Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 17
Monday, June 29, 2015
Between 1986 and 2006, Rhode Island ran a gauntlet of scandals that exposed corruption and aroused public rage. Protesters marched on the State House. Coalitions formed to fight for systemic changes. Under intense public pressure, lawmakers enacted historic laws and allowed voters to amend defects in the state’s constitution.
Since colonial times, the legislature had controlled state government. Governors were barred from making many executive appointments, and judges could never forget that on a single day in 1935 the General Assembly sacked the entire Supreme Court.
Without constitutional checks and balances, citizens suffered under single party control. Republicans ruled during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Democrats held sway from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. In their eras of unchecked control, both parties became corrupt.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTH Philip West's SECRETS & SCANDALS tells the inside story of events that shook Rhode Island’s culture of corruption, gave birth to the nation’s strongest ethics commission, and finally brought separation of powers in 2004. No single leader, no political party, no organization could have converted betrayals of public trust into historic reforms. But when citizen coalitions worked with dedicated public officials to address systemic failures, government changed.
Three times—in 2002, 2008, and 2013—Chicago’s Better Government Association has scored state laws that promote integrity, accountability, and government transparency. In 50-state rankings, Rhode Island ranked second twice and first in 2013—largely because of reforms reported in SECRETS & SCANDALS.
Each week, GoLocalProv will be running a chapter from SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, which chronicles major government reforms that took place during H. Philip West's years as executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island. The book is available from the local bookstores found HERE.
Chapter 17
Loose Ends (1992–93)
Within days of Bruce Sundlun’s re-election, we discovered that the former bomber pilot had outmaneuvered both the Senate and the reform community. Four months earlier, the crusty governor signed the revolving door bill into law. As legislators and lobbyists scattered for the summer and the marble hallways settled into stillness, Sundlun had quietly withdrawn his four judicial nominees and reappointed them as recess appointments.
For three nominees the governor’s move presented no problem, but the fourth was his executive counsel, Judith C. Savage. Her appointment flew in the face of the newly enacted Revolving Door Law, but those of us who should have noticed his move missed it entirely.
Two days after the 1992 election, I heard what Sundlun had done and raced to the State House. Brian Gallogly, one of Sundlun’s senior staff, tried to duck my questions but finally insisted Savage’s appointment was perfectly legal and had been duly reported in the Providence Journal.
“When?” I demanded.
“In July, when he made the appointment. You can look it up.”
Chagrinned, I rushed back to the Common Cause office, where our ethics committee had begun its monthly meeting. I told them about Savage, and all were shocked. No one remembered a newspaper story. We were talking about how Sundlun’s move would have cost him votes when the phone rang, and I picked up.
“Philip,” Bruce Sundlun roared at the sound of my voice. “Brian Gallogly says you just went ballistic about my judges.”
I excused myself, went into my office, and closed the door.
“I’m flying out in the morning for my vacation home in Jamaica,” Sundlun yelled. “I want you to cool down and keep this quiet until I get back.”
“Respectfully, Governor,” I stammered, “I’ve already told people at a meeting here.”
“How soon can you be in my office?” he demanded.
An hour later, Rae Condon and I met Sundlun in a tiny conference room beside his formal office. Indignant from the start, he asserted his legal right to proceed with the judicial nominations. He emphasized that he withdrew the four as legislative session appointments and then signed recess appointments instead. “They’re perfectly legal,” he declared triumphantly. “They were true interim appointments. The General Assembly was not in session. They’re valid until January.”
“Governor,” Condon said respectfully, “we acknowledge that technicality. But you must have had a reason to make important judicial appointments in July and then keep them quiet all these months.”
“I didn’t keep them quiet,” Sundlun growled. “There was a story in the Providence Journal.”
Condon met his glare with a steely smile. “These judicial appointments were so stealthy that no one seems to know about them.”
“Don’t blame me if you don’t read the goddamn paper. Besides, you know about them now. That’s why you’re here.”
Condon did not flinch. “Don’t you think people will conclude that you played fast and loose with the principle? They might even question your veracity.”
Sundlun scowled at her. “You know what I’m going to do? I’ll take your fucking Revolving Door Law, and I’ll challenge its constitutionality before the Rhode Island Supreme Court.”
