Secrets and Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island 1986-2006, Chapter 43

Monday, December 28, 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.

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H Philip West's SECRETS & SCANDALS tells the inside story of events that shook Rhode Island’s culture of corruption, gave birth to the nation’s strongest ethics commission, and finally brought separation of powers in 2004. No single leader, no political party, no organization could have converted betrayals of public trust into historic reforms. But when citizen coalitions worked with dedicated public officials to address systemic failures, government changed.

Three times—in 2002, 2008, and 2013—Chicago’s Better Government Association has scored state laws that promote integrity, accountability, and government transparency. In 50-state rankings, Rhode Island ranked second twice and first in 2013—largely because of reforms reported in SECRETS & SCANDALS.

Each week, GoLocalProv will be running a chapter from SECRETS & SCANDALS: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006, which chronicles major government reforms that took place during H. Philip West's years as executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island. The book is available from the local bookstores found HERE.

Part 4 

43 

Scandal (2002) 

Every election year since 1992, Common Cause had issued a legislative scorecard. With the last gavel, we turned from pleading with the General Assembly to unveiling the mysteries of how bills became law — what Otto von Bismarck may have meant when he compared legislating to sausage making. We never endorsed candidates, but incumbents often featured high Common Cause scorecard rankings in their campaign brochures. Those with poor scores took pains to explain. 

Peter Hufstader, our research director, arrived at the office with bundles of House and Senate journals. On our long table he opened a binder full of recommendations. He proposed to tally votes in six areas: separation of powers; oversight and accountability; campaign finance reform; ethics; election reform; and redistricting. We built lists of significant votes for the state governing board. Like engineers testing aerodynamic designs in a wind tunnel, board members looked for weaknesses. They wanted to be sure we had informed lawmakers of our concerns and that the scorecard matched our priorities. For the 2001–02 report, the board settled on twenty-four votes in the Senate and nineteen in the House. Then began days of tedium as we entered yeas and nays one vote at a time, checked totals, and verified the count. 

A centerfold in our newsletter listed a hundred representatives and fifty senators — the last time before the 2002 election would reduce those numbers to seventy-five and thirty-eight. For each lawmaker, we tallied votes for or against reform, absences on key votes, and a final average. On a separate honor roll we named the thirty-eight representatives who had dared to sign Nick Gorham’s discharge petition. 

We emphasized a fundamental contrast. “House defiant as Senate advances powers question for people’s vote,” our top headline proclaimed. “A hundred years from now, historians may identify 2002 as the year voters connected the dots.” 

“House leaders punish reform effort,” declared a second front-page headline. A photo showed Rep. Betsy Dennigan charging that House leaders had cut off funds for a program that served blind and disabled people in her district. She charged that they were punishing constituents because she supported separation of powers. 

The contrast between the two chambers was stark. Senate Majority Leader Bill Irons voted for what we considered reforms 79.2 percent of the time, and his chamber averaged 79.5 percent. Representatives averaged only 60.7 percent, and House Speaker John Harwood scored 25.8 percent, third from the bottom. When reporter Edward Fitzpatrick asked me to interpret Harwood’s poor showing, I said, “He may have been elected as a reformer, and that’s clearly how he portrayed himself. But in practice as speaker, he has done little in recent years to advance any reforms. In fact, the contrary appears to be true.” Under Harwood’s leadership, representatives’ scores had dropped sharply as the House weakened or buried major reforms passed by the Senate. 

The Providence Journal featured our scorecard on its front page, with color photos of what it called “the Best” and “the Worst.” Sen. Bill Enos (100.0%) and Rep. Susan Story (95.0%) stood in contrast to Sen. John Roney (50.0%) and Rep. Bambilyn Breece Cambio (17.4%), at the bottom. In a large box, the Journal listed the fifty senators and one hundred representatives in descending order of their scores. Fitzpatrick included a retort from Harwood’s chief of staff, Frank Anzeveno: “One’s political career is not measured in a very small snapshot. The ultimate report card will rest with the people in November, as it should.” 

