Politics as Usual by Jim Baron

Murphy’s law will now reign unquestioned in the House of Representatives, from the looks of things.

The loyal opposition until now maintained by the small but scrappy Republican caucus has been squished even further, so now there are only 6 people to speak up when the leadership deems there is a bill that needs to be rammed through no matter what.
Actually, that might not really be true. Rod Driver was elected as a Democrat in South County’s District 39 and if anyone can be relied on to question authority, it is the former URI mathematics professor. (An early indication: Driver blew off the caucus to re-anoint the House Democratic leadership team on Thursday and attended the Operation Clean Government banquet instead; an eloquent statement of where his loyalties lie.)
But now more than ever, what Speaker Bill Murphy says, goes, Driver notwithstanding.
In the Senate, the Big Dog got whupped, although the Democrats, already the overwhelming majority, managed to gain a seat. And it wasn’t a Republican who unhorsed Senate President Joseph Montalbano, it was a well-funded Independent.
So what happened there?
For one thing, Montalbano spent a good bit of time last term wrangling with the Ethics Commission over a complaint about his doing legal work for the town of West Warwick in the vicinity of the proposed casino site. A settlement was worked out where Montalbano can correctly say he wasn’t found guilty of any substantial conflict of interest, but he paid such a whopping sum — $12,000 — on the remaining paperwork violations that the agreement left a bad taste in the mouth.
But that was probably only a small part of Montalbano’s problem election night.
Looming far bigger was the dispute over Twin River staying open all night on weekends. Lincoln voters, many of them in Lime Rock where the gambling hall and Montalbano’s district is located, dragged themselves out on a Saturday to give an overwhelming thumbs-down to the so-called “24/3” idea. Still, Montalbano championed the extension of hours and, to his credit, brokered a better deal for the town of Lincoln from the wee-hours take.
Extra money or no, Montalbano still thumbed his nose at his constituents’ expressed desires and that had to be a big part of the reason for his return to the private sector.
Montalbano also spent far too long on Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank Williams’ side looking to build a courthouse in Lincoln the residents there and the Town Council made clear they wanted no part of.
If the courthouse is ever built (something that looks less and less likely as the economy tanks further and further), it will be built in Smithfield, but Montalbano was still identified as being willing to defy the wishes of the voters in his district.
Another factor that can’t be ignored is that Montalbano, in a classy and self-sacrificing (more than he knew, apparently) gesture, allowed his safe district to be modified to settle a civil rights suit against the last redistricting.  The district lines shifted toward Lincoln, where Montalbano had less in common with people than he did in his hometown of North Providence or his native Pawtucket, and that gave an advantage to Independent Ed O’Neill, a Lincolnian.  
Montalbano’s Number Two, Majority Leader Teresa Paiva Weed apparently has the votes to succeed him and will get the Democrats’ nod to do so tonight. (Paiva Weed called the caucus, which is traditionally done by the person who has the votes to win.) If Paiva Weed has more than a four-vote margin of victory among Democrats, the Republicans (reduced to four measly seats in the chamber) won’t be able to stop her from becoming the first woman to wield the gavel in either chamber of the General Assembly.
Paiva Weed was able to call a lot of shots as Montalbano’s majority leader, so don’t look for any radical changes in style or substance in the Senate next term.

Adeiu, Mr. Gorham
Politicians come and politicians go, but I am going to miss Republican Whip Nick Gorham, who lost his bid for re-election last Tuesday.
Gorham was one of the scrappy Republicans who would fight the good fight, making often necessary arguments against bills he knew the Democrats were going to pass because they had the votes to do so.
His arguments, while vigorously and insistently made, were often leavened with good humor, and an appeal to reasonableness and intelligence. Gorham was a kinder, gentler obstructionist; he didn’t show the harsh, go-for-the-throat instincts of his minority leader, Bob Watson. Those two made a good one-two punch, but were still barely able to score any points, let alone achieve any knockouts.
Gorham’s defeat, however, is going to have serious repercussions for several election cycles to come.
The one budget reduction strategy that seems to come up more than any other is merging the state’s 39 cities and towns and 36 school districts into a more manageable number. It’s hard to argue that the idea doesn’t make sense.
Well, Gorham put forward a plan that would have consolidated the towns of Exeter, Foster, Glocester, Scituate, West Greenwich and the western end of Coventry into one municipality that Gorham dubbed Westconnaug.
For years, everyone has been sitting around saying, “it’s ridiculous to have all these school districts and fire and police departments, to have 39 of everything in a state that would qualify as a county in most other states in terms of size and population.
Gorham stepped up and actually put a plan on the table, something he says was meant as a takeoff point for discussion. He ran into a buzzsaw of popular opposition. People HATED the idea right off the bat, they blamed Gorham and punished him at the polls.
It seems that everyone thinks consolidation is a good idea as long as someone else’s town is consolidated.  I haven’t talked to anybody since Tuesday who doesn’t think it was Westconnaug that did Gorham in.
All well and good, the voters had their say. But do you seriously think anyone else in the General Assembly is going to step forward now with a regionalization plan? Even if one kamikaze legislator were to suggest one, everyone will look over to the desk where Gorham used to sit and press the red button (a negative vote) on their electronic consoles.
For the foreseeable future, lawmakers are going to treat any regionalization plan (at least ones that involve their own communities) like a jar of scorpions. No one is going to go near it.
That’s what elections do. Besides merely choosing among candidates for office, they are a barometer of the political will of the populace.
And the next time a legislator thinks of going against that will, he or she is going to think of Joe Montalbano and Nick Gorham. And that, we have to assume, is a good thing.