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4.8.2001 00:16
On corruption, R.I.'s record speaks for itself
 Rhode Island and Providence undoubtedly are more corrupt than some states and cities, but probably no more corrupt than others like New Jersey or Chicago.
BY PETER C.T. ELSWORTH
projo.com Staff Writer
The indictment Monday of Mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr., and five others for federal racketeering gives Rhode Islanders a new opportunity to indulge in a favorite pastime: a unique combination of complaining and bragging about corruption in the state.
Almost from the moment they cross the state line, astonished newcomers are pulled aside and knowingly informed that the state is "run by the mob," and then regaled with colorful tales of goings-on at the highest levels.
And it's not just talk. The list of those found guilty of corruption in recent years includes a former governor, a former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, a former Superior Court judge, a former mayor of Pawtucket, and any number of politicians, lawyers, and businessmen.
Rhode Island, Rogues' Island, wink, wink.
But how corrupt is Rhode Island compared with other states?
It may be, say some public policy experts, that Midwestern states, such as Minnesota and Wisconsin, are actually less corrupt. Their styles of municipal government, run by councils which appoint managers to administer the cities, were founded in reaction to the corruption in Eastern cities.
Certainly they have a reputation for honesty -- a famous story has it that the only indiscretion one Midwestern politician was thought to have committed was accepting a free doughnut at a diner.
But it would be hard to prove that Rhode Island and/or Providence are any more corrupt than Chicago or Miami or New Jersey.
"It does vary regionally," said Todd Swanstrom, professor of political science at the State University of New York, at Albany.
The "What's in it for me?" attitude to politics is usually associated with the Northeast, where party machines controlled by strong mayors dominated cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Such concentration of power lends itself to abuse through patronage, with its rewards and favors for party loyalists, and through bribery and extortion related to city leases and kickbacks.
At the same time, an argument can be made for the efficiency of political systems based on patronage. Robert Wheelan, professor of political science at the University of New Orleans, said people will tolerate a system that is perceived to be corrupt if it is also perceived to work. "The party system does have a record of achievement; I mean, Boss Tweed created Central Park," he said.
Mayor William "Boss" Tweed ran New York City politics in the 1860s and early 1870s, and his Democratic political machine became known as Tammany Hall, after New York's city hall at the time, a name now synonymous with patronage.
"The Northeast has in general been a very strong party area while the Midwest and West have had a nonpartisan reform orientation," said Swanstrom. "Certain kinds of corruption use strong party organizations which can get things done."
"It's a matter of patronage and loyalty, a sense that this is what government is supposed to be about, helping people who got you elected," said Douglas Rose, professor of political science at Tulane University, in New Orleans.
To a certain extent the tradition continues, and a number of politicians in other eastern cities have recently fallen under investigation, been convicted, or resigned in face of corruption charges:
Since last summer, Atlanta's city hall has been the target of a federal investigation ranging from Mayor Bill Campbell's gambling habits to the city's minority-contracting practices. Several city contractors have already been convicted of bid-rigging.
Last December, the mayor of Camden, N.J., Milton Milan, was convicted on 14 of 19 corruption charges. Milan, who was the third of Camden's last five mayors to be found guilty of corruption, faces at least nine years in prison.
Two months earlier, Rudy Garcia, the mayor of Union City, N.J., resigned in the face of an investigation by the state's attorney general's office into city finances and the local Democratic organization which he had headed.
In fact, New Jersey gives Rhode Island a fair run for its money in the political corruption stakes, seriously threatening our bragging rights.
Consider that acting Gov. Donald T. DiFranco's first two months in office have been dominated by questions about his finances and past business practices. His choice for state treasurer, Isabel Miranda, resigned after five days over questions of conflicts of interest.
And a former attorney general, Peter G. Verniero, who is now a state Supreme Court justice, is under investigation for possibly covering up racial profiling. Two weeks ago,
Verniero said, "I don't recall" 150 times during one day of testimony before the New Jersey State Senate Judiciary Committee.
