When the new legislative session began Tuesday, the State House filled with familiar sights and sounds, with a Colonial color guard and lurking lobbyists, with oaths of office and speechifying, complete with praise for “esteemed colleagues” and invitations to step to the rostrum.

But for the first time in 20 years, Joseph A. Montalbano was not there, having been upset in the November elections by independent candidate Edward J. O’Neill — a defeat that ended the North Providence Democrat’s five-year run as Senate president, one of the most powerful positions in state government.

On Tuesday morning, Montalbano said he planned to have lunch with his wife at The Capital Grille and later watch the Senate session on television. (Apparently, you can take the legislator out of the State House, but you can’t take him out of The Capital Grille.)

In an interview a few days earlier, Montalbano talked about the five years he’d spent in his “dream job” and what had led to his defeat. He said his proudest accomplishment was also one of the reasons he lost.

In 2004, the Senate agreed to redraw some of its districts to settle a federal redistricting lawsuit, which claimed the Senate had violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting black voting power on Providence’s South Side. Montalbano, whose power base was in North Providence and Pawtucket, ended up with a district in which 44 percent of the voters live in Lincoln. While he had never faced an opponent during his first 16 years in office, he ended up facing challengers from Lincoln, including O’Neill.

“I violated rule number one, which is worry about your district,” said Montalbano, who was vice chairman of the redistricting commission for the new maps and downsizing of 2002. “I was worried about resolving something that I thought was very important to the minority community.” He noted the settlement created a second Senate district with a critical mass of minority voters in Providence, and that district is now represented by the only black senator, Harold M. Metts.

Montalbano emphasized that the settlement changed the districts of nine senators. “There were basically nine statesmen in the chamber. We did that for the right reasons,” he said. “If you said point to your biggest accomplishment as Senate president, that was it. It’s the one bill that I made a copy of and framed with the pen that the governor used to sign it.”

I give Montalbano credit. That decision cost him, and others might have kept paying the lawyers to fight. Still, if it was the right thing to do, shouldn’t it have been done in 2002, before the lawsuit? Critics had been calling for Senate maps that would have allowed the election of both Charles D. Walton, then the only black senator, and Juan M. Pichardo, who ended up beating Walton in a primary to become the state’s only Hispanic senator.

Montalbano said another reason for his defeat was his “failure to adequately explain” the $12,000 fine he paid to settle state Ethics Commission charges in 2007. He also cited “the message of change that was resonating.” And among other factors, he gave credit to O’Neill for taking on a well-financed Senate president.

Montalbano, 54, has a law firm and works two Mondays a month as a North Providence Municipal Court judge. So now that he’s not on the Senate rostrum, what are his plans for the future?

“I’d like to keep my options open,” Montalbano said. “But I don’t think it’s any secret that I’ve always had judicial aspirations, and I would hope that if the right opening occurs, after I serve my revolving-door year, that I would present my credentials to whomever is making a selection.”

efitzpat@projo.com