Let voters decide on legislative ethics

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Recent to-do lists for the 2016 legislative session omitted one crucial New Year’s resolution: Restore Ethics Commission jurisdiction over the General Assembly. Nearly seven years have passed since the state Supreme Court immunized our senators and representatives against prosecution for conflicts-of-interest. All other public officials remain accountable and subject to fines up to $25,000 for each specific violation. 

Through six legislative sessions General Assembly has blocked a constitutional amendment that could make its members again accountable – as they were from 1976 until 2009 – for conflicts-of-interest. Senators and representatives must resolve to let state voters approve or reject an amendment.

38 Studios illustrates the bind. Former House Speaker Gordon D. Fox reportedly claimed his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 958 times during closed-door depositions, but the high court’s 2009 ruling barred the Ethics Commission from prosecuting Fox’s conflicts-of-interest. Nor could the panel pursue any complaint against Fox’s ally, former House Finance Chair Steven M. Costantino, who pushed a 2010 budget item without disclosing that $75 million in loan guarantees would go to the video gaming company. Taxpayers were left holding the bag. 

This scandal evokes eerie echoes of earlier conflicts-of-interest. The collapse of RISDIC (RI Share and Deposit Indemnity Corporation) on New Year’s Day 1991 froze a third of all Rhode Islanders out of their savings and checking accounts. Key lawmakers had scuttled legislation that could have prevented the disaster. The General Assembly had trusted assurances of Rep. Robert V. Bianchini, Sen. John Correia, and others who held positions in RISDIC institutions. Twenty-five years later, a portion of the state’s 7 percent sales taxes still drains into the ruins of RISDIC. 

Scandals also sprang from pension-related conflicts-of-interest. Through the 1980s, Sen. John Orabona sat on both the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Retirement and the State Retirement Board. Instead of protecting taxpayers and those who would need pensions, Orabona got his colleagues to approve what looked like minor technical changes in state laws. He then exploited loopholes he had created to multiply his pensions at the expense of taxpayers. He retired in 1995 at the age of 52, claimed 79 years of credits, and filed for public pensions worth $106,057 each year. Many other lawmakers padded their retirement with special pension bills. 

In 2006, former Sen. John A. Celona confessed before the Ethics Commission that CVS had paid him $1,000 per month for nearly four years while he helped to kill pharmacy freedom-of-choice legislation that could have benefited consumers. 

In 2007, former House Majority Leader Gerard M. Martineau pled guilty on federal charges. He had billed Blue Cross $911,435 for ten million printed bags but delivered only two million. He secretly killed pharmacy freedom-of-choice bills in the House.

Rhode Island’s first Senate President, William V. Irons, took at least $70,315 in undisclosed insurance commissions from CVS. Like Martineau and Celona, he scuttled pharmacy choice bills. For three years Irons tried to negotiate a settlement with the Ethics Commission. He then sued, arguing that the RI Constitution’s “speech in debate” clause made him immune to prosecution by the watchdog agency.

Four justices on the RI Supreme Court sided with Irons. They blocked the commission from investigating conflicts involving “core legislative duties.” 

Greed and deception lie at the heart of human nature. Devious individuals will inevitably find ways to put their interests above those who elected them, above the body where they serve, and above their duty to support the Constitution.  

Rhode Islanders must press their legislators to put an ethics amendment on the November ballot.

H. Philip West Jr. served eighteen years as executive director of Common Cause RI and is the author of “Secrets & Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006.”

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  • HerbTokerman

    The RI legislature is afraid of actual democracy.

    We should have voter initiative to put anything we want on the ballot based on signature gathering like our state to the north with a good economy and high paying jobs does.

    Monday, January 11, 2016 Report this