Legislation

In seeking to close the state’s enormous fiscal deficit, the legislature’s 2009 budget contains a host of provisions significantly streamlining welfare procedures and slashing welfare programs, including RIte Care for the children of undocumented immigrants.

For the second year in a row, the Governor vetoed a bill that would have eliminated draconian mandatory minimum sentences contained in some of Rhode Island’s drug laws, which are the harshest in all of New England.

The Governor vetoed a bill that merely sought to set up a study commission to examine the state’s medical marijuana law and possible ways to provide a safe means for authorized patients to obtain the drug through compassion centers regulated by the state.

Despite the very difficult session for civil liberties as chronicled in the previous pages, it is worth noting that the Affiliate had many successes in keeping damaging legislation from ever reaching the floor.

The ACLU and children’s rights advocates were shocked when the House Finance Committee passed out a budget that retained a proposal from the Governor and DCYF to treat all 17 year olds as adults for criminal purposes.

In response to a tragic incident where a teenager was killed in a drag race, the General Assembly approved an Attorney General bill that sets steep criminal penalties for this practice.

The House took no action on a constitutionally- suspect Senate bill that would have made it a crime to make a recorded political phone call to any person who had asked to be placed on a “do not call” list.

Another constitutionally questionable bill that passed the House but died in the Senate would have created a special class of liquor license strictly for the sale of sacramental wine, and only “to any duly ordained priest, minister or rabbi or to any church or religious society.”

This bill would have prohibited cities and towns from “altering the name or concept of any religious or secular holiday or secular figure or symbol associated with any such holiday.”