Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Twelve
Monday, May 25, 2015
Between 1986 and 2006, Rhode Island ran a gauntlet of scandals that exposed corruption and aroused public rage. Protesters marched on the State House. Coalitions formed to fight for systemic changes. Under intense public pressure, lawmakers enacted historic laws and allowed voters to amend defects in the state’s constitution.
Since colonial times, the legislature had controlled state government. Governors were barred from making many executive appointments, and judges could never forget that on a single day in 1935 the General Assembly sacked the entire Supreme Court.
Without constitutional checks and balances, citizens suffered under single party control. Republicans ruled during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Democrats held sway from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. In their eras of unchecked control, both parties became corrupt.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTH Philip West's SECRETS & SCANDALS tells the inside story of events that shook Rhode Island’s culture of corruption, gave birth to the nation’s strongest ethics commission, and finally brought separation of powers in 2004. No single leader, no political party, no organization could have converted betrayals of public trust into historic reforms. But when citizen coalitions worked with dedicated public officials to address systemic failures, government changed.
Three times—in 2002, 2008, and 2013—Chicago’s Better Government Association has scored state laws that promote integrity, accountability, and government transparency. In 50-state rankings, Rhode Island ranked second twice and first in 2013—largely because of reforms reported in SECRETS & SCANDALS.
Each week, GoLocalProv will be running a chapter from SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, which chronicles major government reforms that took place during H. Philip West's years as executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island. The book is available from the local bookstores found HERE.
Part One: DiPrete, RISDIC
Chapter Twelve, Struggles (1992)
On March 4, 1992, an overflow crowd filled every seat in the majestic wood-columned Rhode Island Supreme Court chamber. As the deep green velvet curtain swooshed open, the five justices took their seats to hear oral arguments on the authority of the state Ethics Commission.
Gov. Bruce Sundlun’s executive counsel, Judith C. Savage, argued that allowing the Ethics Commission to write and enforce a code of ethics for elected officials would create an unconstitutional fourth branch of government. “The dangers,” Savage warned, “cannot be overstated.”
She asserted that Rhode Island voters did not mean to endow the proposed new commission with vast power to write ethics laws. Her argument marked a 180-degree turn from what the governor’s policy chief, Sheldon Whitehouse, had declared only six months earlier. There had been no public announcement, but I assumed that threats from General assembly leaders had backed Sundlun away from supporting the commission’s power to adopt ethics rules.
Next Edward M. Fogarty lumbered toward the central podium to argue on behalf of House leaders. He asked what would prevent the commission from writing rules for campaign finance under the guise of ethics. “I submit that is terrifying,” Fogarty told the five black-robed justices, “absolutely terrifying.”
Ethics Commission attorney Gary Yesser began with a wry smile: “In one of my arguments today, I hope to convince Mr. Fogarty that the sky is not falling.” Yesser pointed out that the General assembly controlled the commission’s budget and nominated individuals who were then appointed by the governor. He added that any ruling of the Ethics Commission could be appealed to Superior Court.
Several months earlier, Frederick “Rick” Cass, a lawyer on the Common Cause state board, had told me that a top appellate lawyer had expressed interest in arguing our case pro bono. That came as welcome news, since we had little money and no budget for litigation. Cass took me to meet Lauren E. Jones at his office near the courthouse. Together, Jones and Cass wrote a brief that knit simple arguments into a cogent whole.
Lauren Jones stepped to the podium. Though the hair on top of his head had thinned, the rest was tied back in a ponytail that made him look like an aging rock star. “May it please the Court,” Jones began, as each lawyer before him had. He urged the Supreme Court to take the 1986 Ethics Amendment at face value. He said that the people, “engaging in the most solemn of functions the people have, voted to amend the Rhode Island Constitution,” they voted to create a new constitutional entity, and “they infused this Ethics Commission with the power to ‘adopt a code of ethics.’ ”
Jones segued from history to Supreme Court principles. “This court has ruled consistently that the words of the Constitution, as adopted by the people, must be given their usual and accepted meaning. It is not up to the legislature or the courts to question the wisdom, convenience, or effectiveness of a constitutional provision.”
