R.I. Senate president keeps her distance in casino debate
6:22 PM Tue, Oct 13, 2009 | Permalink
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By Katherine Gregg PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Though it has been months since she left her Newport law firm, Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed is still keeping her distance from the revived State House talk about asking voters to allow full-scale casino gambling at Twin River in a 2010 referendum. House Speaker William. J. Murphy has indicated he thinks another referendum would be a good idea; Governor Carcieri, once the state's most vocal opponent of casino gambling, has said he would not stand in the way. Murphy championed - and Carcieri led the opposition against -- the failed 2006 referendum drive for a proposed Harrah's-financed Narragansett Indian casino in the speaker's home town of West Warwick. In a brief interview Tuesday after the swearing-in of Aquidneck Island lawyer J. Terence Houlihan to a District Court judgeship, Paiva Weed, D-Newport, said she does not yet feel free to talk publicly about gambling so soon after leaving the law firm that has long represented the state's only other slot parlor, Newport Grand. Paiva Weed said she wants to first "touch base with the Ethics Commission'' about what she can and cannot do without running afoul of the state's ethics code. "At this time, I would have no comment,'' she said, noting "we are not in session now, or anything like that,'' and there is no pending proposal. Paiva Weed announced her plans to "transition out'' of her Newport law firm Moore Virgadamo & Lynch in March, citing the enormous time demands of her elevated new legislative role. She said then and again Tuesday that it might be awhile before she felt free to enter into the perennial Smith Hill debate about gambling. While Paiva Weed has not taken a position on the pros and cons of going back to the voters with a casino gambling question, her second in command, Senate Majority Leader Daniel Connors, whose district includes a slice of Lincoln - has indicated little enthusiasm for another referendum. In an interview last week and in a statement conveyed through Senate spokesman Greg Pare, he said the House speaker and the governor "are not misguided in their concerns'' about preserving Twin River revenue in the event Massachusetts makes a major competing play for the region's gambling dollars, but the Senate is otherwise "occupied with the budget and unemployment.'' "To suggest that gaming is going to be a panacea for all of our economic problems has been disproven throughout the country,'' he said. 
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