A conversation with Senator Lou DiPalma on caucuses, open government and Pallet Shelters

"Whenever one of my colleagues speaks, I implicitly and explicitly trust what they’re saying," said Senator DiPalma. "I have no reason to doubt because I know them."

State Senator Louis DiPalma (Democrat, District 12, Little Compton, Middletown, Newport, Tiverton) called me on Saturday to correct the date on a piece I did about Wednesday’s Senate Caucus hearing. I didn’t waste the opportunity to ask him questions.

Senator DiPalma: Thanks for recording the Caucus. I didn’t realize anybody recorded it.

Steve Ahlquist: I was happy to. I always run my camera for the whole thing because video is cheap.

Senator DiPalma: I’m glad you did. It’s there for people to see and judge for themselves.

Steve Ahlquist: That’s what I was thinking, too. Based on what I saw, I tried very hard to write an even-keeled report on the Caucus.

Senator DiPalma: That’s all people can ask for, right? Here it is, and then people can judge what they hear, don’t hear, see, and don’t see. You’re the only one that put the whole thing out there. I didn’t expect anybody to do the whole thing.

Steve Ahlquist: Can I ask a question about it? I’ve always been wary of the open ballot versus the secret ballot question. I understand that when acting in your capacity as an elected official, people should be able to hold you accountable for your votes. But caucuses and parties are different. I’ve seen secret ballots used very effectively on the Republican side. It allows people to make decisions free from the very kind of things that Senator Linda Ujifusa¹ mentioned - retribution that could come from the winners for backing the losing side. Could you talk about that a little bit?

Senator DiPalma: Sure. I’ve been in the Senate for 16 years. It’s past practice, not precedent, but past practice. This is always what we’ve done, so we’re not going to change it now. We’re going to go make, most likely, the same vote in January, and it will be open. Some people may change their mind. No one’s obligated to vote the same way for the Senate President [in January] as they did during the Caucus meeting. The Majority Leader is the Majority Leader, though. That’s a done deal.

I’m a firm believer in open government, based on my work on the Oversight Committee and my work with Steve Brown [of the ACLU of Rhode Island] and John Marion [of Common Cause RI] over the last two years to update the Access to Public Records Act. People need to know. We all have to stand up and be counted.

[Regarding retaliation], I would say to folks that as long as you’re respectful and direct, there are no issues. Be respectfully direct about what you’re doing. If you’re disrespectful, it’s a different story. But at the end of the day, everybody needs to know where we stand on different things.

Steve Ahlquist: I understand. But you know, from the long time you’ve been there, about retribution. You’ve seen it in the past against people, and I’ve heard that you’ve suffered for taking an unpopular, principled stand. You may have done it out of a real belief, but you’ve been hit for that in the past.

You know that these caucuses are used to get everybody in line behind one person. There are two functions here. One is to elect a nominee for Senate President, and one is to have everybody on record as to where their loyalties lie. If you’re not showing the right loyalty, you don’t get the right assignments. I mean, do you really expect Senator Dawn Euer to Chair Senate Judiciary in January? I don’t.

Senator DiPalma: At the end of the day, do I expect to be - let me put it this way - Would I like to be Chair of Senate Finance? Yes. Am I guaranteed that? No.

Steve Ahlquist: Well, I think your actions at the Caucus helped to guarantee that.

Senator DiPalma: I don’t say this pejoratively; it’s just that I’m a rule follower. The rules say that the Senate President chooses the committees. In fact, that’s in our Caucus Rules as well. Given that, I don’t walk into the session next year with a guarantee or an assumption. Right now, until January 7th or whenever I still have the office I have. I assume I’m going to still be there, though it could change.

At the end of the day, we’re all going to do the work of our constituents, bring things forward, and participate in community hearings and the like - whether we’re Chairs or not. The Senate President will determine all that.

Steve Ahlquist: I understand that, but a vote for [the winner] certainly puts you in a better position [to be a Chair] than a vote against. That’s just common sense

Senator DiPalma: Categorically. If I said anything else, people would say, “Come on, be serious. You’ve been around long enough.” People want to use the words from the perspective of retribution or whatever, [but], at the end of the day, I’ve seen it happen both ways.

Steve Ahlquist: The other thing is, in light of the openness that the Senate Caucus was ostensibly championing that night, I heard from the other side that no copies of the letters calling the Caucus were presented to the other side. If there’s openness, where were the letters?

Senator DiPalma: I think they were there that night. Somebody had them, I think. I don’t know who had them.

Steve Ahlquist: That’s not what anybody from the other side is telling me. Nobody has given them the letters.

Senator DiPalma: Whenever one of my colleagues speaks, I implicitly and explicitly trust what they’re saying. I have no reason to doubt because I know them.

