Rep. K. Joseph Shekarchi was elected Speaker by the Rhode Island House of Representatives as it began the 2021 legislative session today.
House members voted 59-9, with four abstentions, for Speaker Shekarchi, who had previously served as the chamber’s Majority Leader. Prior to being elected Majority Leader in November 2016, he served as Chairman of the House Labor Committee, a position to which he was appointed midway through his freshman term in 2014. He has served the residents of District 23 in Warwick since first being elected in November 2012.
The vote took place in a session held at Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Providence to provide greater social distance than is possible at the State House, which is closed to the public during the pandemic.
In accepting the position from his colleagues, Speaker Shekarchi emphasized his commitment to working cooperatively with them, spoke of the strong values imparted to him by his parents, and invoked the words of President John F. Kennedy in an address he made at the Massachusetts State House before assuming the presidency in 1961.
“As you know, my goal for this office is to facilitate collaboration and consensus in pursuit of the common good. My approach will be different, but it should never be confused with an unwillingness to make difficult, final decisions at the appropriate time … and make them stick. Let us pledge to listen to each other, and always treat each other with respect and kindness,” he told his fellow representatives. “I will continue to be anchored by the values instilled in me by my hardworking parents. I will also be guided by the values so eloquently addressed by President Kennedy sixty years ago: Courage, judgment, integrity and dedication.”
Speaker Shekarchi has been a prolific legislator, sponsoring many successful bills concerning a wide range of issues, from economic development to health care to animal rights.
During his time as chairman of the House Committee on Labor, Speaker Shekarchi sponsored several major economic development initiatives. The Qualified Jobs Incentive Act, which is helping to create more than 3,000 new, well-paying jobs in Rhode Island, provides tax credits to companies that hire new full-time employees with a salary of at least 250 percent of the state’s hourly minimum wage. Jobs created through it have consistently averaged annual salaries above $60,000. He also sponsored the Premium Jobs Initiative, which links Rhode Island’s insurance premium tax rate to the number of jobs created by companies.
He reformed the state’s Workers’ Compensation system, including allowing for the use of electronic fund transfers to deliver weekly workers’ compensation benefits, and managed approval of two successive increases to the state’s minimum wage in 2014 and 2015. He has sponsored several laws streamlining the regulation and review process for development projects and subdivisions to facilitate construction.
Speaker Shekarchi is a graduate of Mount St. Charles Academy, Class of 1980, and graduated from Suffolk University in 1984. He returned to Suffolk to earn his law degree in 1990. In addition to his duties as a legislator, Leader Shekarchi is an attorney at the Shekarchi Law Office. He has been the legal counsel to the Warwick Housing Authority for 16 years and was a former Warwick solicitor.