Kind of puts Rhode Island to shame.
IN MANY WAYS,
Rhode Island is a world unto itself, a city-state slightly off the beaten track between Boston and New York and divided between the Protestant Yankees of College Hill and Newport and the Catholic majority from the old mill towns, where tight-knit generations know each other and each other's business, and where family and friends beget favors and favors beget patronage.
"It's a small state and the politics are intimate," said Darrell West, professor of political science at Brown University. "People often try to help their friends. They don't view that as corrupt, but it can lead to illegal actions."
Not only is the state small, but change comes slowly here. The Republican Party dominated state politics in the interests of the land owners and mill operators from before the Civil War. Then in 1935, in a coup known as the Bloodless Revolution, the Democratic Party wrested control in the name of the Catholic majority and has dominated state politics ever since. While the party machine may be a pale shadow of the type that existed in the early part of the last century, it still plays a role.
"When you have a one-party government, and we have that in Rhode Island by far, patronage plays a major role," said Bob Arruda, chairman of Operation Clean Government. "You don't find the healthy checks and balances that you find in a two-party system."
(There is also individual or rogue corruption -- a couple of cops shaking down a small business or intimidating parking lot attendants for free service, for example. This kind might be systemic in an administration that is corrupt, but politics based on patronage prefers the order of a party machine to the chaos of individuals working on their own.)
State and city politics are inexorably intertwined in a state so small, and when extensive building and development, as is happening in downtown Providence, brings business interests together with politics, it can be fertile ground for corruption. "Corruption occurs when people are in a position to extract money out of people for favorable decisions." says Bruce Cain, professor of political science at the University of California, at Berkeley.
"What's accepted in the private sector is often unacceptable in the public sector," said Richard Kearney, professor of political science at East Carolina University. "Developers are rude, crude capitalists, and there's a lot of opportunity for graft. Wheeling and dealing, it's the nature of development."
Corruption often goes hand-in-hand with "real estate, economic development, where there is great potential for insider knowledge," he said. "Downtown development, that's where you're talking big bucks, and the temptations are great for developer kickbacks to the city, tax abatements, abuse of federal grants."
"Downtown development, buildings, that's usually a sign. It's open to various monies being passed under the table. Where there's building, there's an opportunity for corruption unless a community is particularly rigorous," agreed Wheelan.
"Patronage has changed," he added. "In the old days you used to feel lucky to get a job through the party machine. Nowadays it's getting a permit or cable TV contract."
WHILE MANY
politicians rise up through the local political system, others come over horizontally, often from the business world, according to Swanstrom. That may place them above the hurly-burly of party politics, but it also introduces the possibility of mixing business with politics, with dubious results, he said.
But politicians who get things done are often forgiven their faults, said Melvin Holli, professor of history at the University of Illinois. Certainly Mayor Cianci has been a key factor, perhaps the key factor, in turning Providence into a model of urban redevelopment.
"No one's perfect. It's more a question of toleration -- where do you draw the line?" said Swanstrom.
"You'd like all the good in one basket and the bad in another, but as they say, honest government, effective government, take your choice," said Rose, of Tulane University. However, he added, problems can develop when the patronage system becomes an end in itself, where a system that used to serve "the working class people moving into the middle class or the integration of Irish or Italian immigrants, becomes an end in itself, the maintenance of power."
Or the personal enrichment of the political insiders.
"He's clearly done a lot of good things," Kearney, of East Carolina University, said of Cianci. "He's brought Providence from the edge of death to being a cool town with a TV show. I mean, that's what people down here think of Providence."
And though that TV show may have as little to do with everyday life in Providence as Southfork had to do with Dallas, at least our scandals keep providing us with the grist for our special mill: when it comes to corruption, the Ocean State plays in the big leagues.
Digital extra:
Find more information on Rhode Island and national politics, plus an essay on Mayor Cianci by Brown's Darrell West, at:
http://www.insidepolitics.org/
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