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

Monday, April 20, 2015

H. Philip West Jr.

Between 1986 and 2006, Rhode Island ran a gauntlet of scandals that exposed corruption and aroused public rage. Protesters marched on the State House. Coalitions formed to fight for systemic changes. Under intense public pressure, lawmakers enacted historic laws and allowed voters to amend defects in the state’s constitution.
Since colonial times, the legislature had controlled state government. Governors were barred from making many executive appointments, and judges could never forget that on a single day in 1935 the General Assembly sacked the entire Supreme Court.

Without constitutional checks and balances, citizens suffered under single party control. Republicans ruled during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Democrats held sway from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. In their eras of unchecked control, both parties became corrupt.

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.

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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: DePrete, RISDIC

Chapter Seven: New Beginnings (1991)

After the RISDIC disaster and a bitter 1991 legislative session, fragile signs of change began to sprout. Three shoots emerged, each independent of the others, promising yet vulnerable. 

The first revealed key RISDIC players. During the tumultuous session, Rep. Jeffrey J. Teitz and his special investigators, Alan I. Baron and John W. Nields Jr., had subpoenaed testimony and deposed insiders behind closed doors in the new administration building, across Smith Street from the State House. Shielded by their lawyers, brushing past reporters into the guarded room, most spent an hour or more testifying. Others emerged only moments after they entered, a clear sign they had invoked their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Details remained under wraps.

In July, sunlight burned through the fog of secrecy as the RISDIC Investigating Commission announced televised public hearings. Cable TV subscribers could watch from their living rooms. 

I went to the State House, crossing the lawn toward basement doors, my usual shortcut. For the first time I could remember, I found those doors locked. I walked around the broad marble pedestal and up a flight of stairs to the main entrance. Inside, there were still no security scanners, but yellow police tapes and police officers blocked my way. I smiled and said I was going to the ­RISDIC hearing in Room 35.
 
“That’s closed to the public,” an officer told me. He directed me upstairs to a room where depositors occupied seats near a large TV monitor that glowed blue. Through six months of bitter threats, I had seen frightening lapses of security at the State House. Now, the tight police presence was comforting but inconvenient.

The blue screen flickered to life. After preliminaries, Special Counsel Alan Baron opened the hearing by reading from minutes of the RISDIC board’s meeting on December 10, 1990. Eerily, the insurer’s president, Peter A. Nevola, warned that if word of RISDIC’s plight got out there would be “one hell of a crisis in this state.” Nevola urged board members to keep putting out the word that RISDIC could fulfill its responsibilities. Baron hammered Nevola’s duplicity: “I submit that this statement crystallizes what being an insider is all about. To know what the real facts are, to refrain from disclosing those facts to the public, indeed, to lull the public into a false sense that all is well.”

The first witness was Sen. John F. Correia, the president pro tem of the state Senate. He had been a vice president at the East Providence Credit Union when RISDIC crashed. With white hair above an unlined face, Correia looked like a successful banker in his tailored suit, starched shirt, and finely patterned tie. On screen, he was suave and did not seem at all nervous. Records from his failed credit union showed that in the days after Nevola’s dire warning, Correia began making trips to its gleaming modern headquarters. He arrived unobtrusively, went to different tellers, and quietly withdrew money from his business and personal accounts, $210,000 in all. To cash out certificates of deposit prematurely, he paid early withdrawal penalties of $750. He opened accounts at a commercial bank insured by the FDIC. 

“Senator,” Baron asked Correia, “I want to ask about the $150,000 that you moved from East Providence to Shawmut Bank on December 28. How do you reconcile the transfers of the monies that we have been talking about with your statement on January 6, when you denied taking your money out?” Baron had used the term “withdrawal,” and Correia quibbled. He said he was not as sophisticated as Baron. 

“What I was doing was transactions, not withdrawing money.” 

“You didn’t regard that taking out, that transferring of money as a withdrawal from the institution?” 

“No,” the senator replied. 

“Why is that not a withdrawal from the institution? I’m not sure I can follow.” 

Correia frowned. “Because the way I look at it, it’s transactions that I made. Transactions, not withdrawals. Withdrawing to me is going to the bank and they give me the money and I put it in my pocket and go home.” 

Viewers around me watching the public monitor guffawed at the senator’s attempt to twist words. Several cursed him. Still on the screen, Correia defended his actions. “At all times, my actions were motivated by my duties as a director,” he said. “Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong.”

