Top Whitehouse Staffer is Also Long-time Member of All-White Bailey’s Beach Club
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Lifetime friendship between Whitehouse and Spencer (foreground) centers around the exclusive beach club.
According to insidegov Spencer earns $71,500 as a Special Projects Coordinator/Senior Constituents Affairs Representative through the most recent Senate pay period.
Spencer compensation is $23,329 more than the median salary for a Senate project coordinator, according to insidegov.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTSpencer and Whitehouse not only go back decades but she was also a staffer for him when he first ran for the U.S. Senate in 2006.
Coverage of Spencer litters the biggest society publication like New York Social Diary and Newport Seen. Both Society publications show her at the biggest society fundraising events.
Spencer is featured in society publication coverage at the "Regal Coaching Ball" at The Breakers, “The Intrigue and Mystery of Venice at Preservation Society's Masked Ball” held at the Elms, and “Casablanca, Exotic and Mysterious Setting for Newport Hospital's Fundraiser” at Ochre Court.
Spencer seems to be at every important social event in season in Newport.
Whitehouse's Club Memberships
Whitehouse had announced in 2006, when he was running for the U.S. Senate, that he was disaffiliating from Bailey's Beach Club and Newport’s The Reading Room — an all-white, exclusive men’s club on Bellevue Avenue next to the Viking Hotel.
Recently, GoLocal reported that Whitehouse did not resign from Bailey’s, but transferred his stock to his wife Sandra Thornton Whitehouse. Combined, the Whitehouses own 25 shares in Bailey’s — one of the largest shareholders in a club that is comprised of the most wealthy in America. For a leading progressive Democratic voice in the United States Senate, the conflict has raised questions.
For the Whitehouses, the membership in the club goes back generations on both sides of the marriage. Their parents, both of them, and their children summered at the ultra exclusive club and had access to socializing and building contacts with the some of the wealthiest families whose ranks include multiple billionaires.
Whitehouse’s office has refused to answer questions about his continued ties to the all-white club. And, his staff has refused to respond to repeated requests for an interview.
Now, it is clear that not only are the Whitehouses members, but so is a key staffer in a club that has no black members.
Not the Only Controversy for Whitehouse
The junior Senator from Rhode Island is also under fire by environmentalists for his unwillingness to oppose the proposed controversial gas powered energy plant in Burrillville.
As GoLocal reported in January, Whitehouse met with an angry crowd of several hundred at a community dinner at Nathan Bishop Middle School in Providence on a Sunday night.
Attendees expressed their frustrations on a number of issues, from Whitehouse's support of President Donald Trump's pick for CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, to Trump's actions in office including his controversial executive order on immigration, and more.
Hundreds were turned away from the initial question-and-answer session hosted by the Senator inside the auditorium, with dozens of people crammed into the foyer shouting, "Let us in," before Whitehouse went outside to address the crowd waiting outside for over thirty minutes.
Also, GoLocal reported that Whitehouse, who opposed Trump’s pro-school choice nominee for Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, had himself invested in for-profit charter school outfit Edison Schools dating back to 2000.
Rhode Island State Ethics filings show that Whitehouse held a 10% or greater ownership interest, or a $5,000 or greater ownership investment interest in Edison Schools, a for-profit company that was launched by Christopher Whittle and whose leadership included Benno Schmidt - the former President of Yale. Whitehouse is a Yale grad.
Lastly, a 2014 expose by GoLocal found that Whitehouse, who had delivered more than 100 floor speeches about the adverse impact of global warming, has himself benefited financially from ownership in the public companies that are among the leading producers of greenhouses gases. One company that he has had substantial stock ownership, Exxon, is second largest public company producer of greenhouse in the world.
According to a GoLocal examination of the Senator’s financial disclosure reports, Whitehouse owned Exxon stock both personally and realized benefits from a separate family trust that also owned stock in the mega-oil company. He was required to file RI Ethics Commission Financial Disclosure Reports in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he served as a top level staffer to then-Governor Bruce Sundlun and as Attorney General..
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