Secrets and Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 50

Monday, February 15, 2016

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 4

50 Unfinished Business (2005)

With the decade-long campaign for separation of powers nearing its end, Common Cause mulled next priorities. Board member Kevin McAllister, who had worked on ethics, redistricting, and separation of powers, agreed to chair a “next phase agenda committee.”

In the mid-1980s our board had embraced voter initiative — a Progressive Era petitioning process that enabled reformers to get around stubborn state legislatures — but the issue stalled. In 1993 other reform groups proposed forming the Voter Initiative Alliance, and we agreed to join if the proposed amendment included robust standards to protect civil liberties. Ever since, the proposed legislation had contained language that would outlaw any initiative that could “abridge the civil rights or liberties, including those guaranteed by” Rhode Island’s Bill of Rights “of any individual or group of individuals . . . .” With that and several procedural protections, Common Cause supported voter initiative throughout the 1990s.

But tensions flared. Leaders of traditional civil rights groups, particularly the NAACP and the Urban League, were wary that Rhode Island would spawn clones of California’s Proposition 209. That deceptively named “Civil Rights Initiative,” a 1996 ballot question, barred government agencies from preferential treatment in the areas of public employment, public education or public contracting based on race, color, ethnicity or national origin. Rhode Island’s Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights was equally disturbed by a 1992 Colorado amendment that barred municipalities and the state from granting any legal protection to gays and lesbians.

Year after year, these groups testified against voter initiative, declaring that our proposal to prevent any abridging of civil rights would not work. Rep. Marsha Carpenter, who represented the district where I lived, observed that most of the people who supported voter initiative were white and had no worries about their civil rights. “I find it kind of offensive,” she testified.

While civil rights groups attacked Common Cause for supporting voter initiative, other groups in the Voter Initiative Alliance dropped out. At one House Judiciary hearing, I was the only person who testified in favor of the initiative process. When I told the Common Cause board, members suggested that we “go silent” on the issue: not formally rejecting our previous position but no longer expending political capital for a process we had come to doubt.

When the next phase agenda committee began ranking priorities, few favored voter initiative. That raised questions about breaching a familiar Common Cause motto: “We don’t take on issues lightly, but once we take an issue on, we never let go until we win.” Because the state organization had never reversed itself on legislation, the committee recommended that we simply remain silent on the issue.

McAllister’s group suggested instead that we give priority to “clean elections,” a system that aimed to level the campaign playing field through full public financing for legislative and statewide campaigns. Arizona and Maine had adopted variations of the model, and Connecticut was on the verge of doing the same. Over several years, our campaign finance committee had worked with a group of Brown University students to develop similar legislation for Rhode Island.

Clean elections laws required candidates to demonstrate that public trust by collecting signatures and $5 contributions from registered voters in their districts. Candidates for state representative would be required to raise fifty qualifying donations with signatures, and — because Senate districts were twice as large — Senate candidates would get one hundred signatures and $5 contributions. Once certified, candidates for state representative could receive $8,000 in public funds, while Senate candidates could get $16,000. Gubernatorial candidates would be expected to gather 2,500 signatures and $5 contributions to qualify for $1,500,000 in “clean money,” while the four lower general officers could become eligible for $600,000 each.

Our committee also recommended a constitutional amendment written by former justice Robert Flanders, who now served on the Common Cause state governing board. He told us about his dissent in a 1998 case in which a driver with blood alcohol twice the legal limit had grievously injured a motorcycle rider, Robert J. Bandoni. Under state law and a section of the Constitution, police and prosecutors were required to keep the victim informed of his case and enable him to address the court before sentencing. But Coventry police failed to notify Bandoni, and he never got to speak in court. The drunk driver pled to lesser charges, was required to pay $250 into the Victims’ Indemnity Fund, and was sentenced to a year of unsupervised probation. He never lost his license to drive.

Bandoni sued the drunk driver, the Town of Coventry, and state prosecutors who had failed to notify him of court proceedings. But the Supreme Court majority ruled that since the legislature had not created “specific provisions or mechanisms” that allowed crime victims to sue, Bandoni could not do so. In legal terms, the victims’ rights section of the Constitution was not “self-executing.”

Flanders dissented sharply: “What vexes me is the majority’s remarkable refusal to enforce the plain language of the victims’ rights amendment to our State Constitution.” He wrote that the framers of the amendment “did not intend for the amendment to be unenforceable until and unless the General Assembly enacted legislation providing for an express private right of action.”

Since the Supreme Court had essentially declared the Constitution’s promise void, Flanders drafted constitutional language to close that loophole. His amendment would make constitutional guarantees “self-executing” with or without enabling legislation.

A third issue for the next phase agenda committee was close to my heart. A few blocks from our home on the South Side, the Family Life Center helped inmates being released from prison to reconnect with society, assisting them with job searches and education. The nonprofit’s executive director was Solangel Rodriguez, a visionary social worker. She wore no make-up and swept her graying hair back as if she had no time for superficialities.

“We need your help,” Rodriguez told me. “People come back to their families, but because they’re on probation or parole they can’t vote.”

One member of her board had earned a graduate degree but remained on parole for a crime he committed decades earlier. She was organizing a campaign to restore the vote the moment an inmate walked out of prison — rather than at the end of probation and parole, as specified in the Rhode Island Constitution. “Becoming responsible in the community,” she said, “means voting. Studies show that former prisoners who vote are fifty percent less likely to commit new crimes. Voting makes people less prone to slip into old patterns.” She handed me a draft of the proposed amendment.

In Article II, Section 1 of the state Constitution, amid dense language on “persons entitled to vote,” the proposed text would replace the pejorative word “felon” with the neutral noun “person.” It would still bar inmates from voting, but it would drop the current requirement of completing “parole or probation” after prison. The vote would be restored “upon discharge.” The amendment would read: “No person who is incarcerated in a correctional facility upon a felony conviction shall be permitted to vote until such person is discharged from the facility. Upon discharge, such person’s right to vote shall be restored.”

