Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 20

Monday, July 20, 2015

H. Philip West Jr.

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.

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H 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.

Part 2
JUDGES AND LAWMAKERS

Chapter 20

Under New Management 1993

In sports and politics, John Harwood always played to win. Physically and mentally, he took his teams to new heights. In 1970, he had won the Providence Journal’s designation as state “Honor Roll Boy of the Year” for leading the Mount Saint Charles Academy “Mounties” to the state hockey championship and serving three years as class president. Muscular and handsome, he went on to star in varsity hockey and baseball at the University of Pennsylvania, winning All-Ivy League honors in both. But instead of pursuing a professional sports career, he earned graduate degrees in business administration and law. Long after his glory days on ice rinks and manicured ball fields, Harwood still played hardball. Only now his hits ricocheted through marble corridors at the State House.

In 1980, Harwood won a Pawtucket seat in the House of Representatives. He quickly learned the ropes, became a deputy majority leader, and set his sights on what many considered the most powerful political position in Rhode Island: speaker of the House.

Late in 1987, rumors flew that Speaker Matthew J. Smith would take a lucrative job as the top state court administrator and pass his gavel to Joseph DeAngelis, his loyal majority leader. Harwood launched a challenge, promising to shift power from leadership to rank-and-file representatives. He defied the odds, insisting his team could win, but DeAngelis triumphed with a three-to-one margin in the Democrats’ caucus. He then prevailed in the full House, where nineteen Republicans cast symbolic votes for Minority Leader Bradford Gorham.

On the last night of the 1992 legislative session, I bumped into Harwood and his alter ego, George Caruolo, a brilliant but gruff representative from East Providence. As the three of us waited outside John Bevilacqua’s office, I sensed buoyant energy in Harwood and Caruolo. “Everyone else in the building is exhausted,” I said, “but you look like you’re raring to go.”

Harwood smiled broadly. “A year from now,” he told me with unabashed self-confidence, “we’ll be running the House.”

Caruolo feigned shock, then smiled broadly.

Five months later, that goal lay within their reach. After a turbulent November election, no one was sure how many Democrats would fall in line behind Harwood or Warwick Rep. Russell Bramley, who was heir apparent to the departed Speaker Joe DeAngelis.

A week after the 1992 election, Bramley summoned the eighty-five House Democrats to a caucus at the State House. Harwood countered by inviting them to gather at the same hour in East Providence. Forty-three went to Bramley’s caucus and forty-two to Harwood’s. The Bramley faction elected Nancy Benoit as the first female majority leader in Rhode Island’s history. The Harwood Democrats chose Caruolo. Bramley’s razor-thin majority created a rare chance for Republicans to decide in January who would become the state’s most powerful politician.

A prime sponsor of the Revolving Door Law, Benoit claimed the mantle of reform. She moved into the majority leader’s suite, mounted photos on the walls, and hosted a welcome party. The next day three Bramley backers absconded to Harwood’s camp.

The Providence Journal plunged into the melee with an editorial that reminded readers how Harwood had pushed legislation that enriched his law firm. Years earlier, a motorcyclist tried to outrun a police cruiser but crashed and died. On behalf of the dead man’s mother and his estate, Harwood accused the cops who chased him of negligence and sued the town. With that case pending in court, Harwood filed a bill to raise the limit on tort recovery from a municipality fifty-fold, from $100,000 to five million dollars. The Journal ’s editorial noted that Harwood’s bill had passed the General Assembly but was vetoed by Gov. DiPrete. The editors concluded: “Now the question becomes whether Mr. Harwood’s actions in this case reflect the kind of values that House members should seek in the next speaker.”

