The Senate Democratic Caucus elected Sen. Daniel P. Connors, D-Cumberland, center background, Senate majority leader and endorsed former Majority Leader Sen. M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, right, as Senate president.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed won the endorsement of her fellow Democrats last night to go where no woman has gone before at the Rhode Island State House: to the heights of legislative power as Senate president.

With Democrats firmly in control in the Senate with 33 of the 38 seats, the vote by the Senate Democratic caucus virtually assured Paiva Weed’s election as president — by the full Senate — when lawmakers return to Smith Hill in January.

She would succeed Joseph A. Montalbano, the Senate powerhouse who was beaten by a retired Texas Instruments executive running as an independent in a corner of his Lincoln-North Providence district where Montalbano’s push for 24-hour gambling at Twin River and a new Blackstone Valley courthouse were deeply unpopular.

The caucus elected Sen. Daniel P. Connors, 32, of Cumberland, a lawyer in Montalbano’s law office, to succeed Paiva Weed as Senate majority leader.

Acknowledging the state is “suffering” economically and “things look grim,” lawyer-legislator Paiva Weed, 49, of Newport, promised that after getting her feet wet in January, she will unveil “an economic initiative to not only address immediate concerns, but to provide forward-looking, long-term strategies to secure a stronger economic future for our state.”

She gave no specifics, saying it would be premature to even talk about bringing the lawmakers back before January to confront the massive $372-million current-year budget hole that was brought to light yesterday by the state’s official revenue-estimators.

But she laid out a potentially ambitious agenda for the state’s economic recovery in which she promised to “create business-friendly policies to attract new companies to the state … bolster and grow small businesses already operating here … address concerns they are coping with such as a lack of affordable health care … prepare our workers … improve our educational system … expand the use of renewable energy and the creation of green jobs.”

“I stand before you today with much hope for our future,” she said.

Her admirers talked about her integrity, compassion and work ethic. Senate Majority Whip Dominick Ruggerio cited her “sense of inclusiveness” and “ability to bring opposing parties together.” But one Senate Democrat, Marc Cote of Woonsocket, abstained. Three others cast protest votes against a Paiva Weed presidency, including one erstwhile competitor for the job, Sen. Paul V. Jabour, D-Providence, who cited the nominating speech that Ruggerio, the administrator of an arm of the Laborers International Union, gave for Paiva Weed as evidence that organized labor had played a “significant role” in lining up the votes for her.

“Labor has always been strong. I think labor has a stronger voice now in the Senate and while that might be good for labor, it remains to be seen if that is best for the people of Rhode Island,” Jabour said. The other nay votes came from Senator-elect Michael Pinga, who toppled Senate Finance Chairman Stephen Alves in the September primary, and Sen. Leonidas P. Raptakis, D-Coventry, who, in an interview earlier in the day said he would probably vote against Paiva Weed because as Senate majority leader she has been “part of the crew that has been manning the sinking ship of Rhode Island.”

“I want to see somebody who is going to resolve the deficit. I want to see a plan to bring down the unemployment rate from 8.8 percent. Where is the plan?” Raptakis asked rhetorically. “I don’t want to see the same politics as usual … but what I am hearing is all this infighting, who is promising legislative grants and committee chairmanships and parking spots and all that baloney.”

But after a short-lived campaign for the presidency, Senate Corporations Committee Chairman William A. Walaska explained his vote for Paiva Weed this way: “I support Teresa. She’s got the vote and she is going to be president. I don’t see any reason to have a contentious Senate this year when, in fact, we’ve got a lot more important issues to deal with than whether I am happy or someone else is happy.”

Late last week, Connors identified Sen. Daniel DaPonte as the likely choice to succeed Alves as Senate Finance chairman, but DaPonte is still mentioned in every news story about Operation Dollar Bill, the wide-ranging probe of influence peddling at the State House.

The apparent focus is a $100,000 commission that Alves and DaPonte split in 2004 while they were both still financial advisers at UBS Financial Services, for their role in “introducing” Prudential Financial to the annuity fund of Local 99 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Prudential called the payment “a one-time finders fee,” but the financial consultant who oversaw the process in which Prudential was chosen to manage the fund said that neither DaPonte, nor Alves had anything to do with Prudential’s hiring, which was done through a competitive bidding process.

Asked about all this yesterday, Paiva Weed said Connors recommended DaPonte, who now heads his own brokerage firm, Axis Financial Group, but “at this point in time, I have not made that appointment of Dan DaPonte.”

Paiva Weed works at the law firm Moore Virgadamo & Lynch, which represents one of the state’s two slot parlors, Newport Grand. In an attempt to avoid her own ethics imbroglios, she said she will continue to distance herself from any legislative discussions about gambling, ceding that role to Connors and others.

But one in the flurry of questions flung at her yesterday got an unequivocal answer. Asked if she would favor reducing the income tax as Republican Governor Carcieri recently suggested, she said: “At this time, I do not believe that we can afford to eliminate the income tax.”

kgregg@projo.com