Drug crimes had exploded prison populations across the country, but the Rhode Island figures stunned me. Since 1986, the state’s rate of felon disenfranchisement had grown almost seventy percent. Our tiny state now boasted the nation’s second highest percentage of former prisoners ineligible to vote. In raw numbers, most of those barred from voting were Caucasians, but minorities were shut out in far higher percentages: Latinos were four times more likely than whites to be disenfranchised, African-Americans nine times more likely. As a result, Rhode Island excluded more minorities than thirty-seven other states, including many where Jim Crow laws and racial violence had blocked the descendants of slaves from casting ballots until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Racial bias ran deep in Rhode Island, and I told Rodriguez that restoring the vote would be a tough sell.

“We know,” she said. “That’s why we’re building a broad coalition of civil rights groups, community organizations, and congregations. We need credible advocacy groups like the ACLU and Common Cause.”

I said it might take years to get voting rights onto the ballot.

“We understand that,” she replied. “I’ve been hoping you could take some of the energy you put into separation of powers and apply it to voting rights.”

That would depend on the Common Cause board, I said: “I can’t act without their support.”

“I assume most of your board members are white.”

I nodded. Of twenty, we had only one African-American and one Latino, but I promised her Common Cause would take this challenge seriously.

I outlined her request at the next meeting of McAllister’s committee and proposed that we help form a Right To Vote Coalition. We would aim for two goals: to put the voting rights amendment on the ballot and to pass enabling legislation that would authorize the Adult Correctional Institution (ACI) to register inmates as they were discharged. The committee recommended that Common Cause begin this work.

The full board met for a potluck dinner at Jane Austin’s home on a bluff above Narragansett Bay. Moonlight glinted across dark water. With the historic Separation of Powers Amendment now part of the Rhode Island Constitution, spirits were high.

The committee’s proposed next phase agenda had gone out by email, and Kevin McAllister presented his committee’s proposals. “I don’t want to overstate,” he said, “but our leadership on the Separation of Powers Amendment has strengthened our credibility. That makes what we do next particularly important.”

Board members affirmed that reconstructing boards to comply with the Separation of Powers Amendment would be our top priority. They voted unanimously to adopt the next phase agenda committee’s recommendations. Bob Flanders argued that it was a mistake for Common Cause to remain silent on voter initiative, but McAllister rehearsed his committee’s reasoning, and the board agreed. No one imagined that we would need to battle a counterattack against one high-profile success from the previous year.

Our 2004 “Celona Law” required lobbyists and the firms that deployed them to disclose all cash and anything of value over $250 that they gave to any “major state decision-makers” in the previous calendar year. Payments might include fees, salaries, commissions, rents, royalties, gifts, gratuities, or other payment that would be reportable as income under the IRS Code. The new law also doubled the penalties for violations of the lobbying statute.

In compliance with the new law, many lobbyists filed reports in January 2005. Similar to the multiple filing of a W-2 or 1099 in tax reporting, they sent identical copies to the Secretary of State, whose office regulated lobbyists; to the Ethics Commission, which received financial disclosure forms from public officials; and to the officials who were required to disclose sources of income.

In January 2005, Kathy Gregg caught public attention with the headline: “New law shows public the money.” Her numbers almost burst off the page. After he resigned as Senate president, Bill Irons had continued in office for three months, during which Blue Cross paid him $77,048 in broker commissions.

Blue Cross also reported providing $21,500 in insurance benefits to Superior Court Judge Edward C. Clifton for serving on its board. It paid $19,363 in fees and health insurance benefits for Sheldon S. Sollosy, chairman of the quasi-public Rhode Island Public Telecommunications Authority. Neither payment had been public, and both prompted questions.

Gregg wrote that CVS paid lobbyists but had not filed a report. A spokesperson told her the pharmaceutical company had not provided “any gifts or payments that would trigger the reporting requirement.” Knowing that was false, she contacted Rep. William J. McManus, who readily acknowledged working for CVS at a salary of roughly $125,000, which he reported annually on ethics disclosure forms.

Two entities whose lobbyists prowled the State House hallways reported paying full-time salaries to Rep. Peter T. Ginaitt. The City of Warwick had paid Ginaitt $69,271 for his work as an emergency rescue captain, while Rhode Island Hospital paid him $82,992 as its “emergency preparedness coordination officer.” Both jobs were legal, but the story left many wondering how Ginaitt could juggle those jobs along with his obligations as a state representative.

For the first time ever, unions reported salaries and benefits they paid to legislators. Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) paid its business agent Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr. a salary of $79,060. Gregg tallied the salaries and benefits other union entities had provided: New England Laborers’ Labor-Management Cooperation Trust paid Senate Majority Whip Domenic J. Ruggerio $163,717; Local 808 of the Rhode Island Judicial, Professional and Technical Employees paid $135,177 to Sen. Frank A. Ciccone; and the New England Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund paid Deputy House Majority Whip Paul Moura $91,663. Ruggerio, Ciccone, Tassoni, and Moura were priceless agents who defended labor’s interests tenaciously in leadership meetings, on committees, and in floor debates. Generous salaries and benefits paid to “major state decision-makers” were legal, and organized labor gained immense value from having legislators on their payrolls.

Lobbying groups had also paid impressive amounts to public officials as commissions, salaries, health benefits, and other perks. The amounts paid came as a shock even for regulars at the State House.

Pushback against the Celona Law came without announcement or fanfare. On February 10, a seemingly innocuous bill sponsored by Gordon Fox proposed to add two lines to the lobbyist disclosure legislation he had sponsored a year earlier at the request of Common Cause. Where the 2004 original law required those who deployed lobbyists to disclose anything over $250 they paid to any “major state decision-maker,” Fox’s new bill proposed to eliminate the reporting requirement if money paid to a public official was for “the purchase or sale of goods or services or anything else of value in the ordinary course of business and for fair market value.”