He read out dictionary definitions for “independent” and “nonpartisan,” words that lay at the amendment’s core. He said only the Ethics Commission appeared in the Constitution as independent or nonpartisan. By adding these words in 1986, the people had set the commission apart from normal political struggles and influences. He suggested that if the high court wished to go further and consider the intent behind the words, transcripts of the 1986 Constitutional Convention were equally emphatic. Under the rules of the convention, delegates were required to approve the same text in two separate votes. On June 4, 1986, they supported the “independent and nonpartisan” language, 71–2. Three weeks later they reaffirmed that text by a vote of 92–2.
He concluded that the people of Rhode Island had given the Ethics Commission, rather than the General Assembly, three extraordinary powers: to adopt the Code of Ethics, to investigate violations of the code, and to impose penalties which would be provided by law. None of this had happened in a vacuum, he added. “The perception of the state’s ethics at the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1986 was low. The concern was that without an independent ethics commission, the sharp teeth in any code of ethics could be removed by those who feared being bitten.”
Finally, he said, the General Assembly was not being stripped of its power to write laws involving ethics. The legislature remained free to enact any provision that was “not contradictory or inconsistent” with the code that had been adopted by the constitutionally established Ethics Commission.
Rae Condon had filed her own brief, and she approached the lectern last. The five justices knew that her father had served thirty years on the state’s highest court, his last seven as chief justice. “May it please the Court,” she began in the magnificent courtroom she had first visited as a child. “The governor and the speaker of the House want you to believe that the voters did not understand what they were doing when they directed the Ethics Commission to adopt a code of ethics for all public officials. Besides being false, that assertion is elitist and not the least democratic.”
Condon focused on the reasons why the 1986 Constitutional Convention’s ethics committee had proposed that the new Ethics Commission, rather than the General Assembly, must adopt a code of ethics. She reminded the justices behind their long wooden dais that both the text of the 1986 Ethics Amendment and the question presented to voters had been plain: “Shall an ethics commission be established with the authority to adopt a code of ethics and to discipline or remove public officials and employees found in violation of that code?”
She said it strained credulity to believe that voters who approved the constitutional amendment “were confused, uninformed, and misled.” In addition to newspaper stories, she argued, each household had received two detailed mailings about the amendments on the ballot.
Condon ended with a legal flourish, quoting the high court’s ruling at another pivotal time. During the Bloodless Revolution of 1935, Democrats became the majority party. She read from the decision: “‘This court is the agent of the people in the administration of justice in this state. It would be recreant to the great trust reposed in it if it did not guard every agency by which justice is administered.’” She did not need to tell them that her father, the legendary Chief Justice Francis Bernard Condon, had penned those words.
A week later Rep. Jeff Teitz convened a fresh round of RISDIC hearings on live television. With ample police protection, Teitz again opened the basement hearing room to the public. I found a seat near the front. Reporters from the Providence Journal arrived with new laptop computers. RISDIC Commission members, Rae Condon among the nine, filed in from backstage, marching past a blue drape to their chairs. Teitz’s special prosecutors, John Nields and Alan Baron, now nicknamed “the Baltimore Bullets” after the basketball team, slipped into the room.
Ever since Joe Mollicone had vanished with $13 million from his Mob-connected bank on Federal Hill, people had been asking about organized crime. What role had Patriarca’s associates played in RISDIC’s collapse?
Investigators tracking defunct loans quickly recognized a pattern. Ten groups with links to mobsters had borrowed nearly $175 million from RISDIC institutions. Contrary to the credit unions’ stated purpose of providing small loans to homeowners and Rhode Island businesses shut out by commercial banks, developers had received loans whose totals ranged from $9.2 million to $48.8 million. Many of their projects were located not in Rhode Island but in New York, Ohio, and Florida. Investigators estimated that $115 million would never be recovered.
Robert Stitt had raised the question of money laundering in his 1985 report, and the Providence Journal had reported that deposits in the three largest credit unions — Central, Davisville, and Marquette — had swelled from $364 million to $741 million during RISDIC’s last four years. The Journal’s Peter Phipps speculated that Mob figures might have used RISDIC institutions to launder cash from their drug and gambling operations, noting that “the virtually unregulated RISDIC institutions look like a perfect place to wash the traces of illegal activity from the Mob’s money.”
