CICCONE

PROVIDENCE — The Ethics Commission voted yesterday to prosecute state senator and union official Frank Ciccone on two charges, but dropped five other charges that his votes in the General Assembly amounted to ethics violations because they benefited unions he works for.

The decision means that in at least some circumstances, union officials who are members of the General Assembly can support legislation that benefits their unions. But commission Chairman James Lynch Sr. said that “this is not a blanket endorsement” for similar actions, and that the commission will deal with future cases one at a time.

The two charges the commission voted to prosecute relate to Ciccone’s failure to publicly disclose his income from the Rhode Island Laborers’ District Council of the Laborers International Union of North America — where he is president and a field representative and the union’s Local Union 808, where he is business manager — for 2005 and 2006.

Ciccone, a Providence Democrat, had already acknowledged that he should have included his union income in the annual financial disclosure statements required under the state ethics laws. That was, he said, yesterday, “a mistake.” He said he had not seen the commission decision. The mandatory disclosure forms are intended to let the public see whether officials’ public actions conflict with their private interests.

The complaint, filed by the group Operation Clean Government, also accused Ciccone of using his position on the Senate Government Oversight Committee to benefit his union by investigating the Carcieri administration’s use of temporary employees to fill jobs that would otherwise go to union members. The commission’s staff report said its investigation, including watching 25 hours of videotaped committee hearings, found no indication Ciccone was working to replace temporary workers with union members. The commission dropped that charge.

The principal issue raised in the complaint involved a bill Ciccone sponsored, which was voted for in the Senate Labor Committee and voted for again on the Senate floor. The bill, which was passed by the Senate but died in the House, would have saved public employee unions money by shifting from the unions to the state some of the cost of mediation in labor disputes.The bill would have affected nine bargaining units that Ciccone represented, the commission staff found. But the commission ruled yesterday that because the legislation would have affected more than 100 other bargaining units no differently than the ones Ciccone is involved with, his votes qualified for an exception that is part of the state Ethics Code.

“It means that Senator Ciccone did not violate our regulations” in the regard, Lynch said. “The people he represented would not benefit more or less than others in the same situation.”

The commission has never said, and Lynch didn’t say yesterday, exactly how big a group has to be to qualify for that exception.

blandis@projo.com