Gov. Gina Raimondo begins her second term tomorrow with her inauguration. The scene will be familiar – the traditional display of pomp and anticipation, with the state’s business, judicial and political elites watching from what is usually a windswept South Portico at the Statehouse.
These events have been choreographed for many years by the National Guard, which will oversee tomorrow’s ceremonies. There will be military and 21-gun salutes.
In the morning, the governor, her family and friends will attend a Roman Catholic Mass at St. Raymond’s Church in Providence. At noon she will be sworn in to her second term as Rhode Island’s first woman governor.
Raimondo’s inaugural is slated to be shorter than the 28-minute address she delivered on a bitterly cold January afternoon in 2015. Tomorrow’s speech with be closer to 15 minutes or so, says Mike Raia, her communications chief.
As is usually the case, her inaugural address will deal with large themes and won’t get into the specifics of programs or policies she will advance in the 2019 General Assembly that convenes tomorrow. The policy proposals will come when the governor delivers her budget address on January 17th to a joint session of the House and Senate.
These ceremonies remind us of the simple majesty of an inauguration. From the White House to the Statehouse, these lofty occasions remind us of the enduring strength of our democracy. Governments in the United States change not with violence or tanks in the streets, but with a peaceful transfer of power in a system limned with checks and balances.
Inaugurations have a timeless rhythm and in general, usher in good feelings among Rhode Island’s the warring political factions. But there was an inauguration that didn’t follow this script.
Rhode Islanders of a certain age –particularly those with money deposited in a group of state-chartered credit unions — will never forget.
New Year’s Day 1991 dawned clear and cold. Sun washed over the capitol and glistened off the snow. The debris of the previous evening’s revelry drifted in the wind. Empty champagne bottles from the First Night celebration littered the lawn. All appeared calm.
Inside the historic marble Statehouse, all hell was breaking out. The staff of the incoming governor, Democrat Bruce Sundlun, had pulled a New Year’s Eve all-nighter. They weren’t partying.
Sundlun’s inner circle, particularly legal counsel Sheldon Whitehouse, now beginning his third term as Rhode Island’s junior U.S. Senator, had been up all night grappling with the collapse of the insurer that was supposed to cover more than $1 billion in deposits in credit unions owned by 300,000 depositors –about a third of the state’s population.
With just an hour or so until the ceremonies, word coursed through the Statehouse basement. Something was going on with the credit unions, which had been the subject of bank runs during the Christmas season.
Rhode Islanders would later discover and become very angry as they found out that a group of insular, crooked bankers and their friends in the legislature and in the administration of outgoing Republican Gov. Edward DiPrete had conspired to keep these credit unions under state regulation, rather than force them to comply with stronger federal rules that would have avoided the crash, but could have endangered some poorly run banks.
David Preston, then a top Sundlun aide, now a public relations guru, recalled the scene later in an article for Rhode Island Monthly. Preston recalls Whitehouse monitoring the banks and coming up with ever-doleful predictions at the Sundlun transition team’s daily meetings.
Shortly before Christmas, Preston recalled, Whitehouse predicted the credit unions would become insolvent. “At first we figured that Whitehouse –the new kid on the team and not part of our original campaign group – was overreacting. Soon, we found out he was right.”
Six days before Christmas, a federal team of bank regulators converged upon the Statehouse. They had bad news—not only was Whitehouse correct. But the feds were not in a position to help.
What happened on New Year’s Eve gave the new Sundlun administration an ice-water shower of urgency. The insurer, the Rhode Island Share and Indemnity Corporation (RISDIC) went belly-up and was put into conservatorship by its members. Word came in a late afternoon telephone call from a lawyer for the insurer to Whitehouse.
Sundlun –who had run three times against Republican DiPrete, losing twice—didn’t get to enjoy his first day in office. There was nothing ceremonial about it – he issued an order closing 45 credit unions and state-chartered banks.
What followed was more than two years of investigations, tax increases and legislative negotiations. In those days, Rhode Island had two-year terms for state general officers. The credit union crisis, as it came to be known, dogged Sundlun’s first term. He narrowly won renomination over Warwick Mayor Frank Flaherty (now a RI Supreme Court judge) in a heated 1992 Democratic primary and cruised to victory over a weak Republican, Betty Leonard of Barrington.
Whatever happens tomorrow, life for Gov. Gina Raimondo and the lawmakers who will assemble in chambers at 4 p.m. won’t resemble New Year’s Day, 1991.