For example, Democratic state Chairman William J. Lynch says he will solicit large sums from his national party to help local candidates.

01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, March 29, 2006

BY BRUCE LANDIS
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- The public may never know whether the state Republican Party committed a massive election-law violation in 2002, or a perfectly legal transfer of funds from its national organization.

Moreover, the state may now be open to both violation of its election laws and an influx of out-of-state campaign money, officials and politicians said yesterday in the wake of a court decision blocking an investigation of the 2002 incident and finding the Board of Elections' procedures fatally flawed.

The turmoil followed a decision by Superior Court Justice Stephen J. Fortunato, who on Monday ruled that the state Board of Elections has failed for years to adopt procedural rules required by the Constitution and by state law.

On Monday, he ordered the board to permanently drop its investigation of the 2002 case, where Democratic state Chairman William J. Lynch accused the Republicans of breaking state election law by using $250,000 from the Republican National Committee to pay for a television ad helping Governor Carcieri's campaign

Yesterday, Judge Fortunato said that as far as he is concerned, that case is closed.

He also appeared to close the door on one possibility -- that Lynch could simply file another complaint, prompting the board to conduct another investigation, this time after adopting formal rules and procedures that would satisfy the courts.

But the judge said that the Board of Elections cannot make up, after the fact, for its failure to have rules in place in 2002 telling candidates and political organizations clearly what they could and could not do.

Any regulation of free speech, the judge said, must be carefully drawn and specific. It must avoid ambiguity, he said, and most of all, it must not give "unbridled discretion" to the regulatory authority -- in this case, the board. The laws governing elections, the judge said Monday, regulate the most important sort of free speech, that uttered in political campaigns.

Thomas V. Ianitti, the board's vice chairman, said he is troubled by the fact that the investigation was halted before it was able to gather the facts in the case, let alone make a ruling on it.

He said the board will consider an appeal of Fortunato's ruling to the state Supreme Court. But he also said that the board must also enact the rules the judge said are missing, something he said he has been pushing for years.

Lynch, meanwhile, said yesterday that his next move will be to solicit large sums of money from his own national party organization, the Democratic National Committee. He said that he still thinks that shouldn't be allowed, but that he expects the Republicans to repeat the move they made in 2002.

State Sen. James C. Sheehan, D-Narragansett, said that with a U.S. Senate seat and the governor's office at stake in this year's election, politicians at the national level could "open the floodgates" to money that could saturate Rhode Island politics. He said the Senate leadership would meet to try to address the situation.

Fortunato's decision cripples the board's ability to enforce the law, Lynch said, and he expects the Republicans to again draw on their national party organization's money, particularly because Rhode Island has both a U.S. Senate seat and the governor's office up for election.

The Republicans have insisted throughout that they did nothing wrong in 2002. However, Chuck Newton, the state Republican spokesman, said that changes in federal campaign-finance legislation since 2002 may interfere with a similar transfer now.

Lynch said that the Board of Elections must appeal Fortunato's decision, for several reasons. Otherwise, he said, the question whether there was a huge campaign-finance violation in 2002 will never be answered. The board's investigation, despite dragging on for more than three years, never established the basic facts about the incident.

Lynch also said that without an appeal, the board will be unable to enforce the election law until it approves rules and regulations that would satisfy Fortunato's criticisms.

From the bench on Monday, Fortunato had criticized the Board of Elections at length for failing to address the First Amendment and due-process rights of targets of an investigation or enforcement action, in this case the state Republican Party and Governor Carcieri's election campaign.

Ianitti has been the chairman at board meetings on the 2002 complaint because the board's chairman, Roger Begin, recused himself from the case after complaints about how he handled it.

Ianitti said he has been pushing for better regulations and explanations of the election laws since he joined the board four years ago. He said the board is not far from adopting them now.

Meanwhile, Guillaume de Ramel, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state, yesterday accused the leadership of the Board of Elections of incompetence and demanded that Chairman Begin, Vice Chairman Ianitti, and the executive director, Robert Kando, all resign.

After an inconclusive investigation lasting more than three years, de Ramel said, it's clear that the board is incapable of enforcing the state's election laws and needs new leadership.

-- With reports from M. Charles Bakst

blandis@projo.com / (401) 277-7487