Happy Saturday! Here's another edition of my weekend column for WPRI.com -- as always, send your takes, tips and trial balloons to [email protected] and follow me on Twitter, Bluesky and Facebook. Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Nesi's Notes SIGN UP NOW 1. Polish off the egg nog and shake off the sugar cookies -- 2025 is here, and it's going to be a busy January for anybody who cares about politics. Friday brought us the start of the new Congress, with the notably smooth reelection of Mike Johnson as House speaker, despite his slim 220-215 majority. A harbinger that Capitol Hill won't be as chaotic as some have suspected this year? Time will tell. Next week the legislative focus will shift to the state level, with Rhode Island's General Assembly convening for the first time Tuesday. In the House, Speaker Joe Shekarchi remains in firm control, with Democrats holding 85% of the seats. But Senate President Dominick Ruggerio continues to reshape his leadership team, as he replaces the dissenting Democrats who tried to oust him in November; Ruggerio's physical condition and command of the chamber will be closely scrutinized all over Smith Hill once the new session begins. The following week Governor McKee will seize the spotlight, giving his State of the State address on the relatively early date of Jan. 14. He'll follow up two days later by releasing his budget bill, showing how he proposes to close a deficit estimated at $250 million to $300 million -- the most challenging fiscal environment McKee has faced in his four-year tenure. After that the action will switch back to Washington, with Donald Trump set to be inaugurated as president at noon on Monday, Jan. 20. Trump's moves in those initial days after he takes office are sure to create big headlines for the remainder of the month. 2. With the 119th Congress underway, members of the all-Democratic Rhode Island and Massachusetts delegations are weighing how to approach the second Donald Trump presidency. Seth Magaziner returned to Capitol Hill with some bragging rights from the November election -- the Cook Political Report calculated that he improved his margin of victory more than any other member of Congress between 2022 and 2024. Like other younger Democrats, Magaziner is mulling how the party's leaders can talk to voters more authentically going forward. Along thoes lines, he recently posted a thread on Bluesky saying he plans to shift his approach to social media. "I've always had active social media accounts supported by talented staff to help me inform constituents about my work," he wrote. "But I’ve never invested a lot of personal time engaging in two-way conversations online. Starting now, I am planning to do more. ... I will use this account to write longer form thoughts on current events. Everything on here will be written only by me." But is Bluesky the right place for that? Magaziner acknowledged "mixed feelings," saying, "I don’t think it is productive for Dems to retreat into our own echo chambers." Still, he cited Elon Musk's algorithm changes at X as making him skeptical about investing his energies there. 3. Gabe Amo also has good reason to cheer the arrival of a new crop of freshman House members. After he won the 2023 special election to replace David Cicilline, Amo ranked literally dead last in seniority in the House, 435th out of 435. What a difference a year makes: Amo has already risen to 367th thanks to turnover in other seats. He also starts the new Congress with a new position, having been elected one of three co-chairs of the Future Forum Caucus, which represents younger members of the House. Amo told our D.C. team on Thursday, "There is major work to do to hold both the incoming administration and congressional Republicans accountable, and to continue to articulate a positive message and a vision, not of extremism, but of ensuring that everybody thrives in this country, and that we don't enact tax cuts for the rich or cut Social Security and Medicare." 4. Notable: tongues are wagging about Seth Magaziner, Gabe Amo and Jake Auchincloss all angling behind the scenes for an open seat on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Will one of them get it? (Auchincloss has seniority among the three.) Or will the region be shut out? No word yet on when Hakeem Jeffries will finalize committee rosters. 5. VP Harris administered the ceremonial oath of office to Sheldon Whitehouse as he embarked on a fourth Senate term Friday, and her recent loss in the presidential election has been much on his mind. Over the holidays, Whitehouse emailed Democratic National Committee members urging them to pick a new national chair who can run a "war machine" against Republicans. "Three dramatic things have happened in our country which Democrats bemoan, even oppose, but don’t fight: the onslaught of corrupting right-wing dark money; the success of the fossil fuel industry’s fraudulent climate denial operation; and the capture of the Supreme Court," Whitehouse wrote. "For each, there’s a story to tell: of secret influence and spending, a devilish plan, and creepy billionaires in the background." Yet not everyone agrees with Whitehouse's sweeping indictment of the conservative justices. Jan Crawford, CBS News's longtime Supreme Court reporter, pushed back last weekend during a "Face the Nation" roundtable (though she didn't reference Whitehouse by name). There has been, Crawford said, "a quite calculated effort to undermine the legitimacy of the Supreme Court by Democrats — Senate Democrats for example — hearings, stories about scandals, some of which were pretty overblown to say the least." She added, "You may disagree with their decisions. It's a very conservative Court; it is not a corrupt Court. These are nine justices who have very different views on how to interpret the Constitution, who are kind of in this titanic struggle over law, not politics." 6. Rest in peace, Jimmy Carter. Here's our 1979 coverage of his visit to Rhode Island. 