Politifact rates candidates' statements

WPRI 12

Reporting by Andrew Adamson

Updated: Oct 24, 2012 9:09 PM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) -- Many races in Rhode Island are really beginning to heat up with less than two weeks until the election.

One of the most hotly-contested races is in Congressional District 1 between Democratic incumbent David Cicilline and Republican Challenger Brendan Doherty.

Our news partners at The Providence Journal seek to separate political fact from fiction with Politifact, which rates statements made by the candidates from true, to false, to "pants on fire".

The first quote analyzed came from Doherty in an interview question about his opponent. He said that "Congressman Cicilline, when he was the Mayor of Providence, espoused a sanctuary city."

"Some cities, for example, San Francisco, New Haven, have taken action to become sanctuary cities. Providence never did," said Tim Murphy from the Providence Journal. "In fact, Mayor Cicilline argued against those actions. Mr. Doherty never offered any evidence that Cicilline did this so we ruled this false."

The next statement comes from the congressman. In the Eyewitness News CD1 debate on Oct. 16, Cicilline said that "there are more oil rigs in operation in the United States than the rest of the world combined."

"Mr. Cicilline was relying on a study that found there were 1,800 oil rigs in the U.S., 1,600 in the rest of the world," said Murphy. "Unfortunately, that study did not count Russia and China, which has thousands of oil rigs. So that was just plain wrong. We found this false."

You can check the complete list of Politifact statements and ratings on ProvidenceJournal.com.

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