Other stories were similar. RISDIC’s long-time attorney, V. James Santaniello, had pulled $120,000 out of RISDIC institutions during the two weeks before they closed. During his time under the television lights, Santaniello testified: “My intent was never to gain an advantage over other depositors.” Records showed that John R. Lanfredi, the treasurer of RISDIC and president of the Rhode Island Central Credit Union, had also pulled more than $300,000 from his credit union. To cash out certificates of deposit, Lanfredi paid $11,700 in early withdrawal penalties. 

Lanfredi approached the witness table with his lawyer. During the closed door depositions he had invoked the Fifth Amendment. Now he was on television. Special Counsel John W. Nields quickly asked a double question: Had Lanfredi withdrawn $284,000 from Rhode Island Central on December 21, 1991? And if so, why? 

“On advice of counsel,” Lanfredi answered blandly, “I respectfully exercise my rights against self-incrimination on both the Rhode Island and U.S. constitutions and decline to answer the question.”
 
Not content to let it go, commission member Rep. Frank Gaschen, whose 1986 bill would have required federal credit union insurance, asked Lanfredi whether any of that money was now going to pay his lawyer. Lanfredi again claimed his constitutional right not to incriminate himself. One reporter noted that nearly every time Lanfredi invoked the Fifth Amendment, his tongue darted nervously. His television debut lasted less than five minutes but left an indelible impression.

After airtight security for the first session, authorities eased up on a steamy July night when the primary witness would be Rep. Robert V. Bianchini. Capitol police shuffled spectators through metal detectors and directed us to Room 35, a bare-brick basement hearing room equipped as a studio. As I came from the sultry night, air-conditioning made me catch my breath. Hostile depositors quickly filled ranks of black chairs between bared brick walls. The nine-member RISDIC Investigating Commission filed in from a back hallway and took seats in front of a blue drape.

When Rep. Robert V. Bianchini entered the room where he had often presided, depositors booed him. The wan look that had marked him through the spring had given way to a summer tan. Documents showed that Bianchini, as president of the Rhode Island Credit Union League (RICUL), had pumped $20 million into Rhode Island Central Credit Union as it tried to satisfy worried depositors demanding their money. In the witness chair he faced the commission; the audience behind him saw his face on wall-mounted monitors. 

Special counsel John Nields reminded Bianchini that Rhode Island Central had run out of cash in December 1991. Had RICUL loaned the credit union money? 

“They had a liquidity problem,” Bianchini answered, calmly. “They were accessing their line of credit.”

“In effect, you were lending them money?” 

“That’s correct.” Bianchini’s eyes were large and limpid. 

“Significant amounts?” Nields asked. “In the millions?” 

Bianchini assented, as if that were obvious. 

Nields asked Bianchini whether he had had any doubts about whether ­RISDIC would be able to keep functioning as a viable insurer. 

“I did. Yes, sir.” 

Nields pressed Bianchini about whether he had known that examiners from the National Credit Union Administration were checking the books at Rhode Island Central. Bianchini said he had thought the national examiners were examining all of the RISDIC-insured institutions. “Are you saying that in your job at RICUL you made absolutely no effort to find out how their examination was coming? What the results were?” 

“The National Credit Union Administration didn’t share that information,” Bianchini said, “and wouldn’t share it until the first week in January.”

“That’s not quite my question. Did you make any efforts whatsoever to find out from Rhode Island Central how the NCUA exam had gone?” 

“I do not recall doing that.” Bianchini added that his duty was to protect RICUL’s interest with enough collateral, which he had done. 

“Are you saying that as you continued to loan increasing amounts of money to Rhode Island Central during this period of time that it didn’t matter to you at all how the NCUA exam had gone?” 

“It mattered, as it did to every other credit union in the state.” 

“Did you make inquiries?” Nields asked. 

“About that specific exam? No, we didn’t.”

Bianchini had doled out millions to shore up the tottering giant. He stuck to his story: he had believed in December that the loan would help and that the state would never let RISDIC fail. 

Then Nields switched to the subject of loans. Records showed that while Bianchini was pumping RICUL money into Rhode Island Central, he had borrowed $85,000 from the same institution and deposited it in his mother’s checking account in a federally-insured bank.
        