I reminded Fox that his 2004 bill had marked a major step forward in lobbyist disclosure, but this proposed new language would gut it.

“I hear you, Phil,” he said with a smile. “Let’s not make too much of this. We haven’t even had a hearing yet.”

Fox assigned his chief legal counsel to negotiate. William R. Guglietta had a full head of curly black hair in contrast to my bald dome and graying fringe. He seemed offended that Common Cause would oppose what he considered a mere technical correction. House leaders thought business was business, and no law should require reporting of goods or services that changed hands “in the ordinary course of business and for fair market values.”

I replied we were not trying to stop lobbyists from taking their business to the restaurants, liquor stores, law offices, insurance agencies, or other enterprises owned by members of the General Assembly, but we wanted those payments disclosed. Now, for the first time, the January reports made them visible, but Fox’s proposed amendment would hide them again.

Guglietta countered that the reports were intrusive and demeaning to legislators who needed to make a living. He complained, for example, that it was wrong to require Cox Communications to report on the broadband and entertainment packages legislators bought.

I replied that nothing in the law required the communications company to report any of its sales to public officials. The only reportable number would be its purchases from major decision-makers or its payments to them.

In the course of several meetings with Guglietta I offered language on behalf of Common Cause that would explicitly exclude a menu of goods and services that decision-makers might purchase from lobbying entities — food, clothing, utilities, health care, financial services, and vehicles. There would be no reports of what legislators bought.

But Guglietta rejected our list, seemingly determined to gut the law Fox had sponsored. For months the stalemate continued. Who was pushing the repeal? Was the pressure coming from lobbyists or legislators?

Nor was it clear what House leaders would finally do about separation of powers. On January 18, Murphy had announced his decision “to expedite the implementation of separation of powers and to honor the will of the people.”

But on that very day, attorney John A. Tarantino delivered a “Privileged and Confidential Memorandum” to Rep. Robert Flaherty, who chaired the Lottery Commission. Flaherty and his board had hired Tarantino to analyze what the separation of powers meant for the gambling operation where senators and representatives constituted two-thirds of the board. Tarantino wrote that only the Supreme Court could decide: “This would be a case of first impression concerning the meaning and scope of the Separation of Powers amendments and in particular their effect, if any, on the Lottery Commission.”

Flaherty was self-effacing but wielded real power. Besides his top post at the Lottery Commission, he chaired the House Judiciary Committee and had considered challenging Murphy for speaker. His older brother was Supreme Court Justice Francis X. Flaherty.

Despite Murphy’s public commitment not to seek an advisory opinion on the lottery and Coastal Resources Management Council, he told reporter Peter Lord he remained uncertain about the CRMC. “Everything’s on the table,” the speaker said. “I can’t tell you right this minute exactly how we’re going to proceed, but when we look at the Constitution, it says natural resources come under the charge of the legislature.” Murphy seemed to be dancing to Tarantino’s tune.

Members of Murphy’s leadership team moved toward fixing other boards. House Majority Whip Peter F. Kilmartin filed legislation to abolish the Unclassified Pay Plan Board and fold its work into the Department of Administration. On January 20, I testified in favor of Kilmartin’s bill before the House Finance Committee. To my astonishment the committee — after years of protecting legislative control over salaries of department directors and judges — voted to send Kilmartin’s bill to the full House.

In February, the House Separation of Powers Committee began meeting regularly, and chair Elaine A. Coderre submitted an omnibus bill to abolish nine obsolete boards. Several had not been on our lists because they had either no legislative appointees or no executive powers. It looked like Coderre meant to clean out the legislative attic. On March 10, she filed a bill to end legislative appointments on six boards that did exercise executive powers: the State Crime Laboratory Commission, State Medical Examiners Commission, Health Professional Loan Repayment Board, State Building Code Standards Committee, State Traffic Commission, and State Properties Committee.

Going beyond the Senate’s 2004 legislation, Coderre added provisions that would improve oversight. She would require every restructured board to submit an annual report on its fiscal activities. Her new language would require operating statements, lists of regulations promulgated, plans developed or modified, and financial statements for all funds. She also demanded performance audits, with “accomplishments, shortcomings, and remedies” and “a synopsis of hearings, complaints, suspensions, or other legal matters.” Five years earlier, Mike Lenihan’s commission on quasi-public agencies had sought similar data board by board, but now Coderre was proposing a way to enable systematic legislative oversight.

Coderre also tackled the Underground Storage Tank Fund and the infamous Solid Waste Management Corporation, which had been renamed the Resource Recovery Corporation. In all of these bills, Coderre removed legislators, transferred appointments to the governor, and added Senate confirmation. Her bills required that within six months of their appointment, all board members were to be trained in the Code of Ethics, Open Meetings Law, and Access to Public Records Law. She introduced so many bills that tracking which boards were in various bills became a constant chase.

Meanwhile, throughout the spring, sparks flew between Murphy’s victorious House leadership and the DeSimone faction they had defeated. Allies of Rep. John J. DeSimone introduced clones of Sen. Mike Lenihan’s 2004 Senate bills that reconstructed more than ninety boards. Those bills had passed the Senate but died without a hearing in the House Separation of Powers Committee. Factional sniping slowed deliberations.

Complications surfaced over appointments. At a hearing on March 9, Gov. Carcieri’s executive counsel Andrew Hodgkin warned Coderre that her bills went too far in specifying qualifications for appointments to several boards. Seated beside Hodgkin, deputy chief of staff Jeffrey Grybowski testified that requiring the governor to appoint members of specific community or professional organizations was unconstitutional.

