Golocalprov's piece on underage drinking at Providence Police Chief Dean Esserman's home has focused attention on the state's "social host" law, which imposes penalties on parents who knowingly allow underage drinking on their property.

Esserman, of course, maintains that he did not knowingly allow underage drinking - that he broke up the party when he discovered the booze.

In a state not known for its ethical governance, a rare distinction - from the Associated Press:

Lawmakers in at least 15 states backed stripping governors of their power to fill U.S. Senate vacancies after former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was accused of trying to sell President Barack Obama's seat, but only Connecticut and Rhode Island have done so.

N4N is taking the day off, so expect limited blogging today . . .

Last week, Brassband, writing at RI's Future, took note of a Politico list in which Rhode Island didn't place among the 35 most corrupt states.

Yesterday, the NYT Week in Review went a little deeper:

Graphic

Number of Guilty Officials

Graphic

The Guilty, per Capita

Graphic

A Survey of Journalists

Last week, Brassband made a post over at RI's Future, showing a Politico list of most-corrupt states from which Rhode Island was absent.

Today, the NYT Week in Review digs a little deeper:

Multimedia

Graphic

Number of Guilty Officials

Graphic

The Guilty, per Capita

Graphic

A Survey of Journalists

Common Cause of RI has a successor to Christine Lopes:

John Marion has been named the Executive Director of Common Cause RI. Common Cause RI is a non-partisan advocacy group which works for open, ethical and accountable government. Marion takes the helm of RI's most effective "citizens' lobby" at a time when Rhode Island government faces challenges on many fronts.

Speaking of Blagojevich . . .

Some RI officials have maintained our reputation for corruption is overstated and inflated by our small size.

I looked at the issue, and the significance of prosecutors examining the private sector (something that hasn't panned out much) in 2006, with the question, Is RI still a state for sale?

Not for nothing, but Kent Willever had an interesting choice for a bit of office decoration when he took up the job as executive director of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission.

As I wrote in 2002:

An illustration of Don Quixote seems like an appropriate image for the man who faces the challenge of restoring the battered reputation of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission.

Christine Lopes, who in 2006 succeeded Phil West as the executive director of Common Cause of Rhode Island, plans to leave her job in December to finish a master's degree in public administration at Suffolk University in Boston.

Lopes says a search process has begun to find her successor and that the position will be advertised this week.

Seth Gitell has a tasty post up on his blog: Buddy Cianci analyzing the fall of Eliot Spitzer and diagnosing his future prospects.

Of course, it's natural that Cianci's story makes political reporters (see here and here) invoke F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gitell, formerly a political scribe for the Boston Phoenix, does this, too.

I can't put it any better than Dan Kennedy:

This is why New York Post editors make the big bucks.

Bill Harsch, a two-time loser in his runs for AG against Patrick Lynch, has been appointed by Governor Carcieri to the state Ethics Commission.

Deborah Cerullo, who matches Arlene Violet in having a religious (nun) and prosecutor background, has also been appointed.

From the Gov:

Cerullo, a Catholic nun who served as an Assistant District Attorney in both Massachusetts and New York, replaces George Weavill, Jr.

While most everyone was focused yesterday afternoon on New Hampshire, the office of Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch released a statement about a proposal to counter public corruption.

Although it seems a bit unusual for this kind of thing to drop shortly before 5 pm on the day of the primary, it also marks a retort of sorts to gripes about the feds typically taking the lead in corruption prosecutions.

On Tuesday, Representative Ray Gallison (D-Bristol) settled with the state Ethics Commission over his failure -- for three years -- to disclose his employment with a legislatively financed nonprofit. This came not long after N4N reported that Spencer Maguire, Gallison's Republican opponent in 2006, has moved to Washington, DC.