 

Carl Bogus and Burt Hoffman, both members of the Common Cause state board, believed separation of powers advocates needed sharper teeth. Hoffman came from years in journalism and as a senior aide to Tip O’Neill, who had served for a decade as speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives. They linked up with Bruce R. Lang, a founder of Operation Clean Government, and established a political action committee that they called the Rhode Island Separation of Powers Committee (RISOP). The new entity would raise money and endorse candidates; without apology it would try to influence the fall election. They recruited Alan Hassenfeld and Ron Machtley, president of Bryant University, to serve as co-chairs, while former General Treasurer Nancy Mayer became RISOP’s treasurer. Under the new committee’s banner they invited both incumbents and challengers in all General Assembly races to sign pledges of support for a separation of powers amendment and the procedural steps needed to bring it to a floor vote.

On July 24, Carl Bogus and I went to the governor’s office to work on a second separation of powers advisory question for the November ballot. Almond’s top lawyers, Joe Larisa and Tom Dickinson, met us there. To my surprise, Almond sat in and presided. We quickly agreed not to wait for a constitutional convention. We would ask voters to demand a constitutional amendment that would repeal the “broad powers” clause that allowed the General Assembly to do anything not prohibited in the text of the Constitution. Our ballot question tied the clause to Rhode Island’s history: 

 Should the Rhode Island Constitution be changed to eliminate article VI section 10, which preserves to the General Assembly today broad powers granted to it by King Charles II of England in 1663, and also be changed to expressly provide that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of Rhode Island government are to be separate and co-equal consistent with the American system of government? 

The text rang like a bell. In sixty-four words, it unwrapped the historic issue and named the problem. It would leave no room for debate about whether voters meant to eliminate the “broad powers” clause. 

“They’ll object that it’s a loaded question,” Bogus said. 

Larisa laughed. “The law says explicitly, ‘The governor shall have the power to order the secretary of state to submit any question or questions that he shall deem necessary to the electors at any election.’ Where does it say we can’t present a pointed question?” 

Our question became Question 5 on the 2002 statewide ballot. Approval would not amend the state’s Constitution, but would multiply pressure on lawmakers to present a constitutional amendment. Almond’s lawyers would prepare a one-page explanation for the voter information booklet, which would emphasize the Supreme Court’s declaration that Rhode Island government was “a quintessential system of parliamentary supremacy,” not “the traditional American system of separate and coequal branches of government.” 

Carl Bogus and I stepped into the marble hallway. Eight summers after the Common Cause state governing board had made separation of powers our highest priority, our meeting in a small conference room adjacent to the governor’s formal office left us feeling hopeful. But would another advisory referendum change anything in the House? 

Months had passed since the Ethics Commission dismissed Operation Clean Government’s complaint against Harwood. Gerrymandering had brought lawsuits against Senate maps, but only scattered protests against new House districts. Harwood’s kingly power grew with each new board while his heavy-handed maneuvers blocked separation of powers. Would the perfect storm we predicted ever come? 

 

WHJJ-AM radio talk show host John DePetro proclaimed himself “the Independent Man,” a reference to the bronze statue atop the State House dome. The gleaming figure balanced a ship’s anchor against his heel and held a long spear pointed toward the sky. DePetro referred to himself in third-person — “the Independent Man has learned” — and typically skewered Democrats while lauding Republicans. Above all, he cultivated sources. 

During the summer doldrums — on August 15, 2002 — DePetro perked up his audience when he unleashed a scandal involving a woman named Wendy Collins. In a recorded interview, Collins told DePetro that she would have been “very successful” if she had filed a sexual harassment suit against the speaker. Instead, she accepted a secret settlement with the words “sexual harassment and retaliation” blacked out. 

Speaker John Harwood had been forty-seven when he met the 29-year-old Collins at Family Court in 1999 and hired her, with few qualifications, ostensibly to conduct legislative research. She held the job for two years and left in August of 2001. DePetro had obtained documents from the Department of Labor showing that Collins had received a secret $75,000 workers’ compensation settlement and a newly created job at Rhode Island College. 

Within hours of DePetro’s blockbuster, Rep. Tony Pires, Harwood’s political ally until eighteen months earlier and now a candidate for governor, convened a press conference on the State House steps. He called on Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who was also running for governor, to investigate. “At the very least,” Pires declared, “one has to question how someone who received a $75,000 workers’ comp claim at the end of their service at one state job could then be rehired by Rhode Island College.” Not to be outdone, Myrth York, now running strong in her third gubernatorial campaign, publicly urged Whitehouse to appoint an independent prosecutor. 