Harwood had pushed other bills that enriched his clients and law practice. A 12-year-old had been working on a go-cart when he was sprayed by flaming gasoline. After six weeks in a hospital, the boy died, and Harwood sued his parents on behalf of their son’s estate, charging that they had been negligent in exposing him to “explosive and deadly conditions.” In his capacity as a state representative, Harwood filed legislation that allowed children to sue their parents. In effect, his bill allowed the dead child’s estate to reach a settlement with the parents’ insurance company. The grieving parents were found negligent but profited handsomely, as did their lawyer. The insurance company’s lawyer blasted Harwood’s legislation as “a bill put in to assist them in skinning Amica Insurance for $230,000.”

Providence Journal reporter Katherine Gregg delved into the legislative records of Harwood and Bramley. She wrote that both had engaged in “cozy, self-serving practices that pervaded the General Assembly for decades before the banking debacle and other recent scandals blew the lid off.” But, she noted, “Harwood, unlike Bramley, sponsored bills that benefitted his own clients. Harwood also championed some of the most controversial pension bills the Assembly considered in the past decade,” including one that allowed union leaders to buy their way into the state pension system at bargain basement rates.

The RISDIC Investigating Commission had already faulted Harwood’s 1985 bill that enlarged the credit unions’ mission from “promoting thrift to promoting economic development.” That move, among a series of incremental changes in state law, opened the floodgates for the thrifts to make risky commercial loans. Bramley brandished the ethics sword against Harwood, calling for the Ethics Commission to investigate whether his rival had violated conflict-of-interest laws to help his own clients. At a State House news conference, Bramley declared: “His actions fly in the face of the ethics laws, and his statement that his actions were proper then and are proper now demonstrate that Mr. Harwood just doesn’t get it.”

But ethics charges based on past offenses counted for little in the hard-checking contest for speaker. Caruolo demanded that Bramley concede for the sake of Democratic unity. With Democrats split, fifteen Republican votes could control the outcome. The minority caucus weighed Harwood’s ethical breaches against his promise to let them block the suspension of House rules. Minority Leader Wayne Salisbury told reporters that the practice of shelving the rules had often opened the door for questionable bills to pass.

On January 5, 1993, Gov. Bruce Sundlun was inaugurated for his second term, which would also be Rhode Island’s last two-year gubernatorial term. Harwood and Bramley marched side by side in the inaugural procession, followed by Caruolo and Benoit. An hour later, when representatives convened in their grandiose chamber, Harwood won the speakership with 60 votes: 45 Democrats and 15 Republicans. He promised to rebuild trust and cooperation. Pundits noted that this was the first time in the state’s modern political history that a faction of Democrats had aligned with Republicans to elect a speaker.

George Caruolo ousted Nancy Benoit as majority leader. Harwood appointed Rep. Charles T. Knowles to the coveted post of Judiciary Committee chair, evicting Jeffrey Teitz from his office and from the powerful committee he had chaired for a decade. As a consolation prize, Harwood named Teitz to a newly created post — chief of policy — with no clear description or powers.

“At least I’ll have an office,” Teitz told me with a smile. “I have no doubt that I’ll find worthwhile things to do.”

“But will you have any power to do them?” I asked.

“That remains to be seen,” said Teitz.

Harwood had won the speakership on promises to ensure a more open legislative process, where representatives could expect hearings on their priority bills. “We’re going to listen to ideas from everybody,” he told reporter Scott MacKay. Paul S. Kelly, the new Senate majority leader, also pledged an open legislative process. “A senator shouldn’t have to sell his soul to get his or her bill heard,” Kelly told reporters, explicitly rejecting the negotiations and deal making that had been standard under Bevilacqua’s leadership.

 

The Unclassified Pay Plan Board was an obscure vessel in the state’s fleet. Often called “the pay board” or by its unpronounceable acronym, the UPPB controlled the salaries of top officials across state government, not to mention hundreds of low-salaried administrative workers. Early in 1993, a rogue wave swamped the ship.

