BY JIM BARON

PROVIDENCE — Fighting to protect its prosecutorial prerogatives against members of the General Assembly, the Ethics Commission has asked the Rhode Island Supreme Court to reverse a Superior Court ruling that former Senate President William Irons enjoys legislative immunity from an Ethics complaint by virtue of the state constitution’s “Speech in Debate” clause.

Irons resigned his high position in the legislative leadership and ultimately his Pawtucket-East Providence Senate seat in light of accusations that he helped kill a pharmacy related bill that two corporations that were clients in his private insurance practice, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Rhode Island and CVS, did not want passed.
A Superior Court judge agreed with Irons’ assertion that he was protected from an Ethics Commission adjudication by a provision of the state constitution that says: “For any speech in debate in either house, no member shall be questioned in any other place,” and dismissed the complaint against him.
The appeal warns that, “In the absence of a final ruling by the state’s highest court, the issues raised in this petition relative to the Ethics Commission’s jurisdiction (over legislators) will be repeated” and questions about the commission’s power to review and penalize legislators’ misconduct “will continue to arise in every newly-issued advisory opinion and newly filed complaint that relates to members of the General Assembly.
Gramitt said on Tuesday that the commission also asked the high court to stay Superior Court Judge Francis Darigan’s decision while it was being reviewed so that it could continue to enforce the ethics law against legislators as it has been since the ethics amendment took effect.
Darigan had rejected a request to stay his own ruling pending the Supreme Court review.
In a motion asking the high court to hear the appeal, the commission said the ruling by Darigan, “is incorrect as a matter of law and has disenfranchised the people of Rhode Island who, in 1986, took the drastic but necessary step of voting to amend their Constitution” to create an Ethics Commission and give it power to “enact and enforce prohibitions relating to conflicts of interest and improper use of position that apply to all state elected officials, including legislators.”
The motion, penned by commission attorneys Jason Gramitt and Katherine D’Arezzo, says Darigan’s ruling “flies in the face of the intent of the framers of the ethics amendment and “cries out for the court’s review and reversal.”
It argues that the Ethics Commission must be allowed to investigate the conflict of interest and improper use of position charges against Irons to ensure another constitutional provision, that public officials and employees “not use their position for private gain or advantage.”
The 1986 constitutional amendment, the commission contends, supersedes the Speech in Debate clause, which has been in the state constitution since it was first established. Irons argues that if that was what the 1986 Constitutional Convention intended, it should have removed or modified the Speech in Debate clause. The Supreme Court has said in other cases that it does not look favorably on claims of “amendment by implication,” meaning one constitutional provision modifying another without expressly saying so. But it has also said in an advisory opinion that, “It is stated as a recognized principle of construction of written constitutions, as well as statutes, that of to irreconcilably repugnant provisions therein the one which is last in order of time is to be preferred, particularly when the latter is more comprehensive and specific than the former.”
The commission notes that Darigan said in his own decision that: “One of the reasons for this hearing…(is) to allow all parties to make a record that can be reviewed, most likely will be reviewed, and, in this court’s humble opinion, should be reviewed…by the Supreme Court because of the far reaching ramifications it has not only in the operation of the Ethics Commission…but also to the ramifications (for) those who are working in the governmental agencies of the 39 cities and towns and in the General Assembly.”
Irons told The Times that he is happy the appeal has been filed.
“They said they were going to do it, so I would like to get this entire chapter behind me. The sooner it gets appealed, the sooner it gets on the calendar, the sooner it gets decided, the better. To have my fully normal life back would be nice.”
Irons said he and his attorney “feel strongly that Judge Darigan’s opinion was correct.”
 Gramitt said a conference has been scheduled for mid-January to consider the commission’s request for a Supreme Court review, called a Writ of Certiorari. The court’s review under such a writ is limited to an examination of the record to see if an error of law has been committed, the facts and merits of the case are not considered.