The Power of Words. Legacy of Curran: Almond stands tall, but reform in peril

1/30/97
Legacy of Curran: Almond stands tall, but reform in peril

By M. CHARLES BAKST
Journal-Bulletin Political Columnist

       Democratic leaders might have thought they were delivering a sharp blow to Republican Governor Almond's stature when they engineered the House's rejection of his nomination of Meg Curran to the Supreme Court. But they may have enhanced his political status.
       Few things Almond has done as governor have so strengthened the image this former U.S. attorney brought to the State House as the sheriff who would sweep into town and clean out the bad guys.
       Tuesday's House attack on Curran was an ugly, pious, rambling exercise, largely a phony cover-up for the fact that a few powerful House leaders, for their own petty, mysterious reasons, didn't want Almond to have his way, no matter how qualified the nominee and no matter how much and how long citizens fought to get a new system to screen, nominate and confirm Supreme Court judges.
       These House leaders are small men who move in a small world, who rarely deign to explain themselves and who, when they do, make you wonder how they would fare if connected to a lie detector.
       After the House tally, in which both he and Majority Leader George Caruolo voted against Curran, I asked Speaker John Harwood what this was all about.
       "This was an exercise in the process taking place," he said in typical House babble.
       I said, "The 'process' is: The governor names a fully competent woman who's not part of the political process and the people in the House get their nose out of joint and they turn her down because the House leaders don't like her for some reason and want to stick it to the governor."
       Wrong, Harwood said: "The lady - her name was submitted to the House Judiciary and the members of the committee felt she wasn't qualified. That's what this is all about."
       I asked, "You think anybody in the state of Rhode Island is going to believe that?"
       Harwood said, "I think anybody who believes in the process will."
       Nobody will any longer believe in the "process." The "process" is supposed to be about merit. The House is not about merit and rejection of Curran was not about merit. It was about power. Rep. Timothy Williamson, D- West Warwick, let the cat out of the bag when he said, "Was she a sacrificial lamb? Yes, she was. But that's politics."
       Almond said later, "What went on here today was a battle over the old system versus a new system, and who selects judges . . . There are some who just won't let go . . . They just don't get it."
       Almond can seem a lost little boy in the State House. He actually believed it when told the House panel would give the nomination a "fair" hearing: "When I know I have submitted a qualified candidate with nothing negative and she's going to get a fair hearing, well, wouldn't you assume that it's probably going to be confirmed?"
       Hmm.
       Many people, including Rep. David Cicilline, D-Providence, Curran's top legislative champion, said Almond should have done more lobbying to put her across. "The purist approach he takes just simply doesn't work in a system governed by people," Cicilline said.
       I wonder if it'd be different with another governor. Before Tuesday's House vote, I visited Senate Majority Leader Paul Kelly, a Democrat eyeing a 1998 gubernatorial run. If the House okayed the Curran nomination, it'd go to the Senate. I wanted Kelly on record: What did he think the House should do? He said he didn't want to preempt or prejudice that body. "They should be deliberative," he said.
       I don't call that leadership.
       The House rejection of Curran says the reform movement in Rhode Island is in deep danger. It's not a matter of getting more reform measures passed. We need to make sure the people we elect to office are committed to carrying out the spirit of the measures we have. We must stamp out, like weeds, moves to roll back progress.

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