Ethics Commission Chairperson Marisa Quinn is stepping down after nearly 10 years on the all-volunteer panel. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
After nearly a decade as a state’s ethics watchdog, Rhode Island Ethics Commission Chairperson Marisa Quinn is stepping down from her post.
Quinn announced her decision at the start of the panel’s monthly meeting Tuesday morning. Her last day is Wednesday. Quinn told Rhode Island Current afterward that her decision to leave was in order to focus more on her work at Conanicut Strategies — her Jamestown-based consulting firm that offers services to appointed leaders in higher education.
“It just became self-evident,” she said. “It had been on my mind anyway — it’s time for other people to have the opportunity to serve on the commission and time for others to lead.”
Former Gov. Gina M. Raimondo appointed Quinn in April 2015.
After Quinn announced her resignation, the five other commissioners in attendance passed a resolution thanking her for her service on the all-volunteer panel. Quinn recused herself from the vote.
“Chairperson Quinn was known for her commitment to openness and transparency, for encouraging and engaging in thoughtful debate during hearings and for treating every person appearing before the Ethics Commission with dignity, fairness, and due process of law,” the resolution states.
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She was also praised for her leadership during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time where the commission was among the first state boards to conduct fully remote hearings.
“And they were the exemplar,” Common Cause Rhode Island Executive Director John Marion said in an interview after the meeting. “There was arguably no better public body in the state in flipping that switch.”
Marion, a longtime observer of the commission, said other notable events during Quinn’s tenure included a completely virtual administrative trial. Quinn also oversaw the controversial decision to allow Rhode Island Supreme Court Justice Erin Lynch Prata to pursue filling the vacancy on the judicial bench — at the time she was a state senator representing parts of Warwick and Cranston. Quinn was one of the two votes against the measure that Marion argued was in violation of the state’s “ revolving door ” provision.
“It was not an easy time to be chair,” he said. “It’s tough to lose her.”
Nine years ago when Quinn joined the ethics panel, she was the director of communications and outreach for the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Quinn served as vice chairwoman from 2016 to 2020, and commission members elected her as chairwoman in January 2020.
Gov. Dan McKee, the subject of a now-dismissed ethics probe earlier this year , praised Quinn for her dedication to upholding the state’s code.
“I thank Marisa Quinn for her service over the past decade to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission working to uphold and ensure the highest standards of integrity in our state,” he said in a statement.
At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Ethics Commission Executive Director Jason Gramitt announced Vice Chair Lauren Jones would serve as the interim leader of the panel until its next election of officers — initially slated to happen in September, but Gramitt proposed holding it at the Aug. 20 meeting.
Quinn’s departure now leaves two vacancies on the eight-member panel — both of which are choices for the governor. The seat formerly held by Sister M. Therese Antone, Salve Regina University’s chancellor, has been empty since 2021. McKee’s office did not immediately respond to questions on when the state will look to fill the seat.
Advice and consent is not required for the position, as no such wording was included in the 1986 constitutional amendment that created the commission. Terms on the commission are five years.
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The post R.I. Ethics Commission chairperson steps down, creating second vacancy on panel appeared first on Rhode Island Current .
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