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Lincoln Chafee, who served as Rhode Island's Republican Senator from 1999 to 2007 (after serving as a Republican mayor in the highly Democratic city of Warwick for the previous six years), served as governor of Rhode Island from 2011 to 2015 as an independent, and ran for president in the 2016 cycle as a Democrat, on Wednesday will formally announce his intention to seek the Libertarian presidential nomination at an event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Chafee's campaign website says he intends to "Protect Our Freedoms" and "Tell The Truth" and promises that under a President Chafee...

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has filed to run for President as a libertarian in what appears to be a new long-shot White House bid following his failed campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2016. Chafee filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday to form the Lincoln Chafee for President campaign committee based in Wyoming. A website linked to Chafee's FEC filing states "Lincoln Leads with TRUTH" along with the phrase "Thirty Years, Zero Scandals." Chafee has spent most of his life as a Republican. He was nominated to his late father's Senate seat in 1999 and...

Former Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s unanticipated interest in running for his old U.S. Senate seat began with an email from two passionate supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. A 61-year-old retired chef and a 48-year-old real estate agent worried Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s votes were promoting an overly militaristic America. So in January they asked Chafee, a quirky Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat, whether he would be interested. Chafee has “been able to buck the party trends and look at the issues on the merits,” one of the writers, Jonathan Daly-Labelle, told The Associated Press recently. “Sheldon is a typical Democrat and locked into the...

Lincoln Chafee is deeply unimpressed with the press. The former Rhode Island governor and U.S. senator said Tuesday that his experience running in the Democratic primary last year reinforced his belief that reporters are bad at their jobs . . . Chafee is not just unimpressed with how reporters covered the 2016 primaries and general election. He is also annoyed with how they're covering the current administration. "It's just a full onslaught against [Trump], and I think it's just kind of tiresome," he said in reference to the press' ongoing negative coverage of the Trump administration. "He won. I didn't...

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ primary campaign was undermined by supposedly neutral party officials, according to a document snatched from Democratic National Committee by the hacker who calls himself “Guccifer 2.0.” The document shows that Clinton and the DNC have been working in together against Sanders from at least the spring of 2015. The document, dated May 26, 2015, shows that the DNC had already chosen Clinton as the party’s expected nominee and was going to work with reporters from mainstream outlets to downplay Clinton’s negatives and to highlight her positives throughout the course of the primary. The document was created...

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee withdrew Friday from the Democratic presidential race, further narrowing the already thin field of competitors facing front-runner Hillary Clinton. Chafee, who has struggled to gain traction in the polls, announced his decision at a Women's Leadership Forum conference where other candidates also were speaking. "After much thought I have decided to end my campaign for president today," Chafee said, while reminding the audience of his "prosperity through peace" campaign slogan. Appealing for less U.S. military intervention abroad, he said: "I would like to take this opportunity one last time to advocate for a chance...

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This week, former Rhode Island Senator and Governor Lincoln Chafee announced he is seeking the Democratic nomination for president in the 2016 election. A key factor in his decision to enter the race is “to bring the much-needed conversion of weights and measurements in this country into line with the metric system.” “The United States is seriously out of step with the rest of the world,” Chafee contended. “When everyone else is using meters and liters it is sheer arrogance for us to be using yards and gallons. It’s like we saying ‘we’re too good to lower ourselves to your...

Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee said Thursday on CNN that he's running for the Democratic nomination for president, just a week after announcing he formed an exploratory committee, his most definitive statement he's made toward formalizing a 2016 campaign. "Yes, that's why I'm running. Because I feel strong about where we're going as a country," Chafee told CNN's "New Day" on Thursday, when asked why he's been so critical of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. Chafee was asked by CNN's John Berman in the context of having not formally declared his presidential campaign. Chafee spokeswoman Debbie Rich said Chafee did...

Lincoln Chafee, a former governor and senator from Rhode Island, says he's exploring a run for the 2016 Democratic nomination. On a new web site, Chafee, who served as an independent as governor and a Republican in the United States Senate, says he's concerned about "international instability, especially in the Middle East and north Africa." "Throughout my career, I exercised good judgment on a wide range of high-pressure decisions, decisions that require level-headedness and careful foresight," he added. "Often these decisions came in the face of political adversity. During the next weeks and months I look forward to sharing with...

Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee (shown) has vetoed a bill that would have authorized the state to offer a “Choose Life” license plate to raise funds for a faith-based crisis pregnancy center in the state. The governor cited the First Amendment's supposed separation of church and state mandate that he insisted prohibited the state government from involving itself in such a campaign. The measure, which was approved by the Democrat-controlled state legislature earlier this month, would have allowed half of the $40 cost of the vehicle plates to go to Providence-based CareNet, a Christian crisis pregnancy center. Supporters said the...