7. For a long time, Helena Foulkes appeared to be in an enviable position heading into the 2026 race for governor. She finished surprisingly strong in the 2022 Democratic primary, and has been working assiduously ever since to position herself for a second try, raising plenty of money and building alliances. And she's benefited from Governor McKee's stumbles, most notably on the Washington Bridge, which have hurt his poll numbers. Now, though, Foulkes is facing a major headwind of her own -- a federal lawsuit against CVS that accuses the company of mishandling the opioid crisis for an 11-year period that includes Foulkes' four-year stint running the company's drugstores. Foulkes and CVS have argued they did their best navigating a difficult situation, but McKee's campaign pounced immediately. "Allegations in the DOJ suit concerning CVS’ behavior during the opioid crisis that began in 2013 are deeply disturbing," the campaign said in a statement. "We must hold accountable those executives whose greed created institutional profit by spreading addiction throughout our communities." (A Foulkes adviser shot back that McKee was "trying to distract from his failed leadership on the Washington Bridge crisis and the cyberattack.") A key question now is what comes out over the course of litigation in the lawsuit. What documents will be filed in court, and what if anything will they reveal about Foulkes's role in the situation? During a Dec. 20 interview on Newsmakers, Rhode Island U.S. Attorney Zach Cunha refused to engage on that topic, including about whether he expects Foulkes to be deposed. "Our complaint is about corporate conduct," Cunha told Tim White and Eli Sherman. "It does not allege, and it's not about, the actions of any particular individual. It's about what the corporation did. And it covers a decade-long period, which involved a number of actors. And that's really all I can say about that." 8. The CVS lawsuit offered Dan McKee's political team a rare chance to go on offense, reinforcing their contention that the governor has no plans to step aside instead of seeking reelection. But within 24 hours of the federal lawsuit being unsealed, they were also reminded that McKee has yet to escape the shadow of the ILO scandal that has dogged him since his first months in office. Back in October, the governor declared vindication when AG Neronha announced no criminal charges would be brought in connection with the $5 million state contract. But Common Cause's John Marion says that even if McKee and other officials didn't break any criminal statutes, ILO "exposed politics at its worst, including a procurement process full of back-scratching." Marion is now taking two steps based on the information the AG uncovered. First, Common Cause has filed a formal complaint with Secretary of State Gregg Amore that accuses longtime McKee ally Mike Magee of failing to register as a state lobbyist while pushing the contract for his associates at ILO. Amore's office is currently conducting a preliminary investigation into the lobbying complaint. (A similar lobbying complaint ensnared the 38 Studios figure Mike Corso back in 2014 -- and McKee himself made hay out of that controversy in his primary race for LG that year against then-Secretary of State Ralph Mollis.) Separately, Common Cause is also asking the R.I. Ethics Commission to review whether stricter rules are needed regarding gifts to public officials from lobbyists. The commission will begin considering that suggestion at its first meeting of the year on Tuesday. 9. Eli Sherman has new details on exactly what data was stolen in the RIBridges cyberattack. We've also confirmed the hackers were demanding $23 million as a ransom payment. 10. Warwick Mayor Frank Picozzi is perhaps the most prominent political independent in Rhode Island right now, and so far it's been a winning electoral formula for him. Picozzi easily unseated an incumbent mayor in 2020, ran unopposed in 2022, and defeated his opponent by a crushing 53-point margin in November. But even before Picozzi takes the oath of office on Tuesday evening, he is dealing with a major headache: a surprise $9 million budget deficit that the School Department only just disclosed. "A lot of people dropped the ball," Picozzi said on this week's Newsmakers. School officials failed to spend their federal COVID relief money "prudently," he said, using the one-time money to add permanent staff with no long-term way to pay their salaries. And that K-12 operating deficit is separate from another ongoing financial problem at the Warwick School Department, namely how to fund construction of two new high schools without overspending the $350 million authorized by city voters. Meantime, Picozzi is also making news on the thing that helped him win the mayor's office in the first place -- his famous annual Christmas lights display, which just had its last hurrah. Why would the mayor decide to hang up his extension cords? "Father Time's caught up with me," said Picozzi, who turned 65 last year. 11. Our Alexandra Leslie sat down with Providence Mayor Brett Smiley for a wide-ranging year-end interview, yielding stories about the city's budget outlook for 2025, PILOT deals and noise cameras, and why the mayor is converting to Judaism. 12. Jonathan Shaw has a great read in Harvard Magazine about the scale of the housing crisis nationwide, including this quote from economist Ed Glaeser: "The tragic part is that we’re both making America less productive -- by not enabling people to move to places like Boston or Silicon Valley, which are among the most productive places in America -- and ensuring that lower-skilled people, people who are less fortunate, can’t afford those places." 13. People in the news ... John Layton will take over as the new publisher of Providence Business News on Feb. 1 ... Rob Brill will be the new regional executive leading Cox Communications operations in Rhode Island and Massachusetts; he succeeds Ross Nelson, who is retiring ... wind developer Ørsted has tapped Amanda Dasch as its new U.S. CEO. 14. Local teachers will soon have lots of little Charlottes and Liams in their classrooms. 15. The FT's Sarah O'Connor wonders, are we becoming a post-literate society? 16. Set your DVRs: This week on Newsmakers — Mayor Picozzi. Watch Sunday at 5:30 a.m. on WPRI 12 and 10 a.m. on Fox Providence, or listen on the radio Sunday at 6 p.m. on WPRO. You can also subscribe to Newsmakers as a podcast via Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you back here next Saturday. Ted Nesi ([email protected]) is a Target 12 investigative reporter and 12 News politics/business editor. He co-hosts Newsmakers and writes Nesi's Notes on Saturdays. Connect with him on Twitter, Bluesky and Facebook. 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