I cringed. Criteria for board appointments were written into most quasi-public board statutes. Through years of the separation of powers campaign, no one had talked about dropping such requirements. Carcieri’s demand would snarl the task of reconstructing boards.

Beneath Coderre in the banked committee box, Cranston Rep. James F. Davey turned and raised a hand. He had retired from a career administering federal courts and served on the Common Cause board until he decided to run for a seat in the House. The previous November, he narrowly defeated nine-term incumbent Rep. Frank Montanaro. “Madam chair,” Davey said respectfully, “I believe that at the federal level they address this problem with a few well-chosen words. Federal laws say the president ‘shall give due consideration’ to recommendations from whatever the professional group may be. What would happen if we tried some language like that?”

Davey’s suggestion surprised everyone, and Coderre asked for more information. Six days later Hodgkin wrote to her on Carcieri’s behalf, acknowledging that federal law did contain principles to guide the president in making some appointments. For example, as Davey had said, one statute directed the president “to give due consideration” to nominations presented by various national academies of sciences and engineering, or by associations of land grant colleges and state universities. Hodgkin affirmed this precedent for Rhode Island and suggested a boilerplate phrase: “the Governor shall give due consideration to the appointee’s background and experience” in various particular areas.

Jim Davey pointed the way forward, and Andy Hodgkin’s precise prose provided the roadmap. Coderre grasped the constitutional principle and directed her staff lawyer, Michael R. Egan, to start weaving the “due consideration” language into the separation of powers bills that had piled up in her committee. One of her next bills before the committee used a simple boilerplate to restructure the Clean Water Finance Agency: “The governor in making these appointments shall give due consideration to persons skilled and experienced in law, finance, and public administration and give further due consideration to a recommendation by the general treasurer for one of those appointments.”

With consensus on that formula, Coderre’s committee began churning out bills. Senate leaders consented to the approach, and Mike Lenihan filed identical versions that his Committee on Government Oversight quickly approved. Both committees labored through May and June to move as many bills as they could. Meanwhile bills to restructure six powerful boards — the Clean Water Finance Agency, Economic Development Corporation, Lottery Commission, Resource Recovery Corporation, Unclassified Pay Plan Board, and Underground Storage Tank Fund Board — advanced separately.

Other bills traveled in packs. The Scenic Highways Board, Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, and Historic District Commission became a natural package. A less obvious collection — the Budget and Review Commission, Housing and Conservation Board, Information Resources Management Board, New Shoreham Tourism Council, Student Loan Authority, Tobacco Settlement Financing Corporation, and Commission on Uniform State Laws — passed together after Coderre tossed aside several boards that had problems.

Several bills that packaged groups of boards passed both chambers but provoked Carcieri’s veto on technical grounds. The governor invited lawmakers to resubmit the legislation “with the minor changes that I believe would correct the problems.”

Meanwhile the Right To Vote Coalition decided that former inmates might be the most effective lobbyists for legislation to restore their vote. By meeting legislators, shaking their hands, looking in their eyes, answering questions, and telling personal stories, they could begin to dispel negative stereotypes.

Marshall Clement, policy researcher at the Family Life Center, prepared a list of hostile questions our volunteer lobbyists could expect:

Shouldn’t they have to prove themselves before they get to vote?

What about rapists and murderers? Should they get to vote, too?

Won’t criminals vote to legalize crime?

Former prisoners brought street savvy to their role-playing. At the State House, their muscled shoulders under casual shirts contrasted with the suave suits of professional lobbyists. For those who shadowed me, I compared lobbying to fishing — some lobbyists picked their spots and waited for legislators to drift by, but I did better by cruising. We moved through the House chamber as members arrived for the session.

Providence Rep. Edie Ajello, in her fifties with a shock of white hair, rose at her desk and welcomed us like old friends. She nodded as they spoke, encouraging them to share their stories. She promised to work on her colleagues in the House Judiciary Committee. Next we eased our way through the House lounge, with its imposing portraits of former speakers, and into the House Judiciary room, which was empty except for a clerk at her desk. The long table was bare. Tall windows reflected on polished oak. I explained the hearing process, where committee members would sit, and how witnesses would speak from the end of the table.

Andres Idarraga stepped behind the witness chair and stroked its curved back. “Not bad,” he said softly. “I expected more like a courtroom.” We crossed to the Senate side, slipped between lobbyists and senators outside a committee room toward stairs silhouetted against clear eastern windows. “This is beautiful,” Idarraga said as we climbed. “All this glass and marble.”

As we reached the third floor, senators emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s office. Among them was Harold Metts, who had led black plaintiffs in the redistricting lawsuit and participated in the negotiated settlement. He had won election in the new district and sponsored the right to vote legislation. “Senator Metts,” I called out, “may I introduce you?”

Metts turned toward us and smiled broadly. “You don’t have to introduce this gentleman,” Metts beamed at one former prisoner. “He played football for me.” They hugged each other.

April sunshine warmed the crowd at our voting rights rally on the brick and marble State House plaza. After speeches and songs, dozens of advocates filed into the House Judiciary’s hearing room, quickly occupying every chair and standing in spaces between the chairs. Scores more crowded the hallway. Committee members with huge three-ring binders full of bills sat around the table.

Rep. Joe Almeida explained the need for prompt passage of the proposed constitutional amendment and enabling statute he had introduced. “In South Providence we understand that when people go to prison they lose all their rights. But once they come back out, they carry jobs and care for families. Most are working somewhere — part time jobs or whatever — but they’re working and putting taxes back into the society. Our country began with the idea that there should be no taxation without representation. That’s what this legislation is about, my friends. Let’s let their voices be heard.”

