Alan Hassenfeld Led the Rhode Island Reform - H. Philip West Jr.
H. Philip West Jr., Guest MINDSETTER™
Alan Hassenfeld Led the Rhode Island Reform - H. Philip West Jr.
I met Alan during Rhode Island’s banking crisis in 1991.
RISDIC, the state's private credit union insurer, had collapsed after years of lax oversight and risky lending by member institutions. Since 1986, legislative leaders and Governor Edward DiPrete had ignored credible but confidential warnings from Attorney General Arlene Violet and others that RISDIC was in danger. Lawmakers on RISDIC’s board had crushed legislation by Rep. Frank Gaschen that would have required the home-grown credit unions to get federal credit union insurance.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTEmbezzlement by a Federal Hill bank president, Joseph Mollicone Jr., triggered RISDIC’s collapse. On New Year’s Day 1991, more than 300,000 depositors across the state found themselves frozen out of their life savings. Early investigations revealed that insiders had withdrawn their money from RISDIC institutions only days before the disaster. Political leaders had betrayed depositors. Thousands of furious people marched on the State House.
While newly inaugurated Governor Bruce Sundlun struggled to resolve the banking crisis, government reform groups pushed unsuccessfully for tough new ethics and campaign finance laws.
During the summer of 1991, several of us approached Alan Hassenfeld at Hasbro headquarters in Pawtucket for help. Mr. Potato Head waved at us across the room. G.I. Joe figures scrambled along a windowsill. Bright blocks filled several bookshelves.
“I’m embarrassed to be from Rhode Island,” Alan confessed. “When I’m in New York or Los Angeles or London, people ask why our little state has such terrible corruption. They can’t believe we keep our company here.”
With unruly hair, an engaging grin, sleeves rolled up, and rubber bands around his wrists, he shattered my stereotype of a corporate mogul. “When I talked to people from the legislature,” he said, “one senator actually told me that people will eventually see that they’ve done a pretty good job of running Rhode Island. I wanted to scream: ‘If you’ve done a pretty good job, why is our state in such a god-awful mess? Are you really that blind?’”
Alan agreed to lead a new reform coalition that would advocate for major government reforms. We launched the RIght Now! Coalition on December 11, 1991. From all directions, clanging church bells reverberated through the State House.
Alan stepped to the bank of microphones, framed by the RIght Now! logo behind him. “Let the bells ring for a new dawn,” he began, his public voice rich with cheerful intimacy. “My business is toys, but we’re here today — half way between the first day of Hanukkah and Christmas — to give Rhode Islanders a different kind of holiday gift. Today, we announce the formation of what we think is the broadest coalition in the history of Rhode Island.”
The coalition included organizations with diverse interests: the Greater Providence and Northern Rhode Island Chambers of Commerce, RIPEC, the State Council of Churches, Save the Bay, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and many others.
RIght Now! proposed 28 specific reforms that fell into three buckets: tough new rules on conflicts-of-interest, comprehensive campaign finance reforms, and four-year terms for statewide general officers.
Legislators mocked the effort, but under intense public pressure, they enacted significant reforms into law and approved a 1992 ballot question that allowed voters to approve a constitutional amendment that strengthened statewide general officers with four-year terms.
Alan held RIght Now! together for two more years in a campaign that reformed both the courts and legislature. In 1994, voters approved one constitutional amendment that established Merit Selection of Rhode Island Judges and a second that modernized the General Assembly, downsizing both chambers, eliminating a scandal-plagued legislative pension system, and compensating lawmakers with modest salaries and family health insurance.
These historic changes in Rhode Island’s Constitution and General Laws transformed all three branches of state government. Two recent national comparisons of state anti-corruption and open government laws now rank Rhode Island among the best.
Long after he retired from Hasbro, Alan also supported the decade-long campaign to establish separation of powers in Rhode Island’s Constitution.
During the RISDIC scandal Sheldon Whitehouse, then counsel to Governor Sundlun, alerted Common Cause to the fact that Rhode Island lacked the cornerstone of American government. He warned that our state could not “cut the deep root of Rhode Island’s corruption” without separation of powers.
Since colonial times, the General Assembly had wielded vast executive powers that would have been unthinkable in most other states. Throughout Rhode Island’s history, this lack of constitutional checks and balances enabled single party control. Republicans ruled during much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Democrats held sway from the 1930s into the twenty-first century. In their eras of unchecked control, both parties became corrupt.
Many in the RIght Now! Coalition agreed on the need for separation of powers but feared retribution from legislative leaders. Alan took the risk and continued to work with Common Cause on the research and legal efforts that finally put a Separation of Powers Amendment before Rhode Island voters in 2004. A huge majority, 78.3%, approved the amendment, which has continued to transform Rhode Island’s government and political culture.
One of Alan’s most endearing skills was the way he reached crucial decisions. As RIght Now! wrestled with choices about possible legislative compromises, he called on leaders around the Hasbro board table to share what they thought. One by one, each person had a chance to explain, and Alan often asked further questions. Like the rubber bands around his wrists, his ritual stretched the group but held us together for a common purpose.
Alan Hassenfeld stands quietly as a true Rhode Island hero. His inscription in the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame rightly says: “His enthusiasm and spirit has touched the lives of millions of people and impacted communities across the world.”
H. Philip West Jr. served as executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island and was vice-chair of the RIght Now! Coalition. He is the author of “Secrets & Scandals: Reforming Rhode Island, 1986-2006.”