Legislation

Despite the state’s difficult fiscal times, the legislature approved a bill that will require public school districts to continue providing certain taxpayer-funded services to students with disabilities in parochial schools.

The APA, an important law requiring state agencies to provide public notice and seek input on proposed regulations, took a beating this year.

Designed to strengthen the franchise in Rhode Island, the legislation would overturn restrictive Board of Elections’ policies that substantially limit the counting of provisional ballots and restrict the rights of candidates to view disputed ballots during recounts of close elections.

For the first time in ten years, the General Assembly approved comprehensive legislation to strengthen the state’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA).

Despite persistent efforts, no action was ultimately taken on a comprehensive bill that would have strengthened the state’s racial profiling law.

On a more positive note, ACLU vigilance thwarted a last-minute effort by the State Police and the Department of Transportation to obtain passage of their bill making seat belt violations a primary offense.

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.