For nearly four hours, Bianchini sparred with Nields over the facts and how to interpret them. Under pressure, he held his own. The fact that he came without a lawyer and testified with passion made for gripping theater. Bianchini seemed confident that he had done no wrong. 

I left the State House deeply perplexed about Bob Bianchini’s story. Though he had a blatant conflict of interest, he led the way in killing Gaschen’s 1986 bill to require federal credit union insurance. The ethics complaint against him had fallen one short of the five votes necessary to find a violation. Would a violation and fine in 1987 have changed his course? Had he done anything to fix the system he had helped create? Had he thought he would never have to pay off the $85,000 he borrowed from Central? How true was the story he told me over breakfast? Finally, why had he not hidden behind the Fifth Amendment, as several others had? For all the grievous mistakes he had made, Bianchini seemed certain that a different kind of intervention by Sundlun might have averted RISDIC’s collapse. How could he sound so sure of himself?

RISDIC’s president, Peter A. Nevola, was far less transparent under the television lights. He had apparently told his wife and mother-in-law about ­RISDIC’s likely failure. Records showed that in the days before the collapse they emptied their accounts and moved their money to FDIC-insured banks. During what turned out to be the last meeting of the RISDIC board, Peter Nevola had suffered severe chest pains. Other board members wanted to call an ambulance, but Nevola refused. He gulped medicine prescribed for his heart condition and returned to his seat at the head of the RISDIC table. Afterwards, he drove to the Providence Teachers’ Credit Union and withdrew $50,416 to pay off a loan. He then asked for $13,000 in cash from another account. When told he had to complete an IRS form for cash withdrawals over $3,000, Nevola took $2,900 in cash and a $10,000 check.

Under oath and on television before the RISDIC Commission, Nevola, his wife, and his mother-in-law refused to answer and claimed their constitutional right not to incriminate themselves twenty-seven times. Rep. David Dumas, a Republican member of the panel, spoke later with reporter Mike Stanton. “I should think they would know better,” Dumas said. “Once you start a paper trail, you can’t undo it. If you start to fudge it, the fudge appears.”
 
Seven months after the collapse, there was plenty of fudge. No one knew whether DEPCO could “make whole” thousands of depositors who still found themselves frozen out of an estimated $1.16 billion in thirteen RISDIC institutions that would never reopen. The public’s bitterness swelled against the cast of RISDIC insiders who had cashed out before their system crashed. 

Another hope sprouted in July 1991. I was not expecting much when I went to meet the new executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, an interfaith alliance that represented broad swaths of Protestant and Orthodox congregations. In the three years since Anne and I had settled in Rhode Island, the council’s pronouncements had struck me as predictably bland. 

The new head of the ecumenical group greeted me with a soft West Virginia lilt in his voice. “ I’m Jim Miller,” he said. “Believe it or not, you’re my very first appointment.”

Miller was an American Baptist, the branch of Baptists that trace their lineage to Roger Williams and regard the First Baptist Church in America in Providence as their founding congregation. He had served a large congregation in Rochester, New York, where executives from Kodak and Xerox sat on the church board and supported ministries with street people. 

A stack of newspapers lay on his desk. He had visited Rhode Island at intervals during the spring and had been reading about the RISDIC scandal in the Providence Journal. “What gets me in the gut,” Miller said, “is how deeply people feel betrayed. They blame everyone in public office, but they seem to be scapegoating Bruce Sundlun for declaring his ‘bank holiday.’” He tamped his pipe but did not light it. “I give this governor credit for making the best of a terrible mess.”

I told him that, for all the rage people were expressing over RISDIC, little had actually changed at the General Assembly. 

“Were the churches any help?” he asked. 

“No. But things happened so fast. We never really asked for their support.” 

Miller smiled. “Is it worth trying to build a coalition that could put real pressure on the General Assembly next spring? The preacher in me senses that we need some old-fashioned repentance. Elected officials need to repent for what they’ve done wrong and for what they’ve let their cronies do. And people outside the State House need to repent for tolerating so much corruption for so long. If you’ll permit me a West Virginia turn of phrase: Unless everyone repents for running the state into a ditch, we’ll never drag it up onto the road again.”

