Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter Three
Monday, March 23, 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.
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.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThree 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 Three: Lobbying 101 - 1989
My previous experience with the New York and Connecticut legislatures never went beyond testifying on bills that others had targeted. Now in much deeper water, my job was to find the bills, analyze their content, prepare talking points, figure out hearing schedules, and notify witnesses when to appear. My first task was to recruit senators and representatives to sponsor Common Cause proposals in the 1989 legislative session.
Rae Condon had drafted several ethics bills that our board approved. For example, the 1987 Ethics Law barred both the press and the public from the Ethics Commission’s trial-like adjudicative hearings unless “the respondent” opted for an open process. In order to change the wording, she struck through the word “closed” to signal its deletion and inserted the underlined word “open.” The underlining showed new language: The hearing shall be closed open to the public. If enacted, her simple change of text would transform the prosecution of ethics complaints. We would argue that the public had a right to hear the evidence against government officials charged with wrongdoing. Bank robbers stood trial in open court. Why should public officials accused of corrupt behavior avoid public hearings?
A second Common Cause bill would prohibit officials from intimidating whistleblowers who leaked information about wrongdoing. It would also outlaw retaliation against witnesses or ordinary citizens involved in ethics complaints. Condon’s text proposed a process that would allow anyone who felt targeted by an accused official to sue for damages and legal fees. “Legal language is more complicated than ordinary speech,” Condon told me, “but it’s not mysterious. You’ll learn how to write this stuff.”
A third bill aimed to outlaw favoritism toward family members. The 1987 Ethics Law made it illegal for public officials to use their positions to create financial benefit for their spouses or dependent children, but nothing barred a governor from practices like fast-tracking wetlands permits to benefit an adult son working with a developer. Our complaint against Diprete hinged on the fact that Dennis Diprete was the governor’s partner in several family businesses. Condon’s draft expanded the circle of family members. Instead of barring an official from taking actions that would create financial benefit for merely a “spouse (if not estranged) or dependent child,” we would add a list of family members related to the official as siblings, parents, grandparents, in-laws, children, or grandchildren.
At Rhode Island’s elegant State House, I introduced myself to lawmakers who had been sympathetic to previous Common Cause bills and explained our current drafts. Some clearly feared retaliation, but others seemed to relish sponsoring ethics bills. Rae Condon’s name and reputation provided instant credibility with many senators and representatives.
I also tried to recruit sponsors for campaign finance legislation that Common Cause had been promoting for years. One bill aimed to ban cash contributions and would require contributors to list their businesses or employers; another sought to stop corporations and unions from contributing to candidates, just as federal law had done for nearly a century. Cash and corporate contributions were explicitly legal under Rhode Island law.
A third bill proposed to end the common practice of converting unspent campaign contributions for personal use. During one six-month period, for example, former Speaker of the House Matthew J. Smith had legally converted $14,100 in campaign cash for his private use. The current law sent campaign gifts directly into office holders’ pockets.
Another area in which we sought to pass legislation was Rhode Island’s complicated and arcane voter registration law. I had a personal interest in this bill because, shortly after we moved to Rhode Island, I was barred from voting for the first time in my life. In August 1988 I registered with volunteers at a card table outside our neighborhood library. On primary day in September —in paint clothes and with speckled hands—I walked to a nearby polling place. Poll workers could not find my name. “It may just be because you’re new,” one said. “Maybe you should try over at the Mary Fogarty School.”
I walked ten blocks to the school, where another worker said I was not on her roll. Half an hour later, I stood at an ancient linoleum-covered counter in Providence City Hall while the registrar scanned a master list and double-checked against our address. “Sorry,” he said. “You’re not registered.”
“But I registered outside my local library,” I said. “There were volunteers with clipboards.”
“They make mistakes all the time. It’s easy with seven different forms. One mistake in a signature, and . . . .”
“Why seven forms?”
He shrugged. “All I can do is register you now for the general election in November.”
“I can’t go back and vote in the primary?”
He shook his head, the counter chest-high between us. “I’m just following the law,” he answered sympathetically. “There’s really nothing I can do.”
The sun set before I left City Hall. Was this intentional? A technical mistake? Whatever the cause, I felt humiliated and powerless. I wondered how many voters like me were also turned away and never returned.
That fall a call came to the Common Cause office from local activists who were organizing a new coalition—Vote Rhode Island—to open up voting procedures. “I know you’re new,” the caller said, “but we’d love to have you.” The coalition met in a converted industrial building backed up against the Woonasquatucket River. At the first meeting I told the group about my failed attempt to vote in my new state. Everyone laughed.
Over several months of working with Vote Rhode Island, I learned the state’s history of discrimination against landless immigrants. Outdated constraints lay embedded like layers of fossils in the state’s laws and constitution. Ostensibly to protect against fraud, the law required voters to fill out seven separate forms. They had to swear—on penalty of perjury and a $500 fine—that everything was true. Each form had to be notarized, and officials had to crosscheck before they dispatched the documents to various state and local offices.
