IT'S A TRIBUTE to H. Philip West Jr.'s steady scrutiny of the General Assembly that he anticipated in early 2001 the "perfect storm" now enveloping the State House. Although no one could have fully predicted the woes of House Speaker John B. Harwood, West recognized that legislative downsizing, separation of powers, and growing challenges to Harwood's autocratic rule would make the 2002 election quite different from any in recent memory. The results remain to be seen, of course, but reformers received a boost during the September 10 primary and separation of powers has matured as an issue in public debate.

As the executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island since 1988, West has had a close view of the state's innumerable recent political scandals, from the corruption of former governor Edward DiPrete to the state banking crisis of the early 1990s. A frequent presence at the State House, West remains a dedicated advocate for good government, even in the face of guff from his legislative critics.

Phoenix: How did you come to coin the so-called perfect storm of Rhode Island politics?
A: The downsizing and redistricting created an inevitable chaos. The trouble swirling around the speaker, I think we've known for a long time that there was more than was coming out, and we knew that he was being protected by a lot of people who didn't want the things that they knew to come forward. And so, for a long time, there was kind of an enforced silence around the edges about a bunch of things that were going on. There are other things, I think, that will appear.

But it's like once that breaks, it becomes a very volatile moment, and truthfully, this has become more volatile than many of us would have expected a year ago. I think if any of us in our wildest dreams in October 2001 had imagined that we would have a majority of the legislature, and candidates for the legislature -- that they would support the early passage of a separation of powers amendment in the new session, we would have said, "not likely."

The third element, of course, separation of powers itself, is one that we've always sensed that if the public could grasp the significance of this issue and the fact that we didn't have separation of powers in Rhode Island, that that would be an immensely powerful issue. And it's as if John Harwood handed it to us by clamping down so hard on [on legislative debate on the issue] on April 10, and then his own problems with the Wendy Collins situation illustrated that power, which has appeared to be uncheckable.

So I think we really do have a perfect storm, which is now swirling. Like any storm in nature, it has the potential for sweeping aside a lot of things that have been in place for a long time and resulting in enormous change, which can be good or bad. The challenge is to make sure that the change going forward is constructive.

Q: What would you say to the view that the process of advocating for good government in Rhode Island is a thankless and Sisyphean task?
A: It has been. I like to be liked, I like people, and I'm basically an extrovert. There have been times when there has been a very aggressive hostility in the legislature. I've had leaders of various chambers stand up and make insulting remarks on the floor, and members of those chambers. And of course, when I've been in the gallery or wherever, I can't respond and I don't. There has been a lot of that, but after awhile you just say that goes with the territory. You're not here to be thanked. You're here to do the work.

If, in the long run, the change occurs -- and I think now that it will -- then I will be very, very happy. Because I've always believed that democracy was the only system of government that really works, and I see that democracy can easily be subverted. So the challenge of making it functional is crucial, and, of course, Rhode Island is the place where it has never really worked, where it's always been crippled by this system, ever since colonial times. The notion now [is] that there's a real potential for repairing that and creating a system much more [like] what the framers intended . . .

Q: How has the quality of government -- or put another way, the worst excesses of government -- changed over the last 10 years?
A: I think we really have made some progress that some other states have not made, and partially it's been because our scandals have been severe. But it's partially because of our relatively small size. It's much easier for someone in my position, for instance, to go from Newport to Woonsocket and meet with editors in one day, whereas I was with my counterparts [in Common Cause] from Pennsylvania and Florida. They can't think about doing that. So it's a much different situation in a number of states in terms of the ability of activists, advocates to reach out to the media. Even with modern electronic communications, there's no substitute for the face-to-face conversation about these things.

Without scandal none of this would have occurred. Coming out of the RISDIC scandal in January 1, 1991, when the banks were closed, we were able to build a broad reform coalition, the RIight Now Coalition. And that coalition pressed for campaign reform, ethics reform, four-year terms for statewide general officers, and we got it all. And while our campaign finance system did not work as well as we would like . . . nevertheless the costs came down from the 1990 spending to the 1994 spending. The gubernatorial winner's spending came down 65 percent. It stayed down in '98 and now it's up again. We have to work on this.

The second area where, of course -- ethics, we've had major reforms. Since 98, they have, by packing the [state Ethics] Commission, there's been a reversal on some of that. Again, I think that this is going to swing back and forth over the years, the same way that the Ethics Commission will not always be as responsive as it should be. But I think it will move back in a more responsive direction in the next couple of years, in the way that it should be.

Four-year terms, I think, has made an enormous difference. We were one of only three states that still had two-year terms [for general offices, including governor]. The problem with that was when the governor and his staff were always going out, raising [re-election] money, sometimes in extreme ways, as DiPrete did, and with the DiPrete people it got way out of hand, and it became a bizarre shakedown, using the campaign finance system. . . . Certainly, the executive is not in an office that lends itself to purity, and we've never said that it was, but the campaign finance system has gotten really better. The four-year term had the effect of allowing a governor to bring in staff who would not come in otherwise. Several people who have been department directors have made that comment to me during the Almond administration.

In 1994, we got major reform of the judiciary, again thanks to the scandal of [former chief justice] Tom Fay and [former speaker] Matty Smith, who'd gone over from the legislature, [built] patronage in the courts -- as the Journal, in the "Making of an Empire" series, wrote -- but we got merit selection. We were the only state in the whole country to get merit selection for all state judges in the 1990s. Again, it's not a perfect system, but it's a better system by far than the old grand committee election of Supreme Court justices, and gubernatorial appointment, without a commission, of lower court judges.

Q: How does the size of Common Cause's membership affect the ability of the group to pursue its mission?
A: Our membership, we're between 2000 and 2500 . . . We've had a pretty good level of financial support from people, which has enabled me, obviously, to have a staff person [Gail Walker] here and now actually to hire [research director] Peter Hufstader as well on a part-time basis. Most of my counterparts in other states don't have that much staff, even though they're operating in much larger states . . .

The membership has been effective beyond their numbers in terms of letters to the editor and pressure on local legislators. They have badgered some people. On one hand, they're [legislators] getting pressure from the speaker, but on the other hand, they're getting pressure from Common Cause members in their districts, and they don't always know that they're Common Cause members . . .

Some of our members who come out on these things get ridiculed by their legislators in their communities. It takes a lot to stand up to that. So do we have enough members? We don't have enough members. Jim Miller, our new president, and I had lunch last week, just after he was installed at the annual meeting, and he would like to get together a kind of citizens gathering early in the new year where we would get 1200 people together [with the target of activists in each legislative district]. I think his vision for a better grassroots operation than we have is sound and I'd like to go there.

Issue Date: October 25 - 31, 2002