The legislative grants that the Rhode Island General Assembly gives to its leadership teams in both chambers for leverage and public relations perks are a favorite complaint of Rhode Island reformers.  It looks a lot like leadership uses them to buy support from our reps and senators, who in turn use them to buy support and good will in their communities.

So with the question being knocked back and forth of who is the “reform” candidate to replace Gordon Fox as Speaker of the House — Nicholas Mattiello (D, Cranston) or Michael Marcello (D, Cranston, Scituate) — I thought it might be interesting to follow my quick review of campaign finance reports with an even quicker review of their legislative grant requests, as they currently stand.

As of January 1st, Mattiello had requested (and received) $11,250 for CLCF Baseball, Day One, and Oaklawn Grange #42.  Marcello had requested (but not received) $18,000 across 21 different organizations, mainly in his district.

That Mattiello has received more only tells us where he stood with Gordon Fox.  That Marcello requested 60% more only tells us that he’s comfortable with the practice.  It might tell us that he’s more comfortable with it than Mattiello, or maybe being majority leader meant that Mattiello didn’t feel a need to get all of his in right away.

And so it goes; you could make as much of the specific grants as you want, or not.  You could infer one thing from the fact that Marcello wanted $5,000 for fire departments, but you could infer quite another from the fact that they’re all volunteer departments.  The most important fact, however, is probably simply that they happen to be in his district.

The most important metric that I’ve found remains gauging Rhode Island progressives’ dislike of Mattiello, as expressed on Twitter.  If you’ve got a finger in the air, that’s a strong, cold blast.