Steve Ahlquist: Yeah. I also don’t think they were lying to me.

Senator DiPalma: Those letters exist. I think if you ask Greg Pare [Director of Communications for the Senate President] on Monday for a copy of the letters requesting the Caucus, [he’ll supply them] They have them all there. I filled one out.

Steve Ahlquist: So you’re telling me that those letters do exist and that they would be open to the public?

Senator DiPalma: I think so. I don’t see why they couldn’t be.

Steve Ahlquist: You know, the Open Meetings Act, as well as I do, and probably better. You know that the Caucus isn’t covered under the Open Meeting Act.

Senator DiPalma: Right. The letters exist. I know I signed it, and I happened to see somebody else fill one out at one point. That’s why we were able to call the Caucus. If I recall the rules correctly, the Senate President can call the Caucus at the request of the Majority Leader or the majority of the Senators. We got requests from the majority of the Senators, so the Caucus was called,

Steve Ahlquist: The Caucus does not operate under the Open Meetings Act, so I don’t have the right to demand those letters

Senator DiPalma: That is right. We didn’t have to have the Caucus open to the press, but we did.

Steve Ahlquist: That’s the other thing. You talked about openness, but this is only the second Senate Caucus I know of that has been open during the last 12 years. We had a Caucus open to the press four years ago, and two years later, it was closed. This year, it’s open again. What is the precedent for an open caucus, and why does it change?

Senator DiPalma: My take on this is to have them all open.

Steve Ahlquist: Me too.

Senator DiPalma: That’s just me speaking. This one was open and demonstrates my support for it

Steve Ahlquist: So two years from now, I should be able to say, “Hey, remember this? We should have this Caucus open to the press.”

Senator DiPalma: I absolutely believe you should say it, and if I’m still around, you should say, “Didn’t you say that the last time? Are you going to support it being open?” And I would say “Yes.”

Steve Ahlquist: All right.

Senator DiPalma: If I didn’t, you can say, “Why was it closed? You’re a hypocrite.”

Steve Ahlquist: I won’t be saying it exactly like that.

Senator DiPalma: An open Caucus allows the press to hear about the nominee selection process for the Majority Leader and the Senate President.

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Steve Ahlquist: Since I have you, I would like to reiterate, and I’ve asked this before, that the Oversight Committee look at the Governor’s handling of the homelessness crisis because he has not been good, and people are suffering outside.

Senator DiPalma: I will pass that along to whoever takes Oversight, Senator McKinney or whoever. I will bring it up.

Steve Ahlquist: Thank you.

Senator DiPalma: I mean, are the Pallet Shelters open yet? [Pallet Shelters are tiny houses built to provide shelter for people experiencing homelessness.]

Steve Ahlquist: No, they’re not.

Senator DiPalma: That’s amazing.

Steve Ahlquist: There is apparently a problem that the General Assembly could solve with legislation or the Governor could solve with an emergency declaration. You need to exempt Pallet Shelters from certain fire codes in order to make it work. What they have right now demands a fire suppression system beyond anything anyone anywhere in the world demands. We do it in Rhode Island because of the Station Nightclub Fire, but it's an unreasonable system for the Pallet Shelters.

Senator DiPalma: At the end of the day, policy is money, and money is policy. It goes both ways. Is it a standstill, then?

Steve Ahlquist: As far as I know, yes. And I also say this: not only is policy money, but policy is also, in this case, life and death. People are dying outside.

Senator DiPalma: I agree.

Steve Ahlquist: To the best of my knowledge, the fire marshal does not believe he can sign off on these because of the fire code as written, and there is no appetite from the Governor to declare an exemption by executive order, probably because he’s kind of a bad guy. The Mayor of Providence said recently that they need legislative change, and he’s hoping the Governor will put it in, but if not, the Mayor will put it in. So the legislature needs to get on this, or it’s not going to happen.

Senator DiPalma: Do other states have Pallet Shelters?

Steve Ahlquist: Many, many do. Yes.

Senator DiPalma: The same ones that we have?

Steve Ahlquist: The exact same ones we have, except that we have mandated that they install very expensive, unnecessary fire suppression systems.

Senator DiPalma: So you could take our Pallet Shelters and move them to Massachusetts or Connecticut, and it would be no problem.

Steve Ahlquist: Exactly right. The Pallet company makes them all the same.

Senator DiPalma: It’s money that we spent, and it’s been going on for over a year now. They should have been opened.

Steve Ahlquist: They should have been opened early last spring. They are all ready to go, and they’ve just been sitting there.

Thank you so much for your time.

1. “…the votes for Senate President and Majority Leader, when they’re in the open, subject my colleagues and myself to potential retribution,” said Senator Ujifusa.