Condon held his gaze. “Certainly, Governor, that’s your prerogative. But you campaigned as ‘the ethics governor,’ and you signed the Revolving Door Law.”
Sundlun held off several months on his threat to challenge the law he had signed. In January, he presented the four nominations as normal legislative session appointments. At Judith Savage’s confirmation hearing, I testified that her appointment violated the Revolving Door Law enacted only six months earlier. Yet whatever members of the Judiciary Committee may have thought, they voted to confirm all four of Sundlun’s judges. Reporter Russell Garland observed: “The journey of this quartet of nominees has been one of the strangest in Rhode Island history.”
Despite Sundlun’s triumph, he chafed against restrictions on his ability to appoint. He formally asked the state Supreme Court to advise him whether two rules were constitutional — both the Ethics Commission’s narrow 1991 revolving door ban on legislators moving into state jobs and the General Assembly’s broader 1992 revolving door statute. When a reporter asked for my opinion, I vented my frustration. “Why did he sign that bill if he thought it was unconstitutional? He could have vetoed it. I think the obvious reason he didn’t was because it was a hot issue when he was facing a primary challenge and a general election.”
On December 8, 1992, less than two years after the RISDIC tsunami surged through Rhode Island, Jeffrey Teitz convened a press conference to release his investigating panel’s final report. Volume one laid out the irresponsible lending practices of institutions insured by RISDIC, while volume two bore a title that said everything: “The Failure of Governmental Oversight.”
“There are no heroes here,” RISDIC special investigator Alan Baron told a small crowd. “Everybody was justifiably dealt a share of the blame.”
I thumbed through copies of the documents that ran hundreds of pages. My eyes went first to a summary chart that listed RISDIC officers and borrowers. Some were being referred for criminal prosecution; others could be sued for financial recovery. The investigators recommended indicting Robert and Donald Barbato, the Mob-connected developers who had drained more than $2 million from the Rhode Island Central Credit Union, but to my astonishment they did not suggest any public officials for criminal prosecution.
The report noted that Arlene Violet was the first to recognize the risk. She had summarized her warnings to DiPrete and others who failed to act: “The Governor and his staff appear to have viewed the Attorney General’s report more as a political hot potato than as an expert analysis of the viability of RISDIC and its insured institutions.”
Democrat Jim O’Neil, who had ousted Violet in the 1986 election, claimed not to have read Robert Stitt’s report until the crisis at Heritage Loan and Investment set the final collapse in motion.
Other sections blamed General Assembly leaders for their part in the crisis and found House leaders culpable of allowing Bob Bianchini to dominate General Assembly decisions that might have reined in RISDIC: “The evidence suggests that Bianchini was given a virtual veto over legislation affecting credit unions and certain other financial institutions.” Bianchini always claimed he had been scapegoated for RISDIC’s wrongs, but now the independent investigating panel led by his colleague, Jeffrey Teitz, portrayed him as a ringleader.
Investigators reserved their harshest criticism for Edward DiPrete, who had served as governor during the six crucial years when his efforts might have averted the cataclysm.
The commission ended its monumental effort with seven major recommendations that commissioners hoped would “strengthen Rhode Island’s regulatory capability.” It laid out practical steps to make the Department of Business Regulation more professional, proposed a financial crimes unit within the attorney general’s office, new state laws to combat fraud at financial institutions, and tighter restrictions on the financial activities of the five statewide general officers.
It also proposed two future studies: one to examine the fiscal soundness of the state’s insurance industry, including the system for insurance regulation, and a second to focus on the General Assembly, particularly the question of whether a full-time professional legislature might better serve the state.
In fact, that legislative study had already begun. One final act of the 1992 General Assembly had established a blue ribbon panel to study the legislature’s structure and operations. Departing House Speaker Joe DeAngelis and Senate Majority Leader John Bevilacqua had appointed sixteen commissioners. The group included academics, retiring legislators, business executives, a labor leader, a hospital CEO, and me. Our mission was to produce a “Blueprint for the General Assembly in the 21st Century.” Retiring House Minority Leader David W. Dumas, who served on the RISDIC commission, told the Providence Journal “that we really have come to a crossroads about whether or not you can continue with the sort of mob-scene citizen legislature that we now have, or whether we need to go to a smaller and much more professional body.”
