It took more than a month, but the Senate finally has a minority leader.

The Senate’s tiny Republican bloc last week settled its 2-to-2 standoff — Leo R. Blais, of Coventry, dropped out of contention — and reelected Dennis L. Algiere, of Westerly, to a seventh term in the post.

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” Blais told Political Scene. (Trekkies will recognize the quote, words of wisdom from Mr. Spock, from the 1982 flick Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.)

“Dennis and I came to a meeting of the minds that it was better for the Senate, better for the caucus and better for the balance of power within the building to have someone sitting in the big chair,” Blais said. “I yielded to his years of experience and we move.”

The vote to elect Algiere was unanimous.

Anguilla gets House post

Former Rep. Fausto C. Anguilla, D-Bristol, has been appointed to the $114,173-a-year post of House policy director, effective today.

Anguilla, a Georgetown University-educated lawyer, did not seek reelection after a 2001-06 stint in the House, where he played a major role in the enactment of separation-of-powers legislation in 2003. He has what a State House news release described as “an extensive background in health care, employee relations and government administration.”

“In the post-separation-of-powers world, the House will be more heavily involved in the oversight of state government,” said Speaker William J. Murphy. “Fausto Anguilla will provide an extremely professional level of expertise on the staff level to assist our House members in carrying out these new duties.”

In addition to oversight and directing the policy staff, Murphy said that Anguilla will assist the House members serving on the newly created study commission looking into development of port operations in Rhode Island.

Anguilla succeeds Gary Ciminero, who retired on Jan. 9.

West meets Obama

Darrell West just can’t escape Rhode Island.

The former Brown University professor, now vice president and director of governance studies for the Brookings Institution, the Washington-based think tank, went to the White House Friday morning for President Obama’s presentation of his “middle class task force.”

West told Political Scene that Sen. Jack Reed and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline were also on hand.

“It was Rhode Island Day at the White House,” West said, recalling he had the “good fortune” to shake Mr. Obama’s hand after the event.

“I reminded him I had introduced him in 2006 when he had come to Brown University for a public lecture,” West said. “Noting that this was a couple of weeks before he appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to announce he was seriously thinking about running for president, he joked ‘Hey, that is where this all started.’ ”

Citizen Beardsley, spokesman Beardsley

Amid the swarm of people at the Cranston City Council meeting last week was Dan Beardsley, executive director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns.

Beardsley, a State House regular, wasn’t at City Hall in an official capacity. The Edgewood Heights resident came to protest a zoning law amendment that would pave the way for a Stop & Shop on Warwick Avenue.

“It’s déjà vu,” Beardsley told the council, recalling that 10 years earlier, Stop & Shop proposed a supermarket on the Warwick Avenue site only to withdraw the plan.

Back then, the chain withdrew because of neighborhood opposition, Beardsley said, promising a similar response this year if the council moves forward with the amendment.

It wasn’t the only time he found himself involved in controversy last week. On Thursday, wearing his League hat, he came to the State House to testify in favor of proposed changes in police, fire and municipal contracts, including the elimination of minimum staffing provisions.

Needless to say tensions flared.

Following his testimony, Beardsley stepped out into the hall where he wound up in a war of words with Providence Firefighter Wayne Olivera.

The confrontation might have passed unnoticed were it not caught on tape by intrepid Channel 12 reporter Sean Daly. Whoops.

Illinois flap spurs R.I. bill on naming senators

Allegations that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Obama prompted the filing of legislation here to strip Rhode Island’s governor of the power to appoint replacement U.S. senators.

The bill introduced by freshman Rep. Christopher Fierro, D-Woonsocket, would require a special election to choose a successor to any U.S. senator who dies in office or resigns in mid-term.

“U.S. Senate seats belong to the voters. No one person, regardless of his or her party affiliation, should get to decide who is going to represent the entire state in the Senate,” said Fierro, in a statement issued by the General Assembly press office. “Inevitably, politics are going to play a role in that appointment, and that’s not how the Senate is meant to be constituted. The 17th Amendment was meant to stop the Senate from being a body of politically appointees and turn it into one whose members are directly elected, and in that spirit we should adopt this legislation.”

The bill (H 5094) would require that special election unless the vacancy occurs after July 1 of an election year. In that case, the vacancy would be filled during the regular general electoral cycle.

Former U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee first went to Washington as an appointee of then-Gov. Lincoln C. Almond, after the death of his father, John H. Chafee. A version of Fierro’s bill was introduced last year after speculation arose that Senator Reed, a Democrat, might step down to take a Cabinet position in an Obama administration. That would have left the appointment to Republican Governor Carcieri.

Lawmakers get their annual ethics lesson

For the seventh year running, the Rhode Island Ethics Commission gave House members an overview of reporting requirements and answered questions from legislators, particularly newcomers who say it’s hard to know what’s expected of them.

The questions were so numerous, the Ethics Commission’s Jason Gramitt stayed nearly two hours.

Though the session was not mandatory, staffers reported that 43 of the 75 House members attended, including 11 of the 16 freshmen.

For Zaccaria, lessons learned

Mark Zaccaria says he sees 2008 as “a learning experience.”

The Republican candidate for Democratic Congressman James R. Langevin’s 2nd District seat took just 29.9 percent of the vote in November’s election.

But Zaccaria, the former corporate executive from North Kingstown, has already announced his intention to run again in 2010. He largely blames the lopsided loss on money.

Langevin spent more than $650,000 on the race, while Zaccaria spent just over $52,000, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

“The single biggest reason for the second-place finish ... was lack of funding,” Zaccaria said in a mass e-mail to supporters last week. “We were unable to broadcast our message of putting government back in the hands of citizens because we didn’t have the cash to buy any broad-based media. That has to change for 2010 or else the outcome will be the same.”

Zaccaria said he’s “engaged the services of a nationally known fundraising consultant” and has already begun new efforts to raise cash “so it can later raise consciousness.”

Asked who the consultant is, he said he’d get back to us.

Meanwhile, Zaccaria says he plans to file a candidacy declaration with the Federal Election Commission in the “next month or so.”

redgar@projo.com