Mary Chace has been an advocate for local democracy for a long time now — more than 55 years, by her count.

That’s how long she’s been a part of the Rhode Island chapter of the League of Women Voters, a specifically nonpartisan, grassroots nonprofit organization whose stated mission is “empowering everyone to fully participate in our democracy”.

The group reports to have more than 800 different chapters across all 50 states, and Chace has been a coordinator for the League in Rhode Island since at least 2012. That job gets busy in the months leading up to an election — whether it’s a special election held in one town or the statewide contest for governor — when she and a small team of unpaid volunteers strive to bring prospective candidates for office together to engage in one of the most crucial foundational pillars of any democracy: the unfiltered exchange of ideas.

These candidate forums are open to the public and (at least in recent years) are recorded, unedited in their entirety, for posterity and the ability to reach a wider audience online. They include a set of consistent rules with the goal to provide equal time to each participant and give them the floor to explain their platform and priorities, as well as the ability to retort to the positions of their opponents.

For forums occurring in the East Bay, the League partners with East Bay Media Group (The Post’s parent company, which operates newspapers from East Providence down to Sakonnet) to provide a moderator; usually the local newspaper editor or the company’s publisher, Scott Pickering, to keep things orderly and to move the forum along.

For years these forums have come and gone without incident. So it came as something of a surprise to Chace when invitations sent to candidates for contested races in East Providence — 11 of them in total, including all five seats on the city council, three seats on the school committee, a two-way race for Mayor of East Providence, a three-way contest for District 65 in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, and a two-person race for District 14 in the Rhode Island Senate — resulted in only six forums actually being scheduled.

In five races (Wards 2, 3, and the at-large seat for the city council; the Ward 2 seat for school committee; and the mayor’s office), one candidate either declined or ignored the League’s invitation to participate. In one of those cases Chace was hung up on during the invitation. In two of those cases, candidates publicly expressed doubt that the forums were “neutral”, with one going so far as to say that they purposefully skirted the invite because they viewed it as a “rigged setup” and a “fake platform”.

“It’s certainly confusing,” Chace said when asked of the situation in a recent interview.

Neutrality of process questioned

Chace said in her interview that the League began sending out invitations to candidates in early September. That happens in two ways, including physical mail (which Chace said was sent out to East Providence candidates on Sept. 10), and through two phone calls using the phone numbers that candidates register with the Rhode Island Board of Elections, with messages left if the call went unanswered.

Candidates had until Thursday, Sept. 17 to respond yay or nay to participating in a forum.

Chace said that as of that deadline, she had received no response from Christopher Teixeira (running for Ward 3 city council), Jason Medeiros (at-large city council), Patricio Pinto (running for mayor), and John Medeiros (Ward 2 school committee). In attempting to call Pinto a second time, Chace said she got through to someone but was hung up on while explaining who she was and why she was calling.

Anna Sousa, running for re-election for the Ward 2 city council seat, declined to attend, but Chace explained that she had a legitimate work conflict that prevented her from participating on the date that was offered.
Neither Patricio Pinto nor John Medeiros responded to a request for comment on their reasoning for not wanting to participate in the forums.

Teixeira and Jason Medeiros, however, took to social media last week to offer their own thoughts.

“I didn’t decline to debate my opponent. I just didn’t agree to this forum. My concern is with who is running it. I believe this group is too closely aligned with the current administration and the mayor for me to feel that it’s neutral. That’s why I didn’t participate,” Medeiros wrote in a Facebook post on Sept. 22. “But I’m ready to debate my opponent, anywhere there’s neutral ground, with a fair moderator and tough questions for both. Then let the people decide. Our City, Our Future.”

Teixeira took a similar stance, but a step further, in his own Facebook post on Sept. 24.

“They’re spinning stories because I refused to walk into a rigged setup,” he wrote. “I didn’t dodge accountability — I rejected a fake platform. Let’s talk about why they’re afraid of a truly open debate.”

‘There is no bias’

When asked if the League had ever encountered any issues regarding neutrality in the past, Chace said that the forums have been run the same way for years, and since each candidate has the freedom to use their time as they see fit, she failed to see how such a structure could be construed as anything but neutral.

“We give absolutely everybody the same amount of time. The questions we ask them are taken from the public. Some, we ask you [the moderators] to formulate, some we formulate,” she said. “What the League does is have positions on things in general. But they don’t ever support one candidate or another. So while some of our leanings may be in one direction or another, there is no bias, certainly none intended, in treating the candidates.”

Chace said that one candidate, Brian Coogan (running for the District 14 seat in the Senate), had expressed unhappiness with how his forum was conducted in 2024 (when he ran for the same seat) when she invited him to this year’s forum; alleging that his opponent, Val Lawson, was given more time than him. Chace said that after she reviewed the footage, she was confident there was no intended unfairness.

Coogan ultimately accepted the invitation, and that forum will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at East Providence City Hall.

Chace said that the forums are run exclusively by volunteers, and while there are limitations to their abilities and things don’t always go perfectly, the League’s goal to provide unfiltered information to help better inform the public has remained a top priority.

“We try to do our best,” she said.

‘I was wrong’

While Teixeira did not respond to a request for comment to explain why he felt the forums were unfair, Jason Medeiros met for an interview on Tuesday afternoon to discuss his own comment on the matter.

He said that his comment was a reaction to a separate post occurring on one of the local Facebook community groups for East Providence, where one of its administrators, Melodie Pimentel, posted his photo alongside Teixeira and Sousa saying that they had declined to participate in the candidate forum.

“I'm disappointed to hear that three candidates appear to have declined the invitation to participate in a candidate forum,” Pimentel’s post from Sept. 22 reads. “A moderated forum where candidates can exchange ideas, find common ground, or clarify differences is vital for democracy.”

Medeiros, whose bid for the at-large council seat is his first run for public office, said that he saw the post and regrettably provided a quick rebuttal without looking into the situation more. He said he believed, at the time, that the League forum was run either by Pimentel or those aligned with her (people who are often critical of him, he said); and that he had heard the forum wouldn’t be politically neutral.

He said that after looking into the League of Women Voters, and realizing that East Bay Media Group would provide the moderator, he was willing to admit to his mistake, saying the post was “out of character” with how he normally operates.

“I spoke out of, I’m not going to say anger, but I didn’t think it out,” he said. “I was wrong. I didn’t realize who they [the League] were. Remember, this is my first time at this. I thought the League was run by a certain group. I thought it was by those people that were constantly on Facebook.”

As for not agreeing to debate in the first place, Medeiros maintained that he felt it was not necessary.

“I think I'm doing okay where I'm at. I don't need a lot of social media attention,” he said. “I’ve been doing my job walking around meeting constituents, putting up signs everywhere. I got almost 300 signs up right now. That means people are standing behind me and that they support me. Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't feel I have to debate.”