Legislation

Current law allows municipalities to limit the maximum number of unrelated persons who can live together in a dwelling, but of no less than three people. We supported this bill which would increase the limit to five.

We opposed legislation which would allow municipalities to record liens against a person’s property if they failed to pay any municipal fines – including for parking violations or minor offenses like disorderly conduct – within 90 days.

In 2022, the legislature passed legislation which allows hotels to eject patrons who use “verbally abusive language," and, at the time, we raised concerns about the broad wording of this power and the dangers of it being discriminatorily enforced.

Proving that no civil liberties victory is left unpunished, a bill which the ACLU successfully obtained amendments to in the 2023 session resurfaced again.

We urged amendment to this bill which authorizes courts to issue restrictive filing orders to protect victims of domestic violence from abusive litigation.

We opposed this bill that would have authorized the sale of a delinquent renter’s property in a self-service unit without appropriate advance notification that we believe basic principles of due process would dictate.

In accordance with the ACLU of RI’s longstanding opposition to laws that disqualify former felons from a wide array of rights, benefits, and privileges, we opposed this broad legislation which would have made it a crime under state law for any ex-felon to possess a firearm.

Though we appreciated the intentions behind this legislation, which would have eliminated the statute of limitations for filing civil suits alleging sexual abuse, we opposed the bill.