Rhode Island lawmakers returning to the Statehouse on Tuesday to open the 2026 legislative session faced fiscal uncertainty in the face of Trump administration cuts that could blow a hole in the state budget.
One of the legislators tasked with “meeting that moment,” in the words of state House Speaker Joe Shekarchi, is Rep. Marie Hopkins, a Republican from Warwick.
Hopkins spoke with Ocean State Media political reporter Ian Donnis about what it’s like to work across the aisle at the Rhode Island statehouse, and what to expect from the action in this year’s legislative session.
Interview highlights:
On why she decided to run for office
It’s family, basically. I’m going to say it’s my children and it’s my grandma. My children, who are getting older, were in college, and they said, “We can’t live here. We cannot afford it. We cannot afford rent. We cannot afford a house. The pay is low. We’re taxed on everything. And when we’re getting out of college, we’re moving away.” And I was like, “How, how can you do that to me? Don’t leave.” But it was an alarming moment of reality for our rising young adults. How do they make it in Rhode Island? And then on the flip side, I mentioned my grandmother, she’s 95. I live next door to her. And she has so many of the issues that come with aging and the taxes on them and the small income and all of these things.
Most of my life I watched politics like so many people, like, “Oh, I’m so mad and I’m so upset.” And “It’s that person’s fault and it’s that person’s fault,” and forever pointing that finger. And I sort of had this realization of, well, I can point the finger at myself. Why not me? Let me be part of the solution. Just let me go help. And that’s the truth of it.
On how the experience of being a state representative compares to her expectations:
You have some notions of what it’s going to be, and of course that’s never what it is, right? So we went up there and I found I’m not going to be a great change maker. I’m going to be part of a system. And in some essence — not to be negative, but in some ways you’re a cog in a very big machine. You’re not the machine, right? So I determined to be the best cog I could and do the best work possible. I found that despite the differences of ideology, there’s an incredible sense of camaraderie, and I didn’t expect that. I think that was the most wonderful, formative epiphany for me was, “Wow, they are cohesive. They are working together.” Not that they agree on every issue. There’s plenty of infighting. You’ve seen it, you know. But a lot of cohesion. So that was a surprise. It was a pleasant surprise.
On what Rhode Island can do to prevent young people from leaving the state
I think tax reform is one of the biggest things that needs to be addressed because they’re not just paying income taxes. They’re paying taxes on every single service, every single time they step outside, right? So some of that would alleviate economic pressures. The housing market, look what we’re doing in Rhode Island to take that pressure off. We’re building. Warwick, particularly, is surpassing what we need to build. We’re doing that work.
On whether the state should make up for health care cuts from the federal government
I would really rather see a solution before it comes to that, because our state budget is strapped already, right? Like, where are we getting more from? And if we come up with that more, some other cut is going to have to be made. So then it’s a matter of priorities. And for me, health care is a huge priority, right? I voted for the budget, and the reason I did that was because there was so much health care in there. And so there’s so much tremendous need. I’m really banking on Washington doing its job and coming up with a solution before it comes to states having to self-fund these differences. I don’t want to see it come to that.
On what Rhode Island can do to address the shortage of health care providers
We don’t really have a medical school. We have Brown, but they attract out of state and international [students] who, following residency, they leave. They’re certainly not going to stay here with our low reimbursements, right? We are talking about the possibility of building a medical school at URI. I think it should be a health sciences school. Put in a nursing graduate program, put in a dental program, put in a veterinary program. We need those too. I think that’s going to help if we can get there, but that’s probably 10 years out, right? The reimbursements did come up. I don’t think that they came up enough. My brother’s an MD. I hear him talk about how it’s actually a struggle to keep the lights on. He tries to provide benefits to his employees.
You have a tremendous amount of rent on your office. There’s so much back-of-the-office work that people don’t see versus the face time that the doctor is reimbursed for. So if he gets $37 for a Medicaid visit and that’s half an hour, I’m making up figures, but then the office staff has to call in the prescriptions and order different procedures. It’s another hour of work for which the office isn’t reimbursed. So we saw Anchor Medical go under, right? 25,000 people were left without an MD.
This is unacceptable. This is absolute urgency. So if we can get the reimbursements up, maybe we can get some of the Brown people who come out of Brown Medical School to consider staying. Maybe our bright students who go out of state to medical school will come home to Rhode Island instead of staying out of state. And if we can get that health care sciences building going, I mean, there is no magic wand. I think that’s where I started, but it’s probably my biggest advocacy.
