01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, February 2, 2005

The chaos at the Rhode Island Lottery Commission this week argues strongly that it is time for Governor Carcieri, House Speaker William Murphy and Senate President Joseph Montalbano to sit down together and work out some of the kinks in the implementation of separation of powers.

On Monday night, the governor's chief of staff, Kenneth McKay, essentially put a halt to the commission's meeting by urging one of the governor's appointees to withdraw. That left the commission without a quorum.

Meanwhile, three House members serving on the commission have refused to relinquish their posts, even though last month Speaker Murphy dropped his campaign to keep legislators on the panel.

Under separation of powers, executive functions (such as day-to-day running of state government, including the Lottery Commission's work) must be left to the executive branch, and legislative functions (passing laws and providing oversight) must be left to the legislative branch.

To add to the confusion, the Senate -- as part of its duty to confirm or reject the governor's appointees -- has sent out a 44-question survey to the governor's nominees for the Lottery Commission and the Natural Resources Management Council: a survey that appears to be more probing than what military personnel must undergo to receive top-secret security clearance. Clearly, such an onerous questionnaire seems destined to keep good people out of government. The request for three years of state and federal income-tax records, in particular, will scare off most citizens who would be nominated for the positions.

Since the state's separation-of-powers reform involves a significant readjustment between the branches of government, it was bound to create some thorny problems. That is why the leaders must work together, in the spirit of serving the public, to smooth out the differences.

Their guiding principles should be:

-- Fully implementing separation of powers, as demanded on Nov. 2 by 78 percent of Rhode Island's voters.

-- Providing for the governor to make appointments to executive-branch departments and boards, and requiring legislators to get off such boards.

-- Supporting the Senate's vital role in weighing the quality of the governor's appointees. By the same token, the Senate must not filter nominees with such a fine strainer that excellent people would be unable, or unwilling, to get through.

On the House side, admirable progress has been made in phasing out the Unclassified Pay Plan Board. We know this job can be done. Rhode Island's leaders must stop sniping at each other, sit down, and do the public's will.