Documents soon showed that Harwood’s top lawyer and administrator, former Rep. Richard P. Kearns, had signed off on the secret settlement, advising the Department of Administration that he believed the pact was “in the best interest of the State of Rhode Island.” 

Day after day, steamy details made the news. Then Rhode Island College President John Nazarian acknowledged that the position created for Collins was the first added in twenty-five years — and came only weeks before the House Finance Committee slashed $12 million from the budget for state colleges. Nazarian told the Providence Journal that he had been asking for a dozen additional positions but not the job that Collins got. 

Television and talk radio gave endless play to the lurid particulars of what many quickly called “Wendygate.” Cameras panned a State House hallway to the windowless committee room, where unnamed sources said trysts took place. 

After a week of salacious revelations, the Providence Journal editorialized: “The public must wonder whether Mr. Harwood’s power lets him make secret deals, use patronage for personal advantage, and shield himself from scrutiny or responsibility. . . . That kind of unchecked power is unhealthy and breeds corruption.” 

Inexplicably, Harwood left it to his chief of staff, former Rep. Frank Anzeveno, to deal with the press, but as the media clamored for details, Harwood finally convened a news conference to complain about the “innuendos and rumors surrounding this settlement.” Without naming Collins, he insisted he had no role in creating the Rhode Island College job. “To be perfectly honest with you,” he said, “I am rather angry. I’ve been in this building for twenty-two years. I feel I’ve been personally wronged. My reputation has been tarnished and most of all, my family.” 

Echoing President Bill Clinton four years earlier, Harwood flatly denied any sexual relationship with Collins. “I had no relationship at all,” he said with lawyerly precision. “She, in fact, came up to me and asked if, in fact, there was any work at the State House. She, in fact, was recommended to me like everyone else. I said, fill out an application, bring a resume, get your qualifications.” 

As reporter Katherine Gregg kept pushing, Harwood’s anger boiled over and he stormed out of his own press event. 

Several hours later Harwood accused Collins of demanding compensation above the $75,000 she had already received. “I have requested a complete investigation of this matter by the State Police,” he announced. 

That defense collapsed when State Police Superintendent Steven M. Pare acknowledged that he had met with Harwood and explained to the speaker that the allegations did not rise to the level of extortion. The State Police had declined to investigate. 

Columnist M. Charles Bakst wrote that the speaker reminded him of “a tin-horn dictator . . . whiny, often dodging questions. . . . And records stayed under wraps.” He also noted that Harwood’s wife, a Superior Court magistrate, had yet to make any public statement in support of her husband. 

More details popped up like mushrooms after summer rain. Tony Pires led a group of representatives and candidates in demanding that Harwood resign as speaker. Rep. Betsy Dennigan rehearsed how Harwood surrogates chastised her for challenging increases in legislative spending. “I get a pat on the back,” Dennigan said, “and they tell me, ‘Don’t worry Betsy, we are doing good things with that money.’” 

 

The 2002 primaries fell less than a month after the scandal broke, and Myrth York edged out Sheldon Whitehouse by less than one percent of the votes cast. Pires came in a distant third. On the GOP side, Don Carcieri crushed Jim Bennett, a Harwood friend and fellow hockey player. Meanwhile community activist Matthew A. Brown trounced Harwood’s hand-picked incumbent Secretary of State Edward S. Inman III. 

Primary results for House races showed incumbents supported by Harwood had won or lost by narrow margins. In his campaign against Harwood loyalist Rep. Eugene F. Garvey, challenger Matthew J. McHugh raised the Collins scandal and pounded Garvey for supporting Harwood in the 10–8 Judiciary Committee vote to kill separation of powers. Garvey had served his South County district for a decade and was well liked but fell under McHugh’s onslaught. 

In an adjacent district, Harwood had backed Narragansett Councilman George F. Lenihan against Rep. David A. Caprio, who had rallied support for separation of powers and featured the issue in his campaign. Charging that Harwood had recruited Lenihan to run against him and had stacked the district committee, Caprio crushed Lenihan by more than two-to-one. 