Responsibility for salary scales had begun in the 1950s in an office that was purely executive. In 1973, the General Assembly created the Unclassified Pay Plan Board, comprised of the director of administration, general treasurer, and budget officer, with chairs of the House and Senate Finance committees as nonvoting members. In 1978, while he was speaker of the House, Matthew Smith rammed through a new law that transformed the UPPB. He added a top court administrator to the board, doubled the number of legislators, and let them all vote. Suddenly, with four of seven votes in the Unclassified Pay Plan Board, state legislative leaders controlled job creation and salaries for about 2,500 “unclassified” appointees at all levels of state government. This new power over top executive and judicial salaries, gave House and Senate leaders immense leverage with department directors, regulators, and judges.

Matthew Smith had orchestrated these changes, appointed himself to the pay board, and arranged his election as its chairperson. In 1988 he moved from being speaker of the House to administrator of the state court system, and he continued to run the Unclassified Pay Plan Board until December 1992.

When John Harwood and Paul Kelly gained control of their chambers Smith’s control of the pay board ended abruptly. The new speaker and Senate majority leader quickly named new legislators to the UPPB. Harwood appointed Reps. Antonio Pires and Joseph DeLorenzo, while Kelly chose Sens. Charles Fogarty and Charles Walton. Rhode Island’s new general treasurer, Nancy Mayer, who had campaigned against Smith’s role in RISDIC, occupied a fifth seat. Once all-powerful, Smith found himself suddenly surrounded by political opponents who had long chafed under his rule.

The previous summer, when Matthew Smith’s power seemed unassailable, he had presided over routine votes that quietly created twenty-two new unclassified jobs, awarded steep mid-year pay raises to thirty-seven favored employees, and slipped his son Andrew into a state job. A prime player in those transactions was Leo Skenyon, who had managed Bruce Sundlun’s 1986 campaign, later served on the governor’s staff, and now ran the state’s troubled traffic court, which got fourteen of the twenty-two new workers, including Matthew Smith’s son. In contrast to 4.5 percent raises that would go to ordinary state workers, Skenyon got 24.5 percent, partly on his promise that service would improve; he seemed unaware that traffic court was speeding toward a crash.

In December 1992, Matthew Smith presided over routine votes that confirmed the summer pay raises and new hires. The pay board also made Andrew Smith’s temporary job permanent.

Under state law, actions of the Unclassified Pay Plan Board were merely advisory, since the governor could approve, modify, or reject its recommendations within thirty days. The General Assembly could also reject the UPPB’s actions but had never done so.

Shortly after he became speaker, John Harwood demanded that Sundlun block the raises Smith had pushed through. “The actions of the Unclassified Pay Plan Board are not only unreasonable and illogical,” the new speaker declared, “they are an affront to every decent citizen.” Paul Kelly called the raises “unconscionable.” Accordingly Sundlun vetoed the raises but let the new jobs stand.

With his foes controlling the Unclassified Pay Plan Board, Matthew Smith’s secret machinations began leaking into public view. Always tenacious in her questions, Kathy Gregg pushed Skenyon to explain the hiring of Andrew Smith. Skenyon admitted hiring the young man but claimed not to have known he was the son of the pay board’s chairman, court administrator, and former speaker. “With a name like Smith,” Skenyon told her, “it didn’t dawn on me.”

The next secret revealed a favor Matty Smith had done for his old friend, State Auditor General Anthony Piccirilli. As administrator of the state court system, Smith ignored the fact that Piccirilli’s son — also named Anthony Piccirilli — had drug problems and a recent criminal conviction for passing a bad check. He hired the younger Piccirilli and put him in charge of the court system’s fund for victim restitution. An alert auditor soon discovered $4,200 missing from the restitution fund, but instead of firing the young Piccirilli and calling the police, Smith covered it up. Two cashiers’ checks — an untraceable repayment totaling $4,224.50 — were mysteriously deposited in the restitution account.

When confronted by investigative reporters John Sullivan and Dean Starkman, Smith admitted that he had approved the replenishments. He explained that the young man had a substance abuse problem and that state personnel policy prevented his being arrested for the crime. “That was my interpretation of our drug policy,” Smith told the reporters. Then, in a classic use of passive voice, he added: “The decision was made to get him some help first — to save an employee’s life.”

