The program required the seven women to attend weekly Saturday learning seminars, as well as submit a research project and work together on a group fundraiser. Over the course of their time with LLI, they were also given the chance to network with other prominent Rhode Island Latinas, including Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, who gave the keynote address at the ceremony. Gorbea is the first Latina to hold an elected state office in New England, and one of the founders of the RILCF.

“The LLI is a wonderful example of what happens when people start things,” Gorbea said. “When I created the Civic Fund, this was the last thing on my mind that would come out of it. But how wonderful it is.”

Gorbea said the women who become alumni of the institute show commitment to a new beginning, and signal a bright future for the state. She added that those who graduate must never give up on trying to make a positive change in their communities, even though being a Latina in a position of power can seem daunting at times. Although the opportunities for them to make a change might not always seem significant, Gorbea encouraged them to push through.

“When people talk about seizing opportunities, its not those big ones, its those little tiny steps that get us somewhere else,” she said.

Gorbea said that she is lucky to hold the office of Secretary of State, because she believes she can directly transform how people participate in the democratic process. She told the graduates to embrace their ability to transform government as well, saying that by working to rebuild, strengthen, and expand their communities, they can change Rhode Island for the better.

“That’s why civic leadership is so incredibly important,” she said. “It involves bringing people together in new ways.”

Governor Gina Raimondo addressed the graduates as well, saying that they, as women, have an obligation to get involved in their communities and within the state. She said that better decisions are made when everyone has a voice in the discussion, and that includes Latinas.

“We know you have a commitment to be engaged, and I never want you to questions yourselves,” she said. “I want you to be confident, constantly develop yourselves, and never ask yourselves “Should I be here,” or “Should I be doing this,” because you have to.”

Raimondo also spoke on the power that women in the State House currently have. Thursday afternoon, she signed a bill that required businesses to make accommodations for pregnant women. She also announced that, as the first female governor, she has opened a lactation room in the State House for women who need it.

Two members of the class were given the chance to give their own speeches at the ceremony as well. Andrea James-Gomez remarked in her speech that LLI has given herself and her classmates the tools to move forward in their respective careers through both their group and solo projects.

“Not only did we research, but we had the opportunity to become passionate about the things that are important to us,” she said.

James-Gomez also said that the program did not just give the class the chance to develop themselves as career women, though. They also formed a sisterhood, helping each other to grow as people as they apply what they learned because of the institute. Olga Encarnacion, another member of the class, agreed.

“We empower each other as Latinas. That alone is an important lesson,” she said. “This is just the beginning, and this is not the last time you will see us.

Along with James-Gomez and Encarnacion, the other five graduates were Ivonne Cam, Michelle Carrasco, Miguelina Perez, Yajaira Reyes, and Jahaira Rodriguez. A special LLI Alumni Award was also given to Sabrina Matos, the first Latina member of the Providence City Council. The Rhode Island Welcome Back Center also received a Community Partner Award for its assistance to the LLI and the RILCF.

On Friday, March 21, — while FBI agents were still in Gordon Fox’s office — golocalprov was tweeting exactly the rumors that Mattiello wanted everyone hear: that he had control, that he had the votes, that resistance is futile. Immediately afterward, Kim Kalunian of WPRO radio followed, and Dan McGowan at WPRI, too. Could Mattiello have realistically asked for more? These reporters let everyone know that it was Mattiello’s office to lose. At that point, coverage like that is what his bluff needed most.

On Friday evening, Mattiello held a “caucus” to shore up his support and only about two dozen people showed, up, far short of the number necessary to win the Speaker’s gavel. So we went to bed and woke up on Saturday, March 22, and then look what happened.  On Saturday, Mattiello was clearly losing, according to accounts I’ve heard and corroborated since. After some disarray on Friday, and Mattiello’s failure to show a clear majority on Friday night, what became Mike Marcello’s team had arranged a clear majority of the necessary votes.

