2011 Annual Dinner Celebration

Honoree Charles J. Levesque

It’s pretty lonely being a civil libertarian at the State House, but for sixteen years – ten in the House and six in the Senate – Chuck Levesque proudly carried that banner.

Chuck served in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2002 and in the state Senate from 2005 to 2010. While in the House, his penchant for speaking his mind earned him a prestigious spot on the Joint Committee on Naming State Construction. But Chuck was no Don Quixote; he significantly influenced many important pieces of legislation.

In fact, during his State House tenure, Chuck led the fight for dozens of important civil liberties bills. On behalf of the ACLU, he successfully sponsored legislation limiting the exorbitant charges imposed on the collect calls made by inmates to talk to family members, and he pushed for a bill to limit police spying on the political activities of Rhode Islanders. On criminal justice issues, he cosponsored the successful 2006 referendum ending the disenfranchisement of ex-felons on parole or probation, as well as a 2009 law removing mandatory minimum sentences for various drug offenses. On issues of equality, he was a long-time cosponsor of marriage equality legislation, and he helped to counter the anti-immigrant hysteria permeating the State House by promoting ACLU-drafted bills to ensure that labor, civil rights and housing rights protections would apply to undocumented residents and to allow qualified drivers to obtain drivers’ licenses regardless of immigration status.

But his most significant and successful civil liberties activity remains underappreciated. He persistently and indefatigably reminded his colleagues – in committee, on the floor and in personal conversations – about the civil liberties implications of questionable legislation they were considering. It would be difficult to calculate the number of amendments that he managed to tack onto bills that eliminated, or at least mitigated, the harmful effects that the legislation otherwise would have had on civil rights. It was in that role that the ACLU was consistently grateful for his presence.

As if all his legislative efforts were not enough to earn him this award, Chuck also managed to find time to serve as an ACLU volunteer attorney in a handful of lawsuits, including a significant First Amendment case on behalf of a person who was charged with obstruction merely for telling a restaurant owner that police were doing undercover sting operations to check for underage drinking.

Chuck served on the Portsmouth Town Council from 1988 to 1992. An attorney in private practice, he is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island and the Loyola University School of Law.

In 1996, Chuck’s sister Mary, also a state legislator for eight years, was presented with the ACLU’s Civil Libertarian of the Year Award. After her untimely death ten years ago, Chuck continued her tradition of being a passionate legislative advocate for civil liberties. The RI ACLU is pleased and honored to have Chuck join her as a Raymond J. Pettine Civil Libertarian of the Year.