Smith’s cover-up resonated with the loyalty and compassion that undergirded his political success. Quiet favors were the coin of his realm. Once exposed, Smith claimed absolution under ordinary human decency. “Anyone who looks at this objectively,” Smith told reporter Scott MacKay, “will understand the steps I took and exactly why I took them.”

While questions of restitution and cover-up sizzled, secret pension deals suddenly burst into headlines. Many problem bills had been enacted while Smith was speaker of the House. One allowed a state representative’s widow to collect for three legislative sessions after her husband died; another let Smith’s sister, Rose Reynolds, buy pension credits for a ten-year maternity leave from teaching; others permitted purchases of public pension credits for years of teaching at parochial schools. Katherine Gregg reported that over the previous two decades, 174 favored people had been allowed to invest $721,309 that would return almost four million dollars in pension benefits.

No matter how outrageous and costly, those special pension bills had been legally enacted, and Smith could not be prosecuted for greasing their passage. Nor could he be punished for forming a real estate partnership with his close friend, Chief Justice Thomas F. Fay. With three other partners, Smith and Fay had constructed a lawyer-friendly office complex only a half-mile from property the state was pondering for a new regional courthouse. When questioned by a reporter, Smith insisted that the proposed courthouse was years from completion and would not have “any direct effect” on the offices he and Fay owned nearby. Chief Justice Fay denied any conflict: “I didn’t lose any constitutional rights to make an investment when I became a judge.”

Rhode Island’s new attorney general, Jeffrey B. Pine, had no grounds to prosecute the special pensions or the well-situated office building, but he ordered the state police to investigate young Anthony Piccirilli’s alleged theft and Smith’s obvious cover-up. Pine made an extraordinary public announcement that he would convene a statewide grand jury, but skeptics wondered whether anything would come of his probe. Over the years, Smith had maneuvered deals involving conflicts of interest and favoritism that had cost taxpayers millions. Like escape artist Harry Houdini, he seemed to slip out of the most cleverly devised entanglements. He offered to resign but stayed on, apparently invincible.

 

Rhode Island was one of only three states, along with South Carolina and Virginia, where lawmakers still chose justices of the Supreme Court. The Royal Charter of 1663 granted the General Assembly vast powers, including the authority to name judges. For 330 years lawmakers had elevated every justice who sat on the state’s Supreme Court. Under a process called “the Grand Committee,” senators convened with representatives to elect each new justice. In 1935, victorious Democrats had used the Grand Committee process to sack the entire Supreme Court. They promptly chose five new justices who affirmed their political coup.

In September 1992, Supreme Court Justice Thomas F. Kelleher retired. As their predecessors had for three centuries, Joseph DeAngelis and John Bevilacqua summoned lawmakers to the State House to elect a new justice “in Grand Committee.” But the RISDIC tsunami had swept away business as usual. In their separate chambers, lawmakers debated whether the momentous choice of a new justice should wait until after the November election. Senators split evenly over going into Grand Committee: eighteen in favor and an equal number opposed. Lt. Gov. Roger N. Begin, cast a tie-breaking vote to fill the vacancy, but it made no difference. Across the rotunda, representatives in the House voted to adjourn, leaving the post unfilled. Then, in January 1993, the prospect of a second vacancy arose. Justice Joseph R. Weisberger, already seventy-three, announced that he would retire and take a less demanding position with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

These two looming vacancies galvanized an odd coalition. Despite differences in their memberships and missions, the Rhode Island Bar Association and Common Cause had been trying for years to wring politics out of judicial selection. Both organizations favored a process developed fifty years earlier in Missouri where, during the Great Depression, reformers had pioneered a process they called “merit selection of judges.” Fed up with corrupt judicial elections, Missourians had proposed a nonpartisan judicial nominating commission to evaluate applicants for judgeships. The panel would select three highly qualified candidates for each vacancy and present these names to the governor, who was required to appoint from that list. In 1940, a coalition of reform groups mounted a petition drive to place a constitutional amendment on Missouri’s statewide ballot. Voters amended the state’s Constitution. Although lawmakers tried to rescind merit selection and restore judicial elections, an overwhelming majority of Missouri voters held their ground.

