State Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed has given up her membership on the Newport Democratic City Committee after almost 30 years with the group.
“Teresa Paiva Weed asked that she be withdrawn as a NDCC member inasmuch as her schedule simply doesn’t allow for her to attend meetings,” Committee Chairman Bud Cicilline wrote in a July 31 email. “She felt funny about being a member and not being able to attend meetings, etc. but, she is supportive and wants to stay informed. So, we will keep her on our email list so she can read about what we are doing. And, I told her that she is always welcomed to attend any meeting.”
Paiva Weed said she asked to leave the committee because she has missed a series of meetings over the last year or so, and because she wanted to give someone else an opportunity to be a part of the group.
“I felt funny belonging to an organization [when] I couldn’t make all the meetings,” Paiva Weed said. She called her exit “nothing more than an opportunity to bring in additional members. It has no deeper meaning.”
According to her bio, she has been a member of the Newport Democratic City Committee since 1988.
Paiva Weed’s move to leave the committee has sparked speculation among politicos about what it means and whether it may foreshadow an eventual exit from the state Senate.
On Tuesday, one day after RI Public Radio reported the story, Paiva Weed said her decision to leave the Newport committee does not indicate that she’s moving closer to exiting the Senate. She declined to elaborate on why she has missed more of the group’s meetings over the last year or so. “There is no particular explanation,” she said. “I’m very surprised it became a news item.”
Paiva Weed has previously told RI Public Radio that she hopes to win another term as Senate president next January. She faces a re-election challenge from Sav Rebecchi.
The Newport Democrat was first elected to the Senate in 1992. Paiva Weed won election as Senate president in 2009.
This story has been updated.
