Gregg Amore had a very busy inauguration day, January 3, the city native beginning last Tuesday with his own oath of office ceremony at the convention center in Providence to become Rhode Island’s 30th Secretary of State beside the coterie of other state officers  followed by his presiding over several other similar municipal swearing-in events, including right here in East Providence, in his new role.

For Amore, a Democrat, his resounding victory over Republican opponent Pat Cortellessa for the vacant Secretary of State seat (59.5%-40.3%; 208,981-141,457) last November was the latest in a string of electoral wins for the former East Providence educator and coach.

He began his pursuit of the seat left open by his term-limited predecessor Nellie Gorbea with a similarly one-sided win in the Democratic Primary race last September over Stephanie Beaute, 64.3%-35.7% (65,276-36,283).

Amore, whose closest election was his initial outing (a narrow win against Tim Chapman for the Democratic nomination during the primary earlier that cycle), was first voted into elected office as the State Representative from District 65, East Providence in November 2012. Setting the tone for future endeavors, he easily defeated Joe Botelho 67.4%-32.2% (3,898-1,862) at the general.

Amore subsequently ran four times unopposed for re-election in the district comprising Kent Heights and portions of Riverside, winning his last two-year term in the lower chamber in 2020.

Of particular note from his hometown, Amore becomes the first city native to win statewide office since Paul Tavares was elected General Treasurer in 1998. Tavares was likewise term limited, winning again in 2002 and serving until 2006.

At the East Providence inaugural held in the high school auditorium last Tuesday evening, Amore quipped that his retirement as a school department employee only took full effect the previous day and he was already back in his long-time place of work the very next night.

Amore was an EPHS faculty member in the Social Studies/History Department for a quarter of century before stepping away from that post to become the district’s athletic director some six years ago. While a teacher he also served a spell as the high school’s Young Democratic Club advisor as well as being the head varsity hockey and baseball coach for the Townies.

Upon taking office as the new Secretary of State last week, Amore responded to the following series of questions posed to him by The Post:

The Post: Separately, what are some reflections on your career in education and in the House…what are you most proud of…what were the most fulfilling aspects of each?

Amore: “I really enjoyed engaging with students, challenging them, making them think and exposing them to our nation’s history in a way that they had not experienced before. I tried to make it a human endeavor, relate the history and the issues to their experiences and do so with humor and passion. For the most part I think the fact that when former students see me, or others who know me, they comment on how much they enjoyed my class, that is really the most rewarding aspect of the job. I have a treasure trove of notes from students that really confirm that I chose the right profession. I guess the culmination of that was being nominated by a student as the Rhode Island Daughters of the American Revolution as the Rhode Island History Teacher of the Year and then winning the statewide award.

“As far as my time in the House is concerned, I think my work on the school construction incentive package that led to the construction of the new East Providence High School is the thing I feel best about. I was fortunate to have held the chairmanship of the House Finance subcommittee on Education at the time of the proposal and it was labor of love to work with my legislative colleagues, the treasurer and the governor to get that program over the finish line. I feel good about it every time I drive by the new high school. I am also proud of the work I did on the CCRI Promise legislation, creating the English Language Learner Categorical Fund, providing funding to retain and recruit teachers of color and moving toward a common statewide curriculum. On issues other than education I am really proud of the bills I championed and sponsored that worked to make life better for struggling Rhode Islanders: oral chemotherapy parity, chronic pain patients, the victims and survivors of domestic violence, the victims of gun violence, disabled Rhode Islanders in the workplace, those who were wrongly convicted and incarcerated.”

The Post: On the campaign, what was is like to run statewide for the first time? What did you learn from it?

Amore: “A statewide campaign is grueling in many ways but also extremely rewarding. We visited every city and town during the campaign, with the exception of New Shoreham. I knocked on doors in every region of the state (pretty rare for a statewide candidate to knock doors at all). I tried to be the Bruce Springsteen of candidates (legendary 3 hour shows) in that I would try to fit as many events in to a single day as possible. I had so many conversations and learned so much from many different Rhode Islanders and that was the great benefit of that schedule. The worst part of the process, by far, is the constant need to raise money…ask for campaign donations. It is very expensive to pay for television, radio, social media ads and very expensive to do a statewide mailer. It is the first time I had ever engaged paid staff and not done all of my own speech writing or press releases. It was also a real benefit to launch a campaign as a relatively well known East Providence candidate. Our city gets out to vote and to know that if I worked hard I could get close to 70% of that big vote total was a huge confidence boost.”

(Note: Amore defeated Beaute in E.P. in the primary 75.9%-24.1%; 4,719-1,499 and Cortellessa in city in the general, 71.5%-28.4%; 11,255-4,470.)

The Post: As a history/government teacher, and considering the election denial climate, does the Secretary of State position hold a greater meaning to you? Might you understand it better than most?

Amore: “Because of my background as an educator and a civics and government teacher, I think I am uniquely positioned to be a messenger as to how are elections work, how well they work and how non-partisan and patriotic the people who run elections are. It is my goal to beef up the civic education division of the department of state and to get into communities and have this discussion. Despite the narrative, the United States and Rhode Island are conducting the fairest, freest, most scrutinized, most audited and most accurate elections in the nation’s history. I am going to do my part to make sure that continues to be the case but to also make sure people know it.”

The Post: Any thoughts on being the first "Townie" to hold statewide office in nearly 20 years...a generation really?

Amore: “I am extremely proud to be the first Townie to hold statewide office in over 20 years and I know that I would not be Secretary of State without the people of East Providence. The support I have received from my fellow Townies is overwhelming and in turn I feel a great responsibility to make East Providence proud. This city helped raise me and my experiences here have allowed me to be an effective educator and policy maker. I like to think of East Providence as a microcosm of the state with a strong working class population, suburban professional population, robust immigrant population and a place of great diversity. This informs who I am and allows me to see the world through the lens of the people who live here. I should point out that the No. 3 ranking member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives is also from East Providence so we can now claim the No. 3 position in both the House and of the general officers.”

The Post: What are your aims, goals for your first term?

Amore: “Our team has put forth a pretty full agenda for the next four years. I would like to see us codify protocols to avoid the testing issues we had with some voting machines in the last primary. I hope to get that done quickly. I hope to engage Rhode Islanders in an effort to build the Rhode Island State Archives, History Museum and Learning Center. (Right now we lease a small space to display and store our archival material.) We are an original 13 colony and state yet we are an outlier among states who have impressive archives and museums that celebrate their state’s history, preserve their irreplaceable historic documents and draw tens of thousands of students, scholars and tourists every year.

“I will be advocating for a constitutional amendment that would allow for, at the very least, a  larger window for voter registration (right now the constitution limits registrations to 30 days out) and, at most, some form of same day voter registration that twenty-two other states have already enacted (we also have it for presidential ballots).

"I will be pushing for implementation of state of the art signature verification technology for mail ballots. I hope to have a bill that I have sponsored in years past to become law that would allow any 17 year old who will be eligible to vote in the November general election to be able to cast a vote in the primary election so they are part of the entire process. I hope we can move our primary date up as we are one of the last states in the country to hold our primaries. This creates too short of a window to prepare ballots for the general election and get our overseas ballots out to our military personnel and other Rhode Islanders living overseas. We get it done now but it is on a frenetic pace that can result in error. This will become a real issue if we have a litigated statewide election or a statewide recount that would further delay this process.

"I have already talked about the robust civic education program we hope to implement and we will be awarding a Rhode Island Civics Teacher of the Year Award in May.”