Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) Elected 2002, 1st term up Jan. 2007
Born:	Dec. 16, 1942, East Greenwich
Home:	East Greenwich
Education:	Brown U., B.A. 1965
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	married (Suzanne)
Professional Career:	High schl. teacher, 1965-71; Banker, Old Stone Bank, 1971-81; Director, Catholic Relief Services, Jamaica, 1981-83; CEO, Cookson America, 1983-97.
Office	The State House, Room 115, Providence 02903, 401-222-2080; Fax: 401-861-5894; Web: www.governor.state.ri.us.
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Donald Carcieri, elected governor of Rhode Island in 2002, grew up in East Greenwich, on Narragansett Bay, where his father was a teacher and coach at the town high school and a quahogger in the summer. East Greenwich today is one of Rhode Island's most affluent suburbs; in the 1950s, Carcieri says, it was a modest town of fishermen and farmers. Carcieri was class president and a top athlete in high school and attended Brown on scholarship and played varsity football and baseball. He taught high school math in Newport and then in Concord, Massachusetts. Then he went to work for Old Stone Bank and in 10 years became executive vice president. In 1981 he moved to Kingston, Jamaica, to be head of the Catholic Relief Service's West Indies operation. In 1983 he returned to Rhode Island and went to work for Cookson America, the U.S. branch of a London conglomerate that owns dozens of manufacturing, electronic and precious metals companies around the world. He rose to become CEO of Cookson America and a joint managing director of Cookson Group Worldwide. He moved Cookson America's headquarters to the former Providence train station, overlooking Burnside Park and the State House. He retired in 1997 and in 2002 started running for governor.

The incumbent, Republican Lincoln Almond, was ineligible to run for a third term. Three Democrats and two Republicans ran to succeed Almond; Carcieri was the only one with no experience in public office, though he did serve as the Bush chairman in Rhode Island in 2000. His primary opponent was James Bennett, former chairman of the Convention Center Authority and owner of Mitkem, an environmental testing laboratory. Carcieri and Bennett mostly agreed on priorities--rein in the legislature, cut spending increases, promote economic development. Both avoided Rhode Island's matching fund public financing and spent their own money on their campaigns--$600,000 for Carcieri and $275,000 for Bennett. Bennett spent much of his money on fierce negative ads against Carcieri, charging that under his leadership Cookson's debt rose, layoffs increased, and Carcieri was given a $2.6 million golden handshake. But Carcieri won the September primary 67%-33%.

Running again as the Democratic nominee was Myrth York, who lost to Almond in 1994 and 1998, with a liberal message. She had a new team of consultants and ran ads showing her family. Her father started a chemical equipment company, and she manages her family's money; she spent $2 million of her own money before the primary.

The Providence Journal post-primary poll showed York ahead 49%-35%, but she had led in early polls in 1994 and 1998 as well. Their differing stances were apparent in a September debate. York said, "I have a knowledge of government and a knowledge of how to get things done in government. Government is there to provide opportunity for folks." Carcieri said, "I believe if real change is going to happen in the state, it's going to have to come from somebody who owes nothing to the system, somebody from outside." Carcieri pledged not to raise taxes in his first year; York said she didn't want to but wouldn't make a pledge. York called for new prescription drug and education programs; Carcieri said economic development was his goal. The Providence Journal's M. Charles Bakst said that York sounded scripted and Carcieri likeable.

In mid-October York started running a series of negative ads about Cookson. One said the company brokered a "tin mining deal" that ravaged an Amazon rain forest, another that it owned a plant in Philadelphia that released hazardous lead into the neighborhood, a third with neighbors of the plant denouncing Carcieri. A radio ad talked about an accident in which 15 Amazon miners were killed. Carcieri's pollster said that his polls showed Carcieri behind after the primary, drawing even in mid-October and gaining rapidly as York's negative spots were airing. The Journal's polls and the election result suggest this was accurate. Carcieri won 55%-45%. York won big in Providence but in the rest of the state carried only East Providence and the tiny textile mill town of Central Falls. Altogether York spent $3.8 million of her own money, Carcieri $1.5 million of his.

