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PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The state GOP has filed an ethics complaint against Atty. Gen. Patrick C. Lynch that accuses him of violating the state's $75 gift cap by accepting a roundtrip plane ticket worth $428.50 from the National Cable and Telecommunications Association for a trip to New Orleans last year.
The complaint, filed late last week by state Republican party chairman Giovanni D. Cicione, marks the second time the state GOP has asked a state regulatory agency to call Democrat Lynch to task for his frequent out-of-state trips, and the way he has accounted for them on his public disclosure filings. Lynch has announced his intention to run for governor.
Responding to an earlier GOP complaint, the state Board of Elections in August opted to give Lynch a chance to re-do his campaign filings to account for $9,000 in unexplained expenditures on his campaign reports. The board concluded that while Lynch had in fact violated state statute by labeling thousands of dollars in campaign expenses as "petty cash," his actions did not appear deliberate.
State law limits petty cash expenditures to $25 per transaction.
The complaint that Cicione filed with the state Ethics Commission zeroes in on a different issue: A state regulation prohibiting public officials from accepting any gift valued at more than "$25 per instance and up to $75 per year from each interested person. An interested person is a person, business or representative that has a direct financial interest in a decision that you participate in making.''
Lynch was gone from Sunday, May 18, through that Tuesday. The trip was one of dozens of trips he has taken since January 1, 2008 described in a July 8, 2009 story in The Journal.
Cicione drew these connections: The trip was paid for by the National Cable and Television Association. Cox Communications is a member of NCTA, which also represents Cox. "The office of attorney general has, in the past, exercised its common law duty to represent and protect the interests of the public by intervening in [Division of Public Utilities] regulatory proceedings in which an application of Cox Communications has been reviewed.''
Cicione's argument: "Because the attorney general has intervened as a party in these regulatory proceedings, the attorney general "participates in the making of'' a decision, which directly financially impacts Cox...In fact, in one such division proceeding, the office of attorney general was a party to a settlement agreement with Cox, which formed the basis of the decision by the division to approve Cox's application.''
As evidence of Lynch's relationship with Cox, Cicione noted, that a top official from Cox - Amy Cohn, executive director for public affairs - moderated the panel in which Lynch, Michigan Atty. Gen. Michael Cox and Deputy Virginia Atty. Gen. Lisa Hicks-Thomas spoke to the trade group in New Orleans on May 20, 2008.
Their topic: "Child Online Safety and the Role of State Attorneys General.''
There are exceptions to the $25 gift-rule campaign contributions, "services to assist an official...in the performance of [his] official duties and responsibilities'' or a "plaque.'' But none applied in this case.
Since Lynch's food expenses on the trip were charged to his campaign account, Cicione suggested the trip may have provided Lynch with an additional benefit: an opportunity to "further his political aspirations'' by making "contacts within the cable industry for fundraising.''
Since the May 2008 conference, Cicione noted, "the Lynch committee has received approximately $17,050 from individuals employed by cable companies or cable associations. This does not include approximately $3,500 the Lynch Committee has received from Cox's political action committee since Mr. Lynch's re-election in 2006.''
Should the commission decide the national cable group is not an "interested person'' under the state's Code of Ethics, Cicione said that "would create a large and serious legal loophole in the Code of Ethics that would allow Rhode Island public officials to receive unlimited gifts from well-funded national trade organizations with potential unfortunate consequences for the public.''
In a response, Lynch spokeswoman Beryl Kenyon, argued that "national trade groups are not 'interested parties' '' according to previous rulings by the Ethics Commission.
Lynch's statement also said: "This was not a gift from an interested party but transportation costs for [the attorney general] to speak at a national trade group. These rulings, and common sense, demonstrate that this office does not regulate this national trade group. ''
Kenyon said Lynch went to the conference as President-elect of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), and laid the groundwork there for what he described as a "landmark agreement between NCTA and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to remove child pornography sites from the Internet. That agreement ... was announced a short two months later.''
Kenyon said that agreement covers actual or potential broadband customers in 112.8 million homes or 87 percent of all U.S. homes.
