The year of political combat Will Governor Carcieri and the legislature get along in 2005? Don’t count on it BY IAN DONNIS

WHEN Rhode Island Republicans’ most aggressive attempt in a generation to increase their representation in the General Assembly produced meager results in November, Democrats could barely contain their glee. Donald L. Carcieri, the popular and media-savvy governor, made this campaign a focal point of his second year in office, steadily hammering the perennially lopsided balance of power on Smith Hill and a few other simple talking points. So if this outcome — a gain of four House seats and a loss of one GOP senator — was the best that the governor could do, or so the thinking went, he’s bound to be something of a paper tiger.

In Rhode Island in 2004, however, the course of the state’s political life was never quite so predictable. In one example of how he otherwise tried to inflate GOP power, Carcieri rallied behind state Representative John DeSimone’s (D-Providence) challenge to House Speaker William P. Murphy (D-West Warwick). Although Murphy remains the favorite to retain the speaker’s post in January, and DeSimone is something of a curious vessel for Carcieri’s backing (in part since he represents the Providence Teachers Union), the governor’s stance made clear that he intends to fight for relevance and quite a bit of ground against the Democrat-controlled legislature.

Even though Carcieri remains short of the legislative numbers to sustain his veto, he demonstrated a definite agile strength at times this year, dramatically derailing plans for a casino referendum and dissuading Democrats from their plan to offer $20 million in tax credits for a hotel development by former legislator Vincent Mesolella. The Dems, not surprisingly, didn’t like such flexing, calling Carcieri an overly partisan figure (as if such a thing was possible in Rhode Island) and an imperial top-down CEO-type. Carcieri responded in kind, blaming the majority faction of Democrats for not being willing to play ball with him. (Then again, the governor proved again that he could also be his own worst enemy, putting forward an ill-conceived homeland security proposal that would have criminalized statements in support of anarchy. After sudden and widespread condemnation, the proposal was swiftly withdrawn.)

Meanwhile, the overwhelming passage by voters in November of a separation of powers referendum — an effort to more evenly distribute power between the state’s three branches of government — showed how citizens and advocates of reform can make a difference, even if, as in this case, it takes a really long time. Still, the habitual disinclination of the General Assembly to cede power became freshly evident with Murphy’s recently stated view that separation of powers doesn’t apply to the majority of legislators (six of nine posts) on the powerful state Lottery Commission. Regardless of whether this matter goes to court, watch for the implementation of separation of powers to become one of the major issues on Smith Hill in 2005.

Should Murphy retain the speakership, he’s not likely to soon forget the governor’s support for his opponent, and short of the less-than-likely emergence of a more bonhomie on both sides, the high-stakes political combat will persist through the run-up to the 2006 election season. In a year in which Americans remained closely divided between the two seemingly irreconcilable realms of red and blue states, similar feuding could be seen in a variety of ways in Rhode Island:

• Always one to march to the beat of a different drummer, US Senator Lincoln Chafee became even more of a stranger in the strange land of national Republican politics. Invited to join Carcieri as state co-chair of George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, Chafee steadily and uncomfortably demurred before finally revealing that he would vote for the president’s father, George H.W. Bush. Yet despite his semi-annual musing about switching sides, Chafee remained ensconced in the GOP camp. Meanwhile, the deeply troubled course of the Bushies’ war in Iraq offered ample ground for well-placed criticism from US Senator Jack Reed. (On a more harmonious note, the state’s senior senator, a longtime bachelor, announced his engagement to a Senate aide.)

• Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey, with some of the best intuitive political skills this side of Buddy Cianci, emerged as a poster child for the Republican attack against public-employee unions and their entitlements. Not that this was particularly difficult in Cranston, where the city’s amply compensated crossing guards made for a perfect foil, and union officials bumbled badly by transparently targeting Laffey’s ouster in the September primary — a move that led to the defeat of state Representative Frank Montanaro, the son of Frank J. Montanaro, president of the state AFL-CIO. It remains to be seen, though, whether this demonstration project will find a wider application.

• The hopes of Rhode Island Democrats soared during the Democratic National Convention in Boston in July, only to be bitterly dashed a few months later. Yet in a season when radical Republican hegemony became increasingly manifest at a national level, progressives scored a number of victories in Rhode Island, particularly the State Labor Board’s recognition of 1300 independent day-care providers as state employees (the Carcieri administration is challenging this in Superior Court).

• The state’s two good-government groups, Operation Clean Government and Common Cause of Rhode Island, split on the wisdom of convening a constitutional convention. The dissonance (voters rejected the concept of holding the convention, meaning it won’t be considered for another 10 years) led Providence Journal editorial columnist Ed Achorn to fault H. Philip West Jr., Common Cause’s executive director, for providing friendly cover for the special interests that stood to lose from the convention. West, though, says opposition to the convention was wider that commonly understood — other opponents included the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island, the Urban League, and Gary Sasse, executive director of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council — and that citizens and reform groups can wield more effective influence on a day-to-day basis.

• Although the shortfall of the GOP’s legislative aspirations was the big local story of the 2004 election, the maneuvering is just beginning for what promises to be a more high-stakes campaign season in 2006. Laffey, for example, is a potential Republican challenger for Chafee’s Senate seat. Carcieri and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline will stand for reelection. The potential Democratic candidates for governor or US Senate include Secretary of State Matthew Brown, Lieutenant Governor Charles Fogarty (who is prevented by term-limits from returning to his office), former attorney general Sheldon Whitehouse, and US Representative James Langevin.