Carcieri faced an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature (32-6 in the Senate, 63-11-1 in the House) but posted early achievements. In January 2003 he won praise for scheduling monthly office hours for average citizens to meet the governor for a 10-minute private visit; he said he got the idea from former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. He was tested in February 2003, when a nightclub fire in West Warwick killed 100 people and injured many others. In a state with only one million residents, nearly everyone knew someone affected by the tragedy. At a Warwick church memorial service several days afterwards, Carcieri stood in the back of the church greeting mourners; his empathy, decisiveness and calm resolve in the days after the fire won him much acclaim. In July, he signed the Comprehensive Fire Safety Act, requiring most nightclubs to install sprinklers, banning pyrotechnics from all but the largest venues, and eliminating a grandfather clause that exempted buildings constructed before the state fire code was written. State officials called the new fire regulations the toughest in the nation.

He held a weekly deli lunch with legislators and got them to agree to send to the voters a measure strengthening the governor's appointment authority on commissions and boards. For more than three centuries dating back to the original colonial charter, the General Assembly has had wide-ranging powers, including the authority to appoint members to, and have legislators serve on, hundreds of boards and commissions that make state policy and control billions in state assets. Critics claim this has encouraged political patronage, cronyism and a culture of behind-the-scenes dealmaking; voters thought so too after a decade of assorted scandals that brought down a state supreme court justice, and sent former Governor Edward DiPrete and Providence Mayor Buddy Cianci to prison. In a referendum in 2004, the "separation of powers" measure passed 78%-22%.

But, like his predecessor Lincoln Almond, Carcieri ran into resistance when it came time to limit spending. Almond had lost control of spending because of the Democrats' huge majorities in the legislature; Carcieri, also facing huge majorities, vetoed the budget in July 2003 but was overridden. In 2004, Carcieri proposed cutting $7.9 million from public schools and shifting some money to charter and alternative high schools but the legislature nixed his proposals and kept funding at the same levels. He vetoed the $5.9 billion budget, calling it "seriously flawed" and saying there was "too much spending, too much taxing and too many special interests", and again the legislature overrode his veto, approving tax increases on hotel rooms, cell phone usage and on cigarettes, raising the price of cigarettes to the highest in the nation.

Even before the tax hike, the price of cigarettes was already high enough to attract smokers from Rhode Island and surrounding states to a tax-free smoke shop run by the Narragansett Indian Tribe. The tribe had opened the shop in Charlestown in 2003 after Carcieri and the legislature refused to place on the ballot a referendum on a Foxwoods-style Indian casino. Carcieri said that the tribe was flouting state law by not charging taxes; he claimed the tribe was blackmailing the state when it made closure contingent on his support for a casino. After a state judge issued a warrant, Carcieri ordered a state police raid in July 2003. Tribe members physically resisted the move to close down the shop and a donnybrook ensued. Scenes of Indians wrestling and battling with cops were televised across the country; Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas and seven other tribe members were arrested. This was a black eye for the administration. It forced the governor to create an independent review panel that concluded that both sides were at fault, the police for their strategy and the tribe for actively resisting. "I think there is ample blame to go around," Carcieri said.

Carcieri has said he will seek reelection in 2006. Lieutenant Governor Charles Fogarty is a likely challenger.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent
2002 general	Donald Carcieri (R)	181,687	55%
	Myrth York (D)	150,147	45%
2002 primary	Donald Carcieri (R)	17,227	67%
	James Bennett (R)	8,518	33%
1998 general	Lincoln Almond (R)	156,180	51%
	Myrth York (D)	129,105	42%
	Robert J. Healey (Cool Moose)	19,250	6%
	Other	1,910	1%