Yorke: Legislative Grant Program should make you 'mad as hell'

I’m talking about the famous Rhode Island Legislative Grant Program.

When I first came to Rhode Island for a new phase in my broadcast career over 22 years ago, there were plenty of “only in Rhode Islandisms” to learn.

Tasty ones. Coffee milk, Del’s, weiners.

Quirky ones. Low number license plate obsession, geography and directions to destinations described not by street names or present-day landmarks, but by “what used to be” there.

And political ones. For instance, “times” are not known by looking at a watch or clock or a special moment on the calendar. They are campaign fundraising events.

But the one that really got me was “the grants.”

While all of America runs on pork, this program is the perfect shank chop, small in dollars and cents but large in its chokehold on legislators to deliver in the districts.

Here’s the background.

There’s this constitutional entity, vague at best to the citizens, called the Joint Committee on Legislative Services, better known as the JCLS. The speaker of the House, House majority leader, House minority leader, Senate president and Senate minority leader are its members.

It calls all the operational shots to make Smith Hill run.

But it never meets. Hasn’t for well over a decade.

Outgoing Minority Leader Rep. Blake Filippi has been suing the very body he sits on, to actually sit, deliberate and vote on legislative management matters.

And unless he succeeds, things like the couple million dollar grant slush fund will carry on, dolling out bread crumb checks in increments of $500 to $7,500 that your elected officials fight like seagulls to nab.

There’s no rhyme or reason or even rhythm to the disbursements each rep or senator receives. Some get none, some get some, and some get a bunch. It depends, in large part, on the level of allegiance pledged to the leadership.

The holy grail for the legislators is the picture in the local newspaper or Facebook with the symbolic oversized check and cheesy smiles from the deliverer and the recipients from the Little League and the senior center.

And we eat it up. Gee, our rep must be doing a great job because they delivered new uniforms or new bingo equipment.

Meanwhile, back at the state capitol, they are bought and sold, controlled by the respective chamber leaders who blessed their request for those little checks.

The result is that huge multibillion-dollar decisions are made by made by just a few because your grant-producing elected official is now just a “yes sir” player, self-preserved by this mostly secret and unregulated giveaway program.

It should make you mad as hell. But I’ve learned, the hard way, here in our special state, the only thing that upsets us about it is that our group or cause didn’t cash in and make the photo op and instead had to run the car wash or sell the brownies.

So, while opining about the corrupt nature of the program has proved fruitless, I’m keeping an eye on the JCLS litigation.

It could finally ruin the whole party.

Dan Yorke is the PM Drive Host on 99.7/AM 630 WPRO, Dan Yorke State of Mind weekends on Fox Providence/WPRI 12 and owns communications/crisis consulting firm DYCOMM LLC.