All summer Betsy Dennigan had campaigned in a gerrymandered district that barely included her home. She outpolled two well-known Democrats, one backed by Harwood, and won 51.2 percent of the primary vote. 

Harwood loyalists read the writing on the wall. A TV crew caught Deputy Majority Leaders Paul Moura and John McCauley leaving Harwood’s State House office. The pair told reporters they had spent two hours with the speaker and asked him to resign. “The members,” Moura added, “have lost confidence in his ability to initiate the fundamental reforms we need and to lead us to the next level.” Moura added that he and other representatives were committing themselves to enact separation of powers. 

 

As the scandal heated up, pledges came flooding back to RISOP, the political action committee founded by Carl Bogus and Bruce Lang. Nearly all challengers pledged yes on separation of powers. Thirty sitting senators signed the RISOP pledge; only three refused. Thirty-eight incumbent representatives said yes, while Harwood and twenty-five die-hard loyalists said no. Full-page ads in newspapers listed lawmakers, and asterisks beside each name indicated previous votes on separation of powers. 

With the tide running our way, the separation of powers task force, now augmented by leaders of religious, environmental and reform groups, set a goal of winning voter approval of seventy percent or more on Almond’s second separation of powers advisory question, Question 5. But our message needed to thread a needle. We had to remind voters of John Harwood’s abuses without hyperbolic language that would antagonize lawmakers who genuinely liked Harwood, were likely to win re-election, and would cast votes on a separation of powers amendment. We also needed to prevent separation of powers from becoming a partisan issue. Already some Republicans were mocking Democrats for jumping on what they claimed was their bandwagon. 

Our approach would rely on earned media: stories and editorials in newspapers; radio and television interviews. Groups that supported separation of powers would post information to their websites. Volunteers would distribute flyers within their organizations, at houses of worship, door-to-door in neighborhoods, and under the windshield wipers of cars in parking lots. 

“Yes on Q5,” our flyers urged in huge type. In smaller text, we explained: “Question 5 for Separation of Powers.” Bold caps across the cover urged voters to “take back democracy.” Our text summarized the General Assembly’s historic dominance, which left the executive and judicial branches powerless to block legislative abuses. We wrote that our state needed separation of powers as a bulwark against corruption.

Two years ago, a 2 to 1 statewide majority passed Question 6, calling for a constitutional convention on the subject. Every town and city in the state voted yes. The question passed in all House and Senate districts as well. 

        Q: So what happened? 

        A: In 2001 and again in 2002, a majority of the state representatives killed separation of powers bills — first the call for a constitutional convention, then for a direct amendment. People were furious but had no power to force their representatives to pass the legislation. 

 

As if John Harwood needed more trouble, the unthinkable happened: a challenger rose up on his home turf. On October 9, less than a month before the election, Bruce Bayuk announced that he would run a write-in campaign against the most powerful politician in Rhode Island. A Hewlett-Packard sales executive, Bayuk had a way with words and exceptional people skills. In his announcement, he reminded a gathering of politicians, candidates, reporters, and voters that Harwood had received 606 votes in the previous month’s primary, but 855 voters had left that part of the ballot blank. “John Harwood,” Bayuk summarized, “essentially lost to ‘none of the above.’” 

In neighboring Lincoln, William J. McManus took on Harwood protégé John Douglas Barr II, who had voted consistently to bury separation of powers but now pledged to support passage. McManus worked at CVS headquarters in Woonsocket and delighted in telling voters that a Harwood loyalist had phoned CVS’s top lobbyist in hopes he would talk McManus out of the race. McManus kept reminding voters that the absence of checks and balances had empowered Harwood to cover up the Wendy Collins scandal. 

The final weeks of the campaign brought an October surprise: a grand jury investigation bubbled into the headlines. As reporters camped outside, witnesses spilled their stories. A worker’s compensation administrator had testified that a sexual harassment claim filed by Collins had bypassed normal investigative procedures. The official said he and his supervisor had been warned not to talk about the case if they wanted to keep their state jobs and pensions. Collins’s psychiatrist had described her as distressed over Harwood’s sexual demands, claims which he disputed. Her lawyer, Stephen J. Dennis, insisted to reporters that she stood by her claim that she was fired for refusing. “She stood by it then,” Dennis told reporters. “She stands by it now.” 