Howard F. Rosenstein, a financial investigator who worked with Nields and Baron, had been following the money. He told Teitz’s panel that Greater Providence Deposit & Trust had lent $700,000 to a pair of Mob-connected brothers, Robert and Donald Barbato. The Barbato brothers had repaid only $45,000 during the next five years. They had also borrowed heavily from Rhode Island Central, flipping properties and leaving the institution in the hole for $4.8 million while they pocketed more than $2 million from a condominium project they named Wildflower Commons. Rosenstein suggested that part of the Barbatos’ take had gone for $60,000 luxury skyboxes at Fenway Park and a Rolls Royce convertible that cost $194,461.86.
Defense lawyer Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr., brother of Senate Majority Leader John J. Bevilacqua, had tried in vain to quash the RISDIC Commission’s subpoena of Donald Barbato, and he marched ahead of Barbato to the witness table. Under the television lights, Bevilacqua glared at Teitz and accused him of using the hearing “as a convenient tool for publicity for self-serving purposes.”
The showdown could not have been more personal. Teitz had led the impeachment investigation against the lawyer’s late father and namesake, then-Chief Justice Joseph A. Bevilacqua, and the Barbatos’ Mob connections played prominently in the impeachment. State police surveillance placed the chief justice in Robert Barbato’s home at least seventeen times in one year. Barbato had coordinated the chief justice’s trysts at a Mob-owned motel. State police had also staked out Montecello’s, a North Providence clothing store owned by the Barbato brothers, where Patriarca crime family associates often met. When Raymond “Junior” Patriarca was arrested in 1990 on federal racketeering charges, Donald Barbato pledged $2.7 million, including Montecello’s, to bail him out.
Now Joseph A. Bevilacqua Jr. sat beside Donald Barbato at the witness table, glaring at Rep. Jeffrey Teitz. Bevilacqua declared that he had informed the commission that his clients would cite their rights against self-incrimination. “I can only view their compelled attendance before your commission as outright harassment,” he said, “a deliberate attempt on your behalf to create a circus atmosphere to have my clients viewed by the TV audience as individuals who have broken the law.” He denounced what he called the commission’s “abuse of its subpoena authority.” He warned of “a hit-and-run effect upon their constitutional rights.”
Teitz listened stoically and kept silent.
At Teitz’s side, John Nields began questioning Donald Barbato: “Mr. Barbato, do you have a brother named Robert Barbato?”
Barbato glanced at Bevilacqua and began reading from a paper: “Upon the advice of counsel, I refuse to be compelled to be a witness against myself, and I invoke all my rights onto the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the United States Constitution.” He drew a breath, and went on to the Rhode Island Constitution and sections of state and federal laws.
After Donald Barbato’s second boilerplate refusal to answer, Bevilacqua suggested saving time by having him answer “same response.”
Teitz agreed.
Neilds asked Barbato basic questions about millions that he and his brother owed to Rhode Island Central Credit Union. “Same response,” Barbato replied. Again and again, he recited the answer. Soon, spectators around me in the audience began parroting it with him.
Robert Barbato followed the same script, repeating the mantra fifteen times in a litany that quickly became tedious. The Barbato brothers and corporations they controlled had parlayed fake loans into real fortunes. They had left RISDIC credit unions holding bags full of properties worth far less than their face value. When state examiners checked Wildflower Commons to see if it could be sold to cover the Barbatos’ default, they discovered that only thirty of the one hundred condos had been completed.
Oversized men in expensive suits, Donald and Robert Barbato sauntered out of the room looking triumphant. They had pulled off a classic scam and almost dared the RISDIC Commission to recommend criminal prosecution.
Nor were the Barbatos exceptional. Another pair of brothers, Nicholas and Vincent Cambio, turned up among the largest borrowers from five closed credit unions. Providence Journal reporter Ira Chinoy calculated their take at $19 million.
On April Fools’ Day 1992, the Cambio brothers and their partner, Rodney A. Malafronte, followed the Barbato brothers to the witness table. They also claimed their constitutional right not to incriminate themselves.
RISDIC investigators had followed the money Nicholas Cambio pocketed from one subterfuge in 1988. With no money down, he borrowed $975,000 from the Davisville Credit Union to buy a closed Warwick restaurant called the Quaker Pub. No one at the credit union bothered to get an appraisal or find out that the eatery was advertised for sale at $650,000. From that venture Cambio cleared $325,000, which he processed through a bevy of corporations he controlled to produce nine separate corporate checks to the campaign of Gov. Edward DiPrete.