During legislative sessions, senators and reps often crossed the rotunda to lobby for passage of their priority bills, but they rarely testified at hearings. On this occasion, Sen. Harold Metts testified before the House Judiciary Committee, where he had served as a member in the 1990s. Instead of sitting in the witness chair, Metts stood behind it. He told of leaving public office to devote more time to his duties as a church deacon, particularly his prison ministry at the Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI). “I’ve seen people turn their lives around,” he said, “but struggle on the outside. I’d been up here so long they thought I was still in office. They’d say: ‘Harold, I need a job. I did my time. I got a wife or I got a girlfriend. I need a job. I want to support my family.’”

Metts spoke in biblical cadences, his body balanced, hands moving with his voice. He gave statistics that showed lower recidivism among ex-inmates who voted. “We’re talking about giving people hope,” he finished. “Without that hope we have high recidivism. We’re spending $161 million every year on the ACI. That’s why we have to restore the vote and restore the dignity that goes with voting.”

Barbara Hurst, the state’s Deputy Public Defender, said she had served on the Preparatory Commission for the Constitutional Convention. “I don’t take amending the constitution lightly,” she said, “but we must put this amendment onto the ballot.” Until 1986, she explained, felons had lost their right to vote permanently unless they could get a special act of the legislature. The 1986 Constitutional Convention recommended an amendment to end that lifetime disenfranchisement. Voters approved, and ex-felons who completed parole and probation could register to vote.

Hurst had a no-nonsense manner, her voice roughened by countless cigarettes and courtroom appearances. She described the lengthening of probations, sometimes for life, that had undercut the 1986 reform. “What clearly began as a progressive attempt to expand voter rights,” she said, “has resulted in a seventy percent increase in disenfranchised voters since 1987.” The desired reform now prevented one of every thirty adults in Rhode Island from voting. Now our state ranked second in the United States for disenfranchising former felons, and Hurst urged the committee to let voters undo this unintended damage.

Marshall Clement presented data from the Department of Corrections: “Nearly sixteen thousand people are disenfranchised in Rhode Island. Of those, eighty-six percent — about 13,500 — are out of prison. They’re in the community, living on probation or parole.” He said men were six times more likely than women to be barred from voting. Blacks were disenfranchised at ten times the rate of whites, and Hispanics at four times the rate.

“Every town is impacted,” Clement said softly, “and not just the individuals involved. Entire communities are weakened. Crime affects these communities, but so does the loss of voting rights for substantial numbers of their citizens.”

From the far end of the table, Rep. Fausto Anguilla asked if there were discernable effects on children who grew up in households where parents could not vote.

Clement replied that the highest percentage of disenfranchisement was among young black men between eighteen and thirty-five. “Forty percent can’t vote,” he said, “and when they’re barred from voting, their children will be less likely to vote.”

I testified that forty years had passed since Alabama police officers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma attacked voting rights marchers with dogs, clubs, and firehoses. Television had carried their brutality nationwide. That “Bloody Sunday” prompted President Lyndon B. Johnson to seek the Voting Rights Act of 1965. “In 1965,” I told the committee, “only nineteen percent of African-Americans in Alabama could vote, compared with sixty-nine percent of whites. Today, seventy-four percent of blacks in Alabama are registered to vote, compared with seventy-seven percent of whites.” By contrast, the unintended consequence of Rhode Island’s constitutional exclusion gave our state a higher percentage of disenfranchised minority voters than Alabama.

Andres Idarraga took his turn in the witness chair. He told of easy money from selling drugs. Two years after high school he was arrested with drugs and an illegal gun. He spent six and a half years in prison and now faced four years of parole plus twenty-seven years of probation. “That means not until my fifty-eighth birthday will I be able to vote.”

Without notes, and making eye contact, he segued to his current full-time job and studies at the University of Rhode Island. “I’m proud to say that I’m a straight A student, but my name will always carry the scarlet brand of being an ex-felon. God has decided to give me a second chance. But the Constitution of Rhode Island says no matter what I accomplish, I will be relegated to second-class status.”

Next called was Koren Carbuccia. She entered from the hallway overflow, leading her four-year-old son, who planted himself by her elbow and peered over the table’s edge. Mother and child had large, expressive eyes.

“This bill directly affects me,” she began. “Growing up, I didn’t have the role models in my life to show what was important. I realized that when I was incarcerated at the ACI. I’ve been back in society for over a year, but I have twelve years left on probation. I attend the Community College of Rhode Island so I can better myself. I want to set the right example for my son in every way I can. It’s hard being a felon and a single mother. I want to show him the right way of living and not have him do what I did.”

ACLU director Steve Brown blamed racial profiling for high rates of minority imprisonment. “If you look at the racial profiling statistics, you’ll see that police stop and search blacks and Hispanics much more than whites. If you stop minorities more often, you’ll make more arrests. So there’s this element of race in the way that our laws are enforced that only exacerbates the problem of these individuals — once they get out of prison — not being able to vote. This bill is not asking you to do something extreme or radical. It’s asking you to put Rhode Island in the mainstream of the country, while addressing this serious problem of racial inequality in the right to vote.”

No one testified against Almeida’s legislation, but the Judiciary Committee held the amendment and enabling legislation for further study.

Former prisoners had already shared their stories with members of the Senate Committee on Constitutional and Gaming Issues, and Metts pushed Senate leaders who, only a year earlier, had settled the federal redistricting lawsuit with him and other plaintiffs. Groups in the Right To Vote Coalition bombarded the committee with emails and phone calls.

On April 27, a crowd waited in the hearing room for senators to arrive. Our witnesses were primed to testify again, and I sat in their midst, amazed at how quickly this voting rights legislation was gaining traction. Metts came in and whispered that the leadership would allow a vote; he thought the committee would approve both of his bills.

The Committee on Constitutional and Gaming Issues filed in, and Chairperson Maryellen Goodwin welcomed the crowd. She said her committee understood the issue and would not need extensive testimony. In short order the committee recommended both the constitutional amendment and the enabling statute for passage. Our audience stood and cheered.