During the next half-century, voters in thirty-four other states adopted variations of what became known as “the Missouri Plan.” No state that adopted merit selection went back to its earlier process for picking judges.

Over several years, Rhode Island’s Bar Association and Common Cause had each filed proposals for a similar way of selecting of Rhode Island judges. Few pieces of legislation were less welcome in the General Assembly. Legislative committees stonewalled merit selection bills, and newspapers gave them almost no ink. Without a voter initiative process, Rhode Islanders had no way to go around the General Assembly, as Missourians had done in 1940. However, the prospect that the Grand Committee would elect two new Supreme Court justices brought the Bar Association and Common Cause together to try again. The League of Women Voters and Operation Clean Sweep joined the effort.

The booming courtroom voice of attorney Alan Flink filled our drab Common Cause office. Flink had just finished his term as Bar Association president. “To tell the truth,” he intoned, “most lawyers think promoting merit selection is a fool’s errand, but respectfully I disagree. With enough pressure, the entire edifice of Grand Committee elections could keel over.”

Charlie Silverman, now the leader of Operation Clean Sweep, agreed with the concept of merit selection but had his doubts. “John Harwood and Paul Kelly are consolidating control of their chambers. Won’t they just cling to the Grand Committee?”

“They may try,” Flink said, “but we should push back hard and demand that they fix the process.”

Sponsors had already introduced bills drafted by the Bar Association and Common Cause. Around the table, we studied them and highlighted our common ground. Both organizations wanted a judicial nominating commission that would be appointed by the governor. The Bar Association would nominate lawyers; legislative leaders would propose non-lawyers. No current officeholders or recent political candidates would be allowed on the panel.

Flink smiled mischievously. “The General Assembly leadership won’t like having the Bar Association nominate commissioners.”

“In all honesty,” said Mary Alyce Gasbarro, now president of the state’s League of Women Voters, “the League hasn’t taken a position on whether the Bar Association should name people to the nominating commission. But we agree absolutely on keeping commissioners at arm’s length from politics.”

Unlike the closed-door confidentiality of Missouri’s commission, all agreed that Rhode Island’s judicial nominating process must be transparent and public. Any lawyer should be able to apply for any judgeship. The judicial nominating commission should interview candidates in public session. We all favored language from the American Judicature Society that the commission should present from three to five “highly qualified” candidates for each judicial vacancy. The governor should receive the list, interview the candidates, and appoint one person. As in the federal system, the Senate should then confirm or reject that candidate.

Most important, we agreed the new process should require every judicial candidate in Rhode Island — from the Traffic Tribunal to the Supreme Court — to undergo merit selection.

“I love this idea,” Charlie Silverman said, “but I’m a realist. I just don’t see how we get it done.”

Tom Banchoff, a math professor from Brown University, now chaired the Common Cause judicial reform committee. “We need to look for variables that could make this situation break our way,” he said.

“What variables?” Silverman asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Banchoff. “Think of the RISDIC scandal, the whole list of reforms enacted in 1992, and the fact that DeAngelis and Bevilacqua couldn’t persuade their troops to fill the Kelleher vacancy. These seem like disparate events, but any of these could become catalysts for bigger changes. We may think that because things happened a certain way last week, we’ll see similar results tomorrow. In reality, small variations in one variable may produce dramatically different results.”

 

In March 1993, I watched from a gallery as the fifty state senators traipsed into the House chamber and filled seats along the walls. Roughly a hundred representatives settled themselves behind their hardwood desks in curved rows. A clerk read aloud the announcement of Grand Committee, then called the roll.