An infusion of Cambio checks worth $17,800 arrived just in time to help the scandal-tainted DiPrete eke out a narrow win in the 1988 election. The governor had taken mountains of RISDIC money while he ignored warnings that the state credit union system was a disaster waiting to happen.
Teitz, who had drafted Rhode Island’s 1988 Campaign Finance Law, argued that the Cambios’ huge contributions defied the legal limit of $2,000 from any single entity.
Investigators had also tracked funds Nicholas Cambio had borrowed from Marquette Credit Union to futures trading on risky stocks and commodities. Howard Rosenstein, the forensic auditor, told the RISDIC panel that between 1987 and 1990, Cambio had lost $7.4 million — all borrowed. “Basically,” he testified, “it’s like going to Atlantic City or Las Vegas. A significant portion of those losses got funded by RISDIC institutions.”
In May of 1992, federal agents arrested the Cambio brothers and Rodney Malafronte. They charged the three with wire fraud and conspiracy.
Despite the deluge of information about how vulnerable RISDIC-insured institutions had been to Mob associates, Teitz’s practice of forcing thugs in expensive suits to assert their rights against self-incrimination sparked controversy. Rae Condon told me it was unfair to force even reprehensible characters like the Barbatos and the Cambios to keep reciting their rights. “What earthly good does it do to parade them in public?” she asked.
I pointed to the need for ordinary citizens to see the faces and schemes of those who had systematically looted the credit unions: “People would tune out after a while if the only show was Howard Rosenstein connecting the dots.”
“So you’re saying I have to sit up there like a sphinx and be party to this spectacle? To entertain people in their living rooms?”
There was no point in answering, but I believed Teitz was on the right track.
As Gov. Sundlun and legislative leaders inched toward compromise on the RIght Now! bills, word spread that I was negotiating the details. When I left State House offices, I never knew whether reporters would be waiting in the hall. Mo Guernon, head of Operation Clean Sweep, blasted me for “back-room meetings” and branded me “the Judas Iscariot of the reform movement.”
Passover and Easter fell late in 1992, and the airwaves crackled with talk of betrayal. For months, Sen. Bill Irons had been pushing RIght Now! to denounce Senate Majority Leader John Bevilacqua. Irons made the struggle personal, insisting that no reforms would matter as long as Bevilacqua ran the Senate. In private conversations I told Irons that RIght Now! was committed to changing the political system and would not join in personal attacks.
Our strategy of negotiating gained credibility when the Senate approved Jeff Teitz’s Comprehensive Campaign Finance Reform package.
On April 16, the day before Good Friday, I was on a WHJJ radio talk show hosted by Steve Kass, when Irons phoned in. As he had been doing for weeks, Irons slammed our negotiations with legislative leaders: “You have to ask how we are ever going to make any progress when the people who are supposed to be your friends are cutting deals behind closed doors,” he declared. “Phil West lost that battle when he agreed to negotiate. That was the end.”
I wanted to interject that the steering committee had decided to negotiate, but Irons was already declaring that I was “a phony’s phony.” He added: “I’m trying to fight the good fight, but I’m getting my legs cut off by people who are supposed to be the good guys.” In an emotional crescendo, Irons announced he would not seek re-election.
In calmer comments after the on-air exchange, Irons told a Providence Journal reporter that he had been thinking about leaving public life for several months. His angry announcement prompted calls from friends and allies, asking him to reconsider.
As the General Assembly started its spring break, Alan Hassenfeld quietly invited Irons and his Senate faction to Hasbro for breakfast. On a glorious late April morning, seven senators arrived for breakfast in a glassed-in garden room at Hasbro headquarters. Most were meeting the famed toymaker for the first time. After coffee, cut fruit, bagels, and scrambled eggs, Hassenfeld charmed them, his hair tousled, and his sleeves rolled up.
“I wanted to hear your concerns,” he said. “I think all of us love Rhode Island. All of us understand the need to pass systemic reforms. I know we have different roles, but I’d like to hear your concerns and — hopefully — have us all pulling in the same direction.”
