Rhode Island’s new governor is Lincoln Chafee, a former U.S. senator who in 2010 became the first independent to serve as the state’s chief executive. He won the governorship in unconventional fashion by promising to take the best ideas from both parties while being freed from the normal constraints of party politics. Read More

Rhode Island’s new governor is Lincoln Chafee, a former U.S. senator who in 2010 became the first independent to serve as the state’s chief executive. He won the governorship in unconventional fashion by promising to take the best ideas from both parties while being freed from the normal constraints of party politics.

Chafee is soft-spoken and taciturn to the point of shyness, but he possesses the most powerful name in Rhode Island politics—he is the son of John Chafee, a former moderate Republican governor and senator as well as secretary of the Navy. The younger Chafee grew up on an estate in Warwick, developing a love of horses. He attended the prep school Andover, where one of his classmates was Jeb Bush, later Florida’s governor. He returned to the state to go to college at Brown, where he was captain of the wrestling team. Anxious to learn a trade and see more of the world, he went off to horseshoeing school at Montana State University, and then spent seven years working as a blacksmith at racetracks in the United States and Canada. He returned to Rhode Island in 1984, and a year later was elected to the Rhode Island Constitutional Convention, followed by an election to the city council in Warwick, the state’s second-largest city. In 1992, he was elected mayor of Warwick by 335 votes, and was re-elected three times. In March 1999, John Chafee announced he would not seek re-election in 2000, and the next day Lincoln said he would run for the seat. The older Chafee was a productive legislator who was greatly beloved in Rhode Island, respected as a member of one of the “Five Families” that dominated the state’s business and political landscape until the 1930s.

When the senator died in October, Republican Gov. Lincoln Almond appointed Lincoln Chafee to fill his father’s unexpired term. He was only the second son appointed to the Senate to succeed his father, the other being Harry Byrd, Jr., in 1965. He quickly established himself as the heir to his father’s philosophy, regularly joining Democrats on social and economic issues. But he said he would not switch parties, explaining, “I’m named after Abraham Lincoln.” He was easily elected on his own in 2000 with 57% of the vote over 2nd District Democratic Rep. Robert Weygand. As a moderate Republican in the Senate from 1999 to 2007, Chafee developed a reputation for going to great lengths to dissociate himself from his party as it shifted to the right.

Chafee became greatly disenchanted with the policies of President George W. Bush, and his vote helped defeat the 2003 energy bill. He also opposed Bush’s proposal for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare and was the only Senate Republican to vote against the Iraq War resolution in 2002. Then in 2004, he declined to be co-chairman of Bush’s re-election campaign in Rhode Island and withdrew his earlier endorsement of the president. Other Republicans in the state declined to challenge him in the GOP primary, but in 2006 he drew an aggressive Democratic opponent in former state Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse (whose father had roomed with Chafee’s father at Yale in the 1940s). Chafee stressed his willingness to cross party lines, but Whitehouse urged voters to vote their party preference, especially as Republicans were in danger of losing their majority in the Senate. He easily beat Chafee, 54%-46%, helping Democrats assume control of the chamber.

Chafee spent the next two years as a visiting fellow at Brown and wrote a book, Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President, an indictment of Bush’s failure to fulfill his campaign pledge to be “a uniter, not a divider.” He endorsed his former Senate colleague Barack Obama for president. In January 2010, Chafee entered the race to succeed Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri, who was barred from seeking re-election because of term limits. He formally declared himself an independent at a time when public distrust of both major political parties was peaking. He vowed to right the state’s ailing finances not by cutting social programs but by eliminating a series of exemptions to the state sales tax, a proposal amounting to a tax increase that he said would raise more than $100 million. He also promised to help create more jobs by promoting a new transportation hub near the Providence airport.

The goodwill he had earned as a senator put him atop the early polls over Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio and Republican John Robitaille. (Caprio had had no Democratic primary opposition, while Robitaille beat former state Rep. Victor Moffitt in the GOP primary, 70%-30%.) Chafee’s main competition was Caprio—at least until Caprio, in a radio interview about President Barack Obama’s decision not to endorse him on a visit to Rhode Island, responded that Obama could “take his endorsement and really shove it.” In a Democratic-dominated state that remained loyal to the president, the effect was instantaneous, and Robitaille surged ahead of Caprio in the polls. Chafee was able to withstand an October scandal—his campaign manager resigned after a report that he was collecting unemployment benefits while on Chafee’s payroll—and got campaign help from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Chafee was able to pull out a close victory, getting 36% to Robitaille’s 34%—a difference of about 8,600 votes. Caprio finished with 23%. Chafee won Providence County, by far the largest source of votes, along with Washington County to the south.

Chafee’s early moves as governor generated controversy. As his first official act, he rescinded an executive order that cracked down on the hiring of illegal immigrants. State Police superintendent Brendan Doherty resigned in March after clashing with Chafee, though both sides denied that friction played any role. He removed reform-minded members of the state education board and named as its chairman a lobbyist for a gambling parlor. He angered the news media by forbidding top state officials from appearing on talk radio programs and suggested that businesses refrain from advertising on such shows. And some of the state’s largest employers, such as toymaker Hasbro Inc. and biotechnology company Amgen Inc., came out strongly against his call to stop corporations from using out-of-state subsidiaries to reduce their Rhode Island state taxes.

Chafee even created some controversy by using the term “holiday tree” during the 2011 Christmas tree lighting at the Rhode Island State House. Despite criticism from Republican legislators and the Catholic diocese, Chafee defended his actions and invoked the state’s tradition of religious liberty established by founder Roger Williams.

Chafee has been both unpredictable and fiercely independent as governor. On some matters, he has governed like a liberal Democrat. In July 2011, he signed a bill allowing gays to enter civil unions. He also supported decriminalization of marijuana. In December 2011, he joined with Gov. Christine Gregoire, D-Wash. to ask the federal government to reclassify marijuana so it could be prescribed by a doctor. Though he initially halted licensing for medical marijuana dispensaries, in May 2012 he signed a law limiting each dispensary to 1,500 ounces of marijuana and 99 mature plants. In his June 2012 budget, he approved increasing the cigarette tax. He also tried to increase state meal and beverage taxes, but legislators shelved the idea following strong objections from business and restaurant owners. Chafee signed a small increase in the state’s minimum wage.

Yet Chafee’s conservative inclinations were visible in his plan to overhaul the state pension system. Chafee’s proposal sparked outrage and protests by public-sector unions, though the matter got considerably less national attention than Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining changes. In November 2011, Chafee signed the sweeping pension reform bill into law. The measure suspended cost-of-living increases, placed a percentage of worker retirement funds into new 401 (k)-type plans, and raised the minimum retirement age. The legislation “altered the retirement benefits of not just current workers but some 21,600 retirees as well, a move that few other states have dared to attempt. And none has yet succeeded,” the Providence Journal reported. Despite the radical nature of the plan, Chafee was able to get bipartisan support in the legislature. Public-sector unions sued the state and a hearing was set for October 2012.

On smaller matters, Chafee’s early years as governor were no less eventful. Chafee got into a public spat with former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling after the athlete’s Providence-based video game company declared bankruptcy. Federal authorities tried to force Rhode Island—which does not have capital punishment—to turn over murder suspect Jason Wayne Pleau for a possible federal death penalty trial. Chafee refused, claiming it was an issue of state sovereignty. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Pleau could stand federal trial, but Chafee and his attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in August 2012.

Chafee was given a primetime speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. As a Republican-turned-independent who supports Democratic President Obama, Chafee remains an intriguing national figure.