Two weeks later, the full Senate had both on its calendar. Metts rose at his seat and recited the statistics on Rhode Island’s burgeoning numbers of long-term probationers who could not vote. “We must move beyond our knowledge of the crime,” he preached on the floor. “Is it not our goal to help people become productive members of society?”

Sen. Leonidas Raptakis, who represented most of rural Coventry, raised the question we dreaded. “Are we encompassing every single crime?” he asked.

From across the pale green chamber, Harold Metts answered: “If you have served your time for the crime, and you are released, your vote would be restored. That’s only fair.”

“What about restoring the vote for a murderer?” Raptakis demanded. “Those they killed can’t come back and vote ever again.”

Sen. Joseph Polisena described the recent, brutal murder of Detective James Allen at the Providence Police Headquarters. A deranged man had grabbed Allen’s gun, blasted him at point-blank range, shot out a window, and leapt from the third floor to the ground below. Officers quickly captured him, but his shocking crime struck fear in the hearts of the public. Polisena expressed concern that such a “cop killer” might be allowed to vote. “Quite frankly, as I read it, it kind of scares the hell out of me,” Polisena said.

Metts stood his ground: “Senator, I think someone that kills a police officer is going to get life without parole, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

Despite Polisena’s emotional appeal, only he and Raptakis voted against the proposed constitutional amendment, and only four senators voted “No” on Metts’ enabling legislation. Both bills went to the House, where Rep. Jim Davey, a Republican, rose to say that he had been swayed by advocates’ testimonies. “What’s the harm in letting someone vote?” he asked. “What’s the social good that’s achieved by denying them that right?”

Representatives approved, and advocates celebrated in a sun-drenched hallway outside the chamber. Our constitutional amendment for voting rights would be Question 1 on the 2006 statewide ballot.

But huge questions remained: Would emotional appeals about cop killers sway ordinary Rhode Islanders to reject it?

Throughout the spring I had engaged in sporadic negotiations with the House leadership’s lawyer, Bill Guglietta, over Gordon Fox’s legislation that would gut significant disclosure required in the Celona Law. Guglietta rejected every compromise. But there had been no hearings, and I hoped the bill might die quietly. I was wrong. Fox’s legislation appeared on the House Finance Committee’s agenda for June 7. I saw the latest substitute version for the first time only moments before I was called to the witness table. The exception Fox proposed in February had tripled in size with additional exemptions.

Many members of the House Finance Committee had chafed under the 2004 disclosure law — I believed because they feared it would hurt their businesses. The family of Chairman Steven M. Costantino owned Venda Ravioli, a popular Italian grocery and eatery on Federal Hill, while Jan P. Malik had Malik’s Fine Wine & Spirits in Warren. Paul W. Crowley owned La Forge Casino Restaurant at the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, and one Republican on the committee, Carol A. Mumford, was part-owner of the Mumford Christmas Tree Farm in Scituate. Arthur J. Corvese practiced optometry in North Providence, and several others were attorneys.

I testified that CVS, Blue Cross, and other businesses had never reported their payments to John Celona or Bill Irons. Before the Celona Law, none of the state’s laws on lobbying, financial disclosure, or campaign finance required businesses to disclose payments to legislators or other major state decision-makers. I said the new law required lobbying entities to disclose such payments but had not restricted them in any way. Similar to multiple tax reporting on W-2 or 1099 forms, payers provided identical copies to the secretary of state, the Ethics Commission, and the public official who received the benefit.

Costantino interrupted. “If CVS wanted to buy a hundred Christmas trees or five Christmas trees for their office buildings, or if someone happens to drop in at Venda and have dinner or lunch or buy a sandwich to go, or if someone going home stops by Malik’s Liquors, what would be required?”

I explained that lobbyist payments above the $250 threshold to any of those businesses would trigger the reporting requirement.

Jan Malik expressed shock: “Are you saying that if somebody comes into my store and purchases something for private use, he has to claim that? I think that law is asinine.” I told Malik the public had a right to see the rainmaking effect for legislators’ businesses — for example, concert promoters had been coerced into renting portable sound stages from a company owned by the previous speaker and House majority leader.

Paul Crowley insisted that the law needed to take account of the fact that legislators might face the choice of leaving office or losing loyal customers who might not want to track such spending. “I think somebody’s got to empathize with myself and Jan Malik,” he said.

The hearing ran nearly forty minutes. Guglietta promised further efforts to resolve differences, and the Finance Committee approved the substitute version. Clearly, House leaders intended to reject any finite threshold for lobbyists to disclose their purchases from state decision-makers.

I described the stalemate in a column for newspapers across the state, and the Providence Journal published it only days before the final debate. “Whether or not payments are technically for lobbying,” I wrote, “lobbyists and those who hire them must file annual public reports. Nothing in the law limits or bans such payments. It simply requires disclosure.”

I warned that House leaders were seeking a broad exemption that would restore “secrecy around the financial transactions between special interests, lobbyists, and major decision-makers in Rhode Island government.” With negotiations stalled, I predicted that the amended bill would surface on the House floor in the final hours of the legislative session. “Its passage would nullify the lobbyist-disclosure requirements that Mr. Fox sponsored only last year.”

Former Sen. John Celona came to the rescue. On June 27, U.S. Attorney Robert C. Corrente announced that Celona would plead guilty in three separate schemes he had executed in exchange for $318,565 and a free golf outing in San Diego. The institutions that paid Celona were not named, but unmistakably they were CVS, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Rhode Island, and the Roger Williams Medical Center. Mike Stanton’s front-page Providence Journal story reprised the Celona scandal.

