From Hospital Lobby to the Legislature’s Checkbook: Speaker Picks HARI’s Registered Lobbyist—a Donor to Three of the Five Leaders She’ll Answer To—to Run JCLS

What happened

On Tuesday, Oct. 6, House Speaker Christopher Blazejewski, who chairs the Joint Committee on Legislative Services (JCLS), announced that former Coventry Rep. Lisa P. Tomasso will become the committee’s executive director. She replaces Henry Kinch Jr., who, according to the announcement, “is retiring in early November.” JCLS isn’t a policy committee. According to the General Assembly’s own description, its office handles the legislature’s personnel, payroll and benefits, purchasing and accounts payable, prepares the legislature’s annual budget, and “oversees the finances of the Legislature.” Ocean State Media’s Ian Donnis called it “the hiring and spending arm of the legislature.”

Tomasso is coming straight from the industry side of the State House. The announcement identifies her as senior vice president of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island (HARI), where she “led government relations, public policy, and strategic communications” for the trade group representing 17 hospitals. She served in the House from 2011 to 2014. “We worked together as legislative colleagues,” Blazejewski said, “and I saw firsthand her knowledge of public policy and dedication to public service.” Senate President Valarie Lawson, Majority Leader Frank Ciccone, Majority Whip David Tikoian and Republican Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz issued a joint welcome. It said they had “worked closely with Ms. Tomasso” during her time at HARI, where she “brought tremendous insight to the table as the Senate focused on improving our state’s health care system.”

The public record fills in what the announcement left out. On the Secretary of State’s lobbying registry, Lisa P. Tomasso (badge 12090) is a registered lobbyist for HARI for the 2026 session, with the registration running Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, 2026 at a reported $88.94 an hour. In each of her January–June 2026 reports, the officials she lists lobbying include “House Speaker,” “President of the Senate” and “House and Senate leadership,” along with the governor’s health and budget officials. Those same reports list 27 campaign contributions totaling $5,150 from January through June. Among them: $350 to Friends of Chris Blazejewski ($150 on Jan. 27 and $200 on May 29, three weeks after he became Speaker), $450 to Friends of Val Lawson, and $275 to Friends of Katherine Kazarian, now House majority leader. Blazejewski, Lawson and Kazarian are three of the five JCLS members. The other two, Republicans Michael Chippendale and Jessica de la Cruz, got nothing in these reports. The largest recipient was Gov. Dan McKee at $1,250.

HARI’s IRS Form 990 for the fiscal year ending September 2025 lists Tomasso (as “VP of Strategy & Public Re”) with $194,928 in reportable compensation and $20,301 in other compensation. Neither the Speaker’s announcement nor the Senate statement gave her state salary or an exact start date. For scale: when Speaker Shekarchi hired Kinch in 2021, the Providence Journal reported that his predecessor, Frank Montanaro, had been paid $167,948 in the job, and that the office oversaw about $46 million in legislative hiring and spending.