Ciccone

State House Room 313 last week was the scene of the most contentious legislative hearing in nearly four months.

But as taxpayer groups and labor leaders clashed over the merits of binding arbitration before the House Labor Committee, Capitol Television offered viewers a re-run of Brian Stern’s Oct. 5 judicial swearing-in ceremony, among other pre-recorded material.

“Were they all on vacation down there in Capitol Television?” an angry House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson asked Political Scene after the hearing. “What were they filming that was more important? ...It amazes me an issue this important would have been treated so shabbily.”

It turns out that Capitol TV’s 15 full-time staffers weren’t otherwise occupied.

“The House leadership usually leaves it to the discretion of the individual chairpersons if they want to have their hearings on Capitol TV,” said House Speaker William J. Murphy, who shares control of the legislature’s television operation and its approximately $1.5-million budget. “In this case, Labor Chairman [Arthur] Corvese chose not to have the hearing televised. In the future, however, we will be re-evaluating this policy.”

Why would Corvese block television coverage of the jammed hearing?

“I took the step of trying to keep things calm. I felt that cameras would only engender a circus-like atmosphere,” he told Political Scene, adding that cameras generally encourage “the Bob Watsons of the world to politically grandstand which detracts from the points that are trying to be made.”

“I don’t think it was a mistake,” he continued. “If I was to make the decision again, so it wouldn’t be a circus-like atmosphere, so we could get some work done, I would do the same thing.”

According to the speaker, however, Corvese might not have that chance.

Another Solomon as treasurer?

Like father, like son? Democrat Providence City Councilman Michael A. Solomon hopes so.

Solomon, 52, is weighing a run for state treasurer, the office his father Anthony J. Solomon held for 12 years (1977 to 1985 and 1989 to 1992).

He currently represents the city’s 5th Ward (Elmhurst and Mount Pleasant), chairs the council’s ordinance committee, and is finishing up his first four-year term on the council.

Solomon made headlines in recent months speaking out against rowdy student house parties around Providence College and sponsoring a new city law that would prevent minors from working in adult-entertainment businesses such as strip clubs.

He says his business background qualifies him for being treasurer, who is charged with disbursing state funds, issuing general obligation notes and bonds, managing the investment of state funds, and overseeing the state retirement system.

Solomon owns Wes’ Rib House and Cozy Caterers in Providence. He has also dabbled in real estate and helped with his father’s Providence pharmacy, Anthony’s Drugs. “I’ve been in business my whole life,” he said.

He also says he knows what it takes to get the treasurer’s office: he was his father’s campaign manager (FYI, Solomon’s first cousin, Joseph Solomon, is a Warwick city councilman.)

Solomon, who has over $44,000 in his campaign account, says he’ll make a decision whether to run for treasurer or seek reelection before January.

3 gubernatorial hopefuls on tap

Three likely candidates for governor have agreed to take part in Drinking Liberally’s “Countdown to 2010” speaking series, including former U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee, General Treasurer Frank Caprio and Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch.

The Republican-turned-independent Chafee will be the leadoff speaker next Wednesday ; Caprio is expected Nov. 25, and Lynch Dec. 16. All begin at 8 p.m. at the Wild Colonial, 250 South Water St., Providence. All are free with no actual drink requirement.

Drinking Liberally describes itself as “a national progressive social group that gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to gather, exchange ideas, and get involved.” The local hosts were initially listed as Chris Blazejewski, Kim Ahern, Meghan Grady, Matt Jerzyk, Ami Gada and Julian Dash.

One is a Boston lawyer (Blazejewski), another is also a lawyer but best known in Rhode Island political circles as a prolific blogger (Jerzyk), a third is a Harvard graduate student commuting from Providence (Gada). But soon after the press release went out, Blazejewski struck Ahern’s name from the list. A Democratic National Convention delegate, student coordinator for the Obama campaign and founding member of the local Drinking Liberally, Ahern has not been actively involved with the group since her hiring last month as a $46,591, one-year law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg.

Asked if the candidates actually intend to drink liberally, their spokesmen responded as follows.

Lynch campaign spokesman Mike Mikus said: “These are the people who are very important to campaigns because they are more or less the boots on the ground, the people who will get out and go door-knocking.” Would Lynch imbibe? “He will be there to speak.” But will he imbibe? “I don’t expect this to be a rowdy bunch.”