A few weeks later, the setting August sun cast a bright glow above the suburban office park headquarters of the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce. When I found the right room, Jim Miller was already there, seated alone at a polished conference table. As organizational leaders straggled in, he moved among them, shaking hands and connecting one by one. Herbert Hansen, who headed the Northern Rhode Island Chamber, welcomed us. He suggested that we introduce ourselves around the table and share what we hoped a coalition might accomplish. 

Jim Hagan led the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce. He explained why their priority was four-year terms for governors. Rhode Island had one of the weakest governorships in the country—only two other states still elected statewide officials for two-year terms. “That hurts us,” Hagan said. “I served in the General Assembly, and I’ve worked with governors—both Republicans and Democrats— Chafee, Licht, Noel, Garrahy, DiPrete, and now Sundlun.”
        
“So,” came a question, “how old does that make you?” 

“Old enough,” Hagan quipped, “to know that this is about more than personalities. Every governor had strengths and weaknesses. Some were better executives than others. But from inauguration day on, every single one of them had to start thinking about running for re-election the next year. A two-year term meant no long-term initiatives, little chance to engage the legislature over big issues. Four-year terms would change Rhode Island.”
        
John Gregory introduced himself as Hagan’s associate. He had the build of a wrestler but spoke softly, adding to what Hagan had said. “No executive can hire quality subordinates if he can only promise two years. Who would relocate here?” 

Gary Sasse was director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC), a business-backed think tank. He suggested that RISDIC gave us a brief window of opportunity to make dramatic improvements in government structure. He said RIPEC wanted both a stronger executive and a more accountable legislature. “We’d like to see four-year terms and significant ethics reforms,” he said. “Nothing will matter unless we can restore trust in elected officials.”

“I’m new to Rhode Island,” said Jim Miller, almost exaggerating his Appalachian twang. “Our denominational leaders tell me their people are sick of the insider dealing that brought us RISDIC. They may not know exactly what new laws will stop the dirty dealing, but they want to push back against corruption in high places.”
 
Next Curt Spalding introduced himself as director of Save the Bay, the state’s largest environmental organization. In his late thirties, Spalding was the youngest person at the table. Unlike those in summer suits, he wore a faded knit pullover. “We agree about four-year terms for governor,” he said. “No matter who gets elected, there’s always political pressure to relax environmental rules for insiders. Just like with lax supervision of credit unions, when you have weak enforcement of environmental rules it’s only a matter of time before catastrophe strikes.”

Suzette Gephard was president of the League of Women Voters. She said her members were disturbed that the General Assembly went home without addressing the root causes of RISDIC. “Ethics and campaign finance reforms are high priorities for us,” she said. “I would like both in a platform that we could report back to our members.” 

“Same for us,” said John Gregory. He described an all-day retreat the chambers would have in September. “They’ll insist on seeing a specific platform.” 

I wondered if the diverse organizations that these leaders represented could agree on a platform. I outlined legislative proposals that Common Cause had promoted over the years without success, hoping that they might embrace parts of our agenda. Over the course of several summer evening meetings, a consensus formed around a three-part platform: stronger ethics laws, effective campaign finance reforms, and a constitutional amendment establishing four-year terms for statewide general officers. We began thinking in terms of a three-legged stool that could provide firm seating even on rough ground.

Our embryonic coalition still had no name, and we struggled over who would lead it. Everyone liked Jim Miller, but he was new to Rhode Island, and no one thought a Baptist preacher could lead the charge in the most heavily Catholic state. Business interests were clearly not ready for Common Cause to lead, and grassroots groups seemed skittish about lining up behind the chambers of commerce.

After an August meeting that made progress on a platform but not on the question of leadership, Marcel Valois, director of the Blackstone Valley Development Foundation, drew several of us into his office. “I know who could make this go,” Valois said. “Why don’t you talk with Alan Hassenfeld?”
Hassenfeld was the president and ceO of the Hasbro toy company, which had its world headquarters in Pawtucket and was one of Rhode Island’s largest employers. I had never met him and asked if he cared about ethics reform.

“Very much,” Valois replied. “at a recent luncheon, Alan lamented the sorry state of Rhode Island. He hinted — pretty directly — that Hasbro might move out of state. That got everyone’s attention.”

Alan Hassenfeld was the grandson of Henry Hassenfeld, an immigrant from Poland, who started a small business in 1923 with his brothers, Hilal and Herman. The three Hassenfeld brothers bought remnants from clothing factories and used the fabric to cover children’s pencil boxes. First incorporated as Hassenfeld Brothers, they sold school supplies and toys from a shop on Broad Street in Providence. Over the next sixty years, the brothers and their descendants created a worldwide business. They condensed “Hassenfeld Brothers” into a single word and named their organization “Hasbro.” 