So despite what I saw as the RISDIC panel’s failure to refer any public officials for criminal prosecution, few could accuse Teitz and his investigation of whitewashing the General Assembly’s abysmal performance and culpability for the disaster.
Commissioner Mary Rogers, a former state prosecutor, told reporters that the public would never have heard the RISDIC story in a “cohesive fashion” without the televised hearings. She suggested that people could not have grasped “how much the good old boys were helping each other out, how the credit union directors were acquiescing to such a tremendous volume of money being shipped out so carelessly, if not for seeing the hearings on TV.”
Rae Condon disagreed, writing in an op-ed that she saw the televised hearings as “the dark side” of an otherwise worthy investigation. She lamented that witnesses subpoenaed to testify on camera faced a severe disadvantage. They could claim the Fifth Amendment, but their lawyers “could not question them, could not produce witnesses to corroborate their testimony, and could not cross-examine other witnesses presented by the commission.” Condon added that “allegations, accusations, or insinuations of criminal conduct against specific individuals by government agents are not proper subjects for televised hearings or public reports. They are matters for prosecutors.”
Could both women be right? Certainly witnesses had been shamed, but some had escaped with bags full of other people’s money and would never face formal prosecution. The General Assembly had coddled RISDIC at Bob Bianchini’s behest and stacked state laws in its favor. Lawmakers had kept ethics laws so loose that Bianchini had escaped Robert Bergeron’s 1986 complaint on a technicality. I sensed that Bianchini’s faith in the credit union model and in RISDIC’s self-insurance had blinded him to its self-serving institutional culture, while his pique at Arlene Violet and Robert Stitt prevented him from doing what he could have done to avert the looming disaster.
As for DiPrete, he had given five hours of videotaped testimony before the commission and had not pled the Fifth Amendment, but his words might yet come back to haunt him. I believed he had mastered pay-to-play while serving as mayor of Cranston and brought that practice with him to the governor’s office. A year had passed since the Ethics Commission fined him $30,000. A Superior Court judge had upheld the commission’s decision, but his lawyers appealed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. A grand jury was deposing witnesses and weighing evidence against him. Was it remotely possible that DiPrete was telling the truth? Or had he learned to lie without a flicker of doubt disrupting his placid facade?
In August 1992, the Ethics Commission had been reduced from fifteen members to nine, all appointed by Gov. Bruce Sundlun. Five came from lists presented by General Assembly leaders, and four were his alone. I had waited in suspense for their names. Sundlun made no secret of his frustration with the Supreme Court’s unanimous June 10 ruling that the commission held constitutional authority to write ethics rules for all public officials, and I feared he would appoint his political allies to soften the nepotism and revolving door rules.
Reading the list let me relax, since four of them were stalwarts of ethics reform. Richard Morsilli, who had pushed resolutely to strengthen the nepotism rule and to ban revolving door jobs for members of the General Assembly, would chair the panel. I had never spoken with him outside the commission’s headquarters, but I sensed a moral courage that grew from grief after a drunk driver killed his son. Another, Mel Topf, once served on the Common Cause board. In 1991, Topf wrote the compelling memo that launched the old commission toward claiming its constitutional authority to adopt ethics rules.
Two courageous retirees from the old commission also appeared on Sundlun’s list. Frank Pellegrino, a retired high school principal from Westerly, had chaired the adjudicative panel that ruled against DiPrete and fined him $30,000. John O’Brien, former director of the Providence IRS office, would also be back.
Sundlun named two new ethics commissioners who had served on the RISDIC Investigating Commission. Stephen R. Famiglietti, a criminal defense lawyer, had often asked probing questions, and Jean E. Hicks, the commission’s only person of color, had founded and built New Visions, a respected social service agency in Newport’s troubled North End.
About the three other new appointees that Sundlun had chosen — William T. Nero, Dr. Richard A. Reuter, and Amanda H. Clark — I knew virtually nothing.
