A seating change may have restored harmony in the House.

Rep. Anastasia P. Williams has spent most of this legislative session standing at the back of the House chamber, rather than sitting in her assigned seat. Williams denies the rumor that she refused to sit in her seat because of a rift with the House leadership; she says she has a medical condition that requires a seat close to a door so she can exit the chamber quickly if need be.

Whatever the reason, Williams solved the problem by switching seats with Rep. Robert B. Jacquard last week. Her new seat is in the back row, on an aisle near the door. Her old seat was on an aisle too, but it was on one side of the room and near the front of the chamber.

It was also adjacent to the Republican seating section. No matter, Williams, D-Providence, said in an interview while she was still declining the seat. “I can honestly say that I have learned a lot from several Republicans,” she said. “It’s an honor to be sitting closer to them.”

Williams’ new seat assignment came as part of a widespread reshuffling that saw other veteran House members get new seats, too. But Williams was removed from the Finance Committee — the most powerful of House committees — at the same time, prompting speculation that she was being punished.

Two of her colleagues, Representatives Grace Diaz and Thomas C. Slater, both Providence Democrats, have said Williams aided candidates who opposed Diaz and Slater in Democratic primaries. Williams says she did no such thing; what’s more, she says she ceded her seat on Finance voluntarily, because she was feeling “extremely burnt out.”

Williams said she takes her responsibilities as a committee member seriously, and did not like missing meetings, but the Finance Committee meets almost daily from March through June, and often begins at 1 p.m. Williams said she would begin work at 6 a.m. so she could complete the duties of her day job as a monitoring specialist with the Providence Neighborhood Development Corporation.

Williams was assigned to the House committees on labor and municipal government. She said she has attended every single meeting for both.

As for why it took so long to get a new seat, Williams said Friday that she originally went to the chief of staff for House Speaker William J. Murphy, instead of to Murphy himself, because she “wanted to respect the process.” But she said she thinks her medical needs were not accurately conveyed to the speaker, and that Murphy agreed to the seating change as soon as Williams met with him directly. She says she had no quibble with Murphy, other than his seeming lack of responsiveness to her health needs. (Murphy had no comment on the matter Friday.)

So what does Jacquard, D-Cranston, think of his new seat next to the loyal opposition? “I enjoy being around different people in the Assembly,” he said Friday. “This just gives me an opportunity to be over on the other side and to get to know some other people better and just to get a different view of things.”

As to allegations that Williams’ habit of standing at the back of the chamber hurt her constituents because she wasn’t voting and thus representing their interests, Williams says unequivocally: “I did not do them a disservice.” She grants that she did not vote on many of the nonbinding resolutions expressing condolences or congratulations, or bills reinstating company charters or authorizing people to officiate at weddings. Those pieces of legislation “had nothing to do with my constituents’ interests,” Williams says. As The Journal previously noted, during the first three months of the session lawmakers introduced 2,144 pieces of legislation, but approved just nine bills.

As the Assembly moved into high gear last month, approving bills of wide significance, Williams says she made a habit of approaching the front desk below the speaker’s rostrum and asking staff there to register her vote for or against. Members commonly do this when they’re away from their seats for a vote, if they’ve gotten wrapped up in a conversation or have stepped out to the restroom.

Indeed, a reporter’s inspection of House journals found that Williams has routinely recorded her votes, although not sitting in her seat. For instance, on April 25, Williams voted on all 34 bills the House approved.

By Elizabeth Gudrais and John E. Mulligan
-- Journal Staff Writers