Legislation

It was touch-and-go until the very end, but a strong lobbying effort from the ACLU and other civil rights groups persuaded the Senate not to enact a House-passed bill requiring all employers in the state to participate in the federal government’s faulty “E-Verify” program

A budget article establishing a special kind of charter school, known as mayoral academies, initially contained a provision allowing the academies to be exempt from a wide variety of school mandates, including anti-discrimination provisions.

Despite efforts by the ACLU and Marriage Equality R.I., no action was taken on Affiliate legislation specifying that the Family Court has jurisdiction to grant divorces to validly-married same-sex couples.

The General Assembly unanimously passed a bill promoted by the Affiliate to make clear that plaintiffs have three years, rather than one year, to sue under the Rhode Island Civil Rights Act, a major state law prohibiting discrimination in employment and other settings.

Despite a recent and detailed ACLU report documenting that “red light cameras” appear to have had no positive impact on driver safety and have cost the City of Providence close to a million dollars, the legislature authorized their permanent use, repealing a sunset clause on the technology’s utiliza

While significantly increasing the criminal penalties for “indecent exposure,” the legislature refused to approve an amendment which would have prevented police officers from serving as the sole complaining witnesses to such a charge.

In two previous years, the Governor had vetoed ACLU legislation that restricted the state and municipalities from using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology on students, employees or clients.

ACLU efforts prevailed in removing language from an “anti-bullying” bill that would have turned name-calling between students into an offense that could lead to the filing of a “wayward/delinquent” petition, Family Court jurisdiction and a potential sentence to the Training School.