From day one, Morsilli signaled that the commission would be “proactive” in educating public officials and vigilant in enforcing the law. As manager of the Smith Barney Harris Upham brokerage in Providence, he understood the need for accurate financial data, and he was troubled that nearly a third of all public officials in Rhode Island routinely failed to file annual financial disclosure forms that were required by law.
When Mark Eckstein, the commission’s affable executive director since 1987, announced that he would move on, Morsilli made little effort to have him stay. Instead he appointed a search committee with Amanda Clark as its chairperson and the new panel cast a wide net. After the committee’s top choice for the job fell through, Clark phoned to ask what I thought of Sara Quinn as a candidate for executive director.
I had a high regard for Quinn, who had served with Rae Condon at the old Conflict of Interest Commission and followed her as executive director for the final year. I described Quinn’s 1987 bill to establish the Ethics Commission, which the General Assembly had buried, enacting a poor substitute. I said Quinn had been a leader in the Ethics Task Force that Gov. Sundlun had appointed to recommend changes in the ethics law. “Sara drafted the bulk of their final report,” I said. “That work vindicated her after the Ethics Commission passed up its chance to hire her as executive director in 1987.”
“So you think she’s qualified?”
“Absolutely.”
“Some people say she’s pretty zealous,” Clark said cautiously. “What do you think?”
I said Quinn saw things in black and white more than in shades of gray. “I believe she’s utterly committed to combating corruption. Sadly, that makes her stand out in Rhode Island.”
“But is she too zealous?”
I said “zealous” should not be a dirty word.
The conversation seemed to be over, but Clark changed the subject. “Before we get off,” she said. “Your name has been suggested.”
I felt stunned, humbled, and elated all at once, but I reminded her that I was not a lawyer.
“The job description says ‘law degree or professional equivalent.’ Our goal is to get the best director we can. Would you be interested?”
I said I had never even thought of applying. Within minutes of Clark’s call, Richard Morsilli phoned, urging me to submit a resume. Their back-to-back calls floored me, but the thought of running Rhode Island’s Ethics Commission appealed to me. Tepid public relations had often left the panel looking indecisive, and my work over four years had taught me volumes. From utter ignorance of ethics laws and the state’s fabled culture of corruption, I had learned the legal framework and procedures. The position paid more than triple what I was making at Common Cause. I said I would consider it.
Morsilli said I would need to decide over the weekend. “The personnel committee meets on Monday at three o’clock.”
It was Friday, one week before Christmas. In five days, Anne and I would drive to Florida, where her mother had recently died. Over supper, Anne raised some procedural questions that gave me pause. I told her I had no idea whether the commission had actually voted to reopen the search process. I thought the job required a “law degree or equivalent,” but in the flurry of events I had never gotten a copy of the job description. I asked her if I should let it go.
“You didn’t seek this,” she mused. “And you’re not a lawyer. But you’re more than qualified to manage an agency whose mission is ethics.”
Beyond college, I had a master’s degree: three years of full-time graduate study at Union Theological Seminary and one year at Cambridge University in England. During the 1970s in New York, I had managed a staff of thirty-eight and a budget greater than that of the Ethics Commission. Through four years in Rhode Island, I had worked with the commission and helped to rebuild it. I had been through the complaint process and had won grudging respect at the State House. Skilled attorneys would always be necessary for legal research and litigation, but I believed that strategic vision and political savvy might matter as much as a law degree.
On Monday morning, I drove to the commission’s office to deliver my resume and cover letter. A call came for an interview with the personnel committee that day. The full commission would meet the following afternoon. Few opportunities in my life had ever moved that fast.
Light snow fell as I drove south on I-95 for the interview with the entire commission. One year ago the adjudicative panel issued its unanimous decision that the former governor had violated the code and must pay a $30,000 fine. Now three members of the panel that judged DiPrete — Richard Morsilli, John O’Brien, and Frank Pellegrino — would interview me as members of the renewed commission. I had appeared before them as a complainant and often represented Common Cause in suggesting new initiatives or policies. Now the question would be whether I would implement plans on their behalf.
I suggested that one crucial responsibility of the new executive director would be to file complaints against public officials, initially in cases related to the RISDIC scandal. I said the RISDIC Commission had not referred any public officials for prosecution but that thousands of pages of transcripts contained chargeable conflicts of interest. I said I hoped the Ethics Commission would review those documents and use its power to file complaints.
