Legislation

Two major bills will be in play this year to support and legitimize the relationships of same-sex couples: one will allow them to marry, the other to divorce.

Budget Article 32 would double, from $1 million to $2 million, the tax credit program for businesses that make donations to “scholarship organizations” that funnel money to private and parochial schools for tuition purposes.

Expect to see repeat legislation this year from Immigrants United (IU), a coalition of which the RI ACLU is an active member.

A perennial anti-immigrant bill, requiring all nongovernmental employers with more than two employees to enroll in and use the controversial federal E-Verify program, has had its hearing in the House.

For the third consecutive year, legislation was introduced that would strengthen the state‘s Access to Public Records Act in numerous ways.

ACLU attorneys who worked on a recent truancy court lawsuit were stunned to find how difficult it was to obtain copies of their clients’ Family Court records. This bill would address this problem by explicitly authorizing parents and their attorneys the right to review and copy these files.

Several bills have been heard this year that attempt to ease the purported financial burden on school departments in paying for school committee meeting notice ads in the newspaper.

The ACLU introduced legislation this year that will prohibit police departments from instituting quotas, or a set number of tickets, arrests and investigatory stops an officer must meet within a certain timeframe.

In 2008, the legislature authorized broad-based medical testing of newborns. This year, an ACLU bill was introduced to fine-tune the statute, requiring a medical benefit and known treatment before “other conditions” can be screened for.