Chafee Getting ‘Rolled Over’ by the General Assembly—Says GOP Boss
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Governor Lincoln Chafee ended his first legislative session with vetoes issued on three bills—the lowest of any governor over the past decade.
Chafee may be avoiding an effort to confront state lawmakers, but instead he is “being rolled” over by a branch of government that has a history of overreaching its bounds, said the head of the state GOP.
“At the end of the day, he can say, ‘I don’t want to veto anything. It’s all kumbaya.’ I don’t call it kumbaya. I call it losing’” said Ken McKay, the state GOP chair and a former chief of staff to Chafee’s predecessor, Gov. Don Carcieri.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“If he’s got any nerve or pride he will stand up for Rhode Islanders, but this year he didn’t,” McKay added.
Lowest number of vetoes in a decade
State legislative records show that Chafee vetoed three bills. Two of those—a House and Senate version of the same legislation—were overridden the last night of the session. The vetoed bill was hardly high-profile—it exempted optometrists from certain requirements of insurance companies. The third veto was technical: Chafee decided to veto a House bill that was inadvertently different than the Senate version.
The three vetoes is a record for at least the past decade.
During his eight years in office, Carcieri typically vetoed between 30 and 50 bills a session. Even at his lowest year, his first in office, he issued a veto 11 times. The same goes for Lincoln Almond, who, in his final years in office handed down an average of 16 vetoes a year.
Sharp divisions avoided this year
House Speaker Gordon Fox told GoLocalProv that the low number of vetoes reflected the better relationship that Chafee, an independent, has with the Democratic legislature.
“I have enjoyed working with Governor Chafee and I have found him to be candid, honest and straight-forward. Even when we don’t agree, our conversations are always interesting and productive,” Fox said. “I believe that there were very few vetoes this year because we met on a weekly basis to discuss legislative matters and we understood each other’s perspectives on a number of important bills. I look forward to continuing our discussions to move our state forward.”
Former Brown University political scientist Darrell West said the close relationship Chafee built with the General Assembly leadership meant he had to use the veto less often.
“Governor Chafee has had good relations with the General Assembly,” said West, now a vice president at the Brookings Institution. “There has been consultation at various points during the legislative session, and this has helped to avoid the sharp divisions that characterized the Carcieri years. This has enabled Chafee to avoid having to veto as many bills as Governor Carcieri.”
Balance of power at risk?
McKay offered a different assessment of the last session. He found fault with Chafee for not fighting hard enough for one of his signature issues—expanding the sales tax—even though it’s one issue where McKay is relieved the General Assembly carried the day.
He said Chafee also let the General Assembly have its way on forming a development commission for the old Interstate 195 land, even though there were plenty of entities in the executive branch which could have handled the process, McKay said. “I worry about a weak governor not standing up to a branch of government that could throw our system off, especially when that branch of government in Rhode island has a history of overreaching,” McKay said.
During his campaign, Chafee made it clear that he wanted to set a different tone in the Statehouse, one that was less confrontational, said Brown University political scientist Wendy Schiller.
The fact that he is just months into office, Schiller added, gives him added incentive to avoid vetoes—and the potential embarrassment of an override that comes with them. “It sets a very bad precedent and it diminishes your influence,” Schiller said.
Chafee limited his options
In a sense, Chafee limited his options before he ever came into office, because he positioned himself as a moderate who wanted to work with the General Assembly, Schiller added. “He doesn’t have the opportunity to wield the veto while Carcieri did because he put himself in the middle,” she said.
Incoming governors and their administrations easily fall into the temptation to play nice with the General Assembly, only to find themselves getting played, McKay said. He pointed to the drama over the sales tax as the perfect example—saying the General Assembly leadership let Chafee take all the heat for the issue. McKay hopes the new governor shifts his conciliatory strategy.
“Otherwise we’re in for four years of malaise,” he said.
But John Marion, the head of Common Cause Rhode Island, said it may be too early to know if Chafee is making the best use of the veto.
Marion saw signs of a new level of cooperation and trust between the executive and legislative branches. He said the Assembly was more accommodating to Chafee’s wishes on certain legislation—especially on issues involving the separation of powers. For example, he said language requiring that the mayor of Warwick appoint a member to the board governing the airport was stripped out of bill. Gov. Carcieri had vetoed a similar bill last year that had that language in it. This year the bill became law without any threat of veto.
RI Gov one of weakest in country
Rhode Island is known for having one of the constitutionally weakest offices of governor in the country, ranking third from the bottom, according to a national study last year. That leaves the veto as one of the few checks the Governor has the legislative process. (The only other constitutional role for the Governor in the legislative process is the submission of the budget.)
“I think the veto is important. … That’s part of the checks and balances of our system. If the Governor didn’t have the veto he would be in a considerably weaker position in negotiating legislation,” said Gary Sasse, the former Director of the Department of Administration under Carcieri. “I think the main strength of it is not the use of it, but the threat to use it.”
Instead of letting it fall into disuse, Sasse said the use of the veto needs to be expanded. Rhode Island, like other states, should allow the Governor to have a line item veto, making the chief executive a part of the budget process and giving him a much-needed tool to rein in spending, Sasse said.
Editor's Note: Chafee's office declined to comment for this story.
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