Beyond initiating RISDIC-related complaints, I said I hoped the commission would guide citizens in filing complaints. I told how Rae Condon had mentored me in drafting the Common Cause complaint against Edward DiPrete. No matter who became director, I said, it was time to develop a citizen’s complaint kit with user-friendly forms, clear instructions, and sample complaints.
I drove back to the Common Cause office for our December board meeting. Over the weekend, I had called several members of our executive committee to let them know about my being considered for the top slot at the Ethics Commission. The board worked through a long agenda in preparation for the 1993 legislative session. Finally, under “new business,” I related the rush of events since the Friday morning phone calls.
Around the table, faces sagged. “They probably pay a lot more than we do,” said Cathy Speer, the president.
“Substantially more,” I said, “but that’s not why I would do this.”
I had not asked their permission, and the board had not affirmed my decision to apply. People lingered longer than usual after the meeting, but no one seemed shocked and most wished me good luck. Robert Spink Davis, a lawyer who had recently retired from Edwards & Angell, a major downtown firm, drew me aside. “I’ve never thought there was magic in a law degree,” he said gently, “but this is one position that could be particularly difficult without one. I hope you’ll think carefully before you go forward.”
The next morning, before Anne and I set out for Florida, we read a Providence Journal story whose lead described me as “a finalist” for the Ethics Commission post and as “a champion of ethics reform.” Reporter Thomas Frank noted that my application went in after the original deadline and that the commission had then postponed its decision. He mentioned that I was the only non-lawyer among four finalists but that I had been “behind many reforms that swept through state government this year,” including those that downsized the commission, opened its adjudicative hearings, and raised maximum penalties from $10,000 to $25,000 per violation.
Frank also profiled Sara M. Quinn as a lawyer for the Conflict of Interest Commission and then as its director for about a year before the Ethics Commission took its place. Frank noted that Quinn had “taken shots from legislators, who called her ‘overzealous.’” His story barely mentioned two other finalists, however. One had worked for Attorney General Jim O’Neil but was being dismissed by Jeff Pine; the other had been the director of the New York State Commission on Local Government Ethics, which was going out of existence.
During our long drive down the East Coast, Anne and I discussed this surprise opportunity at the Ethics Commission. Like astronauts on the far side of the moon, we had no contact with events in Rhode Island. In Florida, we comforted her father and were unaware that controversy had erupted in Rhode Island over my application.
The commission voted to extend its deadline and advertise again. As it turned out, two of the commissioners disagreed. “Something’s wrong here,” declared John O’Brien, the vice chair. He told the Providence Journal he had not been consulted about the new ad. “It all seems directed toward acquiring Mr. West as the director.”
Commissioner Mel Topf also objected: “The change broadens the language so that it would allow candidates like Phil West to apply.”
Louis A. Scudieri, an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor, filed an ethics complaint against Richard Morsilli for “clearly earmarking the position” to benefit me and for subverting the selection process. “If we’re going to have an Ethics Commission,” Scudieri told the newspaper, “everything they do must be ethical. Otherwise we’re pretty much lost.”
Morsilli told reporters he felt the director did not need a law degree “as long as the person under him has a law degree.”
Jim Baron, a reporter for the Pawtucket Times, reached me by phone while I visited my mother, who lived near Anne’s father in Florida. “Word is that they deep-sixed the law degree requirement for your benefit,” he said. “What’s your take on that?”
“I thought the ‘or professional equivalent’ was in from the beginning,” I told him. “Frankly, I hadn’t even considered applying.” I added that I had been backing Sara Quinn for the position when the question came up.
For much of our drive north Anne and I circled through the questions sparked by my application. On a quiet New Year’s Day in Providence, I scanned the newspapers that had piled up while we were away. It seemed that instead of helping the commission, I had become a lightning rod and caused embarrassment for Richard Morsilli.
