With Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee, Lt. Gov. Sabina Matos and House Speaker Joe Shekarchi at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, who is in charge of the state?
The answer may seem academic, since there’s a small chance of a sudden crisis engulfing the state before the officials return later this week.
But Rhode Island has been marked before by confusion over who was running the state when the governor was elsewhere.
In December 2007, Gov. Don Carcieri, a Republican, didn’t inform Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, a Democrat, that he was traveling to Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan on a weeklong trip coordinated by the U.S. Department of Defense to visit American troops.
The timing couldn’t have been worse.
Caricieri’s trip coincided with the “December debacle” – a mid-afternoon weekday snow storm that snarled traffic for hours and kept young Providence students on school buses into the night, in some cases almost until midnight.
After returning to Rhode Island, Carcieri told the Providence Journal that he did “not necessarily” blame anyone in his administration for what happened, although he conceded, “There was no single voice communicating what was going on.”
In his absence, Carcieri said that role should have been played by an unelected official, Robert T. Bray, adjutant general at the time of the Rhode Island National Guard.
According to McKee’s office, the governor was slated to leave Tuesday morning for Chicago before returning Friday morning. Matos and Shekarchi each departed Monday and plan to head back Friday.
To return to the question of who is in charge, the governor’s authority remains with him (or her) unless the office “shall be vacant by reason of death, resignation, impeachment or inability to serve,” according to section nine of Article 10 of the state Constitution.
The line of succession goes first to the lieutenant governor and then the House speaker.
The section in the state Constitution is silent on out-of-state travel, but it is interpreted to mean that the governor’s authority remains in place during trips outside of Rhode Island.
“The governor remains the chief executive of the state when he is traveling,” McKee spokeswoman Olivia DaRocha said. “He is in contact with his staff and cabinet at all times.”
According to a 2007 story in the ProJo, the governor was prohibited from exercising power while out of state until a change was made to the state Constitution in 1992.
The change took place after Marjorie Sundlun, the wife at the time of Gov. Bruce Sundlun, was seriously hurt in an accident. Sundlun spent a lot of time with her at a hospital in Rochester, New York, and House Speaker Joseph DeAngelis was designated to sign state documents since Lt. Gov. Roger Begin was on a European trade mission, the ProJo reported.
There were earlier clashes about who was in charge when the governor was out of town.
According to a 1965 ProJo editorial, “modern communications have kept the reigns [sic] securely in the hands of the governor, no matter how distant he may be.”
The Hurricane of 1938 struck during the absence of Gov. Robert E. Quinn, and a prison break took place in 1959 while Gov. Christopher Del Sesto was at a governor’s conference in Puerto Rico.
The lieutenant governors on both occasions “were ready and willing to act,” the editorial said, “but both found the necessary steps to cope with the emergencies had been taken by the absent governors by telephone.”
On the other hand, as lieutenant governor, Quinn signed “the 1933 bank moratorium for Rhode Island in the opening days of the New Deal,” according to the editorial. Gov. Theodore Francis Green was in Washington, D.C. at the time for the inauguration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “who ordered the bank holiday as one of his first official acts.”
In Massachusetts, the lieutenant governor assumes power when the governor is out of state.
DaRocha did not comment when asked whether McKee selected a point person to handle pressing issues during the governor’s absence.
This story has been updated.
