PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A former state official will pay a $4,500 fine to settle an ethics complaint over his solicitation of campaign donations from state vendors for a mayoral run.
Brett Smiley, a Democrat who’s running for Providence mayor, agreed to the settlement with the state Ethics Commission Tuesday. The chairwoman of the Rhode Island Republican Party filed the complaint.
Smiley resigned as director of the Rhode Island Department of Administration early this year. The agency oversees hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of state contracting and spending.
Smiley admitted in the settlement that six separate solicitations from an owner or officer of a company that does business with the state violated the code of ethics, the commission said. He returned the six donations after questions were raised publicly.
Smiley said in a statement Tuesday he returned the contributions as soon as he became aware that the donors had business before the state. He said he “never knowingly solicited contributions from vendors” and never discussed state contracts with any donor.
The commission also authorized an investigation into whether Gov. Dan McKee’s former chief of staff violated the ethics code. Anthony Silva is under scrutiny for whether he used his political clout to push through a development approval on some wetlands owned by his family.
Silva resigned in August and maintains he did nothing wrong in the approval process. McKee asked the state attorney general’s office to investigate the matter, and the state Republican Party filed a complaint with the ethics commission.
The complaint against Smiley was filed in February before he resigned. It called for an investigation into Smiley’s solicitation of donations from state vendors for his mayoral run. Smiley accepted the donations despite telling the ethics commission he would not do so, the GOP said.
The party praised the commission’s decisions Tuesday. It said in a statement that Smiley used his power over state vendors to fund his political ambitions, and that both he and Silva exemplify “Rhode Island’s unethical insider political culture.”
The code states that state officials can’t solicit their subordinates for political contributions or other financial transactions, including contractors with the official’s agency.
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