But in the press, you had Channel 10 and Cranston Patch (or what’s left of it) reporting that Mattiello’s succession was a done deal. At the very least, this inaccurate reporting sowed confusion and at worst it actually interfered with the Marcello team being able to consolidate its gain. Apparently the confusion, plus a personal appeal from Paul Valletta, the firefighter’s union president, to the two Woonsocket representatives who are firefighters, started the erosion of Marcello’s support. Republicans Joe Trillo and Doreen Costa indicated that their caucus would weigh in, and would choose Mattiello, and they sped the erosion. But they were just trying to bet on the winners, since an hour before they had been supporting the other side.

Then on Sunday March 23, the next day, Kathy Gregg at the Providence Journal and Ian Donnis at RIPR buried Marcello’s team and that was pretty much that. As if what was won on Saturday couldn’t be lost on Sunday or Monday.

Randy Edgar made a little effort to report that it wasn’t a done deal on Sunday, but he was all alone so had no effect.

So what do we learn? The reporters named here will say that they had no choice but to report what was coming at them. Great, so political reportage necessarily resembles a mob? But not all reporters played along, as Randy Edgar and a few others showed. Even so, true or not, it is irrelevant to the point that the political press played a crucial role in making Nick Mattiello’s ascension to speaker possible. In their breathless chase of what’s happening right now right now right now, they amplified his claims to have the votes and seemed to ignore the possibility that anything else might happen. They served the powerful.

I hope the reporters whom I count among my friends will eventually forgive me for saying so, but in many ways the state’s political press did Nick Mattiello’s bidding, from the broadcast of his unsupported claims on Friday to this curious post on Monday where WPRI’s Ted Nesi said Mattiello won’t rock the boat and that his fervent embrace of every item of the Chamber of Commerce’s agenda constitutes being a “moderate.” (And, of course, since the Chamber’s agenda already ruled the House, Mattiello is unlikely to feel the boat needs rocking at all.) This kind of calming article was exactly what was needed to consolidate the Mattiello team’s votes, to prevent fear of a conservative takeover of the House. Which, of course, was precisely what was going on, as even that article makes clear.

I suppose it is possibly true that there is no other way to do political reporting except in a mob that provides support to those who already have power, but that seems a dubious proposition to me. Reporters have a responsibility to their readers, and a responsibility to the state they live in, and it seems to me that the responsibility is an individual sort. Actions have consequences and none of us are free from the moral dimension of those actions. There will likely be another election for Speaker after this fall’s elections, and will we see the same presumptions, the same blind repetition of idle boasts, the same rush? We will see.

You can lose gracefully and with style, summoning all your energy to give it your all, demonstrating to your opponent and those watching that you are a worthy foe and someone to be taken seriously. In doing so you can demonstrate the best of the values you hold dear, earning the begrudging respect of even your most diametrical opponents.

Or you can lose in a tawdry muddle of confused loyalties, last minute defections, 11th hour deal making and factional splits.

As Nick Mattiello consolidated his power in the Rhode Island House of Representatives over the last weekend, making deals with conservative Democrats and even more conservative Republicans, progressive hopes were hung on the “progressive caucus” that seemed to coalesce around Representative Michael Marcello, but Marcello lost big.

In the end Mattiello had ten times the votes.

Progressives lost this battle, and perhaps it was inevitable, because the numbers were not there, but progressives lost something else as well. They lost the chance to define the battle they were losing. In the scramble to find an alternative to the business-as-usual Mattiello, progressives rallied around “anyone but Mattiello” which became a statement about what we were opposed to, but not about what we believe in. We did not rally around our values.

Representative Teresa Tanzi got me thinking about his when she told Bob Plain that she abstained from voting for either side “because there were no women on the new leadership team[s]” put forward by Mattiello or Marcello. The leadership teams under consideration were primarily made up of white heterosexual male lawyers. From a conservative like Mattiello this is to be expected. Diversity is not the conservative value that hegemonic patriarchy is, after all.

But for a so-called progressive caucus to ignore diversity, one of its key values, is more than an oversight, it’s an abandonment of principle and a violation of our values for the sake of petty politics. Worse, this was done for the sake of a battle that was destined to be lost. Putting aside values for a moment, from a pragmatic, political point of view, this was a terrible strategy. Why on earth would anyone sacrifice their values when they know they are going to lose?