Irons rose at his place. The shortest person in the glassy garden room, he wore a double-breasted blazer, pressed white shirt, and muted tie. “Alan,” he began in a moderate tone, “I have the greatest respect for you, and I have no quarrel with what you’ve said. But I think you need to comprehend the nature of John Bevilacqua and his cohorts. I don’t know if you’ve met them.”
“I haven’t,” said Hassenfeld, agreeably. “I know you’ve been dealing with them for years.”
“We have, and they’ve been utterly disingenuous. They have nothing but contempt for systemic reform.” Irons argued that Bevilacqua and his backers were corrupt to the core. “That being the case, it’s utterly demeaning for you to negotiate with them. In the end, they’ll give you less than half a loaf.”
Hassenfeld tamped his pipe but did not light it. “It’s obvious what you’ve been up against,” he said, “but we hope you understand that the RIght Now! Coalition has a role that’s different from yours. From the start, we’ve demanded specific changes in the law and Constitution, and we’ve also made it a matter of principle never to attack people.”
“With all due respect,” Irons interrupted. “You don’t have to negotiate with them behind closed doors.”
“Our steering committee thinks negotiation is necessary,” Hassenfeld insisted. “We need to know where there may or may not be room for compromise. We’re fully aware that the various players may have different bottom lines that they’re not willing to announce to the world.”
“Respectfully, Alan,” Irons replied. “I know you’re sincere, but your enemies — and believe me, they are your enemies — are not sincere. They intend to string you along, and in the end, they’ll give you nothing.”
Hassenfeld rose, his hands poised as if holding an invisible basketball. “As of right now, the ball’s still in play, and we intend to win. We intend to play hard until the final buzzer.” The toymaker brightened. “And, hey, we’re not relying on their kindness or good intentions. If anybody tries to run out the clock and block reform, I assure you we will let the voters know who did it. Right now,” he said, smiling at his play on words, “we’re glad you came this morning. We’re eager to work with you, and we hope you’ll recognize that our methods may not always be the same as yours.”
Irons clearly wanted the last word. “We hear you, but we still think you’re making a mistake to negotiate. That said, we’re with you in wanting systemic reforms. We carried the ball before RIght Now! got started, and we’ll be in the game after your coalition packs it in. I just hope you don’t let genuine reform slip away.”
There was no point in arguing. Breakfast ended with smiles and handshaking all around. After the senators left, I asked Hassenfeld what I could have done differently.
“Movements get divisive.” He lit his pipe and drew on it. “Irons knows they can’t win without us. At the end of the day, everyone will want to own these reforms. Keep in mind what President Kennedy said: ‘Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.’ ”
By the last days of April, as pale green softened a thousand trees on College Hill, a sense of inevitability spread at the State House. Jeff Teitz’s campaign finance bill had come back from the Senate with only minor amendments and landed on the House calendar for final passage. After years of work on its elements and countless legislative setbacks, historic reforms suddenly seemed possible.
Operation Clean Sweep blasted the legislation and demanded tougher language. Graying volunteers stood at all three entrances to the House chamber handing out lists of amendments that they said would constitute genuine reform.
As debate began, Teitz rose from his seat, microphone in hand, towering above everyone else in the chamber. “Today is truly an historic day,” he announced with obvious pleasure. He began to guide his colleagues through the bill, announcing that this legislation would for the first time in Rhode Island’s history ban corporate contributions to political campaigns. He reminded his colleagues and the reporters, who filled a long desk below the rostrum, that money from prime players in the RISDIC scandal had traditionally flowed through multiple corporations to candidates for governor.
Without mentioning former House Speaker Matthew Smith by name, Teitz noted that his bill would outlaw the widespread practice of converting leftover campaign funds for personal use. Smith had drawn more than nine thousand dollars from his campaign account to pay his sons’ college tuition payments. Gov. Ed DiPrete had tapped his war chest to take family members on a Las Vegas vacation.
Teitz outlined how his bill would allow a former office-holder to donate unused campaign funds to other candidates, political parties, political action committees, charities, or the state. Or, he added with a smile, ex-officials could maintain their accounts for subsequent campaigns or return unused money to the donors.
Ever professorial, Teitz also explained how one section of the new law would cut in half the amounts an individual or political action committee could contribute to any candidate. “Equally important,” he added, “it would establish sweeping new disclosure requirements that would allow the public to see the names and businesses of all contributors over $100.”
