R.I. Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, dean of chamber, friend of working class, dies at 76

Senate President Dominick Ruggerio, the “dean” of the chamber who married an uncanny listening ability with shrewd negotiation strategy, died early Monday morning from his third battle with cancer, according to a statement from his office. He was 76.

“It is with deepest sorrow that we announce the passing of Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio earlier this morning,” the statement said. “We are so grateful for the love and support of his friends and colleagues. Throughout his illness, Donny fought valiantly, just as he always had for his constituents and the residents of Rhode Island.”

Illness, including hospitalizations, forced Ruggerio to miss much of the 2024 and 2025 legislative sessions. But the North Providence Democrat’s 44-year political career left a deep and lasting imprint on the state.

“There was never a time when you knew you were going to call him that he was not going to call you back,” said Senate Finance Chairman Lou DiPalma, a Middletown Democrat. “Even when he was sick.”

A longtime administrator for the Laborers’ International Union of North America representing construction workers, Ruggerio was first elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives in 1980. He served two terms before he successfully ran for the Senate, where represented District 4, spanning northern Providence and North Providence, for the next four decades.

 Ruggerio was tapped as majority whip in 2003. He ascended to Senate majority leader in 2010, and in 2017 was unanimously elected Senate president after former President Teresa Paiva Weed suddenly resigned.

The North Providence Democrat was hospitalized at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital last week for a bad reaction to his treatment — returning less than five weeks after he was released from the same hospital and rehabilitation center for pneumonia.

DiPalma last spoke to Ruggerio by phone on April 11. Despite Ruggerio’s health struggles, it was business as usual — they talked about the state budget and forthcoming presentations from state agencies, DiPalma said. 

As always, Ruggerio ended the conversation with DiPalma with his signature line.

“He said, ‘Let me know how I can help, so we can get out of Dodge,’ ” DiPalma recalled. “I don’t know what movie that is from but he always said that, ‘We need to wrap this up so we can get out of Dodge.’ ”

Keeping the door open

Ruggerio never rushed his colleagues or constituents out the door. Just the opposite, said Senate Majority Val Lawson, speaking during a scheduled appearance with reporters at the State House Monday morning.

“Whether you agreed with him or not, his door was always open,” Lawson said. “Many times, he put his own point of view aside to listen to members of this chamber.”

Indeed, Ruggerio displayed new openness to his longstanding positions opposing gun restrictions and abortion access in recent years as the chamber shifted. In 2023, Ruggerio cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee that allowed the Equality in Abortion Coverage Act to advance to the full Senate, where it also passed and was signed into law. This year, he signaled for the first time that he would consider a state ban on assault weapons, which he previously opposed.

He didn’t see eye-to-eye with many of his colleagues, rankling more progressive Democrats when he voted against gay marriage in 2010, and, more recently, with his push to expand legal gambling through online sports betting and remote access table and slot games at the state’s two casinos.

DiPalma, who voted against both measures to expand Rhode Island’s gambling operations, said Ruggerio never held his stance against him.

“We’ve had arguments over the years,” he said. “We respected each other. We would move on and talk about something else the next day.”

One slight that Ruggerio seemed unable to shake off was his beef with Sen. Ryan Pearson. The former allies’ close relationship devolved before the public during the 2024 session, allegedly after Pearson visited Ruggerio’s home to ask about his health and continued ability to lead the chamber. The pair have not spoken since last summer, Pearson said Monday. Their friendship fractured before Pearson attempted unsuccessfully to oust Ruggerio from the president spot during the November party caucus.

Yet Pearson described Ruggerio as a “friend” in comments Monday.

“At the end of day, I think the last several months have been challenging, but it doesn’t change the fact he was my friend for over 15 years,” Pearson, a Cumberland Democrat, said. “It doesn’t change it for me, and I hope it didn’t change it for him either.”

Through the many years of late nights on Smith Hill, dinners with family members and card games, one memory immediately returned to Pearson. It was around 2014, when Ruggerio was majority whip. Pearson, still a young lawmaker having just been elected in 2012, was working with leadership on complicated plans to rehabilitate a historic building in Providence for a state nursing school. But then-House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello was unpersuaded, saying it was too expensive to rehabilitate a historic building, and that it would be cheaper to just demolish it.