I met Alan Hassenfeld for the first time in Pawtucket when several of us from the fledgling coalition went to his office at Hasbro headquarters. Mr. Potato Head waved across the room while G.I. Joe figures scrambled along a windowsill. Bright blocks filled several bookshelves. A table held specialty versions of Monopoly.

“I’m embarrassed to be from Rhode Island,” Hassenfeld confessed. “When I’m in New York or Los Angeles or London, people ask why our little state has such terrible corruption. They can’t believe we keep our company here.” With unruly hair, an engaging grin, sleeves rolled up, and rubber bands around his wrists, Alan Hassenfeld shattered my stereotype of a corporate mogul. 

“When I talked to people from the legislature,” he went on, “one senator actually told me that people will eventually see that they’ve done a pretty good job of running Rhode Island. I wanted to start screaming: ‘If you’ve done a pretty good job, why is our state in such a god-awful mess? Are you really that blind?’”

Hassenfeld agreed to lead the coalition, which still had no final platform and no name, and asked me to serve as his vice chair. He invited the nascent coalition to Hasbro for coffee and chocolate chip cookies around his boardroom table. For all the seriousness of what we were doing, he remained impishly playful, with a gift for affirming people and making them laugh. 
“I want Jim Miller to be our spiritual adviser,” he said wryly. “We need to bring in the Catholic Church, and if anybody can win over Bishop Gelineau, it will be Jim.” 

As we zeroed in on the question of a name for the coalition, David Duffy, a well-known advertising executive, arrived one afternoon with foam core boards wrapped in brown paper. “If Alan will forgive me,” Duffy said, “we’ve toyed with a few concepts.” He waited out the groans. “We think the logo has to be simple enough to fit on a button or a bumper sticker.” He held up a board that held the sketch of a round political pin. At the top was a bold, blue RI, printed backwards. Below it, in smaller black letters, was a slogan: Let’s turn it around.

Several people said it was clever, but no one seemed enthused. Next, Duffy unwrapped another with bold letters: New Hope Rhode Island. It echoed the state’s one-word motto, “Hope,” but the slogan rang no bells. Duffy patiently took several questions and comments, smiling. 

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s try this.” His next board showed a white button with three words in bold block capitals: MAKE IT RIGHT. The letters were black, except for the RI in RIGHT. Those two letters, the state’s initials, were in bold blue. I heard relief around the table. This would work. 

“I like the ‘RI’ in blue,” said Suzette Gephard. “It’s vivid, even fearless.” Others agreed. 

Duffy asked us to look at one more idea. Without a word, he slid the last board out of its brown paper wrapper and held it up. It had two words. In a white field at the top, a bold RIGHT with RI in bright blue rested above a black field that held an equally bold NOW! in white.

Several people said aloud: “Right now!” 

Duffy smiled modestly. “Our aim is to make Rhode Island right, right now. It works for buttons and bumper stickers. It’s easy to read and already in people’s heads. When you watch the weather on TV, every forecaster every night on every channel gives an update under the banner ‘Right Now.’”

Jim Miller convened a breakfast for top leaders of Rhode Island’s religious communities at the Brown Faculty Club. During the four months he had been in the state, Miller had connected with a diverse group ranging from Congregationalists and Unitarians, who could have passed for college faculty in their tweed jackets, to Dominican priests. There he introduced me to the Roman Catholic Bishop, Louis E. Gelineau. Under Gelineau’s leadership the diocese had wisely warned parishes to put their funds in financial institutions insured by the FDIC, not RISDIC. Gelineau had also instructed priests not to put more than $100,000, the maximum insured by FDIC, in any one bank. 

As I shook his hand, Gelineau asked without any preliminaries: “Does Common Cause support abortion?” Startled, I said we did not. I added that our state board was not allowed to take positions outside specific government reforms. 

“Good,” said the bishop, smiling beneficently.