He turned to the matching-funds program that would make it possible for candidates who lacked personal wealth to run for statewide office. Enacted four years earlier, the new system had not worked in the 1990 gubernatorial contest, which shattered all previous spending records. He explained that if a wealthy candidate were to spend more than $1.5 million from his own pocket, public matching funds would become available for any challenger who played by the rules. “No system is perfect,” Teitz said, ”but these provisions surely level the playing field.”
To emphasize the importance of this debate, Alan Hassenfeld and I watched from chairs at the side of the House chamber. Rep. Ray Rickman offered what seemed to be a noncontroversial amendment to require the Board of Elections to notify citizens each year that campaign finance reports were available for public inspection.
I winced at that. Any change would send the bill back to the Senate and delay its implementation for an entire election cycle. The legislation might even drop through the cracks, as Teitz’s bill had done the year before.
Rickman, an implacable foe of DeAngelis and Teitz, turned some of his anger against Hassenfeld and me. “I’m going to vote against this bill because my conscience tells me to,” he said, “because I’m not afraid of the rich and powerful, and because I’m not afraid of anyone right now.” He was running for secretary of state, and his militant stand won support from Operation Clean Sweep and the Public Interest alliance.
Teitz moved to table Rickman’s amendment. When the speaker called for the vote, 51 green lights to table prevailed over 38 red lights to continue debate.
Other amendments followed: to cut the top contribution anyone could make to a candidate in half, to delete a provision that would allow individuals to give up to $10,000 to political parties for “party building activities,” and to drop the threshold for reporting political contributions from $100 to $25.
Pages distributed copies of each amendment to the representatives, who debated and then voted to table one after another. As the final vote neared, House Minority Leader David Dumas rose at his desk. “I’m so used to creeping in this area that when I get a chance to leap, I’m going to take it,” he said, urging the House to approve.
When DeAngelis called for the final vote, 94 voted to pass Teitz’s bill, and only five voted against it.
With reporters trailing, Alan Hassenfeld and I made our way through the House lounge, where we had announced the RIght Now! coalition five months earlier. As we left the building, bright spring sunshine filled the plaza. I asked if he was ready to call off the moratorium on campaign contributions.
“As soon as Bruce signs the bill,” he laughed. “I told you it wouldn’t last forever.” He asked me to draft a press release to fax out after the signing. “Make it dramatic! This is a huge victory.”
The next day, in a state room suffused with sunshine, Bruce Sundlun prepared to sign Teitz’s bill into law. “Today marks an important milestone in the journey toward a more ethical government in Rhode Island,” Sundlun intoned in his Pattonesque growl. “It’s a good start, and other reforms will follow.”
Political leaders filled rows of chairs angled toward his podium. Near the windows, a modest table held the bill that awaited Sundlun’s signature.
House Speaker Joe DeAngelis injected a note of humor, directing his comments toward the governor. “I’m keeping a promise today,” he said. “When the session started, I promised that we would have this legislation on your desk no later than the beginning of February. I’m aware that we missed that date, but we have the bill. In legislative time, this is timely!”
Then Jeff Teitz leaned into the microphone. “This moves us into the ranks of states with the strongest regulation of campaign finance. For those who are repulsed by the ever-increasing costs of campaigns, this is progress. For those of us who want issues to shape campaigns, this is real progress.”
After the speeches, Sundlun moved to a chair by the small table. Among a dozen legislators, Alan Hassenfeld and I stood behind him. He scrawled his name on the coversheet of the bill and handed the pen to me. It felt surreal to be shaking his hand, thanking him.
Hassenfeld told reporters that RIght Now’s moratorium on campaign contributions had ended. I faxed a press release declaring that enactment of comprehensive campaign Finance reform sent a clear message to any who might seek unfair advantage: “Rhode Island State Government is not for sale, not for rent, not for hire.
I had known from the start that our toughest struggle would be over what we called “the revolving door.” Common Cause board member Bill Colleran, an engineer who had computed trajectories for Apollo flights to and from the moon, turned his expertise to tracking the paths General Assembly members had taken to judgeships. He found that of fifty-four judges appointed during the last twenty years, twenty-five went directly from the State House to the bench. Fifteen had been lawmakers, and ten others were legislative staff lawyers. By contrast, although thousands of attorneys practiced in the state, Colleran found only twenty-six without these political connections who had become judges during the same time.
