Legislation

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.

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.”