If anything, all the losing side in any conflict has is its principles and values. When faced with defeat, the losing side should seek to differentiate itself as much as possible from its opponent. For instance, Mattiello might have had the numbers and the political grease to unify a coalition in his favor, but the progressive caucus could have staked out the moral high ground, demonstrating not only diversity but other core values such as women’s autonomy, the rights of workers to not be exploited, concerns over the environment, and a call for getting special interests out of politics.

When Representative Joseph Trillo snidely suggested that Marcello’s camp was more concerned with plastic bag bans than improving the economy, the progressive caucus should have been able to say that they are interested in protecting Rhode Island’s most valuable asset, the environment. While Mattiello dismissed calls for reforming PayDay Loans as unimportant, the progressive caucus should have asked why the economic exploitation of our at risk poor and the shuffling of millions of dollars from poor urban communities to out of state corporations is beneath his notice. A progressive caucus might suggest that Mattiello’s longtime mentor and supporter, former Speaker Bill Murphy, who gets a pretty hefty paycheck every year from PayDay loan companies, might be exerting an influence. And what about the plague of gun violence? Most Rhode Islanders want an assault weapon ban, but not Bill Murphy, who also lobbies for the NRA, and not his hand-picked successor Mattiello, or any of Mattiello’s new committee chair appointees, all of whom seem to have perfect scores from the NRA.

If the progressive caucus wants to mean anything and if the progressive caucus wants to effect real change in the General Assembly as opposed to the appearance of change currently on offer from Mattiello and friends, then it will have to figure out how to stand up for progressive values, explain the importance of progressive values, and demonstrate those values in a way Rhode Islanders can understand.

Doing this will not only make the progressive caucus look good when they lose, it will give them the best chance they have to win.

Big time props to the Marcello 6, who stuck by their speaker candidate even after realizing he didn’t have the votes to win. They are:

Greg Constantino of Lincoln, Paddy O’Neill of Pawtucket, John Lombadi of Providence, Linda Finn of Middletown, Joy Hearn from Barrington and – of course – Marcello himself. These six are now effectively the loyal opposition in the House of Representatives and I hope other progressives join them.

They are now effectively the loyal opposition in the House. Hopefully the 5 Liberal Abstainers will join them. They are:

Edith Ajello and Maria Cimini of Providence, Teresa Tanzi of South Kingstown and Larry Valencia of Richmond {Update: Andd Rep. Jeremiah O’Grady, Lincoln]. Progressives are pretty disappointed in these five. Tanzi said she did so because there were no women on the new leadership team, and Valencia told me he would explain his decision to his constituents in the future (declined to comment). My guess is Team Marcello had splintered to the point that some didn’t want to support it.

West Warwick Republican Pat Morgan also abstained, but her reasons for doing so were certainly different. She disrupted the formal vote to try to give a speech about her reasons, which seemed to be that she wanted something for her support. This generally drew ire from both parties, though Minority Leader Brian Newberry defended her on procedural grounds.

Some progressives legislators also voted for Speaker Mattiello, including Frank Ferri, of Warwick, Art Handy of Cranston and Chris Blazejewski. Blaz, of course, was initially a leader of Team Marcello and Handy was an early supporter. Handy said his decision to jump ship was an attempt to remain chairman of the Environmental Committee.

“Staying as chair and having more access to leadership is one of the best things I can do for the progressive causes I care about,” Handy said.

Coventry Rep. Scott Guthrie said he is supporting Rep. Nick Mattiello for speaker because “a couple people pissed me off.”

He said he initially contemplated caucusing with the group supporting Rep. Mike Marcello, but at the outset that group didn’t even know who it would put forward as the candidate for speaker.

“There was no one they had a name for,” he told me this morning. “If you have a name you can build a team around a name.”

He also said the group was “cutting deals here and there.”

“I like Michael but now it’s going to turn into silly season,” Guthrie said. “Do we have a smooth transition and do the people’s business? All this is is politics for the next election.”

South Kingstown Rep. Spencer Dickinson, another occasional ally to the progressive movement, said he too is supporting conservative Democrat Nick Mattiello.

