Almost two years after he narrowly won re-election to his district seat, House Speaker Nicholas A. Mattiello has been facing criticism for violations of state campaign finance laws related to that 2016 campaign.
But despite a few public calls for his resignation as speaker – made by Republican officials – the Cranston Democrat is expected to weather the storm in a chamber dominated by his political party.
The R.I. Board of Elections let Mattiello off the hook with a warning, agreeing to a consent order in which he acknowledges his campaign violated spending limits in 2016 and agreed to repay his Fund for Democratic Leadership political action committee $72,067 from his personal campaign account.
In Rhode Island, the House speaker wields tremendous power, says June Speakman, a professor of political science at Roger Williams University. The speaker can shepherd bills across the finish line or stop them from progressing.
Unless fellow Democratic legislators know they can topple Mattiello as speaker, they are unlikely to step forward because they need their bills scheduled, Speakman noted.
“The people he has to worry about are the voters in his district,” she said. “If I were the speaker, I would be worried about my constituents.”
Is campaign finance something that voters really care about? No, she said.
“We’ve forgiven a lot of politicians for things that are a lot worse than this,” Speakman said.
The elections board found the PAC Mattiello led exceeded by $5,100 the annual donation limit for party organizational activities by contributing $30,100 to candidates. And that the PAC had spent $77,350.60 – nearly all on Mattiello’s campaign. This constituted an in-kind contribution and exceeded the $1,000 limit by $72,067.
In a statement, Mattiello said his campaign had made mistakes inadvertently, and that he accepted the warning from the Board of Elections.
“To assure those mistakes are not repeated, right after the 2016 election I hired a CPA with expertise in campaign finance to handle all of the finances,” he said.
His explanation dissatisfied some political observers – and the Board of Election’s decision to allow him to transfer the funds from one account to another wasn’t enough for Patricia Morgan, a Republican state senator and candidate for governor.
She called for him to resign as speaker, as did state Republican Party Chairman Brandon Bell. But Morgan doesn’t expect that to happen.
“He’s going to continue to lead the House. At the very least, he should have paid a penalty,” she said. “I think the money … was spent for voter contact. It absolutely perverted our election process.”
The state Democratic Party, through senior adviser William Lynch, called the matter an “accounting error.
“If the Friends of Mattiello campaign account had originally paid for these expenses, no complaint could have been filed,” he said.