I knew two House Judiciary Committee members who had recently become judges: Rep. Gilbert V. Indeglia advanced to the District Court bench in 1989, and Rep. Paul A. Suttell got a Family Court judgeship in 1990.
Two other representatives had made spectacular leaps from the House to the Supreme Court. Speaker Joseph A. Bevilacqua orchestrated his elevation to chief justice in 1976, while House Judiciary chairman Thomas F. Fay became a Family Court judge in 1978 and chief justice in 1986.
Another judicial appointment had “political payoff ” written all over it. Over several months in 1988 and 1989, factions of Democrats had battled for control of the Senate. A slim majority had elected Sen. David R. Carlin Jr. as Senate majority leader, but Sen. John J. Bevilacqua gained de facto control by aligning with Senate Republicans, whose minority leader was Robert D. Goldberg.
Carlin bitterly accused Goldberg and Gov. DiPrete of forging an “unholy alliance” with Bevilacqua to avert a legislative investigation of contractor defaults on the unfinished Jamestown Bridge.
Whatever lay behind the bipartisan partnership, Bevilacqua gave plum posts to Carlin allies who had switched sides, and the next available appointment on the Superior Court went to Maureen McKenna Goldberg, the wife and law partner of Senate Minority leader Bob Goldberg.
Few doubted that Bevilacqua had engineered her appointment. While governors publicly appointed judges, the Senate routinely confirmed them. I often heard that the governor, Senate majority leader, and speaker of the House followed an unwritten protocol: they took turns choosing jurists.
Bevilacqua took the revolving door bill as a personal affront and tried to stand the problem on its head. Though he agreed that many political players had moved up to judgeships, he insisted that those chosen were good judges. “You can’t just put a label on these people and say they’re not good because they’ve been members of the General Assembly.”
John Bevilacqua’s obdurate opposition to our revolving door bill had buried it without a vote in 1991, and he had railed against the Ethics Commission’s vote to adopt the same ban. Throughout the spring of 1992, he bristled whenever I raised the subject. Once, he thundered at me: “You should wise up. What don’t you understand about the meaning of ‘no’?”
Bruce Sundlun seemed equally adamant. One afternoon, as I trailed him down the broad rotunda stairway, he roared over his shoulder: “I haven’t made a single goddamn revolving door appointment, but if the best person happens to be a legislator . . . .” He let it hang ominously. “I’m a lawyer. I can pick good judges, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you or Alan Hassenfeld stand in my way.”
The RIght Now! steering committee had wrestled with this resistance and settled reluctantly on a compromise that would exempt judgeships. That concession appeared to be the price for passing the rest of our ethics package, including strong anti-nepotism rules and a streamlined Ethics Commission with open adjudicative hearings.
No one liked the trade, but as Hassenfeld asked around the table, most thought we had no choice.
Our compromise on the revolving door left no one happy. On a misty spring night right now! supporters arriving for an ecumenical rally had to cross through a half-dozen pickets from Operation Clean Sweep and its allies, who handed out leaflets and chanted that we were not tough enough on corrupt politicians. Inside the Bishop McVinney Auditorium, part of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence headquarters, attendees barely filled the banked seats. The enthusiasm that had galvanized many thousands in January had dissipated.
Episcopal Bishop George Hunt told the audience he was not a member of the steering committee, nor was he about to question our revolving door compromise, but asked, “Why does the assembly need us to prod them to do what is ethical and right? The very fact that such a prod is needed is eloquent testimony to the need for such reforms.”
On the brightly lit stage, Alan Hassenfeld embraced Bishop Hunt and then spoke with the gentle intimacy I had come to feel was second nature to him. “More than anything else in this state, we need change, and we need change very, very quickly because too many people are fed up.” Without explaining the vicissitudes of our negotiations or the reasons for compromise, he stayed upbeat. “Ninety-five percent of what RIght Now! has sought is coming up for a vote,” he said. “Sooner or later, reform will be ours.”
I had no advance notice that Operation Clean Sweep would issue a legislative report card, but early in June people with signs clustered on the landing where broad marble stairways down from the House and Senate meet beneath the dome.
