Kenneth J. Block (born October 11, 1965) is an American businessman, software engineer, and political reformer. He is the founder of the Moderate Party of Rhode Island, the state's third-largest political party, and ran as the Moderate candidate for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2010 election. He ran for the Republican nomination in the 2014 gubernatorial election, losing to Cranston mayor Allan Fung, and is currently an independent candidate for governor in the 2026 election. He also served as president of RI Taxpayers, a taxpayer advocacy and watchdog group, until his resignation in May 2013 to mount a campaign for governor.
While leader of the Moderate Party, Block was an advocate for economic, educational, and political reforms in Rhode Island. His court battle to gain official state recognition for the Moderates in 2009 amended several laws he claimed were unconstitutional, and made it easier for third parties to gain signatures and access election ballots. In a highly contested four-way election, Block received 6.5% of the vote in the race.
Block emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of the Rhode Island General Assembly in the aftermath of the 2010 elections. He publicly opposed the controversial $75 million loan and subsequent taxpayer bailout of 38 Studios, the taxpayer-funded redevelopment the Superman Building, and introduction of the Sakonnet River Bridge toll. Block has also called for the elimination of the "master lever" from election ballots which he argues creates voter disenfranchisement and unfairly benefits larger political parties. He eventually created MasterLever.org to explain his position and enable the public to contact state officials via e-mail.
As a small business owner, Block has run several software companies which have worked with state governments to identify fraud and government waste in social service and welfare programs. In 1995, Block was able to save the state of Texas over $1 billion by developing a new statewide debit card system. Shortly after the 2010 election, Block offered his company's help free of charge to find waste and fraud in Rhode Island's entitlement programs. He was subsequently involved in the state's Medicare waste and fraud report as well as assisting the Providence Police Department's fraud unit to better access state records in late 2012. Police investigators have claimed that the new computer software will help detect millions of dollars in fraud.
Early life Kenneth J. Block was born and raised in Milford, Connecticut. The oldest of three children, Block's family lived in the same house as his grandparents. He graduated from Milford High School in 1983 and then attended Dartmouth College where he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science four years later. Block began his career writing software for Wall Street trading desks during the late 1980s. He was employed by the Bank of New England and worked at small software consultancy firms Dalcomp Corporation and LOBB Systems. In 1991, Block moved to Rhode Island to work for the Providence-based GTECH Corporation. Although initially a one-year consultancy, he stayed with the company for another six years. From 1995 to 1999, Block was president of Kinetic Consulting, Inc., a software consultation firm that worked with state agencies to identify government waste and abuse as well as improving the overall efficiency of their spending programs, until the company was closed during the dot-com bust period.
In 2001, Block founded Simpatico Software Systems, a data mining service used by government agencies and private businesses to track waste and fraud. Additionally, it supplies software services to the SNAP program. Similar to his first company, Simpatico Systems also provided engineering and consulting services. Its clients have included the EVERTEC and GTECH Corporations, Northrop Grumman, and the state government of Texas. In Texas, Block's company developed a statewide debit card system for food stamp and welfare recipients that saved the state more than $1 billion. Two years later he created a second company, Cross Alert Systems, which manufactures "intelligent" traffic systems for recreational trail and public road intersections.
Political career
In 2007, Block decided to enter the Rhode Island political scene. In later interviews, Block said that he entered politics out of frustration with the state government's inability to solve Rhode Island's declining economy and education system. He was particularly concerned that his children were not getting a quality education in public schools and, like many young Rhode Islanders, would eventually have to leave the state due to high unemployment. He also noted the difficulty for small business owners to operate in the state and that the high tax rate forced many companies to relocate to Massachusetts and elsewhere. As a longtime business owner himself, Block believed many of these problems could easily be fixed though basic fiscal responsibility and "common sense" leadership.
Disillusioned with both the Democratic and Republican parties, who he felt were more concerned battling over social issues, Block believed that starting a centrist-based third-party would be the best option. His political affiliation is unknown before 2007, however, Block has stated his admiration for former RI Governor Bruce Sundlun. A Brown University political poll reported that 74% of Rhode Islanders were dissatisfied with the state's political leadership and "would be supportive of a new moderate political party". A poll run by Block produced similar numbers. He reasoned that if his party could attract enough moderate voters, they would be able to put pressure on then Republican Governor Donald L. Carcieri and the Democrat-controlled General Assembly to address vital issues he felt were being neglected by the state.