Bruce Bayuk pounced on the grand jury information and on a report that the Joint Committee on Legislative Services (JCLS), which Harwood chaired, was paying lawyer-lobbyist Robert Goldberg to defend the speaker. Bayuk mocked the relationship. “It’s ridiculous for attorney Goldberg to suggest the Wendy Collins settlement was a JCLS matter,” Bayuk charged, “since there is no evidence any member of the JCLS other than Speaker Harwood knew about the case.” The challenger charged that the taxpayers should not have to pay for Harwood’s “political survival team.” 

Harwood put on a game face. After dodging the press, he did several radio talk show interviews, insisting that he was the target of a shakedown by Collins for $750,000. The state had settled for $75,000, which he thought reasonable. He claimed he had yet to receive a bill from Goldberg and insisted he had more than enough votes to continue as speaker. In a town meeting of his constituents at Pawtucket’s City Hall, one man asked the embattled speaker for a plain answer. Were the Wendy Collins allegations true or false? 

“False,” Harwood answered. 

When a female attorney in the crowd asked why he allowed a worker’s compensation settlement if the charges were false, Harwood replied that once the sexual-harassment allegations were removed he had no problem with Collins receiving a settlement for other “legitimate claims.” 

When asked about separation of powers, Harwood offered his standard answer: removing lawmakers from boards would make state government less responsive to the people. “I think you need legislators, from my point of view, because they’re accountable.” 

In a private interview Harwood told Providence Journal columnist Mark Patinkin that his newspaper had overlooked contradictions in Collins’s story. He asserted that despite defections from his leadership team, he would continue as speaker. 

 

In the November 5 election, Rhode Island voters approved Governor Almond’s advisory Question 5 on separation of powers by a landslide. The statewide vote, 223,151 to 69,748, swept every city and town: 76.2 percent, a dramatic increase from 66.2 percent for Question 6 in 2000. Except for Tiverton, at 69.6 percent, no city or town approved by less than seventy percent. The advisory question had no force of law but delivered a huge mandate for the 2003 session of the General Assembly. 

Punished by Harwood and his allies in the Democratic Party for her early support of separation of powers, former senator Myrth York lost the gubernatorial race to Republican businessman Don Carcieri by nine percentage points. Their race became the most expensive in state history. Carcieri spent $2.76 million, mostly his own money, and York poured out $4.82 million, largely from family funds. Neither had participated in the matching-funds program. 

Carcieri’s election continued a pattern of GOP victories in statewide elections. Republicans had occupied the governor’s office for fourteen of the past twenty-two years, apparently reflecting voters’ will to counterbalance the overwhelming and unshakable dominance of Democrats in the General Assembly. 

Republican incumbents clung to six seats in the downsized Senate but lost three in the House. Minority Leader Bob Watson blamed the Rhode Island Separation of Powers Committee because its ads “obscured” the voting records of representatives who voted in April to send separation of powers back to committee but eventually pledged support. Faulting RISOP for causing “probably half-a-dozen races to go south on us,” Watson also took a shot at Almond and his own party. “It has hurt that for the last eight years, nothing was done to build the grassroots of the party. Clearly, leadership starts from the top and works its way down.” 

 

In Pawtucket, amid evidence of problems at the polls and charges of voting fraud, John Harwood barely survived the write-in challenge of Bruce Bayuk. The election turned on a jammed machine but finally ended with a narrow Harwood victory. After investigations and recounts by the Board of Elections, the speaker barely won his own district. University of Rhode Island political science professor Marc A. Genest thought the close result undid Harwood as speaker: “He may be the only candidate elected who actually loses. He’s a dead man walking.” 

Adjacent to Harwood’s district, Betsy Dennigan garnered more than eighty-five percent of the vote in the district gerrymandered against her. 

In Lincoln, Independent William J. McManus took just under sixty percent of the votes against Harwood protégé John Douglas Barr II. 

A 19-year-old Republican novice, Anthony G. Spiratos, nearly defeated Paul Crowley of Newport, the only member of Harwood’s team to make a public case against a separation of powers amendment. Crowley had been in the House for twenty-one years but won re-election by a scant 134 votes out of 4,008 cast. Humbled by his close call, Crowley told reporters he would seek a better way of bringing separation of powers to Rhode Island. 