Chafee campaign coordinator Jim DeRentis also felt compelled to explain: “While the name may be confusing, this is an engaged part of the electorate who pay close attention to local and national politics.” Would Chafee imbibe? “Liberally thinking, there’ll be no drinking while generally speaking at Drinking Liberally,” DeRentis said.

Caprio field coordinator Brian Bass said: “Frank looks forward to the evening and it would not surprise me if by the end of the evening he has a ’Gansett with the group.”

GOP hires 1, Moderate Party, 2

The campaign-related hiring keeps coming.

Last week’s batch includes one for GOP gubernatorial hopeful Rory Smith, one for a potential attorney general candidate, and two for the Moderate Party, a further sign that the newly formed organization hopes to become a political force.

Smith tells us he has hired his first staffer, Kate Schreitmueller, as his office manager.

Campaign staff salaries are among the items candidates are required to disclose, but that was not Smith’s first instinct. While promising to report what he is required to report, he told Political Scene: “I don’t know that I can tell you that.”

In the race for attorney general, Rose Jackson has been hired to “manage the team” of potential candidate Joseph M. Fernandez, the former Providence city solicitor.

Jackson, 25, previously worked on Sheldon Whitehouse’s 2006 senatorial campaign, an Indiana congressional campaign, and the Obama campaign. She also declined to give her salary, but said, “I am honored to be building a winning campaign for the next attorney general of Rhode Island.”

The Moderate Party, meanwhile, added two full-time $35,000-a-year staffers to its Warwick headquarters, which already included an executive director. That’s three times more people than the state GOP, which employs just one full-timer.

The Moderate’s hires include communications director Kathryn Cantwell, 26, and campaign liaison, 22-year-old University of Rhode Island student Matthew Lenz.

Cantwell’s recently worked for Massachusetts’ Republican gubernatorial hopeful, Christy Mihos, and failed Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Jeff Beatty. She is a Bridgewater State College graduate and native of Fall River.

Ciccone backs full-time Assembly

Sen. Frank Ciccone, D-Providence, has served notice he intends to revive his campaign to give voters the opportunity to turn Rhode Island’s part-time General Assembly into a full-time legislature where lawmakers are paid $85,000 a year, and their top leaders, $145,000 a year with a new twist. He also wants to cut the size of it by a third.

His argument: a full-time legislature will “attract individuals who are truly passionate about public service,” reduce the end-of-session “rush to pass bills in the final days of a session,” and cut operating expenses.

“The cost of providing health care to 113 members of the General Assembly, along with paying the salaries of over 300 employees to support this over-sized legislature is exorbitant,” he said in a press release last week. Going full-time would also eliminate potential conflicts of interest because full-time legislators would “only work for one employer — the state,” said Ciccone, a field representative for an arm of the Laborers International Union.

Laffey speaks at Cranston’s Park Cinema

Former Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey has been out of the public eye for the past couple of years, but the one-time candidate for U.S. Senate was back on stage Friday — literally — for the long-awaited reopening of Cranston’s Park Cinema.

Laffey, a longtime supporter cinema owner Piyush Patel’s plan to reopen the 85-year-old building as an upscale theater, joined a slew of local and state officials at the event and even participated, telling the audience that Patel’s plan was nothing less than a classic example of the American Dream.

“Here’s a guy who has the dream, and we don’t know why he has the dream, but this is what he wants to do,” he said. “And what government can do is give him his chance to succeed.”

Laffey, with his wife and children in tow, recalled going to the old cinema as a youngster and hearing the local commercials, as well as the National Anthem, before each movie.

“Everybody stood,” he said.

Afterward, Laffey maintained his question-mark status with regard to the 2010 governor’s race, committing to nothing and saying that people will know if anything changes.

“If I have something new to say, only then will I say it,” he told Political Scene. “I’ll let everybody know.”

Laffey told talk radio host Dan Yorke in March that he would not run for governor next year and he reiterated that stance an interview with Political Scene over the summer, saying he was not interested “unless there are a significant number of people willing to change” the state’s “crash course to financial death.”

While he did not reveal any plans Friday, Laffey did seize the opportunity to air his views on the state’s budget woes.

“I am not happy at all with our elected officials. I’m not happy with the fraud with the budget,” he said. “When they said they solved last year’s budget, they lied.”

Laffey’s last run for office was in 2006, when he lost a Republican primary to then-U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee. Chafee went on to lose in the general election to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.

Laffey, who still has $97,936 in his campaign fund, says he is now living in Narragansett.

pmarcelo@projo.com