The Moderate Party of Rhode Island was founded by Block a year later. An official website was launched in early-2008 and several candidates were endorsed in the general election - Jean Ann Guliano (D), John Pagliarini (R), Matt McHugh (I), and Christopher Little (I). On October 23, 2008, Block co-hosted Operation Clean Government's State of the State with former RI attorney general Arlene Violet interviewing all four candidates. Gaining official recognition by the state was "a fight and a half" according to Block. In February 2009, Block and American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the state to gain official party status. U.S. District Judge William Smith, striking down several ballot access laws as unconstitutional, ruled in the Moderate Party's favor three months later. The Moderate Party were able to collect over 34,000 signatures, the 12th highest number of signatures in the country, to qualify as a political party and were placed on the 2010 ballot. Afterwards, Block said that Rhode Island was the most difficult state to start a political party. The Moderate Party would find support from a number of prominent figures including former Hasbro CEO Alan G. Hassenfeld, Arlene Violet, and former U.S. Attorney Robert Clark Corrente, the latter briefly serving as party chairman.
2010 election
Block was the Moderate Party's candidate for Governor during the 2010 election. He had not intended to run for office, however, Block reluctantly stepped in after failing to find a suitable candidate in time. Block had developed an interest in civics and government while at Dartmouth College in the 1980s though he had no political experience prior to the campaign. He was successful in gaining the necessary signatures 1,000 registered voters to get on the ballot. His door-to-door campaigning in South Kingstown was included in a feature story for Rhode Island Monthly. Block was one of the candidates profiled on Fox Providence's The Rhode Show for its "Coffee with the Candidates" segment.
Block finished fourth in the statewide general election with 22,146 votes, garnering 6.5% of the vote. He followed Democrat Frank Caprio with 78,896 votes (23%), Republican John Robitaille with 114,911 votes (33.6%), and the winner, Independent Lincoln Chafee with 123,571 votes (36.1%). Though an impressive performance for a first-time candidate, Block was blamed for his part in the four-way race that allowed Chafee to win the election. The Republican Party of Rhode Island was particularly critical of Block for splitting the conservative vote, as Robitaille lost to the more liberal Chafee by less than 4% of the vote.
Post-election Block continued his political activism as leader of the Moderate Party, stressing the need for economic, educational, and governmental reforms. He made several guest appearances on Rhode Island PBS's public affairs television program A Lively Experiment and Operation Clean Government's State of the State. He began a movement to abolish the "master lever", and worked with the state to uncover fraud and waste in the state's welfare programs, going so far as to offer his company's services to Governor Chafee at no charge. In January 2013, Block began teaching a technology and business class as an adjunct professor at the University of Rhode Island.
An outspoken critic of the Rhode Island General Assembly, he challenged a number of controversial decisions made by the legislative body. While running for Governor, Block criticized the state's $75 million loan to 38 Studios, in exchange for the video game company moving its headquarters from Maynard, Massachusetts to Providence, Rhode Island, suggesting that the money would be better spent investing in local businesses. He was also strongly opposed to taxpayer-funded redevelopment of the Superman Building and the introduction of the Sakonnet River Bridge toll. Block called this most recent legislation by the assembly an "awful decision" and condemned the Rhode Island Democratic Party as "[proving] itself completely incapable of governing the state."
In November 2020, Block was hired by the presidential campaign of Donald Trump to hire him to find evidence of election fraud. Block wrote a book about his experiences titled Disproven, which was published March 12, 2024.
Combating fraud and government waste Shortly after the 2010 election, Democratic State Representative Lisa Baldelli-Hunt urged Governor Lincoln Chafee to contact Block about working with state agencies to uncover fraud in Rhode Island's Medicaid programs. In April 2011, Block volunteered his company's services free of charge to help the state identify waste and fraud in Health and Human Services spending. He was not able to testify in person before the House and Senate Finance Committee that month; a written statement was submitted into the record instead. Two months later, Block talked with both the Department of Human Services and the Department of Labor and Training about using his company's services free of charge. After several months negotiating with the Chafee administration, Block announced on WPRO's The John DePetro Show that his company was close to reaching an agreement to start working with state agencies to investigate waste and abuse in Rhode Island's welfare system.