In Providence, Rep. David Cicilline, who had sponsored separation of powers and ethics bills since 1995, easily won the mayor’s office over two opponents. 

At first glance, it looked like those who predicted that downsizing would hurt women were right. As the House dropped from one hundred to seventy-five members, the number of female representatives fell from twenty-four to thirteen, which translated into a seven percent loss. In fact, women representatives interviewed by the Providence Journal blamed redistricting decisions made by men. Rep. Charlene Lima complained that women had been pitted against other incumbent women. “But women worked extremely hard to beat the odds,” Lima said. 

A computer analysis by the Providence Journal confirmed Lima’s observation. In the House 62.5 percent of women faced other incumbents, while only 45 percent of men did. The number of women senators slipped from ten to nine, but the percentage of women in the downsized Senate rose from 20 to 24 percent. 

“I hate to lose even one woman,” said Sen. Teresa Paiva Weed. “But overall, women did extremely well in the Senate. They all invested a lot of time and energy in getting re-elected. They never blinked.” 

On the South Side of Providence, Sen. Juan Pichardo took 74.3 percent against two independents and a Republican. No one was surprised at his bittersweet victory in what remained of the district long served by his friend Sen. Charles Walton. As the legislative leaders had done with women, they had also pitted minorities against each other. 

 

Three days after the election, House Democrats caucused at the Providence Biltmore Hotel to pick their leadership team for 2003–04. Officially the entire House would choose the speaker in January, but Democrats commanded an overwhelming majority and seemed desperate for a new leadership team. 

John Harwood put on his game face, claiming that both the grand jury and Pawtucket voters had “exonerated” him. Nonetheless, he said, “I feel it is time to step back and let others lead. I feel very, very comfortable with the team that’s left behind.” Still proud, he gave the impression that he had chosen his successor and that he might return to the top post once the dust settled. 

William J. Murphy from West Warwick and Gordon D. Fox from the East Side of Providence had been contenders, but united their forces. Members quickly elected them speaker and majority leader. 

At thirty-nine, Murphy was boyish, smooth-shaven, and charming. “I am here tonight,” he told his colleagues, “to tell all within the sound of my voice that substantive change — for the better, for the good — is the number one priority of the Democratic majority in the Rhode Island House of Representatives.” 

“We are Democrats who are not threatened by change,” Fox added. “We accept the people’s mandate to bring about change as reform, change as rejection of the politics of favoritism and self-enrichment, change as the adoption of a new political system that is open, responsive, honorable and fair.” Descended from a Cape Verdean mother and an Irish-American father, Fox became the first person of color to serve as a majority leader in either chamber. He and Murphy said they were committed to separation of powers, reform of legislative hiring, and criteria for the award of legislative grants. 

 

Nine days after the election, a bipartisan team met at the office of outgoing Atty. Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse to draft a separation of powers amendment that all would support in the 2003 legislative session. Eight of us sat at one end of an immense conference table between photographs of former attorneys general. At the head of the table Whitehouse took charge. “I think we’re all aware that this could become a divisive session,” he said. “I have little doubt that we’ll see efforts to pass an amendment riddled with loopholes or that will lead to endless litigation.” 

Rep. Nick Gorham suggested that the essential elements seemed clear. “We have a decent House bill that hasn’t passed,” he said, “and two Senate bills that have.” 

Everyone around the table got copies of the 2002 separation of powers resolutions. Elements included a ban on dual office holding, a section on gubernatorial appointments, a more explicit separation of powers clause, and strike-outs that indicated that the “broad powers” clause must be entirely deleted. 

“If I may?” Mike Lenihan launched the discussion. “In my bill, it may seem redundant to have both a ban on dual office-holding and a detailed gubernatorial appointments clause. But I think of it as wearing both a belt and suspenders. Redundancy doesn’t hurt, and it may help.” 

“Makes perfect sense,” said Whitehouse, “and it’s good language. Am I right that you modeled this on the presidential appointments clause of the U.S. Constitution?” 

“You are,” Lenihan said. “Notice that we’ve included the quasi-publics both in the ban on dual office-holding and in the gubernatorial appointments clause.” 