I drafted a statement that rehearsed what happened and laid out my qualifications. I faxed it to media outlets. Most troubling, I wrote, was that Morsilli had become the target of an ethics complaint. The Providence Sunday Journal covered my rebuttal, ending with the commission’s new deadline for applications and its revised plans for choosing a director. Only days into the New Year, my chance to lead the Ethics Commission had turned sour, and events were taking a toll on people I trusted.
The Common Cause executive committee met on an unseasonably warm and rainy January afternoon. Natalie Joslin, who had achieved spectacular successes in recruiting new members and raising money, arrived first. Only moments later, our state president, Cathy Speer, shook out her umbrella. I had not seen either of them since the board meeting when I announced my application. Both were somber. Neither chided me, but the strain was palpable.
“I know you believe in the Ethics Commission,” Joslin said. “You’ve worked to make it effective, but the dynamics around your application are hurting its credibility and yours.” She spoke from a well of experience with the executive outplacement business she had built. “I don’t want to be selfish or hold you back from what you want to do,” she added, “but I can see that this is harming you, and I know it’s hurting Common Cause. Without public trust, we’re nothing.”
Mike Smith, who had worked in DiPrete’s office, arrived. He asked for a word in private before the meeting. “I know you’ve been in Florida with your family,” he said, “and far be it from me to tell you what to do. But I need to tell you confidentially that I’m hearing from people who respect and trust you that they’re disillusioned. I don’t think your rebuttal is turning the tide.”
During my years in the church, I often explained the concept of sin with an archery metaphor. The primary Greek verb for sin is hamartano, meaning “to miss the mark.” Sin is not always deliberate wrongdoing. It can also occur when we aim for a worthy goal but instead cause unintended harm. I sensed now that I had sent my arrow sailing beyond the target and missed the mark.
Spink Davis, a grandfatherly lawyer new to our board, lingered after the others left and asked for a private conversation. He followed me into my cluttered office and settled into my couch between a credenza piled with papers and a box of folders waiting to be filed.
“I know this ethics application has been gnawing at you,” he began gently. “You never meant to put Richard Morsilli into an embarrassing predicament. Nor did he mean to draw you off base.”
I nodded, listening.
“There’s a facet of this that you may not have considered. The administrative part of this job could become a tar pit for you. Any clerical slips or scheduling errors, and lawyers on the other side will tear you apart.”
With my heart sinking, I asked him to explain.
“You helped pass the law that requires a prompt finding of probable cause. Complaints have to move like clockwork, with systematic notice to counsel and all the rest.” He smiled. “You have numerous strengths, but timely attention to administrative detail is not among them.”
We both laughed. Like the seasoned lawyer he was, Davis seemed under no pressure to change my mind, but he rightly saw my central flaw. Without judging or threatening, he warned that my chaotic managerial style would eventually scuttle any leadership I could provide at the commission. “Be of good cheer,” he said kindly and pulled himself up. “I know you’ll make the right choice.”
His departure left a vast silence. I needed to leave for the State House but I had to think this through. I settled at my computer and began drafting a letter to the Ethics Commission. Words appeared on my screen as if by automatic writing: “I hereby withdraw my name from consideration as possible executive director. I feel particular sorrow that two well-intentioned phone calls, which prompted my application, may have also spawned a cloud of misperceptions. I withdraw because I doubt that this cloud can be dispelled while my resume remains on the table.”
Withdrawing lifted a burden I had felt but not understood. Reporters who called about my decision expressed surprise. I explained to Thomas Frank that the whole thing had happened innocently, but once the controversy began, no amount of public relations could make it right. I said the clumsy process provided a kind of weird proof that this was not a secret scheme. “If there had been an effort at collusion,” I said, “nobody would have done it this chaotic way.” I added that plenty of people were looking to undermine the commission’s credibility. I did not want to hand them more ammunition.
In the end, no one suffered lasting harm. The complaint Lou Scudieri filed against Richard Morsilli failed to allege any specific violation of the law, and many people seemed grateful that I had stepped away.
Reporter Brian Jones ended a Providence Journal piece on my withdrawal by describing “the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.” Jones wrote that he had asked what changed my mind. “West said he’d been meeting with Common Cause’s high command last Monday, and the session seemed like a wake. In the timbre of voices, the look on faces, even the skin tone of his colleagues, he felt the controversy’s effect.”
