Talk about a full Rhode Island. Gordon Fox pleads guilty, Gerry Martineau wants his legislative pension, the state Supreme Court green-lights an April start for the pension trial, and Governor Gina Raimondo is set to unveil her first budget on Thursday. Thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. As always, feel free to drop me a line at idonnis (at) ripr (dot) org, and to follow me on the twitters. Here we go.
1. On the surface, Gordon Fox remained an idealist. During the opening of the House session in January 2014, the Providence Democrat used what would become his last significant political address to hail the legislature as “embodiment of the people’s will.” Fox invoked Abraham Lincoln and the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. “And you ladies and gentlemen of the General Assembly, through the work of this institution,” Fox added, “are the representatives elected by your constituents that will continue this lively experiment, founded by wonderful people, that all of our voices should be heard.” Such rhetoric marks a stunning contrast to Fox’s guilty plea Tuesday, in which he acknowledged misusing $108,000 in campaign contributions and accepting 52,500 in bribes to approve a liquor license for a Thayer Street restaurant. In the time before ascending to the speakership in 2010, Fox was caught between different worlds as an openly gay biracial man in a socially conservative legislature. (In one suggestion of this strained juxtaposition, Fox told me in 2007 he was a Red Sox fan, but wanted the Yankees to win the World Series, so his favorite player, Mike Mussina, could get a championship ring.) More recently, there was a widespread suspicion that Fox had been living beyond his means, and two state Ethics Commission fines over a period of 10 years hinted at his financial problems. Yet close political observers remain surprised by Fox’s involvement in bribery and by the extent of his six-figure misuse of campaign funds. Only the former speaker can explain why he did what he did — and it remains to be seen if he will touch on that during his sentencing June 11.
2. Fox was part of an unusually large group of freshman reps elected in 1992, in the aftermath of the state credit union crisis. Seven members remain from that class: Edith Ajello (D-Providence); John DeSimone (D-Providence); Robert Jacquard (D-Cranston); Charlene Lima (D-Cranston); Eileen Naughton (D-Warwick); Anastasia Williams (D-Providence); and Thomas Winfield (D-Smithfield). Only two reps have more seniority: Donald Lally, elected in 1989, and Brian Patrick Kennedy, elected in 1988.
3. Here’s part of how US Attorney Peter Neronha responded when asked during a news conference Tuesday why the people associated with Shark Bar & Grille who paid bribes to Fox weren’t charged: “This was something as alleged in the information, that we uncovered as we were looking at the campaign finance side of the case and by the time we discovered that, the federal statute had passed. And so whether or not others should or shouldn’t be charged is something that’s under review.” Last October, when a jury acquitted developer Richard Baccari of bribing three North Providence town councilors, Neronha issued a statement to express his frustration: “Those who pay bribes as a ‘cost of doing business’ are every bit as responsible for the corruption that plagues this State as the public officials who demand them. We will continue our efforts to hold everyone involved in such corrupt activity – everyone – to account.” Meanwhile, back in 2008 two former CVS executives were acquitted of paying bribes in the corruption case involving former state senator John Celona.
4. Does Rhode Island have a problem with a culture of corruption? Writing in 2004, Providence Journal political columnist M. Charles Bakst noted it was a Democrat governor, Phil Noel, who pushed for an ethics bill in 1975 while asserting, “The principle we must espouse is that no official shall use his position for private financial gain.” By the time nine years later when Republican governor Don Carcieri assailed a “culture of corruption,” then-Speaker Bill Murphy groused that it sent the wrong signal to businesses thinking of locating or expanding in Rhode Island, Bakst wrote. In the latest installment — on Tuesday — Peter Neronha said, “As Rhode Islanders, we need to lose our political corruption amnesia. In general, I believe in rehabilitation and second chances. But I do not believe that those who have sworn to uphold the public trust and violated it, and been given the enormous opportunity and privilege to serve the public and abused it, should ever be given that opportunity again.”