“I began by supporting O’Neill or Lombardi, but lack of sign-on by the progressive wing made those choices unavailable,” he wrote on his Facebook wall. “I believe that if you had been with me for the last 72 hours, and seen what I have seen, you would have made the same choice.”

On my Facebook wall, Dickinson, a vocal critic of Gordon Fox and his leadership team, wrote: “Plausible intel that the Ucci Blazejewski team (that later grafted on Marcello as speaker) actually started out as the team of horses that was to keep [Frank] Anzeveno in power. Mattiello put a credible stop to that and that’s one reason why he will be the next speaker.”

Dickinson has long been at odds with the previous leadership group.

As is his custom, he wouldn’t speak on the record. But House spokesman Larry Berman released this statement on his behalf:

“Privately, I have known for a while that Gordon Fox would not be running for another term. He did not want to announce that decision so that the focus would be on the many challenging issues before the House of Representatives. With this knowledge and consultation with my family, I made the decision to leave at the end of this session in June. I had previously been in contact with the Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island and the Joint Committee on Legislative Services to make an informed decision.

“In light of recent events at the Statehouse, time has accelerated. I cleaned out my office over the weekend in anticipation that a new Speaker needs to bring in his own staff.

“It has been an honor for me to have witnessed the hard work, dedication and commitment that our public officials, as well as the loyal and conscientious staff, bring to the Statehouse every day. I will always respect the House of Representatives and wish them the best in tackling the difficult issues before them.”

Anzeveno began his State House career in 1980 as an elected representative from North Providence. Her served for 18 years and in 2001, he became Speaker John Harwood’s chief of staff, a position he retained through Bill Murphy and Gordon Fox’s tenure.

Privately, state reps said bills required his blessing, and he relished in his bad cop reputation at the State House. He had a sign on his desk – and I would love to know what happens to it now – that read, “No better friend, no worse enemy.”

Labor gets a lot of blame for this in certain circles, but it’s a sick joke. The labor movement in Rhode Island is so disunited that pensions were “reformed” in 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2011, each time making pension coverage for state employee union members weaker and smaller. Whether it’s labor law, pensions, taxes, or municipal funding, it is difficult to think of a high-profile controversy in the legislature won by labor in the last 15 years.

The tragic part of this is that Rhode Island’s electorate is not nearly so retrograde as its legislature. Gun control polls well, as does reproductive justice and raising taxes on rich people, and yet the legislature does not act that way.

This accounts for the Machiavellian nature of legislative politics. The conservative Democrats who have held power there for decades rely on strong-arm tactics to enforce docility among the rank-and-file. Uncontroversial bills get held until after the budget is passed to assure its passage, committee chair and vice-chair seats are awarded to “team players,” malcontents are assigned to the standing committee on whatever they care least about. These are not a sign of power, but a sign of weakness. The leadership has long been aware that their hold on power is precarious, and they rely on the disunity of their opposition to maintain their hold.

Part of what maintains that disunity is the selective granting of power to a few individuals, who are allowed to sit as committee chairs or vice-chairs. These individuals imagine they have some leverage worth protecting and that their position allows them some access to the inner workings. This makes them reliable votes to protect the interests of the powerful. But a lot of it is illusion. I found myself once talking to the vice chair of House Finance committee some years ago on the very day that the Finance Committee issued its revision of the Governor’s budget. I was fascinated to notice that he knew as little about what was in it as I did. In other words, his position allowed him to think he had access, but in reality he had virtually none.

This is what is happening today. People with some small measure of influence — who will never get any more than what they have from Mattiello’s leadership — are unwilling to risk what little they have by supporting a leadership that actually favors their perspective. The tragic part, of course, is that if they could be united, they could make a change.

Tomorrow will be a test.

If Nick Mattiello becomes Speaker, the most powerful position in the state Democratic Party, it will be through the support of tea-party Republicans allied with representatives who do not believe he supports any of their priorities, but are willing to go along with him for the sake of small and ultimately meaningless favors. Do you want Republicans Doreen Costa and Joe Trillo to be kingmakers of the Democratic Party?

