If I Were a Betting Man, I'd Bet On Judge Michael Silverstein Throwing Out the New Receivership Law...

...or at least significant chunks of it. I opine this after reading John Hill's report in today's Projo which highlighted a particular line of questioning asked during yesterday's oral arguments on the constitutionality of the municipal receivership law, to the lawyer for Central Falls receiver Mark Pfeiffer...

[Judge Silverstein] pressed [lawyer Theodore Orson] on the lack of a specific term for the receiver several times. Orson said the receiver’s tenure was not indefinite because the law allowed him to be removed once the conditions that led to his appointment were resolved.

This questioning by Judge Silverstein is very likely related to a precedent established in Marran v. Baird, the 1994 West Warwick case where the RI Supreme Court ruled that the state was not prohibited by the home-rule provision of the state constitution from creating of a "budget commision" to oversee an individual municipality's financial decision-making, as long as it was for the limted duration that was specified in the law at that time...

The plaintiffs also maintain that by enabling the commission to impose a budget upon the town of West Warwick, 45-9-3 bypasses West Warwick's financial town meeting and, thus, impermissibly alters the town's form of government. We disagree.

45-9-3 does not expressly alter the structure or form of West Warwick's municipal government. Indeed, any effect it may have on a local government is contained, delineated, and temporary, lasting no longer than the end of the fiscal year...

Obviously, the appointment of a commission that adopts and maintains a balanced budget for West Warwick has a temporary impact on West Warwick's budgetary process. The commission's role, however, lasts no longer than "the end of the fiscal year." Accordingly, 45-9-3's effect on the structure of West Warwick's government is at most incidental and temporary. The provision does not, therefore, affect the form of government of any city or town and consequently does not violate article 13.

Personally, I don't find the logic of it's only a temporary change in form government, so it doesn't count as a change in the form of government to make much sense. But from a legal perspective, what is most important to the present case is that the new receivership law, because of its open-endedness, may be found to violate the Constitutional provisions prohibiting state-imposed changes to municipal forms-of-government under the loose standards already established by the Rhode Island Supreme Court and without contradicting any existing precedents.