Legislation

Tucked away at the end of a budget article was a paragraph making available to certain legislative fiscal advisors “information that the tax administrator may consider proper” contained in tax returns filed by any “individual or entity that requests legislation benefiting that individual or entity".

Last year, Providence city officials persuaded the General Assembly to approve a bill authorizing the installation of automated “red light cameras,” but only after accepting a bevy of ACLU amendments designed to mitigate some of the privacy and due process concerns they raise.

In response to media stories about the brokering of telephone records, the General Assembly has enacted a law that significantly restricts the procurement or sale of telephone records without the customer’s consent.

The Senate took no action on a House-passed bill, pushed by the State Police, to allow police agencies to give lie detector tests to job applicants.

Legislative committees took no action on DCYF legislation that would have given the agency and licensed day care providers direct access to job applicants’ entire criminal history, including records of arrests not followed by convictions.

Joining a nationwide chorus, the General Assembly passed harsh, costly and almost-certainly ineffective legislation to further punish sex offenders.

The Senate killed an ACLU bill, passed by the House repealing an exemption for the Board of Elections from the law that requires state agencies to go through a public rule-making process before adopting regulations.

The ACLU succeeded in significantly restricting the reach of a bill allowing people with disabilities who serve on public bodies to participate in public meetings by telephone.

Ignoring Affiliate objections that the bill would significantly erode the privilege against self-incrimination, the General Assembly has made it a crime for a driver to refuse to submit to a breathalyzer test if he or she has been cited once before for not taking the test.