Top 11 of 2011: On the Ropes

Top 11 of 2011: On the Ropes

It may be the shortest honeymoon on record, and this popular local politician has spent 2011 in the headlines, and not the ones you dream of.

For David Cicilline it's been a year of fighting for his reputation--first because of financial hardships faced by the city he helmed for two terms as Mayor, and in the second half of the year haunted by a poll that showed him trailing two potential Republican challengers to his brand-new seat in the US House of Representatives. But things got even uglier at the end of the year, when critics on both sides of the aisle accused Cicilline of manipulating the efforts to redraw RI's political districts to aid his bid for reelection.

The former Mayor found himself having to defend fiscal choices amid new Mayor Angel Taveras' ongoing multi-million dollar deficit battle with city policies and budgets left behind by Cicilline, and the bolder the moves Taveras made, the starker the contrast became with Cicilline's legacy.

The first major blow came in May, when a WPRI poll of 300 registered voters from Cicilline's 1st Congressional District showed the freshman Congressman trailing both of his potential Republican opponents (John Loughlin and Brendan Doherty) by double digits. Cicilline also found himself at 57 percent in the dreaded "unfavorable" category.

The issue that will keep the Congressman in the headlines going into 2012 is his latest battle over redistricting, which is viewed as intensely political, even among the landscape of all redistricting being political. The movement of Burrillville out of District 1 will take away one of Cicilline's Republican challenger's, John Loughlin's, strongholds. By absorbing South Providence away from District 2, it not only bolsters Cicilline's popular support with the addition of a community that supported him as Mayor, but turns the district more conservative--something incumbent Representative James Langevin is none too happy about.

At the center of the drama--and not likely leaving it any time soon--David Cicilline.