I sent letters to all members of the House, reminding them that they had approved the Celona Law only one year earlier. “Since then there has been no argument before the House Finance Committee that the 2004 lobbyist disclosure law has actually harmed any business owned by any state decision-maker. Nor has any lobbyist testified against the reporting requirement.” I urged representatives to approve an amendment Rep. John Savage would offer on the floor to restore the $250 threshold, adding that Common Cause would even accept a higher amount. But without a number that would trigger disclosure, I wrote, “passage of this legislation would slam the door on public access to vital information about money that flows from deep pockets to powerful public officials.”

Savage was one of four Republicans on the nineteen-member Finance Committee. As debate in the House chamber began July 1, he offered an amendment to restore the $250 threshold. He said he law did not involve purchases made by public officials. Savage emphasized that the disclosure only covered payments from lobbyists and those who hired them to major decision-makers. He gave the example of a lobbyist buying furniture from the business owned by East Providence Rep. Henry Rose. Whether the lobbyist purchased furniture for his own home or 300 rooms of furniture for a new hotel, Savage said, “there’s nothing wrong with either of those transactions, but we know what perceptions are, and where there is smoke, people seem to believe there is fire — even if there’s not.”

A retired high school principal, Savage urged his colleagues toward transparency. “No smoke, no mirrors, no cloud. It’s simply a matter of reporting. It’s not up to the representative to report it. It’s up to the lobbyist. It’s up front. It’s out there. If people have questions, they can ask.”

Steven Costantino rebutted Savage’s argument. He implied that responsibility for reporting fell on the representative who owned the business. “How difficult it is even to know who’s coming into your business and whether they’re lobbyists. This raises a lot of questions about the balance between being an elected official and having a business. That’s why the $250 reporting issue doesn’t seem practical, particularly the fact that we’re a part-time legislature where we all have businesses.”

From my seat in the gallery I wondered if Costantino was deliberately creating the false impression that the law required legislative business owners to keep track of everyone entering an establishment. “If somebody comes into a restaurant, and they have a birthday party — nothing to do with legislative business — it’s personal. It puts all of us in a very difficult position when we don’t even know that’s happening.”

Al Gemma countered that argument. When serving on the Warwick City Council, he received a plastic Showcase Cinemas card with his name embossed on it. He said everyone on the council got movie passes, and the multiplex got approval to expand. “I knew my neighbor could not get that, and that’s why it bothered me. That was wrong. It looks bad. It detracts from what we try to do.” Both Gemma and Jim Davey, who followed him, pointed out that the onus to report rested on the lobbyist, not the legislator.

Betsy Dennigan declared her support for a specific reporting threshold. She asked what reporting limit would be reasonable, noting that she was an attorney. “What if a lobbying firm hired me to be ‘of counsel’ to their firm for $75,000 fee? Kind of unclear what my duties are, but in the back of their mind, I’m ‘a major decision-maker.’ Without this amendment, the sky’s the limit. It could be $75,000. It could be a million.”

Jan Malik rose in a blue knit shirt. He reminded his colleagues that the Fourth of July was coming, gave his liquor store’s address, and got a laugh. “What do they have to put on this form?” he demanded. “People come in and ask for bags because they don’t want their neighbors to know what they’re drinking. And I don’t think we should have to put anybody through that.”

Savage rebutted by portraying himself as a hypothetical lobbyist who hired Rep. Peter Lewiss, an attorney, to draw up an estate trust for his cat. He said he would have to report paying Lewiss $850, but not what the legal issues were.

Carol Mumford, another Republican on the Finance Committee, opposed Savage’s $250 threshold. She argued that lobbyists might not know that her family operated a Christmas tree farm in Scituate. “Do they have to troll through all the Ethics Commission statements to find out that I am part owner in a small farm? There are nonprofits that don’t know that I’m a state legislator, and I would bet the Boy Scouts don’t know that they have a lobbyist up here. When they purchase more than $250, they will now be in violation for not having information that is not accessible at the moment.” She warned that until all the ethics forms were online, Savage’s $250 language “would just be a gotcha amendment.”

Half an hour into the debate Gordon Fox rose to speak. The problem, he said, lay with a strict interpretation of the law by Secretary of State Matthew Brown. Fox asserted that utility companies would have to report the amount that legislators bought from them. He announced that several companies had planned a class action lawsuit to block enforcement. Fox insisted that he wanted disclosure but not for “personal, ordinary type of business.”

Paul Crowley also declared himself against the Savage amendment. “It’s about competition,” he claimed. A lobbyist might go out for a meal in Newport and think, “‘Well, if I go to Paul Crowley’s restaurant, I’m going to have to put that on my report. So you know what? It’s just as easy to go somewhere else and not do that.’ Or he might think, ‘It’s Christmas, and I always used to get my family’s fruit baskets at Venda. But then I have to put down on my report that I spent a couple of thousand dollars buying fruit baskets, even though I’ve been buying them for years.’”

From the gallery I felt the indignation in Crowley’s voice.

“Then you have the next issue,” Crowley continued on the floor. He acknowledged that “crooks” would conceal what they were doing “until they finally get indicted by the feds — which recently happened — and they plead guilty. This law is not going to stop that behavior.”

He turned to his third point. An opponent running against him might look up amounts reported by lobbyists and then claim, “‘In the last two years, Rep. Crowley did ten thousand dollars worth of business with lobbyists.’ Now you say, ‘That’s a lot of money. It should be reported.’ Somebody comes in and has an anniversary dinner, a holiday party, a rehearsal dinner, a wedding. That’s nothing. But rest assured that the press will write the story: ‘How did the lobbyist influence the legislature?’ And those of us who did any business will show up on the list. And the perception then will be that every one has these shady exchanges with the lobbyist. And that’s what disturbs me the most.”

Crowley’s voice brimmed over with emotion. “I’ve served here a long time, and when I leave, it will be after years of honorable service. You know what? You’re creating so many tripwires that somebody’s not going to file the report, and the perception is that you didn’t serve honorably.”

