Legislation

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.

Budget articles passed by the legislature took some positive steps in addressing the continued overcrowding problem at the R.I. Training School.

One of the ACLU’s major, though not unexpected, defeats involved the passage of a bill that formalizes the establishment of a centralized health records database in the state.

For the third year in a row, doctors pushed to expand HIV testing, while reducing the confidentiality protections in place for patients and severely limiting HIV counseling requirements.

The ACLU was unsuccessful in tightening up language, added at the last minute to a budget article, authorizing the Department of Health to require newborn screening for a variety of unspecified “conditions.”

In one of the most troubling actions of the session, the legislature hurriedly passed a bill making it a crime for any sex offender to live within 300 feet of a school.

ACLU lobbying removed language from an Attorney General bill that would have allowed the names of juvenile sex offenders to be posted on a state website.

In approving a complete rewrite of the regulatory statute governing optometrists, the General Assembly – at the ACLU’s urging – took a modest step forward in eliminating troubling and archaic language that appears in most occupational licensing statutes.