Jones wrote: “This is the difference, of course, between the good and the bad guys. The good guys listen, they care when people are hurt. They are able to look past their own bruised feelings, their own interests, and finally to do what’s right.
“The bad guys have to be rooted out by people, like those who serve on ethics commissions, looking at the details, measuring public conduct against public rules. The irony is that Phil West would have been just the kind of guy to do that.”
I wanted to believe that was true, but I also knew that a desire for self-justification lay just beneath what people saw as my reformist reputation. Maybe I could be as receptive as Bob Bianchini or Ed DiPrete to opportunities that would harm the very institutions I wanted to build. In reflecting later on all that had happened, I found myself particularly thankful for those whose questions had given me pause. Throughout our marriage, Anne had often pushed back when I rushed impetuously ahead. On our Florida trip, she had raised questions about administrative intricacies at the Ethics Commission, but I kept my foot on the gas.
Within Common Cause, Natalie Joslin, Cathy Speer, and Mike Smith had all tried to help me focus on the damage my rash application might inflict on the commission’s moral authority, not to mention the toll it was taking on our organization’s credibility. Spink Davis, ever the patient attorney, had tried on two separate occasions to warn that my loose administrative style might work at Common Cause but would fail at the Ethics Commission.
Even Mel Topf and John O’Brien, the commissioners who publicly challenged my candidacy, had not launched personal attacks. As much as their comments stung, they had tried to say that job requirements and application deadlines existed to protect the commission from chaos.
It made me wonder if Bob Bianchini and Ed DiPrete ever had equally supportive critics within their circles. Could anyone have convinced them to change course? Over coffee I asked Mike Smith, now vice president of the Common Cause board. He had grown up in Cranston and had worked for Ed DiPrete, developing policy and writing speeches. I asked him whether people on the governor’s staff understood the pay-to-play that DiPrete had run for years.
“Some may have been suspicious,” Smith said, “but I wasn’t. I look back and wonder now how I could have missed it. I can’t explain.”
I asked if, in retrospect, he saw other clues.
“One thing that should have clued me in was what the governor resisted saying in public.” Smith closed his eyes to dredge up memories. “I would write policy memos or speeches about the dangers of political influence that went with large campaign contributions. My drafts would come back with those portions crossed-off.”
I asked if the outcome for DiPrete might have been different if he had changed course in the late 1980s.
“Probably,” Smith said. “He could have announced that he would no longer do things in the old Rhode Island way. People in power who really change course can regain public trust. Even after all the headlines in the summer and fall of 1988, he won the election.”
“But he didn’t change course? He went deeper?”
Smith raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t see it then, but it looks that way.”
“When did you know it was too late?” I asked.
“Probably a year before the 1990 election. He couldn’t see the loss coming. He thought he could beat Sundlun a third time. By September of 1990, when he finally promised to make campaign finance reform a priority, it was too late. By then, nobody believed him.”
H. Philip West Jr. served from 1988 to 2006 as executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, chronicles major government reforms during those years.
He helped organize coalitions that led in passage of dozens of ethics and open government laws and five major amendments to the Rhode Island Constitution, including the 2004 Separation of Powers Amendment.
West hosted many delegations from the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program that came to learn about ethics and separation of powers. In 2000, he addressed a conference on government ethics laws in Tver, Russia. After retiring from Common Cause, he taught Ethics in Public Administration to graduate students at the University of Rhode Island.
Previously, West served as pastor of United Methodist churches and ran a settlement house on the Bowery in New York City. He helped with the delivery of medicines to victims of the South African-sponsored civil war in Mozambique and later assisted people displaced by Liberia’s civil war. He has been involved in developing affordable housing, day care centers, and other community services in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
West graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., received his masters degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and published biblical research he completed at Cambridge University in England. In 2007, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Rhode Island College.
Since 1965 he has been married to Anne Grant, an Emmy Award-winning writer, a nonprofit executive, and retired United Methodist pastor. They live in Providence and have two grown sons, including cover illustrator Lars Grant-West.
This electronic version of SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006 omits notes, which fill 92 pages in the printed text.
Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption
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- Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Thirteen
- Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Fourteen
- Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 15
- Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 16