House Majority Leader George Caruolo rose to his feet at his desk near the front. Tethered by a microphone cord, he moved to adopt rules for the Grand Committee. “Under the rules we’re proposing,” he said with a grin, “any member of the General Assembly is welcome to place any name in nomination. The rules allow ten-minute nominating speeches and two-minute seconding statements.” He explained that all nominations would go to a joint meeting of the House and Senate judiciary committees. “Let’s be clear,” Caruolo continued, “these rules give everyone an opportunity to speak, but our aim is to keep the process positive and dignified. If you wish to praise or criticize any of the candidates, the proper forum will be in the joint hearing of the judiciary committees.”

Caruolo batted away several proposed amendments and won approval of the Grand Committee rules in a droning roll call vote.

Nominating speeches began with Jack Revens endorsing Family Court Judge Raymond E. Shawcross, who had been counsel to the House leadership before he swung through the revolving door and onto the court. Harwood ally Antonio J. Pires nominated Superior Court Judge John P. Bourcier, whose moniker was “Maximum John” for the tough sentences he meted out.

After four years of being isolated and ignored by the House leadership under DeAngelis, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy had come into his own with Harwood. On his feet with a microphone, he nominated a former senator, Victoria Santopietro Lederberg, clearly relishing the honor of naming her. The odds among lobbyists were that she was Harwood’s pick.

Rep. Paul Sherlock nominated Peter J. McGinn, a lobbyist for Fleet Bank, Brown University, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Anheuser-Busch. McGinn had gone gray before his time and moved in wraithlike silence through crowds of lobbyists, seldom making small talk. Another Harwood ally, Vincent J. Mesolella Jr., the deputy House majority whip, rose to nominate Superior Court Judge Vincent A. Ragosta. A lobbyist at my shoulder in the gallery whispered that Ragosta was Mesolella’s cousin. “Ragosta has no chance,” the lobbyist whispered. “Vinny’s just honoring him.”

Two women lawmakers nominated Family Court Judge Pamela M. Mactaz and District Court Judge Patricia D. Moore for the high court. The lobbyist beside me said confidently that neither was a real contender. Next Rep. Linda Kushner rose at her desk to nominate Lauren Jones. Less than a year had passed since Jones argued Common Cause’s “friend of the court” brief before the Supreme Court. Jones loved legal ideas, wrote with elegant clarity, and seemed not to fear retaliation. I admired him, but doubted that legislators would elevate a lawyer whose arguments had clipped their authority to write ethics rules.

Other nominations followed, and the Grand Committee adjourned amid a hubbub of talk and handshaking in the aisles. In the hallway afterward, Rep. Frank Gaschen, slim and prematurely graying, vented to me in a whisper. “Can you believe they’re pushing Lederberg? Can you imagine? They’re going to ram her through despite her lack of credentials!”

“Why?”

Gaschen guffawed. “Because she shifted a few votes that made Harwood speaker. I wouldn’t mind if she were even remotely qualified, but she’s not.” Gaschen reiterated his complaint to reporters.

Others recognized Lederberg’s political clout but thought her unqualified. Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Needham called reporters to his courtroom. He affirmed her as a psychology professor at Rhode Island College and “one of our very distinguished educators.” But, Needham groused, she had never tried a case, never practiced law, and never solicited clients. “If I were a candidate today,” Needham declared, “I would be offended.” Bruce Sundlun joined the chorus. “Vicki, whom I know personally and like, has no experience in the court system. That lack of experience is not fair to the litigants; it is not fair to the other members of the court.” He declared that a seat on the Supreme Court was not “an academic position.”

Lederberg fired back, insisting to the Providence Journal that she was the “best qualified” of all the candidates. She acknowledged never trying a case before a judge or jury but had presided in Providence Municipal Court. “Judge Needham is responding to the fact that I am not a clone of the judges on the Supreme Court,” Lederberg said. “I’m not one of the mold. I think that’s an advantage. I’m a very independent-minded person. I make my own decisions. That has often gotten me into trouble.”

