A lawsuit filed over the operation of the obscure but powerful spending-and-hiring arm of the Rhode Island General Assembly, the Joint Committee on Legislative Services, has been dismissed, setting the stage for public quarterly meetings of the JCLS.
At the same time, the settlement preserves the speakership’s effective control of JCLS, since the House holds three slots on the panel, compared with two for the Senate.
The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by Blake Filippi, the House Republican leader at the time, following a controversy involving the Rhode Island Convention Center.
At the time, the JCLS had not met in years and Filippi, who held one of the three House posts that make up the five-member panel, argued that his inability to participate in JCLS meetings violated his constitutional rights.
A stipulation of dismissal in Superior Court was announced Friday by Filippi’s successor as House GOP Leader, Mike Chippendale of Foster, along with Shekarchi and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio. (Filippi did not seek re-election last year.)
With the resolution of the lawsuit, Shekarchi said he plans to follow through on his pledge to hold and participate in public quarterly meetings of the JCLS.
“I look forward to the commencement of the work of the committee with the common goal of efficient management of the General Assembly on behalf of every Rhode Island taxpayer,” Shekarchi said.
Ruggerio said, “The Senate has long held that the Joint Committee on Legislative Services should meet on a regular basis and vote on matters before us. Now that the suit is behind us, I expect that regular meetings of the committee will commence.”
Chippendale added, “As we move forward with transparency in this process, Rhode Islanders can be assured that the day-to-day operations of the General Assembly will be executed responsibly and in a public forum.”
Before Shekarchi became House speaker in 2021, he pledged to hold public meetings of the JCLS once the lawsuit was resolved.
At the time when the lawsuit was initially filed in 2020, the defendants were then-Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and the other members of JCLS: Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, Shekarchi (then-House majority leader), Dennis Algiere (then-Senate GOP leader).
At the time, Filippi said, “Our ultimate goal is to get an order, a preliminary and permanent injunction, against the speaker – whoever that might be, the office of speaker – who sits as the chairman of JCLS – an injunction preventing the future exercise of the sole statutory responsibilities of JCLS.”
Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis@ripr.org
