senate legislative budget is really small — it is mostly our roughly $20k annual salaries, supplies, postage, and office basics. Fortunately, it already gets audited every year by the Auditor General, a CPA whose reports are posted online for the public to see. We are an open book already. Bottom line: We passed an IG. That means we forced through accountability where it *matters most. * After years of painful resistance, we delivered, and that’s a win worth recognizing and celebrating. Meanwhile, Republicans have been consistent: we want real eyes on government and real results for taxpayers. We’re delivering, and we will continue to fight for transparency. Because your money matters. Stay with us as we push next session to make oversight even stronger across the board.

@spencerpratt @teacherinRI Investments pay bc of risk assumed. Do not expect everyone to be an economic scholar.

When the rent is too damn high it’s easy to hate the landlord making money off you. But when you’re a renter…you never have to make a repair, you never have to sock away $100K in cash for a down payment, and if your place burns down, you can just walk away. Before you bitch about landlords, ask yourself: could you save up $100K right now to make a down payment? What about $10K repair when a pipe bursts? Or your government leaves 50 years of brush to BURN YOUR CITY DOWN? These are all things a property owner has to deal with. Risk, liability, maintenance, taxes, loss of liquidity, ever-increasing insurance costs, and no ability to evict someone who stops paying rent. Landlords earn maybe 5-12% margins off your rent. Consider it a tip for doing all the hard stuff of home ownership for you.

@FiredUpCoug "crabs in a bucket."

Why are women so often the first people to make other women feel self-conscious? My wife is a nurse. Her unit requires everyone to wear navy blue scrubs every day, so she does not have much variety in her work wardrobe. A few months ago, she found a navy blue one-piece scrub jumpsuit and ordered it for herself. When it arrived, she loved it. She felt cute and slim in it. It was incredibly comfortable and especially convenient on call days, when she has to carry an extra outfit with her everywhere she goes. A couple of days ago, I realized she had only ever worn it to work once. I asked her why she had not worn it again, because I knew how much she loved it. She told me another nurse had made a few comments: “I don’t know if I could ever wear something like that.” “I didn’t even know scrubs came like that.” “Are you sure those are allowed?” The comments were subtle enough to be passed off as innocent, but the message came through clearly enough. My wife felt self-conscious and never wore it again. Why do some women see another woman feeling cute and confident and immediately feel compelled to make her question it?

@RandomGingerCat @MrDanielBuck Surely would have helped.

@MarieForRI @MrDanielBuck I’m sure they were sorry they didn’t have a special quill to give you, as in Harry Potter.🐈

I'm not sure there's a greater waste in public education than the gifted students who finished their work in 10 minutes and then spend 6 hours a day twiddling their thumbs

@MGDosd All the more reason to board the lifeboats.

@MarieForRI RI is the third bluest state after HI, MA. You can talk ideology all day long. The 60 percent rule isn’t possible to achieve. Democrats have controlled RI for 90 years. The Kennedy Democrats are all gone. The DSA is gaining momentum and removing remaining “moderate” Democrats.

Allow me to repeat myself. And to extend once again the offer for unity. A wise dem colleague explained to me the concept of the "middle 60." In a line of 100 people, 20 are far right, twenty are far left. The rest of us occupy the middle-- we may slightly bend to a side, but we agree on 6 out of every ten of issues and we can generally work out the rest. The middle 60 is where balance and fairness lie. The middle 60 is where fair debate and compromise reign. The middle 60 does not offend anyone except those the tail end extremes. Be the middle 60. RI is a purple state- let's act like that, and represent the people with balanced democracy. That's the job. Centrists Dems are right to be alarmed. Privately, they admit that the DSA is not comprised of any actual democrats.

Not cute. At what taxpayer cost was this rescue? Unfit, and clearly fragile, don't attempt. You risk others with your over-confidence. It's borderline selfish. The nurse in me advises: be smarter and safer than this nonsense. It's not only your life- it's others who carry the literal weight of your hubris. Everyone in America griping about the high cost of insurance and taxes and expenses & we have a goofball like this trying to hike a mountain-- that was probably 30-100k rescue for which she legally bore NO expense. Doubt my numbers? Look it up. Good grief.

