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January 21, 2008

State House lobbying efforts carry salary and benefits

Out of recent influence-peddling scandals came a law requiring every corporation, labor union and special-interest group that has a lobbyist at the State House to disclose “anything of value” they have given a state legislator.

Well, the latest reports are in for who-paid-who in 2007.

This is what they show — and what they don’t show — about state lawmakers with both well-publicized and lesser-known relationships with some of the players on Smith Hill:

Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr., D-Smithfield, was paid $92,606 last year as senior business agent for the largest state employees union: Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Senate Majority Whip Dominick Ruggerio, D-Providence, was paid $181,041 in salary and benefits as the administrator of an arm of the Laborers International Union known as the New England Laborers Employers Cooperation and Education Trust.

But in what has become an annual ritual, the Laborers union did not report the compensation paid two senators — Paul E. Moura and Frank Ciccone — who work for other branches of the sprawling union. Moura, D-East Providence, works for the New England Laborers Health & Safety Fund; Ciccone, D-Providence, is a field representative for the Rhode Island Laborers District Council and business manager for Local 808 representing state court employees.

Since these two wings of the union do not have lobbyists, Laborers lawyer Darren Corrente said, no disclosure is required — and the secretary of state’s online reporting system will not even allow him to file reports for them. But Corrente said he is already preparing his annual letter to the secretary of state in which he asserts no reporting is required, while disclosing “out of an abundance of caution” how much the two make.

On Friday, Corrente said Moura received $107,323 in pay and benefits from his employer, and Ciccone, $151,558 in compensation from the District Council, and $22,944 from Local 808.

Sen. Beatrice Lanzi, D-Cranston, was paid $61,485 as the director of “labor community services” for the United Way of Rhode Island.

MetLife Auto & Home paid close to $50,000 in commissions to insurance agencies where two lawmakers work: $12,566 to Sen. David Bates, R-Barrington, and $35,751 to Rep. William San Bento, D-Pawtucket.

The Beacon Mutual Insurance Company has paid out more than $100,000 in commissions and legal fees for “representing injured workers” to a half-dozen lawmakers, including: $75,435 in legal fees and a $2,398 dividend to Warwick Sen. John C. Revens Jr.’s law office; $2,250 in legal fees to Pawtucket Sen. John F. McBurney III’s law office; a $14,244 agency commission to Bates; $9,220 in legal fees to the law office of Sen. Paul V. Jabour, D-Providence; a $255.82 dividend to San Bento’s insurance agency and a $260 “dividend” to Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva-Weed’s law firm, Moore, Virgadamo & Lynch.

The Lifespan Hospital network paid $62,686 in salary to former Rep. Peter Ginaitt, and $17,148 under a “yearly pharmaceutical contract” with the Pawtuxet Valley Prescription & Surgical Center owned by Sen. Leo Blais, R-Coventry, who in September sought U.S. Bankruptcy Court protection for the company.

Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan, D-East Providence, who is both a lawyer and emergency-room nurse, was paid $15,602 by the Care New England hospital network.

The New England Cable and Telecommunications Association disclosed spending $1,060 on a dinner held last July at LaForge Casino, the Newport restaurant owned by the late Rep. Paul Crowley. Rhode Island Housing disclosed two dinners totaling $235.59 at Local 121, the popular downtown Providence eatery owned by Sen. Josh Miller.

-- By Katherine Gregg and Cynthia Needham
Journal State House bureau

Posted by Pam Cotter  at 9:36 AM | Permalink

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Posted by: Karen Darling at January 21, 2008 4:12 PM

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