11:48 AM Mon, May 17, 2010 |
By Katherine Gregg

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Steve Archambault, a Democratic candidate for attorney general, is calling for the "immediate passage'' by state lawmakers of legislation to give voters in Rhode Island the opportunity this November to reinstate the Ethics Commission's power over state legislators.

"We need more oversight of the General Assembly -- not less,'' said Archambault, who is also a Smithfield town councilman, in a statement. "Member(s) of the General Assembly should be subject to the same Ethics Commission oversight as the rest of our state's public officials."

A House committee has held a public hearing but taken no further action on the bill calling for a vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to plug the current gap that was introduced by House Speaker Gordon D. Fox early in the current legislative session, when he was still House majority leader campaigning to succeed then-Speaker William J. Murphy.

The legislation was a response to a Rhode Island Supreme Court decision last June that marked a legal victory for former Senate President William V. Irons in his battle to get out from under conflict of interest charges filed against him by the Ethis Commission.

Siding with Irons, the high court concluded that a "speech-in-debate clause'' that had traditionally protected state lawmakers from civil suit for anything they might say amid public debate also insulated them from the same powers of investigation and prosecution that the Ethis Commission holds over all other public officials in Rhode Island, state and local.

But the bill (H7357) has languished since then, with Archambault saying the recent allegations by North Providence Mayor Charles Lombardi "that a supplemental tax bill for North Providence was turned down by the State Senate because he refused to reappoint [former Senate President Joseph Montalbano to a Municipal Court judgeship highlights the importance of restoring the jurisdiction of the Ethics Commission."

Archambault is also a one-time police officer, local prosecutor and defense attorney.