"I Plan to File Amended Complaint" Against Mattiello: House Minority Leader Filippi
"I Plan to File Amended Complaint" Against Mattiello: House Minority Leader Filippi
Filippi originally filed the lawsuit after Mattiello ordered an audit of the Rhode Island Convention Center, which is now at the center of a grand jury probe.
“[The lawsuit isn't about] what the JCLS can or can’t do, it’s what the Chairman — the Speaker’s the Chairman — what he can or cannot do without coming to the JCLS,” said Filippi.
“Since the audit was withdrawn, much of the material in our lawsuit is now extraneous, so we’re going to be filing an amended complaint soon, most likely that really focuses on the core legal issues of the Speaker and the Executive Director’s authority to act without coming to the JCLS board,” said Filippi.
Structure of State House
“I think there are a lot of outstanding questions in our day to day at the State House as to whether we’re even doing things legally. We’re not trying to be obstructionist to throw a monkey wrench in the operations of state government — we know that the building needs to operate — so we’re being careful about the way to proceed,” said Filippi.
“My opinion is that members need to have their owns staff. We don’t have the ability to do the research we need to answer all the constituent calls to do everything we need to do to be responsive legislators. So my opinion — and this doesn’t really affect Republicans because we have our own office with our own staff, but my opinion is very member should have their own staff member who answers to them, not the Speaker or Senate President,” he said.
“For instance, right now if one of my Democratic colleagues needs to get research done, they go to a research room where everyone there has been hired by the Speaker (or Senate President) and so they don’t really have their own autonomy as legislators, they have to go to someone who’s not beholden to them — but is beholden to leadership. We need to change the culture of the State House to be more bottom up as opposed to top down.”
"There are plenty of employees in the State House — I assure you we’re not advocating to add any more employees,” he said.