“Good to be explicit,” Whitehouse agreed, “even redundant.” He passed out copies of the relevant clause from the U.S. Constitution. “The nice thing about following the federal model is that it’s been so thoroughly litigated.”

“I think,” said Carl Bogus, “that by forbidding legislative appointments to any and every entity that ‘exercises executive powers under the laws of this state,’ we’ve captured all the important positions.”

Everyone agreed that we had to delete the “broad powers clause” that had allowed the General Assembly to do whatever it pleased unless a particular action was specifically prohibited in the text of the Constitution. 

“That’ll be the toughest part,” Whitehouse said. “They’ll fight tooth and nail to keep it, but if we let it remain, we’ll have accomplished very little.” 

Within an hour, the group reached consensus on details of an amendment that would be clearer, leaner, and stronger than any of its antecedents. We agreed that we must have both Democratic and Republican sponsors on the bills filed in each chamber. Lenihan and Gorham, long-term sponsors in the Senate and House, would sign up co-sponsors and file the new drafts in their respective chambers. 

 

On a December evening, leaders from more than a dozen groups gathered in the warm, glassed-in atrium at First Unitarian Church in Providence for an update on the amendment and our strategy for winning approval. Flanked by Sheldon Whitehouse and Mike Lenihan, Jim Miller, now president of Common Cause Rhode Island, welcomed the crowd. “I’m a Baptist preacher,” he said. “I’m not going to talk much tonight, except to lay out a warning that our greatest danger would be to take final passage by the General Assembly for granted. The fact that seventy-six percent of the voters said they want separation of powers means very little in the State House.” 

Whitehouse, now in his final month as attorney general, had been punished by his party’s establishment for leading on separation of powers. “A lot of people have paid a price to bring us this far,” he told those crowded into the brightly lit space. “Everyone should understand that we stand in the shoes of Thomas Wilson Dorr, who was tried for treason and thrown into a dank cell on the site of what is now the Providence Place Mall. Dorr got pneumonia and died without seeing any positive results. We have reason to hope for more if we keep our eyes on the prize.” 

Whitehouse laid out the amendment we had drafted and answered questions. 

A somber Mike Lenihan spoke from his seat. “We got the votes in the Senate last May in part because everyone in the chamber knew that the House would never pass separation of powers. Reluctance is the name of the game. Enthusiasm is not.” 

Always the happy warrior, Rep. Nick Gorham thanked his colleague, Betsy Dennigan, for coming. “She’s a Democrat,” he said. “And her party hammered her for standing tall on separation of powers. I want to thank her publicly for signing her name — time after time — when she knew they would punish her. I expect some of their overt opposition will lessen this spring. Instead, we’ll see lots of righteous proclamations for an amendment. But all of that will be little more than window-dressing. Watch them try to change a few words here and a phrase there to weaken it. The watchword for us has to be vigilance until this is done.” 

Jeff Grybowski, a lawyer for Governor-elect Don Carcieri, spoke about Carcieri’s commitment to establish separation of powers as the foundation of state government. 

Carl Bogus spoke last. “American democracy,” he said, “rests on two pillars: the vote for all citizens and separation of powers between branches of government. A very large battle over this is coming. We will need every tool of political action during coming months: letters, editorials, calls to talk show radio, calls to friends, as well as more money to keep the public informed. We must hold fast to the basic principle of separation of powers without compromise. There is no compromise on that principle. Either you have it or you don’t.” 

A warm rain fell as I drove home. Despite our predictions that three powerful disturbances would converge into a perfect storm, I never imagined that a sex scandal would tip the balance toward separation of powers. Harwood loyalists had concealed their settlement with Wendy Collins and the new job created for her. But the secret leaked and the maelstrom engulfed John Harwood. 

Even our repeated defeats on separation of powers, both at the Supreme Court and in the General Assembly, had proved ultimately beneficial. Each new iteration of our constitutional amendment grew stronger than the one before, and we would enter the 2003 legislative session with the most watertight text yet. But could we get it through the General Assembly in 2003? Or would new legislative leaders cling to parliamentary supremacy as their predecessors had since 1663? 

 

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.

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Related Slideshow: Rhode Island’s History of Political Corruption

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