He was winding down. “There’s one final problem,” he said. “We all know what it is. Common Cause came in and said a thousand or five hundred. And you know it’s going to wind up in the Common Cause newsletter. It’s going to say ‘Crowley voted wrong on this, and he gets a bad Common Cause rating.’ And my opponent will take that and say, ‘See, he got a low ranking.’”

As he and I had agreed before the debate, Savage offered an oral amendment to raise the reporting threshold in his amendment from $250 to $1,000, which was quickly approved.

Fox, as sponsor, closed the debate. Even in the steamy chamber he wore a dark jacket and tie. He insisted that his office had spent six months trying to work out a solution with Common Cause. “What if you’re in the business of selling guppies?” he asked rhetorically. “What if you’re selling trees? That’s where the traps come in.” He did not want lobbyists to “purchase us in our roles as legislative members. But there has to be a balance. Five hundred? Two-fifty? A thousand? Fifteen hundred? I don’t know what’s reasonable.”

In an instant, he switched back to legislators making purchases. “What happens,” Fox demanded, “if somebody in here is late on your telephone bill? Do they put on that report that it includes late fees? Now they figure out that rep so-and-so is a deadbeat. Is that fair? Is that fair? When the intent is to make sure they’re not trying to buy you or you’re not trying to sell yourself. That’s the balance I’ve spent six months trying to reach.”

In the gallery, I was astonished. Throughout the spring, we had negotiated with his executive counsel, Bill Guglietta. Our proposed change would have exempted from reporting all purchases by “major state decision-makers at a price and upon terms generally available to the public” in seven broad categories, including telephone bills. Fox had either deliberately misunderstood or misrepresented the language we had given to Guglietta.

Still with his microphone in hand, Fox insisted: “A thousand dollars is an artificial safety net. You’re going to get trapped.” The further he ran with misinformation, the worse it sounded. He mentioned the Cookie Place, which was managed by people with disabilities. “They were fighting for their funding. They’re lobbyists. Is someone that’s manning the cash register supposed to report that every morning Rep. Fox comes in and gets a cookie and coffee? And at some point — Bingo! It triggers the aggregate amount. And therefore, we’ve got to report him. And if they don’t report, Communities with Disabilities is in violation. Rep. Fox is now a violator. It doesn’t make sense to put an amount. If I go in there, and I’m not looking for something special, and they’re not offering something special, that’s the test! That’s the test!”

Fox seemed not to understand his own bill as he urged his members to vote the Savage amendment down and pass his legislation.

Speaker William Murphy ordered the clerk to unlock the machine for a vote on the Savage amendment to set a $1,000 threshold at which lobbyists must report purchases from decision-makers.

Lights flickered on the electronic board: 31 green to approve the $1,000 threshold, 31 red to reject it. Murphy declared that the amendment had failed. Without it Fox’s substitute bill passed 41–20.

The bill went to the Senate, where Mike Lenihan moved to insert the $1,000 threshold at which lobbyists would need to report their purchases from decision-makers. Senators rejected Lenihan’s amendment by a vote of 22–10 and then approved the bill by a vote of 24–7.

After one o’clock in the morning on July 2, senators agreed to transmit boxes of bills to the governor. It would be several weeks before the final Senate Journal was printed, noting unanimous consent for transmitting “most matters on the secretary’s desk” to the governor.

A Providence Journal story began: “Legislation carving out a swath of new exemptions to the one-year-old state law requiring lobbyists to report anything of value they give to a lawmaker in Rhode Island is headed for a veto by Governor Carcieri.”

Like everyone else, I assumed that Fox’s bill had gone to the governor’s office. Secretary of State Matt Brown called publicly for the governor to veto Fox’s bill, and Carcieri’s press secretary announced that he probably would.

But as Andy Hodgkin worked his way through hundreds of bills to be signed or vetoed, he discovered that Fox’s lobbyist disclosure bill was nowhere among them. Senate leaders had never transmitted the controversial bill. Whether they paused because they recognized the harm this bill would cause or because they feared negative publicity, we learned many weeks later that the Senate “held it on the desk.”

During a routine exam in August my doctor found a lump. “What’s this?” he asked.

I told him I had never noticed it.

Hidden beneath my collarbone was a lump the size of a golf ball. Surgery confirmed that it was cancerous. An oncologist at Miriam Hospital diagnosed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. He started me on a regimen of oral chemotherapy. I asked about the prognosis. “If this works,” he said, “you could do well for a time and then need stronger chemo. That could be several years from now.”

Anne and these physicians sustained me through this first medical crisis of my life. I decided to retire after the 2006 election when I would turn sixty-five. For years I had been taking notes, recording public events, and debriefing over supper with Anne on a series of cassette and digital recorders. Now I needed time to write but was not sure how much time I might have.

When I told the Common Cause Rhode Island executive committee that I planned to retire, they convened a retreat to plan succession. On a sparkling October Saturday, the full board and advisory council met at Save the Bay’s new headquarters overlooking Narragansett Bay. A panoramic view of water in three directions lent a perspective of enduring beauty and constant change.

Read The Rest Here

Secrets and Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 50

Part 4

50

Unfinished Business (2005)

Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption

Buddy Cianci

Joseph Bevilacqua

Thomas Fay

Brian J. Sarault

Edward DiPrete

Plunder Dome

N. Providence Councilmen

Charles Moreau

Joe Almeida

Gordon Fox

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Secrets and Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 50

Part 4

50

Unfinished Business (2005)

Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption

Buddy Cianci

Joseph Bevilacqua

Thomas Fay

Brian J. Sarault

Edward DiPrete

Plunder Dome

N. Providence Councilmen

Charles Moreau

Joe Almeida

Gordon Fox

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