Inside Cicilline: Congressional Profile

Inside Cicilline: Congressional Profile

David Cicilline, facing an uphill battle in both a Democratic primary against challenger Anthony Gemma and possibly Republican Brendan Doherty in November, has accumulated a set of loyal allies who speak in common of his caring, accessibility and passion for his job in 18 years as an elected official, which he began as a state representative from Providence.

It begins with family

But his story cuts the closest when it comes to family. Roberta Cicilline, his sister, says she has heard the phrase “family values” flung at her brother David a little too often for her liking.

“I get a little worked up when people say he doesn’t have family values because he’s gay,” says the older sister, by 10 months, of RI's District 1 US representative and former Providence mayor. “He’s always at both my sons’ football and hockey games and family dinners. He does things with them that fathers and grandfathers do with their kids.”

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One of three Cicillines to serve as class president at Narragansett High School (along with David and sister Susan), Roberta could see her brother’s political gene emerge early, whenever friends and family talked politics. The most important skill, she says, was his ability to listen “He seems able to bring people together, and he listens to everybody at the table. We’re at opposite ends of the political spectrum, but he’ll listen to my views. He listens to and hears people, which is what makes him a great congressman and a great mayor,” she says.

Her brother's greatest quality as a leader, she says, is his ability to stay in touch with common concerns. “He’s aware and concerned about what’s going on with the economy, and is on top of it. He goes to the gas pump and the grocery store. He knows what’s going on.”

The industrious teenager

Harriet Quinn, a longtime family friend, remembers an industrious teen who seemed to always be working. “When he was a kid, he always had three jobs. We once had friends from Massachusetts who came to visit, and when we went to the Coast Guard House, he waited on them. Then, when we went to La France, he waited on them again. They thought he was twins,” she says.

Cicilline aggressively supported causes from minority rights to the fight against development of the Black Rock parcel north of Scarborough State Beach, she says. That tradition continued as an adult, she says, with the Thanksgiving party he has held at his home the past 20 years.

“His friends were asked to bring food to make holiday baskets for the needy, and the first year, we made about 50. Every year, it grew and grew, and he put up a tent in his backyard. It got up to 500,” says Quinn.

The Providence budget problems which have endangered his political future, she says, are the result of attempting to maintain the municipal workforce without raising taxes. “It was an early start to what’s going on in every city and town, If people are re-exposed to him, they’ll remember him as the excellent mayor he was,” she says.

A young politician

As Cicilline entered a brand-new Narragansett High School building as a freshman, Karen Watts, now a communications content developer in Washington, D.C., was new in town. “Everyone was a new kid that year,” she says. “David was in several of my classes, notably Italian, which was a small class. He reached out to me, and we became study buddies.”

Perhaps the true test of political engagement is persuading high school classmates in the 1970s to give up a night of primetime television to attend a town government meeting, as Watts recalls watching Cicilline do on many an occasion. Even then, he was a regular at Town Council and School Committee meetings. “He would get other kids to show up when something on the agenda mattered, when there needed to be a student presence in the conversation,” she says, “Early on, the adults would roll their eyes, but he made it matter to his classmates and his peers.”

Watts says she grew to appreciate Cicilline’s sense of principle, and even more, his sense of humor. “It wasn’t joky, but a conversational, point-of-view thing. We laughed more than anyone should be allowed to laugh,” she says.

Gay activist

Mark Page, an AIDS prevention educator, became a friend and ally of Cicilline in the early ‘90s when he lobbied for the state’s first gay rights bill, which the General Assembly passed and Gov. Lincoln Almond signed in 1995. “He’s just a generous and giving person, and he hates injustice. That’s why he’s in politics,” Page says.

Page, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1989 and nearly died before a 1996 drug regimen helped him regain his health, also points to two moments in his life when Cicilline helped him. “When I joined Temple Beth-El, one day he presented me with a prayer book as a gift. It was unexpected, and I was touched by it,” says Page. “In 1998, he threw me a 40th birthday party at his house. I never expected it. David opened up his house to my family and friends and celebrated my life.”

Young lawyers, young legislators

RI Speaker of the House Gordon Fox and Cicilline knew each other as practicing lawyers before they entered the House just two years apart, representing Providence East Side districts.

“He was interested in reform, ethics and gun safety. He wasn’t exactly a favorite of House leadership (under then-Speaker John Harwood),” Fox remembers. “He has beliefs, and he’s not afraid to speak out on their behalf.”

Political principles created a strong bond between Cicilline and himself, says Fox, an early supporter of his successful candidacy for mayor in 2002. “He’s a fighter, a real Democrat, and brought a sense of reform to the city that sometimes gets lost in the economy.”

Fox says he has seen a great deal of growth in Cicilline’s leadership and political skills over his career as a public official. “When he came in, he wanted to be a great advocate, but had to learn how to do it. He knows how to govern, when to compromise and how to build consensus.”