Between Governor Almond and his successor, Gov. Donald Carcieri, Republicans held the Rhode Island governorship for the longest period of time (16 years) since the 19th century. Gov. Almond prioritized health care, making significant expansions to the public children's health care program Rite Care and making Rhode Island among the states with the highest percentage of people having health insurance. Almond was also instrumental in the creation of the Community College of Rhode Island's Newport campus funded by a bond referendum passed with the Governor's support in 2000, and made major investments to improve and modernize the University of Rhode Island, his alma mater. When Almond was term-limited in 2002, conservative businessman Donald Carcieri defeated party-endorsed Jim Bennett in the Republican primary and then defeated 3rd-time Democratic nominee Myrth York to become Almond's successor, and was thrust into the national spotlight early in his term by The Station nightclub fire of February 2003. Carcieri's governorship was characterized by conflicts with the General Assembly and organized labor, as Carcieri often attacked the state government's expansive welfare programs and history of corruption but could do little to enact changes due to the Democrat-controlled Assembly's ability to override his vetoes. The Assembly also overrode Carcieri's vetoes of bills to legalize medical marijuana and make progress on LGBT civil rights issues. The latter position was particularly controversial with Rhode Islanders; the year of Carcieri's first election, 2002, was also the year that Providence elected the first openly homosexual mayor of a U.S. state capital, David Cicilline, in a landslide election, and Carcieri won reelection in 2006 against Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty by only 2 percentage points.