Known labor critic Rep. Douglas Gablinske, D-Bristol, has extended an olive branch to the head of the state’s second-largest teachers union.

Gablinske will have lunch this week with Marcia Reback, president of the 9,000-member Rhode Island Federation of Teachers. The Hemenway’s Restaurant meeting comes at the lawmaker’s request.

Gablinske tells Political Scene he felt a need to smooth over tensions caused by his remark at a recent House Labor Committee hearing on binding arbitration for teachers unions.

Don’t remember what he said?

We’ll remind you: “Do you not think that the pigs at the public trough have gone too far?” Gablinske said to Reback, prompting excited oohs from the taxpayer groups that packed the hearing.

“I wasn’t talking about teachers,” Gablinske later explained. “I was talking about the voracious appetite of unions to change public policy in their advantage.”

It’s worth noting that Gablinske’s wife is a school administrator.

Watson explains abrupt exit

Those lucky enough to view the chaotic final hours of the Assembly’s two-day session late Thursday from the comfort of their living room couch might have witnessed House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson storming off the House floor just after 10 p.m., never to return for the night.

Watson said he was leaving because he was angered by the Democratic leadership’s seeming circumvention of certain Assembly rules and the addition of yet another round of bills to the night’s ever-growing calendar without his knowledge.

“I’m not going to be here all night,” he bellowed. “In fact, I promised I was leaving after we were done with the issues on our calendar. And frankly, I’m done.”

With that, he walked out of the chamber and didn’t come back, leaving the remaining four Republicans to fend for themselves with no minority leader as the floor debate droned for two more hours.

But a day later, Watson told Political Scene he wasn’t actually all that mad, he left because he was late for a prior commitment that he couldn’t break.

So why the show?

“I thought it would be more provocative to use the opportunity to say, ‘What are we doing here at this late hour? Political horse trading and for whose benefit, not the public’s benefit,’ ” he said.

Watson reported that he continued to watch the proceedings on television after his departure.

Tassoni’s appointment OK’d

The Carcieri administration has filled in some of the blanks on how state Sen. John Tassoni, D-Smithfield, landed on the state’s list of qualified mediators/arbitrators to call when there is a labor dispute.

The minimum qualifications to get on the state’s list of potential mediators include “a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.”

A senior business agent for the largest state employee union until last spring, Tassoni — who offered his services for $125 an hour, $1,000 a day — does not have a college degree.

While acknowledging that a degree was one of the two “provider qualifications,” Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe said lawyers Jacqueline Kelley at the Department of Administration and Valentino Lombardi at the Department of Labor & Training decided that did not mean “that someone must meet BOTH requirements.”

She said they believed they were free to take into account “the totality” of Tassoni’s experience, and DOA director Gary Sasse “reviewed the qualification piece” and agreed the education requirement “was up to interpretation.”

“It’s fair to say that it is highly unlikely that the Administration would use his services in labor disputes,” Kempe added. Asked why, she cited his “his past relationship with labor unions” and that he is a state senator.

“I am not in the habit of defending someone who is often in opposition to the administration on legislation, policies and initiatives, but I don’t think it is fair [to assume] … someone is not qualified simply because they do not have a bachelor of arts degree,” she said. “There are several very successful businessmen who never graduated from college, including Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, just to name a few.”

Déjà vu in video

The newly formed Moderate Party of Rhode Island has released a made-for-Web video that may contain some familiar footage.

Posted on its Web site, the production, which lasts 5 minutes and 29 seconds, features testimonials from party supporters, moving classical crescendos, and spectacular views of the Ocean State’s natural wonders.

Some of the cinematography, however, is remarkably similar to campaign ads of a certain former Providence mayor.

The video –– which may be cut up later to run on television, according to party executive director Christine Hunsinger –– didn’t cost the Moderates anything. Executive board member Robert LaChance, a partner in Tin Can Alley productions, donated his time and expertise to produce the film, which amounted to an in-kind contribution worth around $5,000, according to Hunsinger.

LaChance has had no qualms about charging politicians for his work in the past.

His previous clients include Edward S. Inman III, unsuccessful attorney general candidate J. William W. Harsch and Vincent A. Cianci.

In case the irony isn’t obvious, LaChance’s work may end up helping Robert C. Corrente, a favorite of the Moderates for governor. Corrente, as former U.S. Attorney, helped send Cianci to prison.

Flaws in trafficking bill?

What does a law against sex-trafficking of minors have to do with art?

Nothing, you say? Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, begs to differ.

Legislation passed last week to make sex-trafficking of minors a felony is so broad, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee, that it could make criminals of people who profit from sexually-explicit art depicting minors.

Think Britney Spears when she was 17, or the film production of “Lolita.”

The allegedly offending language in the human-trafficking legislation defines “sexually-explicit performance” as “an act or show, intended to arouse, satisfy the sexual desires of, or appeal to the prurient interests of patrons or viewers, whether public or private, live, photographed, recorded or videotaped.” Anyone found guilty of such an offense would face up to 40 years in prison and a $40,000 fine, or both.

“Theoretically, it could be a theater owner,” the state’s chief civil libertarian told Political Scene. Or “somebody who takes photographs of minors deemed to appeal to prurient interests …”

Tammy Dudman, an artist and co-chairwoman of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Human Trafficking, which spearheaded the bill’s passage, said the language is based on the Department of Justice’s model for state anti-trafficking statutes and has been adopted by several other states.

“Our whole judicial system is based on a reasonable person’s point of view,” she said. To apply the law to artists, she said, is simply “unreasonable.”

Laffey now in Narragansett

Stephen P. Laffey may be around for a while.

The outspoken former Cranston mayor has formally moved out of his parents’ house and into a two-family house a little more than a stone’s throw from the Narragansett coast.

Town officials confirmed with Political Scene last week that Laffey formally registered as a Narragansett voter last Monday. He listed his address as 18 Mathewson St.

And in case anyone’s wondering, he’s still registered as a Republican.

Laffey didn’t return our call for comment.

He told Political Scene over the summer that he would not run for governor, but speculation continues to swirl. He has $97,936 sitting in his campaign fund.

speoples@projo.com