So You’re Speaker of the House

There has been a lot of talk recently about the power of the Speaker of the House in Rhode Island. Many people have the misconception that the speaker wields unfettered control over the legislative process and can play by their own rules, but this is not accurate. There is actually a very comprehensive handbook that guides all new speakers through their complex roles and responsibilities. In order to help provide our readers with a better understanding of their government, we present the following excerpts from that handbook.

Intro (pg. 3)
Congratulations! You’ve just become the most powerful person in Rhode Island. Let that sink in for a moment… Okay, got it? Now lawyer up.

By serving in this esteemed office, you join the ranks of distinguished Speakers throughout history, such as Nelson Aldrich, Ambrose Kennedy and federal inmates numbers 00154-006, 00915-235 and 02656-196. This is an office like no other in Rhode Island government, and from your first time presiding over a legislative session to the day when you’re eventually led out in handcuffs, it promises to be a wild ride.

There is perhaps no one in the state with the potential to have a greater impact on the daily lives of Rhode Islanders than you, which is why you need to begin insulating yourself from them as quickly as possible. From now on there is only one set of priorities that matters: your own…

Ethics Reform (pg. 32)
The people of Rhode Island deserve a transparent, ethical and accountable government, and it’s our most solemn duty as legislators to deliver it. We cannot tolerate the kind of corruption we’ve seen recently from some of our members and a strong code of ethics is needed to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

Comprehensive reform is one of our highest priorities.
Memorize that paragraph and repeat it every time an ethics issue comes up. Then just give whatever it is a quiet death in committee…

Legislative Grants Program (pg. 65)
…There is a common misperception that this program lacks oversight and a transparent process for determining which organizations receive grants. Some critics say that this money is divvied up behind closed doors according to the whims of legislators. Nothing could be further from the truth: there is a very clear and well-defined application process that ensures only worthy causes receive taxpayer money.

First, the person or organization must contact the state representative or senator for their district and make a formal inquiry about the program. The legislator’s office will then fax a paper application to the person or organization, which must be filled out in full, notarized and placed in a sealed envelope. After sealing the envelope, the person or organization must then make five photocopies of the completed application, taking note that opening the sealed envelope legally voids the application. It’s extremely important that these steps happen in that exact order.

The five copies of the application must be delivered in person to the district office of the appropriate legislator on Tuesday between 11am-3pm (alternately, it can be delivered to the legislator’s State House office on Friday between 3:30am-7am) by a sad clown in full makeup. The legislator will then decide whether the person or organization is politically important enough to be worthy of further consideration.

If the legislator deems it worthy, he or she will indicate approval by placing a crown of meat on the applicant’s head. At that point, the applicant must walk barefoot directly from the State House to the summit of Jerimoth Hill and proclaim for all to hear why the application merits public support; preference will be given to proclamations that are delivered in rhyming couplets.

At this point, the application can be denied by any Rhode Islander, provided they are able to climb to the top of the hill and successfully vanquish the applicant with a bludgeon fashioned from red maple, the official state tree. Assuming this does not occur, the application continues to the next phase of the review process, which literally cannot be printed in this book because every attempt to transcribe it has resulted in the page immediately bursting into flames, including those typed in Microsoft Word. Suffice to say that at this point, s--t gets real.

If the applicant emerges from this part of the process holding the red stone, the application is denied. If he or she is holding the green stone, they can then proceed to the fourth and final phase of the process, in which they fill out a simple online application through a Google Forms link on the General Assembly’s MySpace page. In the end, just decide whatever the hell you want.

Editor's Note: This column was written before the House voted to approve an ethics reform bill for a November ballot referendum. The local government watchdog group Common Cause RI has applauded this effort, and even though we like to poke fun, we've got to give respect where it's due.