Presiding Justice Joseph F. Rodgers Jr. of the Superior Court shocked many by firing a salvo. “She’s never appeared before the Supreme, Superior, Family, District Court or Workers’ Compensation Court,” Rodgers announced in a thick Rhode Island accent. “It is preposterous to say that she is now qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.” Rodgers also made light of her service with two other part-time judges on the Providence Municipal Court: “Each sits one out of every three weeks. They handle overtime parking, runaway dogs, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct cases.”

A phalanx of women mounted a press conference on the courthouse steps to protest these unprecedented attacks by male judges. At a joint hearing of the House and Senate judiciary committees, Patrick Kennedy voiced raw indignation toward Lederberg’s critics: “I find it interesting that her detractors overlook that she was a state legislator. She was the original sponsor of our Open Meetings Law and our Conflict of Interest Law. Are they against her because she was an independent voice? Is it because she doesn’t go along to get along? Is it because she is not a member of the old boy network?”

For three hours, a parade of influential witnesses defended Lederberg: the dean of the new law school at Roger Williams University, a former Providence police chief, the chief judge of the Providence Municipal Court, a retired Providence Journal editorial writer, and former Atty. Gen. Dennis J. Roberts II. One lone lawyer, Matthew Callaghan, urged the legislators to reject Lederberg’s nomination. “I have some questions about someone who practices law part time,” he said, adding that she was not even listed as an attorney “in the White Pages or Yellow Pages.”

Finally, Victoria Lederberg spoke for herself. A petite woman with close-cropped hair, she greeted the combined judiciary committees like old friends. Without sounding defensive or haughty, she insisted quietly that she possessed the qualifications, judicial temperament, and demeanor to handle cases that come before the Supreme Court.

“I am very much in the camp of the reformers,” she said, calmly reprising Patrick Kennedy’s points about her role in passage of open government and ethics legislation. She noted that she had spent fourteen years in the General Assembly writing laws and was ready to interpret laws on the Supreme Court. “I’m someone who comes in from outside the system,” she continued. “I know I’m nontraditional, but I think that’s a great strength. I think that would be good for the system. And I know I can do the job.”

As the furor over Lederberg’s nomination continued, the Rhode Island Bar Association also weighed in on Judge John Bourcier. Bruce Pollock, the group’s president, reported a survey sent to four thousand lawyers and answered by six hundred. The query had asked attorneys to rate the candidates on criteria for judicial selection established by the American Judicature Society: impartiality, judicial temperament, industry, integrity, professional skills, and overall rating. Pollock announced that 95 percent of those who said they knew Bourcier rated him as “qualified” or “highly qualified.” Pollock insisted the Bar Association was not biased against a female candidate, noting that lawyers gave Family Court Judge Pamela M. Mactaz an overall rating of 87 percent and District Court Judge Patricia Moore 84 percent. Lederberg, he said, was second from the bottom, with an overall rating of 29 percent. He added that although the survey was not scientific, he believed it fairly reflected the opinions of Rhode Island attorneys.  

John Harwood never announced his pick for the Supreme Court vacancy, but it was rumored around the State House that he would vote for Lederberg. The hallways teemed with reasons for Harwood’s apparent choice. Several representatives affirmed confidentially what Frank Gaschen had declared openly: in the recent fight to become House speaker, Lederberg had swung crucial votes to Harwood.

On the day the Grand Committee assembled to vote, I was in Washington for a Common Cause conference. After dinner and an evening session, I found the phone in my hotel room blinking. Tom Banchoff, who chaired our judicial reform committee, had left a message. “No need to call back,” he said. “I just thought you would want to know that the Grand Committee elected Victoria Lederberg to the Supreme Court this afternoon.” All fifty senators and one hundred reps had been present. Lederberg won on the second ballot. “You won’t be surprised,” Banchoff added, “that Harwood and his leadership team all voted for her. I think this bizarre process reinforces our case for merit selection.”