5. Common Cause of Rhode Island isn’t impressed with House leadership’s response to the concerns raised by the Gordon Fox case. A bill introduced by Majority Leader John DeSimone would require candidates and PACs to file bank statements after their final quarterly ongoing campaign finance report to the state Board of Elections. While the BOE doesn’t do routine audits, Speaker Nicholas Mattiello calls the bank statement idea a common sense approach. “Right now, we’re required to file campaign finance reports, but the Board of Elections has nothing to reconcile them against,” Mattiello said. “We’re trying to give them the means to reconcile the reports we file with an actual balance in the bank.” But Common Cause head John Marion calls this a slapdash attempt at real reform, in part since it doesn’t require the BOE to examine statements it would receive. Via email, Marion writes, “The Board of Elections needs to be given a proper mandate to enforce compliance and the resources to back that up. Additionally, requiring a paper filing reflects a 20th-century mentality of how things should work. Many candidates in Massachusetts (statewide, mayors, city councils) are required to file such information electronically and on a monthly, not yearly basis. And efforts have been made to extend that to their legislature. We should be looking to adopt best practices like that. This proposal also does nothing about the fact that candidates are not currently required to have a segregated account for their campaign funds as the Board of Elections itself has asked the General Assembly to require.” Meanwhile, Common Cause has renewed its call for a ballot question giving voters the choice of whether to restore state Ethics Commission oversight of the General Assembly. That issue may be a non-starter, since Mattiello said he shares Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed‘s concerns about maintaining “speech-in-debate” protection for lawmakers.
6. Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea‘s lobbying task force is expected to issue recommendations later this month. “The state’s lobbying system needs a complete overhaul,” Gorbea said in announcing the group’s first meeting earlier this week. “Government must be effective, transparent and accountable to the people it serves in order to succeed.”
7. As Governor Gina Raimondo gets set to release her first budget Thursday, curbing Medicaid costs looms as one of the top challenges. Making change will be even more difficult since there are organized constituencies for two of the key cost drivers within the state’s program — the elderly and developmentally disabled. That could help explain why Raimondo established a pension-style working group to build consensus and form recommendations.
8. State Representative Michael Chippendale (R-Foster) has been among the lawmakers most aggressively seeking information on the state’s misadventure with 38 Studios. Speaking on RIPR’s Bonus Q&A this week, Chippendale said his top goal was stopping the state from paying back bondholders in the failed video game company. “That was really what I was looking to prevent from happening, so I’m disappointed that we got there but we’re there and we have essentially admitted that we will be paying this money,” he said.
9. Speaking of 38 Studios, leave it to misogynistic Internet trolls to make Curt Schilling look good by comparison.
10. Mark Binder, who challenged Gordon Fox for his rep seat in 2012, is dining out on Fox’s corruption plea. Yet the specific charge in this radio ad implying broader wrongdoing is that Fox orchestrated the 38 Studios deal — and the back-and-forth on that subject got considerable media attention back in ’12, including in this story.
11. Highlights from my colleagues at Rhode Island Public Radio: Scott MacKay has some thoughts on Governor Raimondo and her budget …. Kristin Gourlay looks at how other states are approaching cutting Medicaid costs …. Elisabeth Harrison reports on the search for RI’s next education superintendent.
12. Via NPR: “The U.S. Supreme Court seemed closely divided Monday as it heard arguments testing how far states may go to prevent political parties from drawing congressional district lines to maximize partisan advantage.”
13. A half-century after a bloody clash in Selma helped bring in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, emails in Ferguson underscore the persistence of racism.
14. Sheldon Whitehouse was the outlier in RI’s congressional delegation, deciding not to attend the address to Congress by Benjamin Netanyahu.
15. Some competition for Coffee Black RI on the wonky side of the blogosphere: Brown professor Jesse Shapiro made papers from students in his ECON 1400 The Economics of Mass Media into a blog.
16. “The next stage in the battle for our attention: our wrists“
17. T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month. Tell it to the URI baseball team, which practiced in the snow in preparation for its March 14 home opener.