The conservative path of our recent history has brought us one bankrupt city and a couple more flirting with it. We have given up tax revenue and gotten nothing for it in return. Our schools, buses, streets, and virtually every other public service you depend on, has gotten smaller, weaker, dirtier, and meaner. The legislature has thwarted Governor Chafee’s attempts to restore Carcieri’s school funding cuts and any semblance of equity among the cities and towns, along with most of the other useful reforms he has proposed. You can be upset with him for not fighting harder, but he is not the obstacle to reform in Rhode Island. This is the status quo of our state, and if you are happy with it, then you have every right to be happy with the status quo of the Assembly leadership.

If you are not happy with it, though, please contact your state rep today and ask them to support change at the state house tomorrow. And if you are a state rep reading this, please remember that the bluff only works when no one stands up.

Bill Murphy, the right-wing former House Speaker, the lobbyist for the gun people and the payday lenders, and the man at the center of Rhode Island’s conservative movement, is standing up for one of his own.  He’s defending Patrick McDonald.  McDonald, the former South County state senator who was defeated by Jim Sheehan in 2002, is perhaps most famous for topping the unpaid campaign fines list.  For not making the required financial disclosure statements, the Ethics Commission slapped him with another fine.  Now, he’s facing embezzlement charges.

Also representing McDonald is Norman Landroche, a right-wing former representative from West Warwick.  Let me be clear:  I have no problem with conservative ex-politicians representing another conservative ex-politician.  Nor do I think it is fair to assume that McDonald is guilty, since we really do not know.  What really impresses me about this story is that it provides a tiny glimpse into the often-hidden world of the right-wing Democratic* machine that runs our state.  It reveals a surprising feature of the Rhode Island right, one vital to their unparalleled success–the deep network of strong personal loyalty that binds them all together.

It would be easy for the right to get bogged down in personal fights, for vendettas and drama to seethe beneath the surface, occasionally exploding across the pages of newspapers and blogs.  During the tumultuous period from 2002 to 2004, when Bill Murphy rose to power, there was ample room for a divided coalition to emerge.  Instead, the conservative movement grew even tighter.

When John Harwood resigned the speakership under the cloud of scandal, he is widely understood to have pulled the strings to have Bill Murphy to replace him, with Murphy’s core support coming from Harwood’s right-wing committee chairs (like Brian Kennedy, who is still in power today).  Crucially, Frank Anzeveno, Harwood’s chief of staff, kept his position as the Speaker’s top aide.  Gordon Fox, who had served as Harwood’s Finance Chair, became Majority Leader.  Deputy Whip Rene Menard moved up to Whip.  The core team remained in place.  In a feature from the Phoenix, Steven Stycos quotes one of my favorite representatives, who sums it up perfectly:

Voicing an opinion shared by many others, state Representative Edith Ajello (D-Providence) says Murphy and Fox “are not outsiders, they’re insiders.” And she adds that their election has “the appearance of a hand off” from Harwood.

So when Harwood backstabbed Murphy, deciding he wanted the Speakership back, and Murphy said no, the stage was set for an epic battle, one that threatened to rip apart the Rhode Island right in a fury of nasty, internal squabbles.  Instead, Frank Anceveno remained loyal to Murphy.  The team closed ranks.  Harwood’s bid fizzled.  Providence conservative John DeSimone became the face of the leadership challenge.  The challenge met with relatively little support, although it gained steam when Menard endorsed it in August.  But only a few weeks later, when Paddy O’Neil defeated Harwood in a primary challenge, the revolt died altogether.  When the dust settled, Murphy, Fox, and Anceveno were safely enthroned as the leaders of one of history’s most successful political movements.  Relatively unimpeded by internal squabbles, aided by a friendly Senate and Governor, the House conservatives were able to pull off a bold, audacious, improbable goal–the imposition of much of the national Republican Party’s agenda in an incredibly liberal state.  The rich got their tax cuts.  Government jobs were cut to the bone, giving our state the second lowest percentage of public sector employees.  To help protect local conservatives and give ammunition to national Republicans, they passed the voter ID law.  Unsurprisingly, Rhode Island’s economy collapsed.  (For more, I suggest reading this blog.)