Editorial writers slammed the Grand Committee. “There’s a better way,” the Providence Journal declared. But the editors still preferred direct gubernatorial appointment rather than merit selection. Meanwhile the Woonsocket Call blasted the Grand Committee for producing a high court where all five members were former legislators, declaring flatly: “The system does not work, and won’t as long as politicians are so heavily involved.” The Call also described the Common Cause proposal for an independent commission and cited the support of all the state’s reform groups.

From the southern end of Rhode Island, the Newport Daily News opined, “It takes political connections to become a judge in Rhode Island.” Its editors then scorned both the Grand Committee process and the judicial screening panel Sundlun had appointed, saying, “Decisions are made in back rooms as political rewards. For obvious reasons, we are skeptical.”

The Providence Phoenix, a free weekly, published a feature that explored the permutations of judicial selection. Reporter Steven Stycos contrasted the proposals put forward by Gov. Sundlun and Common Cause. Sundlun, who had called for a panel comprised entirely of lawyers, told Stycos he had made a mistake in putting two women who were not lawyers — Sister Claire Dugan and Urban League Executive Director B. Jae Clanton — on the panel that screened candidates for the lower courts. He objected that the women had relied on their knowledge of social issues rather than on trial experience and other legal qualifications.

Dugan, a tiny white-haired nun, fired back that judges needed a social conscience. “I was there,” she insisted, “to represent the poor, because they get the raw end of the justice system.”

In the midst of touting his judicial appointments, Sundlun told Stycos that the Senate had blocked four of his judicial appointments because he refused to appoint any lawmakers to the bench. I asked Sheldon Whitehouse, Sundlun’s policy director, about that. “The tradition,” Whitehouse replied, “has been that the governor, speaker, and Senate majority leader took turns picking judges — one for you, one for me, one for him. Our screening committee violated that protocol by refusing to interview legislators.”

Although many knew about that unspoken protocol, Whitehouse asked me not to name him as my source, at least for the time being. He continued: “The judicial system has always been Valhalla for lawmakers. You go there and play in Elysian Fields. When Bruce wouldn’t go along — in fact, when he took all four of those appointments — Bevilacqua was mightily pissed.” In fact Bevilacqua had refused to confirm Sundlun’s four judges, and Sundlun withdrew them, only to name them later as recess appointments. When Paul Kelly became majority leader, the Senate quietly confirmed them.

Whitehouse had also helped me understand why Sundlun rejected the central feature of our merit selection process. He did not want to be stuck with a short list of only three to five candidates for each vacancy. His quasi-official panel had taken a tough stand, and Sundlun wanted a committee that would only rank candidates as qualified, highly qualified, or not qualified. He demanded freedom to choose from a large pool of candidates.

On her radio talk show, Arlene Violet also dismissed Sundlun’s call for a screening panel composed entirely of lawyers, but she redirected the discussion, arguing that Rhode Island should join the thirty-nine states that elected at least some of their judges.

Two weeks after Lederberg’s election in Grand Committee, I bumped into House Majority Leader George Caruolo. I had asked several times for a meeting with him and Harwood to talk about judicial selection. “Nobody calls me back,” I groused.

“Nothing personal,” Caruolo said. “We’ve been busy. We haven’t had a minute to focus on it.”

“So when can we sit down with you and the speaker?”

“When you figure out how to fit the Grand Committee into your scheme. Otherwise we’re not going to touch it.”

“Sounds non-negotiable,” I said.

Caruolo smiled broadly. “You got that right.”

 

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.

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Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption

Related Articles

• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter One
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Two
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Three
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Four
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Five
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Six
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Seven
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Eight
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Nine
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Nine
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Ten
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Eleven
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Twelve
• 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
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 17
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 18
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 19

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