After breakfast in the faculty club’s Victorian parlor, I handed out a summary of the RIght Now! Coalition’s three-part platform. I explained our proposals and answered questions. I closed by suggesting that Rhode Island had all the symptoms of a dysfunctional family that finally hits bottom. 
“Each of you,” I said, “has dealt with families that struggled with alcohol or drugs for years before they named their problem and undertook a program for recovery. That’s where we are as a state. Corruption in government has brought financial ruin, shamed us, and made us the butt of jokes across the country.” 

I said the RIght Now! Coalition needed their support for an intervention. They and their congregations could convince government leaders to accept the program. “We are not attacking anyone,” I said, “but we demand that political leaders renounce corrupt practices and outlaw them.”

Jim Miller closed the gathering by reminding the interfaith leaders that all of their faith traditions stressed repentance. He said that the Rhode Island Council of Churches would coordinate an interfaith rally at the State House on the first Sunday in January. 
“We want to call the entire state to repentance,” he said. “We want government leaders to repent for the corruption that’s gone on too long,” he said. “We want the people to repent for allowing the very behaviors that have laid us low.” 

Miller promised that the rally would move beyond bitterness toward hope. He said their leadership could launch historic change. “Amen,” someone called out. 

“Amen!” Many affirmed. “Amen and amen!” 

George N. Hunt, bishop of the Episcopal Church in Rhode Island, did not wait until January. At his diocesan convocation in November, Hunt challenged every congregation under his authority to work for reform. Lambasting a degree of corruption that “boggles the mind,” he told delegates it would take his whole address just to list the abuses of elected officials, which he called “a litany of malfeasance which seems to go on and to be unending.” The bishop called on everyone present to reject the notion that corruption was so widespread and deeply rooted in the state it could never be eliminated. He urged them instead to get personally involved in “turning this ship of state around.”

The third hopeful sign of progress lay in the Ethics Task Force that Gov. Sundlun had appointed. Dr. William T. O’Hara, the retired president of Bryant University, led the panel that included business and union leaders, academics, a rabbi, and several attorneys. Sara Quinn, a lawyer who had worked under Rae Condon at the Conflict of Interest Commission, became its resident expert.

In September 1991, the task force invited public testimony. House Speaker Joseph DeAngelis used the forum to present his proposals for the 1992 legislative session. I had watched him preside over countless debates, always civil and restrained, but I had never heard him testify. DeAngelis spoke without notes, beginning with the need to restore confidence in state government. He outlined Rep. Jeff Teitz’s Comprehensive Campaign Finance legislation, which he said had passed the House but stalled in the Senate. His support for Teitz’s legislation came as no surprise. The shock came when he endorsed a litany of ethics bills that had died year after year in the House Judiciary Committee or on the House floor. DeAngelis called for broader prohibitions against nepotism, ending the confidentiality of ethics complaints, better reporting of campaign contributions, and a ban on the personal use of campaign contributions.

DeAngelis never mentioned that these were Common Cause bills, but they were. If enacted, they would change the state’s political culture. I wondered how hard he would push. If he tried herding his ninety-nine fellow representatives down this path, would they go or scatter? 

On a warm, hazy October Monday, the task force issued a seventy-page final report. In its presentation letter, O’Hara wrote: “The cynicism, suspicion and mistrust of the people of Rhode Island related to their state government offers no other alternative but bold and comprehensive action.” 

The report, drafted by Sara Quinn, laid out seventy-eight specific recommendations for changes in the state’s Constitution and laws. A front-page story in the Providence Journal reprinted blocks of her searing text: “In some quarters of Rhode Island State government a sub-culture has developed, dependent solely on the largesse bestowed by that same state government. The commerce of this sub-culture has been conducted until recently with a currency of favors, jobs, state contracts, campaign contributions . . . .” Sundlun seemed buoyed by the thick report. He promised to push hard for “four-year terms for general officers, for tougher campaign finance laws, for term limits, for pension reform, for an end to the political revolving door between elected officers and lucrative state jobs, for a much more open and effective ethics commission, for judicial and legal reforms and, most particularly, for ethics education.”

In a political commentary, Providence Journal reporter Brian C. Jones reminded readers that only a few days earlier “every story on the front page—every local story—had to do with corruption. Or the suspicion, the investigation, the attempted resolution of corruption.” He listed the stories and concluded: “Rhode Island’s system of government is broken. Until it’s fixed—and fixed big and fixed good—nothing else matters.”

©2014 H. Philip West Jr.

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 Articles

• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter One
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Two
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Three
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Four
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Five
• Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Six

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