It would have been easy to pursue retribution, but Murphy’s team largely folded DeSimone into the machine.  Although DeSimone mounted an unsuccessful challenge when Fox succeeded Murphy, Fox was quick to mend fences.  Murphy even got the state to reimburse Harwood for the money he spent defending against an ethics complaint.  Menard remained on the outside as a principled, if very conservative, critic of leadership until moderate Mia Ackerman defeated him in 2012.  Charlene Lima, a Cranston moderate and Harwood critic who been brought on as Deputy Whip in a concession to the sensible wing of the House, left leadership to become one of its most strident and passionate opponents.  But Lima was never part of the conservative establishment.  Inside the core right-wing network, there were very few defections.  They all became Murphy men.  (Or in rare cases, Murphy women.)

None of this would have been possible had the conservatives not bound themselves together in a web of friendship and loyalty.  I may fundamentally disagree with their politics.  I may fundamentally disagree with their ethics.  I may fundamentally disagree with how they use their power to squash dissent.  I may fundamentally disagree with how they have governed Rhode Island.  But I have to respect their personal loyalty.  Without it, even with their undisputed political talents, they would never have been able to get as shockingly far as they have.

So I am not angry that Murphy and Landroche are representing McDonald.  Indeed, it speaks to one of their (few) good qualities.

*In fairness, I should note that the machine is somewhat bipartisan–by all accounts, the lobbyist Bob Goldberg, a former Republican senator, plays a vital role.

Problems with Fox’s leadership team have been mounting for weeks now. Two of the most conservative members of the team lost in primaries: Peter Petrarca and Jon Brien. And, John McCauley, who recently pleaded guilty to two tax-related felonies, isn’t running for reelection.

Then yesterday, Whip Patrick O’Neil resigned.

In a letter to Fox, O’Neil said he was stepping down, in part, because, “there are glaring signs that the leadership team is neither working together to bring about real change not has a clear plan for addressing the issues this state is facing.”

O’Neil, by the way, was the highest ranking legislator to support tax equity legislation last session – and he’d love to be the next Speaker.

All this as former friend and ally Jeff Britt is now running Binder’s campaign.

Binder, a frequent RI Future contributor, has a piece in the ProJo today which makes a pretty pointed accusation of Fox: “Again and again, the speaker uses his power to rule by fiat and whim.”

He cites Fox’s inside information about the 38 Studios deal, the strange and silent death of the popular payday loan bill and the surprise of the budget bill this year: consolidating the board that oversees elementary and secondary education with the one that oversees higher education.

About that last example, Binder writes:

Despite a promise to present legislation in an “orderly” manner to help the house “fully vet and consider the information” at the close of the session, Gordon Fox and his Band of Merry Men rammed through the mash-up of the Board of Governors for Higher Education and the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education into a single committee. No public discussion, no debate about its merits or potential problems. Just put it in the budget and vote for it.

And Binder says he will turn over evidence to the State Police showing that House spokesman Larry Berman is illegally serving as Fox’s campaign spokesman as well. Some of Binder’s evidence that Berman is doing work for Fox’s campaign includes reports from this website, as well as many other media reports.

Every political reporter in Rhode Island knows Berman, technically the spokesperson for the Speaker’s office, is also the de facto spokesman for Fox’s campaign. I’m not even sure if Fox has an official campaign spokesperson outside of Berman.  If David Cicilline did as much, who by the way has a separate campaign spokesperson from his congressional staff, you’d likely see many more pixels devoted to it.

Fox did manage to eek out some positive press this week too. At the ProJo’s Publick Occurrences forum last night, Alix and Ani CEO Giovanni Feroce made an off-color comment not unlike Mitt Romney’s 47 percent comment. Here’s the ProJo’s coverage of the exchange:

Just as the two-hour event started winding down, things heated up between Giovanni Feroce, CEO of jewelry company Alex and Ani, and House Speaker Gordon Fox. Feroce, who had complained earlier that the nation “has created a work force that doesn’t know how to work,” went even further in response to a question from the audience, saying, “I don’t understand when it became fashionable to not work.”

Fox responded that 59,000 Rhode Islanders aren’t out of work because they’re “lazy and shiftless” but rather because the state has failed to connect them to jobs.

“If we do a better job connecting them,” said Fox, “we will create the best products in the world.”