Vote Rhode Island drafted legislation to simplify and open up that process. In sync with other ongoing national voter registration reform efforts, we proposed a single registration form that new voters could complete at any state agency. Our push for one-form registration carried the hope of mail-in registration in future bills.
Coalition leaders had already asked freshman Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy to sponsor our bill. In 1988, while a junior at Providence College, the son of U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts had defeated a five-term incumbent in the Democratic primary. He spent what the Providence Journal computed at $63 per vote in a race that shattered all previous records for spending in a General Assembly race.4 With his abundant sweep of chestnut hair, a jutting chin, and quick smile, the young Kennedy evoked memories of his assassinated uncles and clearly relished the chance to sponsor legislation that embodied their ideals. In the face of scorn from machine Democrats, he clearly intended to prove his worth.
I asked Kennedy to introduce the Common Cause bill banning corporate and union contributions from Rhode Island campaigns. He agreed and managed to get a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. “Corporate contributions have been illegal in federal campaigns for nearly a century,” he testified earnestly. “I took lots of corporate contributions, but I hope no candidate in Rhode Island ever will again.”
After DiPrete won the November 1988 gubernatorial election, it took months of digging to uncover his campaign funding. Russell Garland, a Providence Journal reporter, sifted through hundreds of corporate lists to identify DiPrete’s benefactors. He discovered that the governor had accepted piles of corporate checks from companies owned by a small circle of players. Among them were developers J. Clark Donatelli and his cousin, A. Edmund Donatelli, who had been partners with Dennis DiPrete when they sold twenty-five acres of North Providence land to Texas developer Kenneth Lokey for St. James Estates and St. James Pointe Apartments. Garland reported that between July 1, 1988, and the November election, the Donatellis and their businesses, which included a state-regulated nursing home, gave $22,905 to DiPrete’s campaign.
Another family of companies doing business with Dennis Diprete also funneled money through various businesses to the governor’s campaign. Nicholas E. Cambio and Vincent A. Cambio, two brothers who were also business associates of Dennis Diprete’s, gave individually to the governor’s campaign, as did their partner Rodney A. Malafronte. The three also generated a stream of money through corporations whose names—Hope Hill Estates Inc., Universal Motors Inc., Quaker Lane Holdings Inc., 117 Inc., Bald Hill Investments Inc., and Continental Restaurants Inc.—offered no hint that these three men owned them all.
Garland also revealed that developer Richard P. Baccari contributed to DiPrete both as a private citizen and through a group of corporations he controlled—the Downing Corp., Capitol Hotel Corp., Ekim Co., Bald Hill Road Associates, Pilgrim Hill Road Ltd., and 1150 Reservoir Avenue Partners. When the journalist finally connected these corporate owners, he asked Diprete about these streams of money into his campaign coffers. With artful evasiveness, the governor claimed not to know. He insisted that he had not called these developers for campaign funds. “I am not involved in the fund-raising operation,” he said. “My guess is they gave it out of respect for Dennis. They like the kind of government that we’ve given the state for four years and they want to see it continue.”
In State House hallways and committee hearings I passed out copies of these news stories, trying to persuade legislative leaders to address these problems. But few seemed to care, and lobbying for Common Cause felt like a fool’s errand.
Patrick Kennedy’s proposed ban on corporate contributions to political campaigns died in the House Judiciary Committee, as did all of our ethics bills. Kennedy’s voter registration bill would have allowed citizens to register when they visited state agencies to pay taxes, renew drivers’ licenses, or apply for unemployment. It passed the House but stalled in the Senate. Diprete had vetoed a similar bill the year before. Steven P. Erickson, the governor’s legislative director, told me the administration did not object to registering voters wherever people went for state services, but there were problems with unionized state workers. “It’s not in their contract,” Erickson said, “and the governor can’t arbitrarily assign additional duties.”
“Not even to register voters?”
Erickson smiled. “You think that’s not a big deal? It takes training and time away from their primary duties. It would cost more and require additional personnel.”
“So does the governor favor or oppose better voter registration?”
“He’s not opposed, but we have to be practical.”
Others in our Vote Rhode Island coalition got word that Diprete would veto our bill unless we could get an agreement from Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represented most state employees.
Weeks passed, and the legislative session was nearing its end when the governor’s office phoned Pam Twiss, who chaired the Vote Rhode Island coalition. The caller said Diprete might support a pilot program for voter registration at the Department of Business Regulation.
“Business Regulation?” Steven Brown guffawed. Brown led the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). All the coalition leaders around the large table thought that location was absurd, since few ordinary people ever went there. By contrast, a pilot program could work at the motor vehicles registry, where everyone had to go for drivers’ licenses and auto registration. We sent that word to DiPrete.
On June 1, a group of about eighty, bearing petitions with thousands of signatures, marched on the State House. Signs demanded voter registration at all state agencies. The youthful Patrick Kennedy tramped up the cobblestone driveway with us, visibly buoyant even on a humid, gray day. We found the main entrance to the State House locked. Kennedy pounded on a massive oak door, and a capitol police officer appeared beyond its thick glass.
