Shekarchi Defends State Employee Working on His Campaign

Shekarchi Defends State Employee Working on His Campaign

On Friday, GoLocal reported that Speaker of the House Joe Shekarchi was using a State House staffer — a paid state employee — to do campaign work.

This week, Emily Martineau, Deputy Director of Communications for the Speaker’s office, sent out promotional material for Shekarchi’s reelection.

On Thursday morning, Martineau emailed the Rhode Island press, photos and a press release announcing that Shekarchi was running for reelection in 2024. She was acting as the press person for Shekarchi's political activities.

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Shekarchi did not respond to questions for Friday’s story.

Martineau said that it was not illegal.  “I sent the email on my own personal time from home on my personal computer,” said Martineau.

Martineau is paid more than $91,000 annually.

 

Common Cause Weighs In

“It's against the law for a public employee to use public resources, including their time, to engage in activity that might financially benefit themselves. In this case, because all legislative employees are employed at will, helping reelect the speaker is clearly in the employee's financial interest,” said John Marion, the executive director of Common Cause of RI. “Proving that the employee used state time is difficult, however.”

“As of the most recent reports, Speaker Shekarchi has more than two million dollars in his campaign account. That is more than enough money to hire a professional staff to do campaign work instead of relying on state employees, even if they are just volunteering their time,” added Marion.

 

Fox and Mattiello Hired Separate PR Professionals for Their Campaigns

Previous Speakers of the House, Gordon Fox and Nick Mattiello, were often questioned for their ethics.

Fox’s State House office was raided by the FBI — a first in Rhode Island history — and Fox ultimately pled guilty to multiple federal charges.

And Mattiello faced criticism and investigations on a number of fronts. READ HERE

But, both Fox and Mattiello hired outside public relations professionals for their campaigns and paid them with campaign funds — not public funds.

In 2012, Fox engaged Bill Fischer. Fox faced a closer-than-expected challenge from children's author Mark Binder.

And in both 2016 and 2018, Mattiello hired Patti Doyle to serve as his campaign spokesperson. Neither were paid with public monies.

 

Shekarchi Responds

Shekarchi refused to respond to a question for the initial article and responded on Friday.

“I am very accessible to the media. I do not need a Public Relations person at this time,” said Shekarchi.

Shekarchi added, “We follow all rules and laws. People can support whomever they want during non-working hours.”