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee says he didn’t just switch parties to earn brownie points among Democrats — he did so because of the changing dynamics of the Republican party. “The Southerners…just had a different view of where the Republican party should be and as a result the North Easteners and some of the other moderate Republicans slowly were taken out of the party, either by elections or by choice,” Chafee explained to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews on Thursday. “The shift occured down to the south. My dad [former Sen. John Chafee] lost his leadership position to Sen. Cochran from Mississippi,...

Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has notified senior Democratic Party officials that he intends to switch his party registration and join the Democratic Party, multiple sources familiar with Chafee’s decision told POLITICO. Chafee, a former GOP senator elected as an independent in 2010, has struggled with low approval ratings and faces a difficult reelection fight in 2014.

Rhode Island is poised to join nine other states and the District of Columbia in allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. Gov. Lincoln Chafee planned to sign gay marriage legislation into law Thursday evening, immediately following a final procedural vote in the state’s General Assembly. The outcome of the vote is not in doubt. Hundreds are expected to gather at the Statehouse to celebrate the new law, which has already passed the House and Senate once. The first weddings could take place Aug. 1, when the new law would take effect. …

Meet Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee: Former Republican, current Independent, future Democrat? In late December, Rhode Island’s six Republican state representatives (out of a total chamber of 75 members—no, that’s not a typo) announced an intriguing initiative. The state’s house minority leader declared that in the new year, his party would pursue an audacious plan to eliminate the Ocean State’s sales tax, which stands at 7 percent, among the nation’s highest. The elimination of the sales tax had been suggested by the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, the state’s premier (well, just about only) free-market think tank. The...

Gov. Lincoln Chafee (I-R.I.) told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that his administration calls the decorated evergreen tree erected in the Rhode Island State House in December a “holiday tree”—rather than a “Christmas tree”—because that is what the tree is traditionally called. … But Rhode Island State Rep. Doreen Costa, who has called Chafee “Governor Grinch,” told CNSNews.com that she doesn’t remember Chafee’s predecessor, Gov. (Donald) Carcieri, calling it a “holiday tree”—nor does she recall Carcieri’s predecessor, Gov. (Lincoln) Almond, calling the tree a “holiday tree.” … But Carcieri also referred to it as a “Christmas tree,” she said. … “Governor Chafee,...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - Gov. Lincoln Chafee will deliver a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention next week, joining other former Republicans in a push to burnish President Obama's bipartisan credentials before the November election. Chafee will deliver his seven-minute speech Tuesday evening, the first night of the convention in Charlotte, N.C., his office confirmed late Thursday. He'll speak between 8:30 and 9 p.m., shortly before first lady Michelle Obama. Just eight years ago Chafee was a Republican U.S. senator and thus a VIP at the Republicans' convention; now the independent governor is a co-chair of Democrat Obama's re-election...

PROVIDENCE – Monday was a day for gay and lesbian Rhode Islanders to whoop and cheer. They were cheering for Gov. Lincoln Chafee, who signed an executive order requiring the state to officially recognize the same-sex unions of couples who were married elsewhere but live here. At several points during his announcement, Chafee made it clear that he wants his action to be one step toward allowing full gay marriage rights in Rhode Island. “Are we overdue or what?” he asked the friendly audience. “The home of Roger Williams? C’mon, let’s go.” Several hands went up when the governor asked...

I’m not sure why ex-Senator and current Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee keeps getting elected, but I’m quite sure he offends me. I truly can’t stand seeing his face, and you don’t have to ask why. You see, that’s the way offensiveness is: It’s completely subjective and not constrained by rhyme or reason. Along with a lot of other people, however, I now certainly have one very logical reason to chafe at Chafee: His decision to call the 17-foot-tall blue spruce Christmas tree in his state capitol’s rotunda a “holiday tree” despite opposition from residents and lawmakers. This, mind you,...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Carolers singing "O Christmas Tree" crashed Rhode Island's Statehouse tree lighting on Tuesday after Gov. Lincoln Chafee unwrapped a holiday hubbub by calling the 17-foot spruce a "holiday" tree. Chafee insisted his word choice was inclusive and in keeping with Rhode Island's founding as a sanctuary for religious diversity. But his seasonal semantics incensed some lawmakers, the Roman Catholic Church and thousands of people who called his office to complain that the independent governor was trying to secularize Christmas. "He's trying to put our religion down," said Ken Schiano of Cranston, who came to the tree lighting...