Then, as Pearson tells it, “Donny looked out the window as if he was looking at the building and said ‘my guys can do that. We can tear it down and build a new one.’”

Champion for unions, defender of animals

The glimpse of humor during a stressful moment was characteristic of Ruggerio. As was his ever-present mindset of helping out “his guys”: the union construction workers  whose contracts he helped write as an administrator of New England Laborers Labor Management Cooperation Trust, a LIUNA affiliate.

It wasn’t just construction workers, or union workers, but working class people in general who mattered to Ruggerio.

“He was a dear friend and mentor, someone who shared my passion for improving the lives of working people, making our state a better place to live and work, and the institution of the Senate,” Lawson said in a briefing with reporters Monday. “He touched the lives of many of my colleagues and many Rhode Islanders, and he will be deeply missed.”

His fierce advocacy also extended to animals; an avid horse lover, his “happy place” was the race track at Saratoga Springs, New York, said Sen. Jake Bissaillon, a Providence Democrat who served as Ruggerio’s chief of staff before he was elected in 2023.

The duo visited the race track together twice, including for Bissaillon’s bachelor party in 2023. Returning home around 2 a.m. — “Donny was looking out for me,” Bissaillon explained — they turned on the TV, promptly engrossed in a rerun of the 2010 film “Secretariat.”

“I stayed up for the next two hours watching with him,” Bissaillon said. “He loved it. When it was done, he told me ‘You’ve gotta watch Seabiscuit next.’”

Ruggerio’s biography on the General Assembly website highlights his recognition from The Humane Society of the United States, recognizing his efforts to prohibit double decker horse trailers. 

Bissaillon was still in shock over Ruggerio’s death Monday afternoon. When he found out earlier that morning, he reached for his phone, scrolling through a motley assortment of selfies of the two of them spanning the last 10 years.

“He’s had such an influence on me,” Bissaillon said. “You don’t really measure a legislative leader by certain pieces of legislation in their name, but really their approach. How he led the chamber was as a true steward, an empathetic listener. He was so deliberative and so keen.”

‘End of an era’

House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi referred to Ruggerio’s death as the “end of an era.”

“I had enormous respect and admiration for his dedication and leadership,” Shekarchi, a Warwick Democrat, said in a statement Monday. “Even through his illness, we communicated on nearly a daily basis about the important issues facing our state. Donny devoted his life to the people of Rhode Island, which will always be his legacy. This is the end of an era at the State House, where Donny was a true giant for well over four decades, beginning his career in the House in 1981 before moving to the Senate four years later. On behalf of the House of Representatives, we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and his Senate colleagues, and we will miss him greatly.”

Senate President Pro Tempore Hanna Gallo, a Cranston Democrat, called “Donny” an “invaluable mentor and a trusted friend.”

“He never hesitated to go out of his way to help me in any situation, as he did for so many others,” Gallo said in a statement Monday. “As a legislator, he served the people of his community with unmatched compassion and commitment for so many years. As a leader, he set a powerful example for all of us in public service. He always conducted himself with dignity, showed respect for everyone, and embodied the collegial spirit that defines our chamber.”

Senate Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz, a North Smithfield Republican, described their working relationship as “based on mutual respect.”

“I appreciate that President Ruggerio’s door was open to me and found him to honor his promises,” de la Cruz said in a statement Monday. “His leadership changed the landscape of our state and we mourn his loss.”

A lifelong North Providence resident, Ruggerio graduated from LaSalle Academy in 1966. He attended Bryant College, but earned a bachelor’s degree in 1974 from Providence College.

He served on the board of the Wanskuck Library and as a member of the Sons of Italy, Loggia Vittoria, and the DaVinci Center Development Committee.

Ruggerio was the father of two children, Charles and Amanda, with his ex-wife, Cynthia, and the grandfather to Ava, Mia, Natalie, and Jameson. He is also survived by his sister, Lisa Aceto.

Funeral arrangements had not been announced as of Monday afternoon.

Updated to include additional biographical information and comments from various state legislators.