“We’re going to the governor’s office,” Kennedy yelled. Demonstrators packed the space around him.
The officer shook his head and pointed to gold letters on the glass that said the building was open from 8:30 to 4:30. He pointed to his watch and spread his fingers and thumb to signal five o’clock.
“I’m a state representative,” Kennedy shouted back. “The State House is never closed at this hour.”
The officer mouthed through the thick glass that Kennedy could come in but not the rest of us.
“Let’s just stay here,” someone said. The crowd had already surrounded a black Lincoln Town Car with the governor’s distinctive license plate: 1. “If we can’t take our petitions to the governor’s office,” one roared, “we can wait ’til he comes out. We can block his car right here.”
Protesters had the luxury vehicle hemmed in. “Seven. . . One. . . Seven. . .Eight,” someone shouted the number of Kennedy’s voter registration bill, “or we have to demonstrate!”
Instantly a rhythmic chant began: “Seven, one, seven, eight, or we have to demonstrate!” Shouts reverberated from cobblestones under foot and stone arches overhead. Hands beat out the rhythm on the governor’s shiny black car.
“Seven, one, seven, eight! Or we have to demonstrate!”
A reporter appeared inside the building and scribbled in her notebook. Farther inside, DiPrete stopped on the marble steps with a trooper. They could see the governor’s car blockaded by demonstrators in the stone portico.
“Seven, one, seven, eight! Or we have to demonstrate!” The compressed space made the protest sound even fiercer than it was.
Patrick Kennedy and Pam Twiss waved for quiet, and the crowd fell silent. “If the governor needs to leave,” Twiss said, “we should let him go. All we ask is that he hear us briefly.”
“Not too briefly,” roared Joe Buchanan, a huge activist from South Providence.
“Not too briefly,” Twiss agreed and slipped inside with Kennedy. Through the glass, we could see them arguing with Diprete. Then they came back out.
“The governor’s on his way to an event downtown,” she said. “We’re going to clear this space between the doors and his car. We’ll explain briefly why this bill is important, and then he goes on his way. Okay?”
Everyone agreed, and a moment later Diprete emerged with a trooper at his side. He seemed smaller than I remembered and had fear in his eyes.
Twiss and Kennedy outlined the bill. “We’re agreeable to your suggestion of a pilot project,” she said. “But we want it at the motor vehicles registry, where people go for drivers’ licenses. Or we could live with the Department of Human Services.”
“We want it where ordinary people go,” Kennedy added. “Definitely not at the Department of Business Regulation.”
“I won’t promise you now,” Diprete said. “But we’ll take your request under consideration.”
“Take our petitions, too.” Twiss handed him a bundle.
Diprete waved for a staff person, who accepted an armload of petitions and carried them inside.
“When will you let us know?” Kennedy pressed.
“Next week,” Diprete answered. “Check with my office. Okay, Rep?”
Kennedy reached instinctively to shake Diprete’s hand, and then many surged forward to shake hands with the governor. As he and I shook hands, he glanced at my face without any hint of recognition. I had never before been
this close to him.
“I’m late for a meeting downtown,” Diprete called out. Moments later, safe in his Lincoln, he fled.
The House had passed Patrick Kennedy’s legislation to provide voter registration in all state agencies that served the public, but the bill seemed all but dead in the Senate.
Then, to our surprise, the governor and senate leaders accepted our proposed compromise: a pilot program at the motor vehicle registry. Clerks would be trained as voter registrars. People who stood in lines would see prominent signs in several languages that they could register to vote. If it worked, all state agencies that offered services or benefits to the public would follow suit within three years.
Oiled by this compromise, Kennedy’s bill passed the Senate and the House again. The governor’s office scheduled a low-key signing ceremony at the Division of Motor Vehicles, an old brick structure across Smith Street from the State House. Diprete and Kennedy each spoke idealistically about voting as the foundation of democracy. Neither mentioned Rhode Island’s history of excluding voters.
The Royal Charter of 1663 allowed only landowners to vote. The Constitution of 1843 barred landless immigrants from voting even after they became U.S. citizens. In 1870, Rhode Island became one of the last states to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbade state governments from denying the vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Some Yankee Republicans argued it would force Rhode Island to let Irish immigrants vote, since they were a separate race.
Now Patrick Kennedy’s bill lay on a table. Its top sheet was covered with marks from rubber stamps and scrawled signatures that marked each step of its travel through the House to the Senate. Amended and stamped several times, it had been carried back across the rotunda for a final vote in the House. Diprete added his signature, shook hands with Kennedy, and handed him the pen.
After the ceremony, I shook Diprete’s hand for the second time. “Nice to see you, Phil,” he said, now aware who I was. He smiled, as if we were old friends.
“Thanks, Governor,” I replied. “We appreciate your help in getting this done.”
©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.
Note that this online format omits notes which fill 92 pages in the printed book.
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- Secrets and Scandals - Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter One
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