I may have had some toxic girl friendships in the past but at least they never filmed me being airlifted off a mountain with explosive diarrhea and blasted it all over tiktok

@SarahSurviving I wrote a 15 paragraph reply and deleted it. This fight is exhausting and social media isn't the forum.

I went to Trans Pride yesterday and it was a surreal experience. I’m not sure if Trans Pride was ever really a celebration of transgender people but yesterday was a full on, unapologetic display of anti-woman hatred (1/2)

I don’t want to "download the app" to pay for parking. I don’t want to "create an account" to see a menu. I don’t want to "provide feedback" on a 30-second interaction. I just want to exist in the physical world without a digital leash.

@JustinKatzRI @RepublicanRjl Astute.

@RepublicanRjl @MarieForRI The left 20 used cultural institutions to make the middle 60 believe the left-20 horrors of the last century could only come from the right 20.

@MGDosd Im not going to argue w you. I'm talking about ideology, not registrations-- I am encouraging coalescence. Just because there hasn't historically been coalescence, doesn't mean it's too late. In fact, the time is now.

@MarieForRI Republican voters make up 14 percent of voters. That means 28 percent are independent votes. What bills or amendments to major bills introduced by Republicans actually passed based on your 60 percent theory? None. Democrats won’t break with leadership, ever.

@MGDosd 42 percent of the population votes Republican. Another 11 lean right. Rs don't have many candidates or money, so we don't win many seats. But the data shows a split state. I find consensus all the time.

@MarieForRI If RI was a purple state, 42 percent of the legislature would be Republican. It isn’t. Overeducated liberals with high student debt, w/out useful jobs are the base of the DSA. You won’t find consensus among centrist Democrats & 10 Republicans for your middle 60 theory to work.

@RepublicanRjl Yes there has been a lot of capitulation, and look where that has gotten us. Enough is enough. We need to be back to center.

@MarieForRI and yet, the Middle 60 appear to throw the 20 on the left a bone every now and then that decimates the Middle 60. The Middle 60 never throw the 20 to the right a bone.

@ZillennialApple Books. Not Chromebooks. This isn't rocket-science.

Making students checkout Chromebooks for the year is a financial burden for poor families. My district is high poverty, but every student is required to have a Chromebook from the school. They either have to buy insurance or pay a hefty replacement fee if it's damaged.

This would be life changing.

@TheRazor51 Well, Frankly, a GenX Republican moderate like myself is far more aligned with the blue-dog kennedy dems than any DSA is. We are the middle now.

@MarieForRI This has been my message for years. Not the true Dem way- at all.

Great take.

@drcfp @JonDBrien1 This was not a "mistake." I brought an ammendment to close this loop hole and it was argued down on the floor. Anyone worried about this should seek legal advice and draft a gun trust.

@JonDBrien1 What happens to a valuable gun collection when the owner dies?

Wait, you mean the General Assembly passed a law that wasn’t entirely thought through? I’m shocked I tell you, shocked! GREAT job by my colleague & friend John Grasso, a great lawyer. New weapons ban will make criminals of law-abiding RIers | Opinion providencejournal.com/story/opinion/…

@Billiam429117 @grok He needs it for his work.

@MarieForRI @grok Why on earth would you even want it? Seriously

It took me two hours for my husband and I to upgrade @grok. Two hours. We are intelligent and tech savvy. The related glitches, two factor requests, roadblocks, and tie-ins were frustrating beyond the pale. Literally hit a wall. What should have been two minutes was instead, a tortured time sink. We are fine… but I am aware that my elderly friends and family members would not have been able to navigate this. Boomers and the few SilentGen who remain are being left behind at a very rapid pace-- and Congress is not doing any sort of consumer protection against these advances. At this point, we almost need ADA regulations around some of the tech. And if you think you’re insulated as a millennial or as a Gen X, recognize that with the rapid changes in technology, one day you too will be aged and possibly disadvantaged. And it’s not just AI -- it’s a point of service, it's bill paying, it’s customer service phone lines, it’s online banking. It’s health are access portals…. It's every advance. My son had a doctor appointment canceled because he didn’t respond to the text reminding him of the appointment… how’s that gonna work with an elderly customer? No bueno.