A huge bronze Rhode Island seal marked the epicenter. At a microphone Mo Guernon was describing the results to reporters, his voice muffled in the hubbub of passing lobbyists and lawmakers. I moved closer to listen and took a packet from a volunteer. Guernon said their scorecard brought a “day of reckoning” for legislators.
The clean Sweep scorecard used what it called an IQ, which stood for “Incumbent Quotient.” From a base of 100, the scorers added one point for each vote they considered pro-reform and subtracted one for each anti-reform vote.
On their list Rep. Jeff Teitz had the worst score in the House, an IQ of 69, while Speaker Joe DeAngelis had a 71. Representatives who had voted to table the more radical amendments to Teitz’s campaign finance bill did poorly, while those who one-upped the RIght now! proposals were rated “genius.” In the Senate, the same pattern held. Bill Irons scored 114 for backing the most radical cuts in campaign contribution limits and reporting thresholds.
Neither Guernon nor his followers had worked on these issues in previous legislative sessions, and their efforts in 1992 consisted of issuing demands that were twice as tough as RIght Now’s. They mocked the work Teitz had done on campaign finance reform. In their scorecard, he became a reactionary bent on preserving the corrupt status quo.
Reporter Wayne Miller found me behind a pillar that held up the dome.
“What do you make of these scores?”
I shrugged. “I’m not saying they’re totally wrong, but it’s not as simple as they suggest. Their bottom line turns Jeff Teitz into a bad guy who ‘needs a career change.’ In that sense, their study misrepresents the legislative process to the public.”
I sensed Mo Guernon and his group had acted impulsively, but I had no idea why they fired this salvo before the session ended. They caricatured the central characters before the final votes. Guernon’s scorecard would confuse people who got their news on television.
Later in his office, Jeff Teitz seemed unperturbed. “When they produce such an extreme document,” he said, “they make themselves absurd. You know and I know we’ve put forth genuine reform. In time, members of the public will recognize that, and I will gladly stand on my record.”
Through the four years I had known him, I often marveled that Jeff Teitz could recall details from countless bills, as if he stowed them in mental pigeonholes with the latest versions on top. He worked through complex questions, seeming to embody a unique blend of realism, pragmatism, and unflappable civility. Through thick glasses he communicated a sense that he genuinely cared about relationships and wanted to resolve disagreements.
I rose to leave his office and asked if he could clue me in on the constitutional amendment for four-year terms.
“You know,” he said quietly, “there’s a strong feeling that we should have four-year terms for the General Assembly as well as the governor and other general officers.”
“And you know that voters already said no to that,” I said, trying not to sound argumentative.
On his feet, Teitz towered above me. “Candidly, I can tell you that a four-year term for the governor and other general officers is not popular on the third floor. Nobody really thinks we should shift power toward the executive. And frankly, even if we agree to put your question on the ballot, I don’t think you’ll prevail.”
“Our point,” I replied, “is that voters should decide the constitutional question. It would be fine for you to put up a separate question on four-year terms for legislators. The steering committee thinks it’s crucial that you let the people vote separately on four-year terms for the governor and legislature.”
“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” he said.
H. Philip West Jr. served from 1988 to 2006 as executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island. SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, chronicles major government reforms during those years.
He helped organize coalitions that led in passage of dozens of ethics and open government laws and five major amendments to the Rhode Island Constitution, including the 2004 Separation of Powers Amendment.
West hosted many delegations from the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program that came to learn about ethics and separation of powers. In 2000, he addressed a conference on government ethics laws in Tver, Russia. After retiring from Common Cause, he taught Ethics in Public Administration to graduate students at the University of Rhode Island.
Previously, West served as pastor of United Methodist churches and ran a settlement house on the Bowery in New York City. He helped with the delivery of medicines to victims of the South African-sponsored civil war in Mozambique and later assisted people displaced by Liberia’s civil war. He has been involved in developing affordable housing, day care centers, and other community services in New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
West graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, from Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., received his masters degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and published biblical research he completed at Cambridge University in England. In 2007, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Rhode Island College.
Since 1965 he has been married to Anne Grant, an Emmy Award-winning writer, a nonprofit executive, and retired United Methodist pastor. They live in Providence and have two grown sons, including cover illustrator Lars Grant-West.
This electronic version of SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006 omits notes, which fill 92 pages in the printed text.
Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption
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