Bill Bailey's Rhode Island Blues

The worst thing I ever did was win an election, says William H. Bailey, 40, the first black ever elected to the Rhode Island state legislature from the ghetto district of south Providence. Until his election last November, Bailey was riding high as the prosperous owner of four apartment buildings. Now his long criminal record has been revealed, and he faces the prospect of serving up to four years in a Michigan prison for larceny.

Nobody challenged Bailey's victory in the Democratic primary last September, but there were charges of voting fraud in other areas, so Rhode Island Attorney General Julius Michaelson convened a grand jury to investigate. While the jury was sniffing around, an anonymous tipster called the state police and told them that Bailey had an arrest record. State Police Captain Edward Pare found that Bailey had pleaded guilty in 1962 to shoplifting suits from a store in Cheltenham, Pa. He had paid a $100 fine and spent 60 days in jail. Pare also found that Bailey had been arrested in Massachusetts and Michigan, but he could not find out the disposition of those cases. A 1973 amendment to the Rhode Island constitution bars convicted felons from voting or holding office, and Michaelson told Pare to search for more details of Bailey's past.

Street Savvy. Whenever rumors of shoplifting came up during the campaign, Bailey shrugged them off. It had all happened long ago, when he was poor. "I had to eat," says Bailey, who has two children and is separated from his wife. That seemed to satisfy the voters in the 19th District, where Bailey's street savvy had so impressed some local bankers that they sold him a building for a small cash payment. Said one Bailey supporter: "The guy paid his debt to society. He just never got no receipt."

When Bailey won last November, the attorney general passed to the legislature the problem of whether he was eligible to serve. On Jan. 4 the other 99 legislators were sworn in while Bailey sat silently at his desk, his head bowed. The legislature appointed a committee to review the case, and that brought in the industrious Captain Pare. In 1961, Pare reported, Bailey was convicted in Medford, Mass., for possession of $2,112 worth of stolen goods and fined $100; two years later, again in Medford, police seized Bailey with $700 worth of hot merchandise. This time he was fined $200 and given two years' probation. Then in 1973 Bailey was arrested while filching 31 record albums from a store in Port Huron, Mich. Convicted of larceny and sentenced to up to four years. Bailey posted bond pending an appeal, which had to be made within 60 days. Legal maneuvers dragged on, and Bailey went home to Rhode Island.

Bailey himself appeared before the legislature to plead that the house forget his past crimes and consider instead the wishes of his constituents. Said he: "They voted me to sit in this honorable house, and I think it's no more than right for me to sit here." But the new evidence strengthened the attack on Bailey. Said one critic: "I just don't believe a convicted shoplifter should make the laws of the state." The legislature voted, 82 to 10, to bar Bailey.

The hubbub in Rhode Island also reminded Michigan authorities that Bailey is still officially wanted, and they declared him a fugitive from justice. Bailey then surrendered to the Rhode Island state police and was released on $600 bail. Despite his troubles, or perhaps because of them, local polls show that most voters in Bailey's district still support him, and Bailey is now turning to the courts to give him his seat. "Nobody ever told me I couldn't vote, or I couldn't run," he says. "They let me spend all my money and win, and then they come chirping around trying to hurt me."

Bailey has obtained the help of Attorney William Kunstler, aggressive defender of the Chicago Seven. Last week Kunstler argued in Rhode Island Supreme Court that state law requires that an elected official must be sworn into office, but the court came to no decision. Meanwhile, in Michigan, Governor William Milliken was deciding whether to ask Rhode Island to send Bailey back to serve his sentence. But petitions to persuade the state not to surrender Bailey are already circulating. The conflict between the two lives of Bill Bailey is not likely to be settled soon.

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